People serious about running a top notch 3d printing or production operation should always dry their 3d printing filament, both Stratasys and Pivot brand materials: new and partial used spools. Many companies use vacuum drying ovens, the vacuum speeds up the process. Some companies use the Fortus build chamber set to run Ultem or they…
DetailsDefense Procurement and Chinese Printers If you were thinking about procuring machines like Bambu, Qidi, Creality, or any number of the cheap machines out of China it might be time to think twice. The recently published National Defense Authorization Act in section 849 states that the department of defense and contractors to it are prohibited…
DetailsStratasys’s Q3 earnings report was released November 13, 2025 and there are some telling statistics. It seems that they’ve been able to stave off the erosion of their market share by focusing on top of market critical production chain environments. Even more illuminating however is despite the focus on leaders of industry they still saw…
DetailsThis week has been the week of sleeping giants. Talking with a few companies we’ve heard that their Fortus machines sit dormant. The reason? The quotes they received from Stratasys were simply too much to justify getting the machine up and running. However, since these Fortus users had already invested capital into a machine that…
DetailsStratasys mentions in their product lifecycle classification that service contracts are no longer available for Fortus 360mc/400mcs, but that they have parts ‘available’ for repairs. Then why are we hearing from customers that Stratasys is telling them that they’re out of stock on simple replacement items like build envelope lights? If you can’t see inside…
DetailsWelcome to the first edition of the Extend the Life Fortus 360 / 400mc Series where we’ll be sharing success stories from the week previous’ service calls. What machines the Pivot team was working on, what they did, and how they got a Pivot customer’s critical path 3D printing technology back up and running. The…
DetailsPivot AM Service, at this time, will NOT be increasing prices on Hardware, Spare Parts or Materials due to Trade Risks. Claiming it is not a price increase Stratasys introduced a 5% Trade Risk Surcharge May 27, 2025 on: Materials, Spare Parts and Hardware. Pivot AM Service is not currently seeing Trade based pricing pressures…
DetailsGotta love the timing of the latest Stratasys announcement, on the heels of my blog post yesterday, that Stratasys Spare part and Labor pricing will increase 3%. An excerpt here: Dear Valued Customer, … Despite our best efforts in managing rising costs in labor, logistics and materials, we need to extend a marginal increase on…
DetailsDoes anyone else find it ironic or disingenuous that Stratasys is now offering refurbished Fortus 360mc and 400mc machines? For two years the OEM was telling their customers these platforms would no longer be serviced and were being declared End of Life, ostensibly to garner trade ins and sell a new “upgraded” machine. Now the…
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