The first time Agostino LoBello 3D printed a scooter part in the iconic Radio Flyer Red, he couldn't believe how perfectly it matched the famous brand color. The Product Development Engineer was so impressed, he paraded the scooter around the office, asking his colleagues which part they thought was 3D printed. No one got it right.
“There were a couple of products that we showed to our retail customers that were straight off of Form 4L with the Radio Flyer Red resin with a texture applied in PreForm and it looks great. You truly couldn't tell it was 3D printed.”
Agostino LoBello, Product Development Engineer, Radio Flyer
The name Radio Flyer instantly conjures up an image of the Original Little Red Wagon® in bright, Radio Flyer Red. Whether it’s a red children’s scooter, bike, or wagon, the iconic color goes hand in hand with the brand. And now, LoBello is pulling Radio Flyer Red parts directly off of Formlabs stereolithography (SLA) 3D printers, delivering roadshow parts in less than a day and saving up to four days of lead time plus costs and labor.
“Being able to directly print in Radio Flyer Red saves us having to paint parts. It also allows us to iterate more quickly when we might want to see two or three options before making a decision.”
Agostino LoBello, Product Development Engineer, Radio Flyer
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The Power of Color
LoBello brings products from sketch to launch, ensuring products are ready for internal reviews, roadshows, and photoshoots. For internal reviews, it’s helpful to have prototypes in the color they’ll be manufactured in, as it can be distracting for the team to see products in grey or black. Full color parts give stakeholders more information so they can make better decisions.
But the stakes are even higher for customer meetings. Lobello says, “The bar for our parts is super high because we're basically trying to sell new products into our retailers, so it needs to be really high fidelity.”
While it’s easy to color injection-molded thermoplastics, tradeshow products that are shown to retail partners are typically pre-tooling products or concepts. LoBello says, “They look like final products, but they are typically either CNC foam or 3D printed and they're the correct color and material finish.”
Producing these tradeshow parts used to involve sending the 3D part to an external paint shop, which would apply automotive paint to achieve the desired finish. Outsourcing takes four to five days, and means added costs, both of the automotive paint and labor.
“Color Resin is a speed and cost saving. We typically use automotive-grade paints when we do roadshow or line review samples, which can be pretty expensive.”
Agostino LoBello, Product Development Engineer, Radio Flyer
When custom-colorable Color Resin was released, LoBello saw the potential to cut time and costs. But only if the correct color could be achieved.
Directly Printed, Full-Color Prototypes
Color Resin is a custom-colorable resin that can be ordered via inputting an RGB profile or HEX code, or picking a color using a color picker. For Radio Flyer and others needing to match a physical color standard, a Pantone code can be sent to Formlabs or a spectrometer can be used. To achieve the exact Radio Flyer brand color, LoBello scanned injection-molded parts with a spectrophotometer to help generate the correct color profile for Radio Flyer Red.
LoBello’s first test of Color Resin came when a part was needed in Radio Flyer Red for the next day. The part is near the front of a three-wheeled scooter, and it both holds the wheels and enables the user to steer — it’s both a functional and aesthetic part.
A prototype of the Radio Flyer Scooter with parts printed in custom Radio Flyer Red Color Resin.
The overnight turnaround meant sending the part out for finishing was out of the question, so LoBello applied a texture directly to the part in PreForm, and printed it on Form 4L in Color Resin.
“The team was impressed by this initial stress test of needing a Radio Flyer Red part tomorrow. That sold it for the team, that kind of trial by fire.”
Agostino LoBello, Product Development Engineer, Radio Flyer
With Color Resin, Lobello can directly print parts on Form 4L in Radio Flyer Red, cutting down on the time to get a color part from days to hours while also saving costs.
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Achieving Consistency With an End-to-End Ecosystem
“When trialing new materials through our workflow, having a clear process is helpful. There's no debugging or troubleshooting that we need to do. Even when trying a new resin, like the Color Resin, we're going to use the preset profiles and it's going to be a great first try. We don't have to dial stuff in.”
Agostino LoBello, Product Development Engineer, Radio Flyer
Needing parts overnight means there’s no time to dial in printer settings or adjust workflows. As with all Formlabs Resins, Color Resin is validated on the Formlabs SLA ecosystem. Each custom formulation of Color Resin comes with a customized print profile that can be directly added to PreForm. Once printed on Form 4L, it’s a quick, 10-minute wash and a one-minute cure using the pre-set profiles on Form Wash L and Form Cure L. Having settings dialed in and automated post-processing solutions makes the process of going from CAD to final part easy, saving time and resulting in consistent parts.
“Our roadshow parts need to be high fidelity. Previously we were doing a ton of sanding, priming, painting, and texturing with a clear coat. Anything we can do to save time and allow us to iterate more is a huge benefit. In this case the Color Resin is helping reduce that post-processing time.”
Agostino LoBello, Product Development Engineer, Radio Flyer
Form Cure L plays an important part in post-processing, ensuring parts reach their peak mechanical properties — especially important for large, thin parts for functional prototypes. Updates to Form Cure L mean it fits any part printed on Form 4L. Additionally, LoBello says, “The biggest benefit has to be the reduced warp and the better dimensional accuracy that we see out of Form Cure L.” Being able to accelerate drying is also helpful, as are the reduced cure times for resins, which can be up to 6x faster. “When printing the engineering resins, not having to cure parts for an hour and instead doing it for six or seven minutes is another time saver.”
With Formlabs Color Resin and the Form 4L ecosystem, Radio Flyer is reducing the time and cost it takes to produce functional prototypes that are indistinguishable from final products. The result? Empowered decision makers and retail partners.
Color Resin can be purchased in custom colors or choose from a palette of Classic Colors. To color-match physical samples or learn more, contact sales.
