Hi Curious,

This is Chris, founder of Fusion3. Yes, we do use a few off the shelf, commonly available components in our machines. In fact, it's one of the cornerstones of our design and engineering philosophy. If there is a part out there that does what we need to do, there's no sense in reinventing the wheel just to be different. But, when there isn't a part or component that fits our needs, we're certainly not afraid to dive in and engineer our own. This combination is central to how we're able to deliver capabilities meeting or exceeding much more expensive 3D printers, but at a fraction of their price.

There's a lot besides the collection of parts that go into our 3D printers, from the engineering, to careful assembly, to custom calibration and extensive testing for every system we produce, to customer support overhead. Our price has to cover these costs as well, even though often times people forget about them.

Particularly in the business and education market, (which is our focus), our customers require a higher level of performance, reliability, and support than they can get from consumer 3D printers. When you look at other systems in this market segment, our price is pretty much in line. But, we're still able to deliver better levels of part quality, in more materials, and at higher speeds.