Loading Fortus Material Canisters for Stratasys 3D Printers

This guide will show you step by step how to properly load a material canister into your Stratasys Fortus 3D printer. It will help reduce the risk of losing the filament inside a canister and also make it easier to roll the wheel down when getting the material ready to load.

1. Open your new canister.
   
   
   
   
2. Pull back the foil tape and remove the white plunger. This plunger locks the material spool in place during shipment.
   
   
   
   
3. Re-tape the hole so the material can stay air-tight. This will help keep moisture out of the canister. You can use the flat side of the plunger to flatten out the tape as best as possible.
   
   
   
   
4. Remove the step-by-step instructional sticker that wraps around the snout of the cartridge.
   
   
   
   
5.  Remove the filament cover to expose the material line.
   
   
   
   
6. Place the filament cover underneath the filament drive wheel door for storage.
   
   
   
   
7. Open the filament drive wheel door and roll the rubber wheel down with your thumb to begin driving the filament out of the canister. Note: Never move the cartridge with the door open, you want to make sure the door is closed whenever moving a canister. (See Step 13 for more details)
   
   
   ROLL WHEEL DOWN
   
   
8. Pull out about a foot of material to make sure the material comes out freely.
   
   
   
   
9. Push about 6 inches of material back into the canister. This will reduce the tension and will reduce the risk of the filament falling all the way back into the cartridge. Close the door so the filament is locked in place and then cut it flush.
   
   
   PUSH IN 6"
   
   
10. Slide the canister into the desired material bay.
    
    
    
    
11. Pull out the drive block handle and drop it into place to lock the cartridge.
    
    
    PULL OUT AND DROP DOWN 
    
    
12. Open the material drive wheel door and use your thumb to roll down the rubber wheel. This will push the filament up into the drive block sensor. Once the sensor is triggered the light above will start flashing green specifying that the material is ready to load.
    
    
    
    
13. The inside of the door has a rectangle-shaped orange sponge. This sponge acts as a brake and keeps the filament locked in place while the door is closed. At this point, we want the material to come out freely so we need to peel off the brake pad. The sponge has double-sided tape so it is easy to store by sticking it underneath the filament cover.
    
    
    
    
14. We can now close the door and load material from the machine main panel.
    
    
    

Pulling out a foot of material and pushing back 6 inches of material into the canister helped us reduce the risk of losing the filament inside the cartridge. Without doing this trick, you can load material, but the wheel will be more difficult to spin downwards and the filament will have a natural tendency to want to drop back into the cartridge. This trick helped us make a small task just a bit easier.

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