So I just realized Dashboard has a lot of improved statistics - including nicely organizing tanks and showing lifetimes, etc.
I’ll go out there and admit that I’m running some tanks past their suggested lifetime. For example:
- Black @ 107% - 30000/75000 layers, 269/250 days
- Clear @ 114% - 10000/75000 layers, 286/250 days
- Durable @ 103% - 11000/75000 layers, 258/250 days
- Elastic @ 272% - 2156/25000 layers, 204/75 days
- Flexible V2 @ 113% - 7405/75000 layers, 285/250 days
- Tough 1500 @ 104% - 9700/75000 layers, 262/250 days
- Tough 2000 @ 180% - 3945/25000 layers, 135/75 days
I check the undersides of the tanks before every print, as well as inspecting the inside of the tank by gently scraping the bottom with the provided plastic tool just to check the film. I don’t notice any signs of wear across all the tanks. This is probably because I actually am nowhere near the max # of layers printed per tank.
I’m somewhat taking a risk here to see how far we can stretch the tanks. It’s not clear whether the engineering team has actually tested “days with resin” independently from “layers printed”. For example, will a tank which has resin stored in it for >250 days and zero layers printed, fail on its first print? Or will it simply cause the “layers printed” lifetime to be less because of a prolonged chemical reaction between the resin and the bonding between the gasket & film?
Also, knowing what the failure mode is can be helpful because if it’s slow and visually detectable, then users can continue to use their expired tanks as long as they keep a very close eye on the tanks. This not only will extend consumable life for those of us who stock a lot of resin types, but don’t print all the time, but will also be somewhat of a “crowd sourcing” of information for Formlabs in case they don’t have the time or resources to do better lifetime testing on the tanks (something that I would like to see regardless).