Water Pik was founded in 1962, and has remained successful as the top water flosser brand – to its credit, I didn’t even know there were other water flosser brands. The company also makes massaging shower heads. Water Pik was recently acquired by Church & Dwight Co., and although it has been around since the middle of the last century, Water Pik has stayed modern and up to date in its manufacturing practices.
Water Pik has been using LulzBot TAZ 6 3D printers to create fixtures and components for quality control testing and product development. Before buying its first LulzBot 3D printer, the company used SLA 3D printers, but found that technology to be inconvenient as the consumables were expensive and the printers themselves were not user serviceable. Water Pik is a big fan of LulzBot 3D printers for their cost-effectiveness as well as the many options available in terms of materials.
“The largest and most valuable benefit of the TAZ 6 3D Printers is that they have reduced our costs of printing fixture components dramatically,” said Engineering Machinist Paul Burdick. “We primarily use ABS filament but have printed Nylon and HIPS as well. The PEI bed cover sheet is great to work with different filaments.”
“Water Pik’s work with LulzBot 3D Printers is a perfect example of how innovative companies are using desktop 3D printers to improve their development processes. By creating custom testing fixtures that normally would have taken many more weeks and dollars to produce, they are able to deliver higher quality and better performing products,” Ben Malouf, LulzBot Director of Marketing, told 3DPrint.com.
“As a manufacturer ourselves, we know that product development is much less glamorous than most people imagine. Product features and industrial design are just the beginning. What people don’t see are the months and months of testing and design tweaks that go into a product like a Water Pik dental irrigator. We’re thrilled that LulzBot 3D Printers make that process more efficient for companies like Water Pik.”
“Desktop 3D printers like the LulzBot TAZ 6 are such versatile tools in the hands of engineers,” Malouf continued. “On a regular basis we find out about new and unique use cases. It’s gratifying to make and sell products that enable innovation in such a wide variety of industries.”
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[Source: LulzBot / Images: Water Pik]