Stratasys Adds FDM to Open Materials Ecosystem Strategy | AdvancedTek

Expanding on its already open material availability for the Neo Stereolithography, Stratasys Origin One and Stratasys H350 3D printers, Stratasys announced this week it is advancing its manufacturing strategy with a new open tier of third-party materials for FDM 3D printers via an annual Open Material License.

Manufacturing Senior Vice President Dick Anderson said this new material ecosystem reflects the increasingly central role of additive manufacturing for Stratasys customers. “Our customers urgently need the benefits of additive manufacturing at scale in their organizations – addressing sustainability, cost competitiveness, agility, and customization requirements,” he said. “Our three-tiered material ecosystem will help bring material innovation to our customers faster so we can continue to ensure the most trusted and reliable additive manufacturing platform is a substantial and essential part of the global manufacturing economy.”

The Stratasys Material Ecosystem includes:

• Stratasys Preferred: Preferred by Stratasys for its customers for the highest performance applications. These materials are engineered to provide the best combination of material and printer performance and are developed either by Stratasys or third-party material partners.
• Stratasys Validated: Materials validated by Stratasys with basic reliability testing to accelerate the expansion of material options available in the marketplace.
• Open: Unvalidated materials accessed via an Open Material License (OML). These materials may offer unique attributes and the potential to address new applications but they have not received validation testing or optimization relative to performance and functionality on a Stratasys printer.

AdvancedTek Applications Engineer Isaac Damhoff says, “this OML will empower our FDM customers to expand on their additive applications,” and believes “we’ll see breakthroughs in materials development, especially from research institutes, government, military, space, aerospace and service bureaus.”

Matt Havekost, AdvancedTek’s VP of Sales, adds, “The newly announced Stratasys ‘Validated’ and ‘Open Material License’ strategy is an exciting step in the right direction for our customers and the additive industry as a whole. This first step will enable faster material development and allow for unique problem solving with custom materials without sacrificing machine capabilities, quality, and reliability that our customers have come to rely on.”

Stratasys-Validated materials are expected to be available to customers of FDM 3D printers during the second half of 2022, starting with the Fortus 450mc. Stay tuned!

Check out what Chaffee Tran, FDM Materials Product Director, had to say about this exciting announcement: