Over the years that manmower has been in existence (since 2018) there have been leaps and bounds in 3D 'printing' processes. '3D printing' covers a number of different processes, ranging from Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) which is when a material is heated to coalesce into rigid forms, or [kind of the opposite] Stereolithography (SLA) which is when light is used to cure light-reactive thermoset materials called “resin".
These processes enable things to be made without an expensive tooling process. Manmower has evolved continuously since the early days, and testing is continually making improvements to new variations of parts. This has been less than a feasible approach with reference to mass manufacturing processes, so in the past we have been forced to have each manmower made with (highly costly) precision manufacturing processes such as milling and machining - where a very expensive machine will essentially cut away at solid metal to form the parts. As a result some or all parts have been unavoidably expensive. And manmowers have been expensive.
The plan had always been to perfect the parts one by one, in unfortunately large or periodic runs, according to feedback and availability of funds.
However in the years since we started 3D printing has began to offer a lower cost manufacturing replacement for some of these expensive processes.
This allows quicker iteration and we are still exploring, still developing, so the good news is that we are able to be more flexible on numbers of trial parts now, quicker to trial and learn, and more flexible on price ongoing.
We now have some very exciting developments coming soon...
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