Pivot AM ACE.
Pivot AM Service, a U.S. provider of service, technical support and refurbished equipment to the additive manufacturing industry, has launched the ACE, a stereolithography (SLA) wash tank designed to automate the post-processing of 3D printed parts.
The Iowa-based company says the ACE was born out a collaboration with industry experts "who wash and post process thousands of SLA parts," to create a piece of ancillary 3D printing equipment that simplifies the laborious task of cleaning polymer SLA prints.
The fully pneumatic system is said to be highly versatile, offering compatibility with most common SLA 3D printers and a range of build sizes from 254 x 254 mm to 800 x 800 mm. Pivot AM lists Formlabs’ Form 3L, various 3D Systems equipment, RPS’s NEO800, and interestingly Stratasys' largely unseen V650 Flex system amongst applicable hardware.
The ACE itself has been designed for ease of use and mobility, standing at 45 (W) x 46 (D) x 80 inches (H). It can be used with a variety of solvents including 100% isopropyl alcohol but Pivot AM recommends the ACE’s specially formulated ACE Wash solution as a less volatile method of achieving faster cleaning results.
“Choosing ACE as your SLA parts washer offers unmatched versatility within the 3D printing industry. To highlight a few reasons, ACE is CE certified, fully pneumatic and accommodates the bigger build platforms of today’s large-scale production printers,” said Dennis Fogle, VP and General Manager, Pivot AM Service. “The price of ACE is less expensive, made possible by its simplified design, while maintaining the quality you expect. Another advantage of choosing ACE as your SLA parts washer is its capability to support and automatically wash parts that are still on the build platform.”
ACE was introduced at a price point of 25,900 USD back in Spring, originally intended to coincide with a launch at the postponed Additive Manufacturing Users Group conference in April this year – I highly recommend checking out Pivot AM's Virtual AMUG video where the team brought some of that AMUG spirit to their Pella-based facility in an online tour complete with canapés. That said, the machine is already being put to work by customers like 3D print service provider Agile Manufacturing.
Nathan Smeenk, VP Operations at Agile Manufacturing commented: “Automating the SLA cleaning process frees up labor while using ACE with ACE Wash reduces the time needed to clean an SLA part or a full tray of parts. Multiply this several full, large trays every day and we’ve found a real game changer.”
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