A general question may not be related but I need to ask as I have these same issues as I print a lot of cylinder sections. I received my printer late November and Printer Details it has a Model = Form 3 (early 2019). Do your printers have this same Model number?
1 Like
Hello yes the same problem parts warped smooth. Holes with o.55mm are closed. with a different orientation oval and parts are deformed. Disaster and embarrassment Iāll return my Form 3 if it doesnāt work soon. You canāt print with them
AFAIK Formlabs changed the model number from āearly 2019ā when they introduce the 3B
Grey has alway printed better a 100 microns than 50. The problem I have with deep small holes is that the uncured resin doesnāt always clear well. I usually chase these holes with a drill and what comes off the drill is a soft gunk rather than hardened resin.
I`ve seen this too. There is more to the wobbly layer line problem than just vertical surfaces unfortunately. My flat surfaces come out very warped and wrinkly.
Just to follow on, weāve been running quite a few parts in the FlexV2 material at 100um.
Broadly speaking itās fair to say that we are not seeing the same sort of ācreaseā issues in the Flex material that we have seen in the Grey. There is occasional evidence of a little warping but that may be down to orientation in relation to the wiper direction.
vibrations may also cause this , especially in a high traffic area where trucks or continued traffic are in the area of the machine. As I learned working with lazers in my free time, vibrations are the enemy of good prints. make sure where ever the printer is located has very low vibrations to effect it. At least in my own exp/ once these machines are free of outside vibrations quality has improved.
Technically sure. But this printer is in my basement. No traffic, not near any roads. And my Form 2 is on the table IMMEDIATELY adjacent and has NONE of these problems.
My Form 3 went back a few days ago. Iām not sitting on it waiting for improvements.
True point but I doubt itās very relevant here. Iām on a road up a mountain with zero traffic. My Form 3 and Form 2 are right beside each other, and Iāve done identical prints (simultaneously, and one printer at a time) which come out with creases / ripples on the Form 3, but perfectly on the Form 2.
Did they let you do a return for refund?
1 Like
Hi,
Iām printing flat shells on Form3 and I found an effect of parasitic curing of the residual resin which affects the quality of the surface facing towards the build plate.
This week I found another phenomena while printing flat shells - the supports are projected (as camera obscura) over one of the surfaces
with some filtering to highlight the details things look like this
and close to the end of the supports
If you notice the projection of the supports is crystal clear and on focus. My guess is that somehow the beam is curing parasitically the residual resin that stays on the object and it can explain partially some cases of the low quality you witness on Form3.
4 Likes
ā¦LFS is a kinda neat idea, but itās still got some engineering work to be right it seems. The camera obscura effect is funky. Iāve got an original f1+ (still in a box since I moved last year). Been in FDM land for quite a while now. Interesting to be back and I see a lot of familiar faces, @Ante_Vukorepa for one. Cheers.
2 Likes
Are others finding that part quality is getting better with FW updates? My parts have been coming out pretty good (black, clear, durable, tough, flexible) so far, but I did recently swap my machine to fix a different issue.
Some things improve, some get slightly worse.
Overall, i think things are a bit better than they were before.
Iāve switched to clear resin after my first liter of gray, so itās a bit hard to do comparisons right now, until i swap back to gray. Clear seems to work okay with minimal support (i can get away with noticably less support than with gray), but thereās still banding artifacts described in this thread. Subjectively, iād say theyāre less pronounced than on gray, but are more noticable because of transparency.
Yes - I also notice the banding more on Clear resin. However, itās usually pretty easy to sand away.
Black prints have been coming out beautifully for me. Durable has been looking pretty good as well. Tough resin seems to pool a bit more on flat support surfaces than others but itās generally OK.
if FL would maybe allow a few verified forum users access to the FL 3 openFL, I think quicker results may surfaceā¦
I really agree with LFS.
Hello Everyone,
Iām new to this forum and my company is scheduled to purchase Form3 by the end of the month.
Our main reason for getting this printer is to help with prototyping small objects with a significant amount of detail.
Unfortunately after seeing warping issues that many of you are experiencing I am getting cold feet with recommending pulling the trigger. This whole warping/shifting error effectively nullifies the very purpose we would want this machine since all of our prints would be made at 25Ī¼m.
My questions are:
Has this situation improved recently? Was there a solution or fix for it implemented yet?
Please, let me know.
Thanks
There answer to your questions is simple; no and no. No improvements with any of the recent firmware updates, no solution or fix has been implemented yet as I donāt think they even know why it is happening.
1 Like
Although itās not what I was hoping to hear - thank you for your reply nonetheless.
Seems like my options are:
A) Buy Form3 - pray for a fix
B) Buy Form2 (refurbished) - limited shelf life and support
C) Look elsewhereā¦
Consider my enthusiasm curbed
BTW, my āuneducatedā guess would be that this is a mechanical design flaw.
If the problem could be fixed via a software update itās more than likely would be in place by now.
Since the mechanical problems are a lot harder to correct and such fix could involve component redesign/replacement - Iām not feeling very optimistic about it anymore.
1 Like
There was a firmware update released this week for both the Form 2 and Form 3, which is encouraging. There is a Preform update, too.
I hope to run some test prints on the Form 3 this weekend with standard Gray V4 we recently ordered for that purpose. Hopefully, the new firmware resolves the layer shifting, imprecise opening and surface bulging issues we routinely saw on Form 3 prints. Our models are generally small so we need 50 micron or better.
If not, the Form 2 will remain our workhorse until those issues are resolved. Iām anxious for a resolution since there is much to like about the Form 3 and we need it working.
Here is an example of what we experienced (model of a shipās bridge printed January 8th). The photos below were sent to FL for review. Hope they help.
Real object:
Form 2 print:
Form 3 print (January 8) of the same model:
4 Likes