Utah Trikes 3D Printing Case Study

A Game-Changing Material

Customization is the name of the game for Utah Trikes, a producer of trikes, quads and custom wheelchairs, located in Payson, Utah. President and CEO, Ashley Guy, said from the very beginning the company was all about personalization.

“We started making our quad using existing frame platforms and built custom two-wheel-drive rear ends that we’d add on and effectively turn the trikes into quads. That grew into something where suddenly everybody who wanted something customized came to us.”

Customer Needs Drive Innovation

But customization has its obstacles, namely time and cost. “The production run might only be 100 parts and it’s hard to get your cost down with such a small run,” said Guy. Utah Trikes’ next step was trying to solve its manufacturing issues. What Utah Trikes needed was the ability to make prototype pieces they could actually test, and that would be both cost and time-efficient.

A Whole New Way to Design

With 3D printing, the design process is no longer impeded by machining restrictions. The ability to quickly go from design to in-use part means designers at Utah Trikes can now spend a lot more time perfecting their designs. Guy has made sure the entire team at Utah Trikes now has access to CAD software so they can easily design and then print their designs.

I no longer have to constrain my designs because of prototyping limitations. Now I can focus on designing better, more functional parts.” -Ashley Guy, Utah Trikes

Carbon-Fiber Nylon A Game-Changer

But there was still the issue of being able to test their new designs. In his quest to find printers that could make real production parts, Guy’s investigation led him to Stratasys Fortus 3D printers. “We started out using Nylon 12 material and it got us about 75% of the way there,” Guy said. “We made a quad prototype using parts printed with other materials that were either too brittle or too flexible.” It wasn’t until Guy tried FDM Nylon 12 Carbon Fiber that he realized he had found a tool that would change his business.

Contact us today at 800-445-1088 or complete the form to learn how you can use this material for your unique applications.