Preform 2.80 is a huge huge huge improvement on earlier versions. That’s about all I have to say!
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Would you elaborate a bit on that? What did you notice so drastically improved? Just curious really.
Agreed. I only had a few minutes with it, but the orientation handles on a per part basis, make model thru-put wicked-fast…
That’s all I noticed, with my short visit.
My last desire, would be the ability to break up a “too large” model within Preform, that includes unique registration geometry.
… ala Stratasys Insight software.
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The manipulator’s abilities really allow me to tweak positioning before adding supports – to most advantageously use (or ignore) Preform’s support suggestions… I find the suggested supports are often more aggressively positioned than I need, but, prior to the manipulators finer degrees of freedom, I really had to fight to get a good combination of model location and support positions.
I really like how the 3 axes of freedom allow me to get the most out of build height: I can tweak the height orientation to (somewhat) control build speed, and (rightly or wrongly) I think I get better detail on some of our models when I can control which side is “up” coming out of the goo. And I can certainly scale to the largest possible size within the build area faster this way.
Unscientific, but there you go. Also, it seems to crash less, which, you know, is a good thing.
I agree that this is a step up - so I just need the option of choice for the user.
That, and possibly have the snap option as well (extend my wish to see the angle/scale/translation units with a way to set predefined snap angles/scale/translation)
So, if I could set it to rotate in steps of 10 degrees, or snap to a 0,5 cm grid, or scale in .5 intervals - in addition to seeing the output of my current manipulation - would be great.
Also.
Unsure if I just got lucky or if the geo analysis/repair function is now better in 2.8 but… …tonight I printed a mesh that normally (7 previous prints) came out with a small tear due to long tris. It came out without any faults!
As I said, may have been lucky - but it felt like the software is more robust in this version.
Turns out I wasn’t lucky. The error still occurred on the mesh, just in a different spot…
So glad to hear that you’re liking the manipulators. As I’m sure you can imagine, there’s quite a bit of thought and work - selecting, iterating, building, and testing - new features, so it’s nice for the PreForm team to know what they got right. Thanks for letting us know, Ralph!
Since the manipulator tools significantly improve the options for configuring parts in PreForm, we’ve taken some time to update the instructions online. While the written articles really help new users learning PreForm, I find it’s super helpful to refresh the best practices, so I want to make sure you’ve seen the latest.
Take a look at these updated articles, and let us know what you think:
- Model Orientation
- Set Up Your Print (specifically the “Toolbar Menu” section)
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I also agree you’ve made some very good changes is preform. I went over to look at your new instructions and I have 2 questions and I apologize. I’m dyslexic so these kinds of things tend to confuse me.
For select base in your pictures of the orientation menu, the button reads select a face. I did open up my preform and saw that button had been changed to select base, but it confused me at first.
Then you have a heading that says tall supports on hinge side, but in the body of the text, it says to put the taller supports on the wiper side. It could be you’re using wiper and hinge interchangeably since I don’t see the word hinge in preform.
Thanks.
It sounds like an innocent oversight. The Form 1 has a hinge side and the Form 2 has the wiper. I gather during the updating of the documents, they really should have left “Hinge” and “Wiper” together in both instances as on the Form 1, you would want to position the supports on the hinge side of the build plate and the Form 2 you would want the supports facing the Wiper.
Thanks for noticing @kkingcgi. David’s right that the hinge refers to the Form 1+ and the wiper refers to the Form 2 - certainly something that we can make more clear! The hinge on the Form 1+ and wiper on the Form 2 are in fact opposite sides of the machine. We recommend tall parts on the Form 1+'s hinge side, because they’re prone to less pulling / peel forces. For the Form 2, the peel forces are equal across the platform and only horizontal; we recommend tall parts on the Form 2’s wiper side, because it may speed up the print by a small amount of time; the wiper has less distance to travel between layers when parts are nearby.
As far as the Select a Face / Select Base, that’s another tricky interaction. I thought the screenshot was wrong at first! The button says “Select a Base,” until you click the button, then it prompts you to “Select a Face” while the cursor becomes the disc with normal-facing arrow. We’ll see about making this more intuitive in the instructions - thank you for the observant eyes; no apologies necessary. 
I cannot use 2.7 or 2.8 because of the lack of preheating. Everything past 2.6.1 has been a disaster for me.
What resin do you use? I used clear resin 02 with the latest update on form 2 and I noticed the change in temp setting but did not cause me any problems. Right now I’m using castable resin 01 and the temp setting is at 30c. Not having a single problem with it.
I have used Clear V2 and Whit V1 and both have the same problem. The temperature “setting” hasn’t changed, but since 2.7 it no longer waits for 30 degrees before print. It starts printing around 25 degrees and continues warming to 30.