When you choose between 3D printed fixtures and machined ones, the printed tool wins when loads are light, cycle counts are low, tolerances are loose and the design changes often, because lead time and weight both drop sharply. Machined tooling still wins for precise datums, high-wear surfaces, heat and acceptance gauges. Many good fixtures end up as hybrids.
The question got sharper on Sept. 9, 2026. That day Stratasys announced the F870, a large-format FDM system for jigs, fixtures, tooling and manufacturing aids in automotive, aerospace and defense plants. The press release headline says Toyota and Rivian "adopt" the machine. The body of the release is more careful. It says Toyota Production Engineering in Georgetown, Kentucky, and Rivian Automotive in Plymouth, Michigan, "are assessing the platform" for tooling, manufacturing aids and prototyping "ahead of commercial availability." Stratasys has not disclosed a price or an availability date, and its product page links to a "coming soon" page. The machine makes its public debut at IMTS 2026 in Chicago, Sept. 14 to 19, at South Hall booth 338460 (Stratasys press release; F870 product page).
Toyota's statement in the release is measured. "We've already seen the value Stratasys additive manufacturing can deliver. The next challenge is expanding its use across more applications," said Dallas Martin, Additive Manufacturing Engineer at Toyota North America. In separate comments to TCT Magazine, Martin said the F870's build size, material performance and industrial features "align with the kinds of manufacturing needs we're looking to address."
The machine is built for large fixtures, assembly tools and check gauges, the kind of tooling that often waits weeks for a machine shop. That makes it a good prompt for a question any plant with a tooling backlog should answer one tool at a time. This article gives a decision rule for that. We have not tested the F870. The specifications below are Stratasys' published figures, and most of the cost and lead-time results cited come from vendor case studies, which we label as such.
What the F870 adds to large-format FDM
The build envelope is not new. The F870 builds 1,000 x 610 x 610 mm (372,000 cm³, with a maximum diagonal of 1,171 mm). 3D Printing Journal notes that this matches the F770. It also reports that the F870 is Stratasys' first new FDM platform since the F3300, which launched at Formnext 2023.
The changes are in what the machine can run and how long it can run without an operator:
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Heated chamber. The whole chamber is heated to 95°C (VoxelMatters).
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Carbon-fiber nylon. FDM Nylon 12CF runs on the N20H hardened head. By comparison, the F770 product page lists ASA and ABS-M30 only.
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Launch materials. The list includes FDM Nylon 12CF, ABS-M30 Black, ASA in six colors, a new FDM ABS Draft Gray (listed for Q3 2026) and SR-35 soluble support.
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Long unattended runs. Four 4,100 cm³ spools change over automatically, which Stratasys says allows up to two weeks of unattended printing. Material drying is built in.
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Shop-floor utilities. A built-in vacuum pump means no shop air is needed. The machine uses three-phase 208V/30A power and supports MTConnect and GrabCAD Print.
Stratasys lists three print heads. Their throughput figures are what planners should look at first:
| Head | Materials | Layer height | Stated throughput | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | N14 | ASA, ABS-M30 | 0.18, 0.25, 0.33 mm | up to 25 cm³/hr | | N20H (hardened) | Nylon 12CF | 0.25 mm | up to 21 cm³/hr | | N25 (high speed) | ASA | 0.33 mm | up to 66 cm³/hr |
Lead time is the printed fixture's strongest case
The published record for printed tooling is mostly about time. Keep in mind who published it:
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GM (Stratasys case study). GM made assembly-line risers in FDM Nylon 12CF instead of aluminum. Stratasys reports they were 72% lighter than steel and that lead time fell from nine weeks to two (Stratasys blog).
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Toyota (Stratasys and trade press). Stratasys' Toyota tooling page cites a robotic end-of-arm tool that cut lead time by six weeks, and a transmission alignment tool that replaced a heavy metal one (Stratasys). Engineering.com reported in August 2025 on Toyota's Add Lab, its in-house additive center, which opened in January 2023. The lab can go from concept to prototype tooling within one day. It redesigned a door assembly fixture to be lighter, and a window alignment jig cut the crew needed for the task from several workers to one. Its fleet includes F3300, F900 and F770 machines along with other Stratasys systems.
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Volkswagen Autoeuropa (Ultimaker case, 2017). A liftgate badge tool went from EUR 400 and 35 days to EUR 10 and 4 days. A window gauge went from EUR 180 and 8 days to EUR 35 and 6 days. The plant reported 91% lower tool development cost, 95% shorter development time, and 93% of formerly outsourced tools made in-house on seven desktop printers. It also reported a two-month payback and EUR 150,000 saved in 2016 (VoxelMatters). This is an old case on desktop machines. It shows the pattern, but it is not a benchmark for a meter-scale industrial system.
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Oreck (Stratasys case study). FDM assembly pallet fixtures cut fixture production cost by 65% compared with traditional methods, according to Stratasys (Stratasys blog).
Most of these are low-load tools that carry, cradle, align or place a part. None of them is a weld fixture or a forming tool. That pattern is the first half of the decision rule.
Print time works against the lead-time argument. At the stated rates, a large tool takes days to print, not hours. Take a hypothetical fixture with 5,000 cm³ of printed volume. That is about 200 hours (8+ days) on the N14 head, about 76 hours (just over 3 days) on the N25, and about 238 hours (roughly 10 days) in Nylon 12CF on the N20H. After that come support removal, insert installation and inspection, plus any queue ahead of the job. Two weeks from CAD release to the line still beats a six- to nine-week machining quote. But the printer is also a capacity constraint, and the two-week unattended feature matters because single prints of this size run that long.
Where polymer runs out
Lead time loses to physics in five situations:
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Clamping loads that cause creep. A polymer body under constant toggle-clamp pressure can creep and slowly move the part it is supposed to hold.
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Heat. Weld cells, stations near paint ovens and anything in the path of spatter. A 95°C build chamber says nothing about a finished tool's service temperature.
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High-cycle wear. Locating pins, drill guides and slide surfaces that touch a part thousands of times a shift.
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Long spans at tight tolerance. Covered in the next section.
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Gauges that serve as the acceptance standard. If the gauge decides whether a part ships, its own stability has to be beyond question.
For reference, 6061 aluminum has a modulus of about 69 GPa (6061 reference data). Before you design a loaded printed tool, pull stiffness and heat-deflection values from the current Stratasys Nylon 12CF datasheet. We have not reproduced those values here because we could not verify them against the primary document.
Dimensional stability is what decides it
The accuracy spec at fixture scale
Stratasys states F870 accuracy as follows. In XY, it is ±0.254 mm or ±0.002 mm/mm, whichever is greater. In Z, it is ±0.200 mm or ±0.002 mm/mm, plus one layer height. The figures are derived at 95% dimensional yield and are "geometry and material dependent." The F770 carries the same spec.
The per-length term takes over at about 127 mm. At 1,000 mm, ±0.002 mm/mm works out to about ±2.0 mm, by our calculation. That is fine for a cradle with generous clearance or a handling cart. It is not fine for a locator that sets a hole position or a datum that a CMM program depends on.
Thermal expansion depends on direction
A peer-reviewed study in Polymers (Faust et al., 2021) measured Markforged's Onyx, a chopped-carbon nylon, and found it highly anisotropic (Polymers, 2021). The authors work for Markforged, and Onyx is a different material from Stratasys' Nylon 12CF. The direction of the result still matters for any chopped-fiber FDM tool. Here is what a 10°C shop swing does over a 1,000 mm span, by our calculation:
| Material and direction | CTE (µm/m·°C) | Growth over 1,000 mm, 10°C swing | | --- | --- | --- | | 6061 aluminum | about 23 | about 0.23 mm | | Chopped-carbon nylon, along print direction | about 22 | about 0.22 mm | | Chopped-carbon nylon, across print direction | about 95 | about 0.95 mm | | Chopped-carbon nylon, Z (build height) | about 248 | about 2.5 mm |
Along the print direction, the printed tool moves about as much as aluminum. Across it, the tool moves about four times as much, and in Z about ten times as much. Orient critical spans along the print direction and never rely on a tight dimension in Z.
Moisture is the bigger risk
In the same study, after 44 hours at 52% relative humidity (about 2.37% moisture weight gain), parts grew about 0.5% in length and width, 1.0% in thickness and 1.5% in height. If 0.5% held across a 1,000 mm span, the growth would be about 5 mm, more than twice the printer's own accuracy band. The authors conclude that temperature and humidity effects can rival or exceed process error. They also found that continuous-fiber reinforcement cut corner deviation on a large flat tray by about three times. Reinforcement strategy matters, but the F870's launch list is chopped-fiber material.
The F870's built-in dryer conditions filament before printing. It does not protect a finished nylon tool sitting on a humid plant floor in August. Treat the Onyx numbers as a warning, not a prediction for Nylon 12CF, and measure your own tools after they have spent time on the floor.
The takeaway: printed material is well suited to nests, handling aids and ergonomic shapes. Metal should carry the datums and the acceptance standard.
The hybrid fixture is usually the answer
For most assembly fixtures, the practical middle ground is a printed body that sets the shape, cuts the weight and cradles the part, with metal wherever accuracy or wear matters:
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Metal locators. Pressed or bonded bushings, locating pins and datum pads carry the features the part is referenced to.
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Machining after printing. Where a printed face must be flat or square to a datum, machine that face after the print.
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CMM verification before release. Check the finished hybrid on a coordinate measuring machine, not the printed body alone.
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Scheduled re-checks. Re-inspect on a set interval and after seasonal humidity changes, and log the results in the same tooling control system as any machined fixture.
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Controlled storage. Keep nylon tools that are not in use out of humid staging areas.
This design lets the printer do what the published cases show it does well (fast, light, conformal shapes). Metal handles the job that the accuracy spec and the moisture data say it should keep.
Cost per tool and per cycle: a worked example
Because F870 pricing is undisclosed, nobody can yet calculate a capex payback for this machine. What a plant can do is set up the comparison so the answer is ready when a quote arrives. The inputs are:
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Machine cost per print hour (your own printer's rate, or a service bureau quote)
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Material and support material per tool
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Engineering, finishing and insert installation labor
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Inspection time per release and per re-check
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The outsourced machining quote and its lead time
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Expected life in cycles, and how often the tool will need replacing or reworking because of wear, drift or engineering changes
The following figures are hypothetical, for illustration only. They are not quotes or vendor data. The program is an assembly nest on a three-year program building 300,000 assemblies, with two engineering changes expected.
| Item (hypothetical) | Machined aluminum | Hybrid printed | | --- | --- | --- | | Initial build | $8,000, 6 weeks | $2,500, 2 weeks | | Two engineering changes | 2 x $3,000 rework, 3 weeks each | 2 x $2,000 reprint (inserts reused), 2 weeks each | | Program total | $14,000 | $6,500 | | Weeks waiting on tooling | 12 | 6 | | Tooling cost per assembly | about $0.047 | about $0.022 | | If wear or drift forces a rebuild every 4 months (9 builds in total, changes included) | n/a | $18,500, about $0.062 |
The last row decides the comparison. A printed tool that holds up is cheaper and arrives sooner. A printed tool that has to be rebuilt and requalified three times a year costs more than the aluminum one it replaced. Its replacement frequency depends on the load, heat, wear and humidity questions above. That is why the technical screen comes before the cost model.
Decision table: printer, mill or hybrid
| Tool type | Default | Why | | --- | --- | --- | | Assembly nest or cradle | Printed or hybrid | Low load, conformal geometry, frequent change. Put the locators on metal if the nest positions the part for a downstream operation. | | End-of-arm tooling | Printed or hybrid | Weight matters for the robot and the cycle. Toyota's published EOAT case cut lead time by six weeks. Use metal at precise gripping datums. | | Ergonomic handling aid, cart insert, masking | Printed | Low load, loose tolerance, and weight and shape are the whole point. | | Drill guide | Hybrid | A printed body positions the guide. Hardened bushings take the wear and set the hole location. | | CMM holding fixture | Hybrid | Metrology rooms are usually climate-controlled, which reduces thermal and moisture risk. Use metal contact points where repeatability matters. | | Check gauge used as the acceptance standard | Machined | Its stability must exceed the tolerance it checks. A printed screening aid can sit upstream of it. | | Weld fixture | Machined | Heat, spatter and clamping loads. | | Hemming or forming tool | Machined | High loads, wear and creep. |
When lead time becomes downtime
Lead time only costs money when something is waiting on it. When a fixture cracks, or an engineering change makes it obsolete, and the line stops or runs a slower workaround, every week spent waiting for a machined replacement becomes downtime. Our downtime cost calculator separates lost contribution margin from incremental recovery costs such as overtime and expedited freight. Use it to put a dollar figure on six weeks of waiting before you compare it with a printed tool's two. For critical machined fixtures, the same calculation can justify keeping a validated printed bridge tool on the shelf to cover the gap while the metal replacement is made.
What to ask at IMTS, and how to run a pilot
Whether you talk to Stratasys at booth 338460 or to any other vendor, ask:
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What accuracy does the machine hold at your part length, in your material and in your build orientation, and at what yield?
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How does Nylon 12CF grow after conditioning at your plant's humidity, and is there test data behind the answer?
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What is the all-in cost per print hour, and when will list pricing and availability be announced?
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What design rules apply to pressed and bonded inserts: pin fits, bushing retention, pad bonding?
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What does service coverage look like, and what uptime commitment comes with it?
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What does the realistic print time for one of your tools look like with supports included, not the head's maximum rate?
Then run a small pilot. Pick three tools from the last year's outsourced machining backlog: a nest, a drill guide or locating fixture built as a hybrid, and an end-of-arm tool or handling aid. For each one, compare the machining quote and lead time with the printed tool's all-in cost and elapsed time. CMM-check the printed tools at release and again after 30 days on the floor, and log any breakage or wear. Three data points from your own plant will tell you more than any case study, including the ones cited here.
Related reading
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Which Industrial AI Demos at IMTS Are Ready for a Plant Floor?
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Machinery and Fabricated Metal Carried August's Factory Hiring
Sources
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Toyota and Rivian Adopt Stratasys' New F870 to Accelerate Factory-Floor Manufacturing Applications at Scale, Stratasys press release, Sept. 9, 2026
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F870 product page, Stratasys
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Stratasys launches new F870 FDM 3D printer; Toyota and Rivian among first users, TCT Magazine
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Stratasys launches the F870 large-format FDM printer for factory tooling, VoxelMatters
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Stratasys introduces F870, new large-format industrial FDM system, 3D Printing Journal
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F770 Industrial FDM 3D Printer, Stratasys
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Additive Manufacturing in the Automotive Industry, Stratasys blog (GM case study)
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Production-Proven Automotive Additive Tooling Applications: Toyota, Stratasys
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Toyota boosts production with Stratasys additive manufacturing, Engineering.com, Aug. 8, 2025
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Volkswagen Autoeuropa Uses Ultimakers to Save EUR 150,000 in Tools, Jigs and Fixtures, VoxelMatters, 2017
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Assembly Fixtures: Valuable Productivity and Quality Tools, Stratasys blog (Oreck case study)
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Effects of Coefficient of Thermal Expansion and Moisture Absorption on the Dimensional Accuracy of Carbon-Reinforced 3D Printed Parts, Polymers, 2021
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6061 aluminium alloy, reference data