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Stratasys Continuous Manufacturing 3D Demonstrator Announcement

Continuous Build 3D Demonstrator

Fathom, an advanced manufacturer with an expertise in 3D printing, is leveraging the Continuous Manufacturing 3D Demonstrator to push the limits of additive manufacturing. Many customers have adopted digital fabrication as a means of production beyond the prototyping phase and are using proven additive technologies like FDM for high-value, end-use applications. Having a six-cell 3D printer configuration in-house at Fathom increases throughput significantly and enables a greater volume of FDM parts with shorter lead-times. With the Demonstrator, there is an opportunity to use FDM more effectively for not just a few hundred just-in-time parts, but for 1,000+ parts on-demand. In this featured post following its media release at RAPID in Pittsburgh this week, Rich Stump of Fathom talks about the teams experience with early adoption of the Continuous Build™ 3D Demonstrator by Stratasys.


In its early years, 3D printing was led by rapid prototyping, with its capacity for fast, cost-effective parts. Today, 3D printing has evolved to the point where customization of end-use parts can lead production and part quantities can be scaled to need, making zero inventory a reality. Fathom, an Oakland, CA-based advanced manufacturing facility, has been on-board with 3D printing since it opened its doors in 2008 and sees unlimited potential for additive technology to disrupt the manufacturing supply chain.

With a focus on production parts, Fathom prides itself on its manufacturing ecosystem, a blending of technologies that enable customers to go from concept to prototype to market in a way not previously possible.

“The vision and focus of our business is to change the way products are designed and manufactured, thanks to additive manufacturing (AM),” said Stump. The fact that 3D printing also allows for greater part complexity, reduced costs and greater customization is no small factor.”

Stratasys-Rendering-Continuous-Demonstrator

Fathom’s customer base is sometimes hesitant to make the leap to an additive technology for production parts, but those with high-value, low-volume needs are already realizing many benefits from its “sweet spot” of 200-400 parts—the break-even point between 3D printing and tooling up for injection molding. “Our challenge has been to get that number higher so it’s competitive for low-volume production runs,” said Stump.

Pushing the Limits of Manufacturing

Fathom’s early adoption of the Stratasys Continuous Build 3D Demonstrator—a modular, automated FDM-based 3D manufacturing system with interconnected, high-throughput capabilities—is their solution. “This system is going to enable us to sell higher-volume FDM parts for AM application because it’s going to push the barrier of number of parts we can sell competitively,” said Stump. “Our opportunity here is setting up these modules for 1,000-plus parts, which I’m confident we can get to—even higher. And that’s just comparing apples to apples from a cost standpoint; that’s not taking into account designing for more function.”

The manufacturer currently has a rack of six modules in their Oakland facility and Stump says this is only the beginning. “This new Demonstrator is enabling us to look to the future where our production center could look like a 3D printing server farm, where there’s just rows and rows of Stratasys Continuous Build 3D Demonstrators. That’s where our minds are going because the FDM-based technology is that good from a design and cost standpoint.”

The team at Fathom is extremely excited about the opportunity this Continuous Manufacturing Demonstrator brings to drive scale and growth for its AM business. “It meets our customer’s demand for high-quality FDM parts in greater quantities, with shorter lead-times, at a more cost-effective rate,” said Stump. Having the Demonstrator in-house allows Fathom’s customers to further leverage the proven FDM technology for end-use applications. “This Demonstrator can take what’s already working at Fathom and push the limits of additive manufacturing.

One of Fathom’s customers, Intel, worked with its team of advanced manufacturing experts to help design and fabricate Spider Bots for their keynote address at the annual Intel Developer Forum. The complex project highlighted Fathom’s cost-effective design and manufacturing capabilities, as the design went through iterations during production. In the end, the Spider Bots produced by Fathom were comprised of more than 9,700 3D printed parts.

“If we’d molded those parts it would have cost approximately $400,000 and taken a few months. With additive manufacturing, we were able to complete the entire project in five weeks, costing Intel 70% less,” said Stump. “The demand for tool-less manufacturing is ever-increasing. Designers and engineers want even greater design freedom and faster speeds—the opportunity with the Demonstrator is significant.”

Scalability is another factor the Demonstrator addresses for Fathom. “With the growing adoption of direct digital manufacturing, more of our customers are placing these types of end-use orders—all it takes is a few of our customers to submit just-in-time orders at once for our machines to max out on capacity,” said Stump. “The ability to be flexible with this new system, adding more as needed, is really great.”

Comprehensive Capabilities for Rapid Manufacturing

At Fathom we offer a unique advantage of speed and agility-our experts help companies go from concept to prototype to manufacturing in ways not previously possible. 

90+ Machines  
SLS / / Two-day  SLA / / Next-day 
FDM / / Next-day DMLS / / Three-day 
PolyJet / / Same-day MJF / / Two-day
   

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30 Second Quotes
Prototype Tool / / As soon as 10 days
10K Parts / / 10 days
Production Tool / / As soon as 3 weeks
 

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3 & 5 Axis Milling & Turning
(Plastics, Composites and Metals)

Tolerance Accuracy Range
from +/-0.001″ to 0.005″

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Injection Molding Adjacent
without High Costs of Metal Tools

Most Commonly Used for High-Volume
Prototyping & Bridge to Production

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Finishing, Production Painting and Color Matching

Assembling, Including Embedded Electronic
Components, Threaded Inserts, and More

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CAD, DFAM and DFM Services

Apply Methods to Increase Speed
and Decrease Total Cost

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Highly Trained Staff / / Full-Time & Part-Time
Support as Short-Term & Long-Term Strategy

Decrease Downtime with Customizable
Staffing Accelerates Implementation

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Let’s get started.

Fathom is driven by advanced technologies and methods that enhance and accelerate today’s product development and production processes.

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Manufacturing Locations Across National Time Zones
Manufacturing Locations Across National Time Zones
The Fathom Advanced Manufacturing Platform
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HEADQUARTERS

1050 Walnut Ridge Drive
Hartland, WI 53029
ISO 9001:2015
AS9100:2016
ITAR

ARIZONA

444 W. 21st St. Ste. 101
Tempe, AZ 85282
ISO 9001:2015
NIST800-171 Compliant
ITAR

COLORADO

7770 Washington St.
Denver, CO 80229
ISO 9001:2015
ITAR

MINNESOTA

13758 Johnson Street NE
Ham Lake, MN 55304

TEXAS

1801 Rowe Lane
Pflugerville, TX 78660
ISO 9001:2015
AS9100:2016

1513 Sam Bass Rd
Round Rock, TX 78681
ISO 9001:2015
ISO 13485:2016

CALIFORNIA

46758 Lakeview Blvd,
Fremont, CA 94538
ISO 9001:2015 Design Certified
NIST 800-171 Compliant
ITAR

FLORIDA

14000 N.W. 58th Court
Miami Lakes, FL 33014

NEW YORK

1920 Slaterville Rd
Ithaca, NY 14850
ITAR

401 W. Shore Blvd.
Newark, NY 14513
AS9100:2016
ISO 9001:2015
ITAR

ILLINOIS

1207 Adams Drive
McHenry, IL 60051
ISO 9001:2015

1401 Brummel Ave
Elk Grove, IL 60007
ISO 9001:2015 Design Certified

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