Technology Milestone

We Welcome Form 3L (2022)

The team at ITERATE have been incredibly excited in recent days due to the long-awaited arrival of our Form 3L, a large format resin 3D printer (Formlabs). We’re delighted to share that since returning to our Chepstow office, the Form 3L has made a welcome addition to our busy workspace. Restrictions may have made some things harder but we’ve seen first-hand that innovation has continued to thrive. The arrival of our Form 3L is timely for the design team who remain busy helping imaginative startups and bold businesses bring new products to life. This new investment into a large format 3D printer will open the door to even more 3D printing possibilities for both the design team here at ITERATE and our Clients. We’re ever more ambitious to push the boundaries of what we can achieve with our Clients using 3D printing techniques – the Form 3L is our latest step.

Larger parts, Faster Turnaround, More Design 

The Form 3L is a large format resin 3D printer, with a ground-breaking new flexible tank that adapts to a part’s geometry and its low force stereolithography technology which aims to make the print process simpler and more reliably successful. The most novel feature of the Form 3L for us at ITERATE is its larger build volume of 30 x 33.5 x 20 cm; this is 5 times larger than Formlabs’ previous machines (of which we have several).

The ability to print larger scale parts will allow us to bring even more prototyping in-house meaning faster prototyping at a lower cost for our Clients. The ability to fit more parts on the print bed of the Form 3L will not only allow us to print actual parts more quickly, but the reduction in changes to the platform needed will save valuable time too. The prototyping phase is often one of the most time-consuming, this new 3D printing capacity will help us further accelerate time-to-market for the Clients we work with. What’s more, many of our Clients report that prototype is the best moment in the development journey; we can’t wait to make this milestone even better!

The Form 3L uses its flexible tank and light processing units to deliver a smooth, high quality surface finish. This combined with the larger build volume will increase ITERATE’s capacity to provide small batch manufacturing services to businesses looking to seize the exciting opportunities offered by additive manufacturing (if you’re not already convinced, read more here).

I asked ITERATE’s Managing Director Gethin Roberts to share what the Form 3L will mean for ITERATE. Here’s what he had to say…

“Demand for our rapid prototyping service has increased year on year, along with the volume of projects we are being asked to deliver. Investment in the Form 3L represents the company’s biggest capital expenditure to date and will play a key role in our business growth.” – Gethin Roberts

(2022)

Get in touch to find out how ITERATE can support your newest venture with our in-house 3D printing capabilities.