Design freedom is an important advantage to Super ATV, a leading manufacturer of aftermarket UTV and ATV parts and accessories. The company designs and produces literally thousands of products that enhance vehicle performance, durability, and rider experience. From its early days operating out of a garage, Super ATV has grown into a major innovator with almost a half million square foot manufacturing and warehouse space and over 600 acres of dedicated testing ground. 

The company boasts having a vertically integrated engineering, manufacturing, and distribution operation where every product they produce is designed, prototyped, tested, and validated in-house to ensure quality, fitment, and reliability before even reaching a customer. 

The company’s 3D Printing lab leverages additive manufacturing for product development, rapid prototyping, tooling, fixtures, and low-volume production parts. By integrating industrial 3D printing into its engineering workflow, SuperATV accelerates design validation, shortens development cycles, and enables faster delivery of durable, high-performance UTV and ATV vehicle aftermarket products that are built to withstand the toughest off-road environments.

Aftermarket Challenges

In order to compete in the highly competitive powersports aftermarket business, SuperATV must rapidly develop products for newly released UTV and ATV models while ensuring every component meets extremely demanding performance requirements. This means high part strength, dimensional stability, impact resistance, and temperature resistance. The ability to customize these parts is important as they must accommodate different vehicle platforms and performance requirements. Engineered parts undergo multiple design iterations before production, making development speed a critical aspect of the design cycle. 

When using traditional machining methods each design revision increased machining costs and slowed the design cycle process. This meant that producing multiple prototype variations proved to be expensive and time-consuming. Plus, complex geometry optimization was often either difficult or cost-prohibitive altogether, reducing the design flexibility the company wanted. The alternative was often using outside sources while the company really wanted an in-house solution. 

To accelerate product development, SuperATV integrated the Raise3D RMS220 SLS 3D printing system into their engineering workflow. The RMS220 printer features a 75W fiber laser at 1064nm, paired with a galvanometer scanner, and F-theta optics. This configuration allows scanning speeds of up to 30,000mm/s, where competitive machines run at 12,000-20,000mm/s. The combination of higher power and faster scanning means that the RMS220 is geared toward productivity—just what SuperATV was looking for. Add to this the system’s 220x220x350mm build volume, integrated nitrogen generator, and detachable build units, and SuperATV ended up with a unit that balanced power, compactness, and workflow integration to provide a full workflow ecosystem. 

SuperATV uses a nylon PA12 powder to manufacture functional prototypes and production-ready engineered components. This material is not only strong but heat-resistant. It’s often used to print functional components rather than simply prototypes. As a quality all-around material, PA12 adapts easily to high-precision parts production. Very flexible, the material, when thin, can be used for springs and, when thick, can provide structurally strong functional parts. PA12 is available in a variety of colors but can also be polished and dyed depending on the needs of the customer. 

Unlike conventional machining, the RMS220 enabled engineers to move directly from CAD models to physical parts within hours, dramatically shortening the design and validation cycles. Typical builds required approximately 12 hours while producing up to 16 functional parts in a single print, allowing multiple design concepts to be evaluated simultaneously rather than sequentially.

The mechanical properties and dimensional accuracy of SLS-printed PA12 provide SuperATV engineers with durable, functional parts suitable for fitment checks, assembly validation, and performance testing. The powder-bed fusion process enables complex internal geometries, lightweight structures, and integrated features that can be difficult or costly to manufacture using conventional machining. This allows engineers to optimize components specifically for additive manufacturing while consolidating multiple features or components into a single part.

By combining PA12’s functional performance with the RMS220’s design flexibility, SuperATV can move beyond basic visual prototypes and produce parts that more closely represent their intended application. Engineers can rapidly modify, print, and validate customized UTV and ATV components in-house, reducing traditional manufacturing’s machining, tooling, and assembly requirements. The ability to produce multiple design variations within a single build streamlines fitment and functional testing, allowing engineers to evaluate and refine designs more efficiently.

Following the implementation of the Raise3D RMS220, updated capabilities have translated into measurable improvements across SuperATV’s engineering and product development workflow. Bringing SLS production in-house has reduced reliance on conventional machining and external manufacturing, providing faster access to functional prototypes, tooling, fixtures, and low-volume production parts.

Key results included reducing lead times by up to 30 days; saving over $40,000 in the first two months of operation; reducing tooling investment, inventory, and other prototyping costs; accelerating validation; and greater engineering freedom. As SuperATV continues expanding its engineering and manufacturing capabilities, industrial SLS printing has become an important component of its product development strategy. The company will continue to leverage additive manufacturing for functional tooling, production fixtures, end-use specialty components, and low-volume manufacturing applications. 

For information: 

Raise3D

SuperATV

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