10 weeks is based on our validation, and the failure mode is not something we’d encourage you to toe the line with. That said, we have made it so that while the UI will prompt you to switch tanks, you can choose to override it. So this isn’t an arbitrary lockdown thing, irregardless, I would strictly recommend you change tanks after 10 weeks.
I have not personally tried it, but I understand emptying resin from a Form 3 tank is not a fun experience. Small amounts of residual resin does still deteriorate the tank, likely not at the same rate, but resin exposure is not the only factor so it’s hard to characterize a lifetime recommendation if someone goes down this route. In the support article we list out the range of factors which impact tank lifetime:
- Time exposed to resin (i.e., the amount of time that a tank is holding resin, regardless of where the tank is stored)
- Printed resin
- Model geometry
- Layers printed
- Temperature
Total printed layers is another threshold we measure and the UI will also let you know if you hit that before the time threshold, however based on our understanding of typical printing, we think the time limit is what will impact the majority of customers hence leading with that.