Active Power has deployed its CleanSource® UPS system at Stratasys Direct Manufacturing’s facility in Austin, TX. The 300 kVA rated system ensures uptime for the manufacturer’s critical 3-D printing machines manufacturing complex engineered parts in a wide range of materials used by demanding customers in automotive, aerospace, and industrial manufacturing.

In addition to the Austin site, the manufacturer has deployed CleanSource UPS systems at manufacturing facilities in Belton, TX, and Eden Prairie, MN. In total, Stratasys Direct Manufacturing has installed nearly 1 megawatt of flywheel UPS capacity across three of its facilities.

Like many modern day, digitized industrial assembly and manufacturing companies, Stratasys Direct Manufacturing’s facilities are highly sensitive to micro-outages (less than 0.5 seconds) that can cause a batch of parts 3-D printing in machines to fail strict customer requirements for mechanical strength and potentially lose all parts in a build. With each electrical failure or disruption, the company incurred downtime and had to allocate resources to clean out and restart machines.

“Prior to the UPS installations, we experienced several micro-outages every year at each of our facilities,” said Greg Reynolds, vice president, Additive Manufacturing, at Stratasys Direct Manufacturing. “These electrical disturbances can interrupt production and could potentially cause products in process to be discarded. This could drive up our costs or strain the production schedule. We evaluated a number of UPS suppliers, but ultimately chose Active Power’s battery-free solution because of its superior reliability. The UPS deployments demonstrate our commitment to customers, help us gain status as a preferred supplier and mitigate the risk of lost builds.”

“Our flywheel UPS technology is uniquely suited to support Stratasys Direct Manufacturing’s mission critical additive manufacturing machines and operational goals due to its high reliability, robust performance characteristics and lower total cost of ownership,” said RJ Adleman, vice president, Global Sales and Marketing, at Active Power. “The product is a workhorse in these types of environments where power sags and micro-outages are common, as the flywheel suffers no degradation of runtime even when frequently discharged under these demanding conditions.”