PoisedWhale reporting for duty

Managed to do a quick test print (grey resin) before packing for trip…
Impressions so far:

  1. the surfaces are indeed smoother than on Form2; edges are nice and sharp - you could scratch or maybe even cut yourself on an acute-angled edge of a printed object with no fillet

  2. that said, the new LFS peel isn’t magic - you’ll still get layer lines and artifacts on thicker cross sections, as well as the usual odd surface artifact

  3. technical prints can still get slightly deformed, straight lines can still get curved, right angles can still end up oblique instead of right

  4. that said, you can get away with less support than before, and less forethought - i printed a few relatively tiny parts, but non-hollow, with 0 preparation and thinking, using the automatic layout and support, with supports reduced to 0.4mm, density 0.8, layer height 100um; I normally use those settings on Form2 for hollow objects with a 1mm thick shell, and i normally lay things out carefully by hand

  5. supports are still the same, their geometry is exactly the same as Form2’s, meaning you’ll still get warts on your prints - again, it’s not magic, it’s just an improvement over the previous process

  6. curiously, i got some layering artifacts where i normally wouldn’t expect them on a Form2 print (namely, at the very last layers of a (fairly short) object, where the cross section starts to get smaller, not larger

I took some quick snaps with my phone, I’ll try to post them later, probably from the airport.

Edit: I hope the new vats are more resilient to resin, as i’m leaving the resin inside it for 2 weeks until i get back. On Form2 i’d usually empty it back into the cartridge or into a jar, as the resin would inevitably eat and delaminate the PDMS, sometimes in as little as 3 weeks or so.

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