Are your prints failing because your laser focus is degraded?

With as sealed as they are, and with how little dust there is in my office, I was very surprised to see how much crap was in my machine. After 1 month it was was amazing. Almost to the point of me thinking it was already there.  Either way, cleaning might be important, but cleaning the big mirror is only part of it. I found tons of crap on the smaller mirror and both galvo mirrors. Something I NEVER touched but it was terrible. After redoing the laser test, it was better, but still not perfect. The whole unit needs to be sealed better. In my 5 years of running other SLA and SLS machines, I NEVER had to deal with cleaning mirrors but maybe once a year and even then it was soooo minor…

Just to throw my hat in the ring, here’s my laser. This is my first time powering up this form1 (had it replaced, got it back last week, but a day before I headed out on vacation)

Stefan Tiefenbacher posted elsewhere (https://support.formlabs.com/entries/77575627-Just-got-my-F1-Any-Dos-and-Don-ts-bevore-I-start-printing-?page=1#post_25783967) and took a picture of the laser focus on his new Form1 just out of the box. Supposedly, this is what the laser focus is supposed to look like.

If you find that your mirrors are dirty, please shoot us a message. We can provide cleaning instructions or offer another solution to have you back up and printing.

I can no longer get to the diagnostics menu. Was this removed out of the lastest version of preform?

Version 1.5.2? I did a laser spot test with it and it was fine. Here is an easier way to do it than I have seen mentioned before. Right-click your icon and go to Properties. Then edit the end of the target to look like in this screenshot. Click OK and next time you launch ProForm it will open in diagnostic mode.

Diagnostic Mode should be the same in 1.5.2 as in previous versions of PreForm. @JoshK good suggestion of an alternate way to access Diagnostic Mode.

Mine went from working fine to not printing anything almost overnight. This is a replacement printer. Had less than a 1/3 bottle of clear resin used in it. Formlabs had me do the laser test, then told me there was a mechanical problem and I needed to send it back. I would really like to know what a good test looks like because I didn’t think it looked that bad.
What about the Form 1+, is it having laser problems?

The Form1+ hasn’t been out very long, but I haven’t heard of any laser problems reported on them.

It will be very interesting to know if they are having problems with the 1+. They are going to upgrade my second failed Form 1 to the 1+, which I am grateful for, but they want me to pay $600 for a 1 year warranty. That seems steep to me.

Why are most pictures removed from this thread? I checked this on both windows and mac with different web browsers and I can not compare photos. Photos are replaced with the torn file icon or the [[?]].

I too am suffering from a degraded laser (I think) after a power outage and I want to compare images of a correct laser with a corrupt laser. Can anyone post new pics?

Este es mi laser que tampoco imprime

Mi maquina solo tiene 1 mes

@Oscar_Sanchis oscar. hiciste la prueba? mi maquina tiene un par de meses y ya imprime el 100% mal…

me podrias explicar?

hello every one,I’m in china.And my form1 is also has the laser problem,too.I have no time to send it to american I’m an engineer,and want fix it by myself.

The photos work just fine for me.

maximscy - start a support ticket and let them know about your situation. I’d think, worst case, that you could ship back the laser module for them to verify it before they send you a new part. Formlabs support seems extremely responsive to special circumstances. They want us to be successful and happy.

Does the laser spot test move the spot around or is it just in one location?
If it moved around even slowly you might be able to better determine if it is dirty optics (spot and distortion would vary) or if it is truly bad the distortion would be consistent.

I have a Form1+ and so far so good.
Wondering if all those that have failing lasers in the older Form 1 should upgrade to the Form 1 + hardware? To me it seems worthwhile since there seems to be many improvements since the first generation machines.
Formlabs isn’t replacing bad lasers with more older lasers are they?

Just saw this thread after researching my failed print and thought it couldnt hurt to test. I think my laser looks good but Jory mentioned checking the mirror with a light as well. I did that and it looks like there was dust and a smudge on the top (closest to opening) of the mirror that I’d like to clean. The link he posted in his post was broken though :frowning:

Any idea where I can find that info for cleaning the mirror? I think I’m on my way to successful prints again!

<img src="/uploads/formlabs/1823/33e30f9ecce290b1.JPG" width=height=“500”>

Check the support page @Anthony_Huczek : http://formlabs.com/en/support/ not sure if they have detailed instructions there (won’t show properly on mobile phone).

Otherwise I have it in PDF . Pm me your email And I’ll send it to you if necessary

Take a look here http://formlabs.com/en/support/help/care/mirror-checking/ and here http://formlabs.com/en/support/help/care/cleaning-mirror/ for some details on cleaning your mirror. Just as a note to those coming across this in the future — if you have a Form 1+, most of this isn’t applicable (the first post is now quite old!) Thanks @Alex_Vermeer, for tracking that down.

Also — the forums should work on mobile…I’ll check it out.

Might just be me (although i tried on two machines and three browsers), but the last video on the first page (Checking the Mirror) appears to be missing / broken.