Bad prints out of brand New Form 3

I have to say, I am curious why you, and to be honest many other on this forum, but of course you can only answer for yourself, are so quick to assume it is a support issue whenever there is a dimensional stability problem?

Back on the Form 2, I was working on some directly printed injection molds, and as a result did extensive testing on dimensional stability and warping. On that printer, I found no strong correlation between number of supports and dimensional accuracy of my test models. The number of supports obviously had a strong correlation with things like delamination and complete part failure, but it was my experience from a large number of calibrated test prints, that once there were sufficient supports to successfully print the model, there was literally no increased accuracy to adding more supports, unless you were specifically talking about a very tall part, that extended quite a way up from the platform in Z… Orientation, the type of resin used, the condition of the optical window, tank, and mirrors, even position on the platform, all could have measurable changes to dimensional accuracy. But if the part would successfully print with say 50 supports, doubling that to 100 supports, would not make the part any straighter, it would just make the support side uglier,

Now, there might be something I am missing, and I haven’t done this same sort of specific testing on the Form 3, However, after years of printing I have found that if a model is warped, or out of spec, it is rarely, if ever, going to be fixed by just cranking up the number of supports. Sure, if it is missing from the supports, or part of it didn’t form, or part of it delaminated, obviously you need more supports. But if it is misshapen, warped, or out of designed spec, there is usually some other problem.

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Sure, I agree there. That doesn’t necessarily mean that additional supports or orientation won’t solve issues caused by inadequate tuning of the vastly difference mechanical mechanisms in the F3 :slightly_smiling_face:

I mean, I’ll be honest, the initial pictures @larsenstephen posted of the decals looked, to me, relatively sparse in supports and unusually tall (but maybe the image angle). I’ve also encountered multiple situations in which additional supports did help with dimensional accuracy and most specifically - warping. This can be both pre-cure and post-cure, supports can have a significant affect in both. I’ve also encountered many situations in which orientation had an effect as well even though the part would finish the print relatively successfully.

For example, the latter can be demonstrated if you print a poorly orientated part at a very low resolution setting with minimal supports. Curing warpage can be demonstrated by printing two thin walled parts and curing one with and without supports. Pre-cure warping can be demonstrated, as you said, by printing components with tall or thin walls. I’ve printed many, many varying geometries over the years and am not surprised at all that some geometries or parts have more trouble than others. There are a lot of mechanical and physical processes happening during the print process.

Now keep in mind that I’m routinely pushing the size of my touchpoints down to their limits, and that might be partially responsible for my anecdotal remarks.

The other reason why orientation & supports might be suggested often…other than anecdotal experience, is that there isn’t really anything else you can change. If changed orientation or supports doesn’t solve the problem, then there’s something more significant…which you can’t really do much about anyway without spending significantly more time troubleshooting. So I would say it’s probably the first thing you SHOULD check (other than optics if you have a F2) or think about, which is likely why it gets suggested so often.

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New firmware updates available today for Form 3 and Form 2. :grinning:

Update for PreForm, too.

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This is exactly correct.
(At least in my experience on the Form2.)
-JD

is anyone else seeing the light on top of the machine always on after firmware update? while the machine is not working?..,IMG_1455

@roypnyc Yep, mine just did that too after the upgrade. Guess the new version is happy to see you.

Yup, same here. When printer sits idle light is on…

For some reason, in adopting the new PreForm, the setting for “print height above rafts” changed from 5.0 mm to 2.0 mm and I didn’t notice it. The first prints all printed so low as to be inside the raft. The models cannot be removed from the raft without damaging them.

Check your height above raft before printing and if needed, change it.

…and battleships are grey…

Stephen,
How did you new prints come out with the latest update? I too am having very similar issues printing miniatures.

So often users chime in with “WELL I`M OK - I PRINT AT 100 MICRONS WITH NO PROBLEM” - erm, yes. Enjoy your success in draft mode at 100 microns. Some users require the machine to work as advertised.

I still worry if we will EVER see the Form 3 working as advertised through software updates alone - to me there seems to be a fundamental problem with the low force concept.

I can only imagine how low formlabs resin sales must be compared to pre launch expectations - I know after my initial resin purchases to I stopped using the machine when after liters of resin I had not 1 print I could use. I now only use resin to test the latest update.

I can only imagine how bad word of mouth affects hardware sales.

I know prior to covid I personally had managed to guide 7 ready to pay customers away from formlabs - I`d expect im not alone in helping share realistic info about the Form 3 and reduce sales. Its fair to expect some of the people I advised to share that same advice. So the lost sales must be significant. And for such a serious failure of a product it should be.

So what did you recommend instead of the Form 3 then? @donnie

The warping is most likely caused by a temperature gradient above the resin while printing, exacerbated by the printing taking twice as long to print as it could.

The warp can be removed by placing the print in a shallow flat dish and pouring near-boiling water over it, then letting it cool in the water.

The warping can be avoided by printing the piece on edge. I suggest orientation at 80-85 degrees on the short edge and 20-30 degrees on the long edge. I’ve not found 1-1.5mm thick prints orientated like this susceptible to warping, even with the supports remove from the visible surface. Screenshot 2020-06-26 at 12.21.27.pdf (537.1 KB)

@rbaer0002 Very happy to say that the updates have improved print quality. The latest PreForm update (3.6.1) has some issues which I’ve discussed with FL support. When opening a complex model previously saved for Form 2 printing, then importing for Form 3 printing, occasionally PreForm 3.6.1 crashes. There are exceptions. FL engineers are aware, experiencing the problem for themselves, and are working on a fix. FL support stated that the temporary fix is revert to an older version of PreForm until the next update, which I’m told will specifically correct that problem.

@billb I think “Warping” is probably not a correct description of the problem experienced by the nameplates. I should have used another term but I do not know of another term that correctly describes the problem. The nameplates are not truly warped, the ends printed smaller than the middle causing the long edges to appear curved. The nameplate models do not print with dimensional accuracy. What should have printed as a rectangle is not at all that shape. Although boiling water might fix a warped, flat model, boiling water cannot fix a model that is misshapen. Boiling water can’t add material to the ends.

As stated earlier, I tried re-orienting the model, even to the degree you suggest. That did not fix the problem. Again, with emphasis, I must repeat, even shout, this problem is not an orientation or support problem. This is a Form 3 printer problem. The Form 3 printer is not printing the nameplates with dimensional accuracy. Increasing support density and re-orienting the models do not improve print quality. The user cannot fix this. And again, let me repeat, the models print perfectly on a Form 2 the very first time, using the orientation and support array created by PreForm.

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@larsenstephen I agree Im seeing better prints (not 100%) and 3.6.1 is very buggy.
seems like they just dropped this early then went on vacation for the 4th lol.

Better than nothing I suppose, but for the price, still not satisfied…

Just because I know how forums can get, and to be clear about my intention, the following is just to help with troubleshooting, and to hopefully figure out what is going wrong, not because I think this will directly help, nor an attempt to disprove the problems you are having.

Disclaimer out of the way, I’ve printed several large thin tiles on the Form3, with different settings, on different firmware, and all were true enough that they all fit together,

Just taking a guess, the biggest difference I see between your prints and mine is the proportions of X and Y. Mine are more equal in X and Y, whereas yours are very long in X, but fairly short in Y. Perhaps that is what is causing the distortion? I don’t know, because as I said earlier, it doesn’t make a lot of sense how your prints are distorting.

The only other major difference I can think of, is that mine have a lip around the back, instead of being flat.

I want to stress, I’m not trying to suggest design changes, just trying to figure out why this is happening.

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There are a few people on this thread (@VO2Lucas , @leonhart88 ) who have talked about Light Processing Unit laser modulation issues, I’m curious-- Has a new LPU fixed print problems for anyone?
I’ve just finished a round of diagnostics with the always professional staff at FormLabs Services (many thanks for the support). We replaced the Roller Cover and then the LPU itself. Unfortunately, the same issues of overcure, layer-shift, pinholes, and platform-side loss of detail remain. (25micron, Castable Wax resin).

JD Davison
Lab Partners Jewelry

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I did have this strange vertical artifact that showed up in all my prints on my very first Form 3. It was suspected that there was maybe dust stuck inside the LPU, or some other issue. It wasn’t entirely clear though because it was a very distinct vertical line that showed up on my prints and it seemed to happen regardless of build location and part geometry. I did enough tests to prove that the issue kept happening but didn’t dive further to try and debug why as that’s not really what I wanted to spend my time on.

They simply RMA’ed my machine and the problem dissappeared. Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful!

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Some good news. Here is a print made last night of a pair of small scale models that printed beautifully.

The models represent the “Red Baron’s machineguns” (Spandau LMG 08/15 Model 1917) in 1/28 scale. The models are fragile due to wall thinness. For example, the cone at the top of the model represents a flash suppressor (far right in bottom photo). Its wall is just 0.1 mm thin. The models printed very well on the Form 3 with the latest firmware and PreForm updates. I credit low-force SLA with being able to print them without damaging them.

Importantly, openings in the vertical plane printed as intended. Big improvement over past prints under earlier firmware and PreFrom versions. Kudos to FL.

I also noticed that PreForm 3.6.1 is working better after manually uninstalling previous versions of PreFrom and then installing 3.6.1 as a clean install.

Gray V4 resin at 50 microns in a V1 tank



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