The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

[Don_Sieburg]

First - The Good:

This scorpion was about the 5th print I ever did with my Form1+. The only ‘finishing’ I did was to clip off the supports with the side-cutters. Zero sanding. If I remember correctly this was 0.05 resolution.

Next - The Bad:

I printed the butterfly test today…0.1 resolution. Everything is more or less ok…but just a little ‘soft’ / ‘out of focus’…almost like the resin didn’t cure in some places…‘blobbed’. Smooth surfaces are not smooth.

I’ve run the printer about 20 times so far…clear, grey, and tough resins.

And…The Ugly:

Not sure what happened here.

I drain and strain (190 Mesh paint filters) my tanks every time…individual tanks for each resin type. Inspect and clean the main mirror as needed.

Support ticket is open…just thought I’d reach out to the community and see if anyone else has advice, tips, tricks, experiences.

[JasonSpiller]

I’m assuming you have done the laser test? Whenever I had that sort of problem it was always a dodgy laser.

[Don_Sieburg]

Hi Jason,

No, I haven’t done the laser test yet. Is that something Formlabs has to ‘authorize’ so I don’t void the warranty?

Thanks for the reply!

[Don_Sieburg]

Here’s some more ‘ugly’.

Same parts, different resins, orientations, different days.

The clear parts in the series were just done today - fresh new resin tray with Clear V2 - strained from the bottle into the tray.

Same box and lid from above…also a 'Formlabs Funnel".

[Randy_Cohen]

When you open a ticket with FL, they will undoubtedly suggest that the mirrors need cleaning. Do it. My printer printed flawlessly for months, dozens of prints, and one day on a particularly tall print it failed at the very end, in ways that look similar to your failures. I assumed it was the laser given the experiences of many on this forum. I couldn’t understand how dirty mirrors would go from working to not working mid-print. But I cleaned the mirrors anyway, both the main and galvos, and the printer pretty much is back to normal again…

[Don_Sieburg]

Thanks Randy. I’m hopeful it is just a case of dirty mirrors. I haven’t received the instruction to clean the galvos yet but I’d like to.

[Don_Sieburg]

The tough resin failure was pretty dramatic…makes for an interesting conversation piece anyway.

[Alex_Vermeer]

Make sure you thoroughly clean them. If you’ve taken less than an hour to clean everything, changes are you didn’t clean them well enough ;).

shine a led light on each mirror from all sides, sometimes the smudges can only be seen from a certain angle. I’ve cleaned my mirrors in the past and did it too ‘quickly’ which gave me better results, but still had some issues. After cleaning them thoroughly, I haven’t had a failed print yet (from miniatures to prints that fill the whole build platform.

Good luck!