What a Show SMRRF Was!
A huge shoutout to the team for putting on another fantastic event! This year, we were fortunate to have it right here in Manchester at the Manchester Metropolitan University Business School. Being just a 30-minute drive from the factory definitely had its perks—especially when compared to last year’s incredible event at Oxford University. Let’s just say the absence of a 4+ hour drive home on Sunday night didn’t go unnoticed! 😂
The Forklift Truck Challenge
The super-popular Forklift Truck Challenge made its debut, giving visitors the chance to drive a radio-controlled truck around our model factory. The competition was fierce, with the fastest loading and unloading times each day winning free filament! It was fantastic to see so many people having a go and enjoying themselves. We will run the numbers over the next few days and drop the fastest times for each of the days!!!
Exciting New Product Launches
For those who missed chatting with our team or couldn’t attend, here’s a quick overview of the exciting new products we showcased:
Power Tool PETG Range
We’re thrilled to announce a new range of PETG colours inspired by power tools! On display, we had the debut colour DeFault Yellow, with Nikita Green and Clip-On Red 😉 coming soon. While initially exclusive to PETG, we may extend these colours to our ASA range in the future.
What makes this range special? We’ve heavily reworked the masterbatch to maximise part strength by integrating the base polymer into the colouring process. The result? Even stronger printed parts! The Power Tool range will be available in 1kg, 2.6kg, and 4.5kg spools.
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Larger Spools
For those of you with sharp eyes, you may have noticed the rather large industrial roll of TPU at the show. While it’s unlikely that this specific product will be offered to retail customers, the spool itself will be!
This development opens the door to larger spools of PLA, PETG, ABS and ASA for those who need more material in one go. However, spools over 3kg require a polymer base, which we’ve been cautious about due to our commitment to sustainability. Thankfully, we’ve partnered with a local manufacturer who uses reclaimed polymers in their injection moulding process.
Our ultimate goal is to recover and refill these larger spools, significantly reducing the consumption of virgin materials. By doing so, we hope to cut the use of fresh spools by at least 50%, ensuring larger spools are as eco-friendly as possible.
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AMS-Friendly Spools
This topic deserves its own dedicated post, but here’s a quick update. We’re not entirely happy with the current solutions available for AMS (Automatic Material Systems)
To tackle this, we’ve been testing an improved card spool design. The updated version retains the cardboard construction you know but features a locking and bonded insert to increase its strength. This enhancement ensures better performance during high-temp drying processes which is vital for PETG and ASA/ABS.
Several customers are currently testing this new design, and once approved, we’ll roll it out to ASA filaments and beyond. Stay tuned for more details on this soon!
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Higher Speed PLA
We’re also hard at work on a higher-speed PLA filament to meet the needs of printers pushing the boundaries of speed without sacrificing quality. More details on this exciting innovation will follow in an upcoming post.
Once again thank you for the support and seeing so many of you stopping by our stand and to a greater extent SMRRF!!! The show was once again something to look forward to and we can't wait to book again for 2025 🙂.
A massive thank you to the #SMRRF team for the outstanding job they do 🙂.
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