Bad resin tanks and now i am very angry about the support

Support & Troubleshooting
1

Hello Form users!

I am here to share my experience with my form 2 and the support!

At first i was very happy with the support and yes i really had a lot of problems with my form 2. They were polite and everything, but after and after i found out, that they not as nice as i wished they would be. Until last week some very bad things happened!
I use 4 different resins. grey V3, Castable V2, clear and the bluecast resin in open mode and i absolutely love the resin. Last week i had my first failed prints after a while. I tryed and tryed but it got worse and worse and suddendly i saw: OH MY GOD, the pdms layer is getting loose. Indeed i was VERY lucky, because it allready was so loose, that the resin begant to run through the tank and i was only minutes away from getting the resin on my glas or even worse - into the printer. The shock was huge!

I started to talk to the support and they sayd, that they cant help, because i use 3rd party resin and so i have no support and refund. I was really shocked and curious, because i know really many persons that work with the bluecast resin and i had a BRANDNEW tank. How can that be. So i contacted the resin users i know and talked to them. No one had problems with…THE OLD TANKS but some, including gatto, one of the producers from the resin itself, reported, that this is a known problem for the NEW tanks they have. It seems they have a new PDMS layer which gets sometimes loose and especially with OTHER resins from formlabs, because the bluecast resin is not as agressive as the one from formlabs.
Now ALL my alarm bells were ringing. Why -

They make new PDMS layers in their tanks, have the problem on their site, blame bluecast and do not refund me my freshly new tanks which cost a lot of money! What the… No guys this is an absolutely no go! What would have happened if i got the resin in my printer??? Would that also have been my fault or bluecast fault and who would have payed that repair? I guess me, cause you would have argued the same way and that can NOT BE, when you guys make the faulty product! and THATS the reason why i am angry!

I again contacted the support and conftonted them with the things i found out. Here is the reply:
Natürlich kann ich sehr gut verstehen, dass es wehtut, wenn ein Harztank beschädigt ist und wenn man Harz verschwendet. Bitte beachte, dass aus technischen und logistischen Gründen nicht möglich ist, alle Produkte von Drittanbietern zu zertifizieren und zu testen. Formlabs kann in diesem Fall denn beschädigten Tank leider nicht ersetzen, da die Schäden im Zusammenhang mit der Anwendung eines Fremdharzes entstanden sind. Wenn ein Produkt eines Drittanbieters Deine Erwartungen nicht erfüllt, würde ich Dich bitten Dich direkt an dem Hersteller zu wenden.
Vielen Dank für Dein Verständnis.

which means in english: Of course i understand that it hurts when a resin tank gets damaged and resin is wasted. Please note that it is not possible for technical and logistic reasons to test and certify all the 3rd party resins. Formlabs can not replace the tank, because it was used with a 3rd party resin. when a product of a 3rd party resin does not fulfill your expectations, please contact the producer of the resin!
Thank you for your understanding!

???I allready contacted them. I confronted you with their answer!!! I am VERY satisfied with their resin and it even toped my expectations. Me and many others! It is PROOVEN that the error is on your side! So please - what is that for an answer? What are you talking about?

I added some pics. Some from my tank, from my print, from other users who used white resins and that were not that lucky and so on! Watch the forum and you find some threads regarding this problem!

Conclusion: Formlabs made a bad tank. Users get problems and this can also damage the printer seriously. They blame the resin producer for their problem and do not take the costs! Thats why i am angry - and i dont even talk about the other problems i had with this printer…

And the worst question of all, that has also not been answered is: What about the new tanks? Do we have now with all the tanks the problem and have to be affraid of this to happen? Have you replaced them with the old, reliable technique? NO answers!!!

Guys please comment! Tell me what you think! Is this normal for a 5000USD product? Shall we be upset and fight if we get treated like this or shall we just give in and say: hey - whats the problem.
I am usually a calm and patient person as some of you know, but this really made me angry!

This is the question when we have to ask: Is this a serious tool for production or just a 5000USD hobbists toy.
I for myself will invest now in a solidscape printer. When i calculate together what i have allready invested in the support with this printer and now producing jewelry on a sometimes very tight deadline, it would have been cheaper to let cast or have a better and more reliable printing system!
Probably i just should give in and tell myself i have learned my lesson!

I am curious for your answers!

Have a nice day everybody and i wish you more luck with your printer, than i had so far!

Chris!

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2

Hey Chris,

sad to hear about your trouble concerning new tanks. For our factory we recently ordered new material including tanks and so on as well. They will probably come out of the last batch of produced tanks. If we hit problems with our stuff I will keep you updated and come back to your post as well.

Regards

Merlin

3

Chris,
I understand your frustration but I also understand Form Labs position that they con not be responsible for problems occurring when using a 3rd party resin vendor.

We also had a resin tank get the “bubbles” under the PDMS layer and it did eventually leak (luckily when it was in storage, not in the printer). I believe that my PDMS separation issue was due to my own overaggressive “grooming” of the PDMS layer with the supplied scraper. I have since been more gentle when grooming the tank and have not had the problem reoccur.

4

Thank you very much Merlin! That would be really great!

5

TJFeika thank you very much for your reply and your nice words.

I did not groom the pdms layer. Never got in touch with it, also not with my pai of pliers! The failed prints were “big” enough that i could get them out without touching the PDMS layer.
Because of Formlabs we have different opinions i think. I also have to take the payment in my shops, when i destroy a customers jewelry or when i make things wrong. My fauly- my money! Bluecast is not responsible if formlabs produces buggy tanks in my opinion! Again thanks for your reply and have a nice day!

Chris!

6

Formlabs is not responsible for other resins being able to work with the printer, it’s up to those third-party resin producers to get their formulation correct to work well with the printer. With many third-part resins I’ve noticed that they usually cure more quickly, so what is likely the case is that it stuck to the PDMS more and caused it to start to peel up. Again, that’s on the resin manufacturer to adjust their formula since Formlabs can’t account for what other resins will be like other than their own.
You’re lucky the resin didn’t get inside, since that would not qualify for warranty since you used a third-party resin.

7

Ok Zachary! So please amswer me following questions:

1: How can 3rd party resin producers know, when formlabs decides to change the PDMS coating?
2: Why does this happen with ALL resins, including formlabs resins too?
3: So as it happens with ALL resins, what then does that have to do with the resin producer and their formula?

I could understand if it is a resin problem, but this problem occurs with ALL resins! I would understand all you say if it was a resin problem, but its obviously not! If it was a resin problem, i would not post here. I post here, because it IS obviously a formlabs bug and NOT a resin bug!

If it is NOT a resin bug, please somebody explain me why this never happened with older tanks and now suddenly happens so often!

have a nice day, Chris!

8

Formlabs has not changed the PDMS coating as far as I know
And while it happens sometimes with the Formlabs resin, that’s extremely rare and Formlabs takes responsibility if that happens.
They know if something went wrong and you’re using their products then it’s their fault. With third-party resins they can’t account for what might happen and it’s not their responsibility if you do something with the printer that it wasn’t designed for.

And they will definitely work to make sure it doesn’t happen with their products since it is extremely expensive for them to have to ship the printer in for repair if something goes wrong.

1 Like
9

Well. All i can say is that the guys from Bluecast says something differnet and i also read it on the forum here but do not remember in which thread it was. Hopefully the guys from Bluecast share their links and their sources here please. Plus - the guy from the support did not say something against it, when i confronted him with the fact, that they use new PDMS layers!

Well not in this case obviously. Cause if so, please explain me why other users can work months and months with bluecast and resin and tanks and never something like this happened and now suddenly this sometimes on a even brandnew tank! Why does it not happen in case A within MONTHS and in Case B it does happen when it is the SAME resin? The logic tells, that the error can not be on the resin when you look at the facts. And also, when you search the forum here. it is not that rare, that the PDMS layer gets loose!

10

Not all experiences will be the same, it’s the risk you take by using unsupported resin. If there was a widespread issue with the trays then you’d notice here on the forums. But in the entire forum there’s only a handful of posts about this kind of issue ever happening. While the tray could be faulty since you used it with resin that’s not supported there’s no way to know, which is why the warranty does not cover things when you don’t use their products.

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Mr Brackin you sound like a politician :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile: - when i ask you why the sky is blue you come with explanations, why couds exist.

1+1=2. Thats simple mathematics. Many users use Bluecast and have no Problems for a long, long time. Suddenly some have problems with their tank and thist happens with EVERY resin not only with bluecast. Thats the fact. There is no reason to blame bluecast but several reasons to blame formlabs. This is how i see the problem and i do believe that we users have to pay the price for a buggy product that formlabs produced! I want proofs and answers WHY many users have no problem and some have. There must be a reson.
I feel as a beta tester for formlabs who is paying the price when something is going wrong. Really!

1 Like
12

Again, it’s clear that not all resins are causing the issue, otherwise you would see many posts on the forum with people having the same problem, yet in the entire forum since it first started there’s very few posts with that type of problem.
While it’s not possible to rule out that your tray has a defect, since you used a third-party resin they can’t be sure that it does and that’s the risk you take by doing that. Many other products have the same type of policy.

13

I’m sorry but I agree with Zachary. If you modify a product or use it in a way not specified as acceptable by the manufacturer, you do so at your own risk, warranty null and void. This is standard operating procedure for pretty much every commercial enterprise I know of (and I’ve been around a while).

By way of example, if you put use your toaster oven for something other than heating food in approved containers and it catches fire, you could hardly expect the toaster oven manufacturer to fix the burned out oven. This case is less extreme, but really no different. You used a 3rd party resin and you had a problem. You have no expectation of a remedy from FL.

The resin supplier’s assertion that it’s not their fault makes no difference because they’re not the ones being asked to satisfy the warranty claim. User data is anecdotal at best, and that kind of data can easily be misleading.

Maybe the resin tanks were examples of the few bad ones like some other users have reported, or maybe they’re perfectly good for FL resin but no good for the formulation of the 3rd party resin. It is not FL’s responsibility to figure that out and there’s no way for you to figure it out after-the-fact. There is at least a reasonable probability FL is not at fault. IMO they have no obligation (business or moral) to address the problem.

Clean up the printer, switch to FL resins, if you still have the problem you’ve got a better case to make.

14

Hi Randy. Thanks for your answer!

But the point is, not the 3rd party resin is the reason why the tank is damaged! THATS the point!

I think, when all articles about have bean read, it is prooven that these tanks are buggy for ALL resins! Bluecast is less agressive than the FL resins.

Again to make myself clear. I am not angry because of their policity that there is no waranty when you ue a 3rd party resin. I understand that. What i am angry about is , that they know bluecast, they know what it is all about. Trust me i know that - and they also know that bluecast is not the error. They just clean themselfs and save their money even if they know exactly that it is not the resins error.

Zachary you made an example, please let me make a example too: You and 18 of your friends use a tool. For example a jigsaw. You all use the same blade and cut in birch wood! Only difference your friends cut in Birch wood from NY and you cut in birch wood from Canada. You never had problems the last years. Now you get a bunch of new blades and suddenly the blades break one by one. You even might get hurt or someone near you. Who will pay the bill? Whats the reason? The birch wood you cut in since years or the new blades? And what would you think if suddenly, when your friends also bought new blades they report, that their blades break too, but only the new ones and even if they use the same birch wood they cutted 10 years ago?

Maybe you understand now what i am really angry about!

And also - it is really funny to see how people near me react, when i show them the error and what happenend…

Have a nice day - Chris!

15

Again, there’s no confirmation that every resin is having issues with the trays, it’s simply not the case. If people using that resin are often now having issues then it could just as easily be the resin manufacturer who made an error in their resin.

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It is very interresting how americans here react for an american company, when a guy from austria blames an american product :slight_smile: :laughing::innocent:. Seems like you talk with someone from cuppertino about apple or android :heart_eyes: It is also interesting how the other people react to this problem on other places i shared this problem :slight_smile: :innocent: Especially when i showed some collueges here from my town that problem!

I wish for you guys, that you never experience this or even worse that resin running in your printer, also not with the original formlabs resin! I mean that!

I personly look forward to my refurbished Solidscape arriving these days! Enough of the problems for a 5000 USD product where so much can go wrong…

Take care guys and have a nice evening!

Chris!

PS look in the sell zone. I am pretty sure a 6 month old Form 2 will be there to be sold in the next days

17

I work for a very large global computer-electronics manufacturer. I do a few things in my full time job, one of which is managing product quality/reliability. I spend a fair amount of time each month reviewing field failures and performing statistical analyses on rates of failure. This debate over resin tank failures is similar to what I do at work.

There have been a few cases reported in this forum by users who had their tank bottoms “delaminate” and leak resin onto their printer. But I don’t think the number is higher than 2 or 3. Assuming that most users experiencing this problem will log on to the forum to complain, and considering what must be multiple 1000s of tanks that FL sells quarterly to the many 1000s (probably 10Ks) of owners of Form2 printers, while my conclusion is anecdotal (and as I said, that kind of data can be misleading), in my view the statistics indicate that there is no fundamental problem with resin tanks.

Let’s say FL ships 1000 trays/month. Let’s say that 5 of those trays fail like yours failed. That’s a 5/1000 or a 1/200 failure rate. (there has been nothing close to 5 failures being reported per month and FL’s ship rate on resin trays is likely greater than 1000/mo. So the actual “field failure rate” is probably a fair bit less than 1/200).

So perhaps as many as 1/2 of 1% of the users have seen a tank fail. Except you. You’ve seen 100% failure rate on multiple trays. That’s an anomaly that stands out like the proverbial “sore thumb”.

Nothing is 100% defect free, so some instances of failure are inevitable. But. If someone repeatedly does something and each time they try it their tank starts to leak, the anecdotal data indicates that the user’s result is statistically anomalous and that it is very likely due to something the user is doing. That’s because in order for the tanks to be defective twice in a row for the same user, given the number of tanks FL must be shipping, statistics demands that many many many other users should also have seen similar failures. But they haven’t.

What’s unique about these failures is the 3rd party resin. Maybe the tanks used to have more “operating margin” and so worked fine with this 3rd party resin, but now something has changed a little in the tank manufacturing process (we call this “process drift”) and the tanks being made now can no longer tolerate the 3rd party resin. A future production batch might work better again. (I think this is a likely explanation since it would also potentially explain why a very small number of FL users have recently reported similar failures with their tanks using FL resin).

It’s very likely the 3rd party resin that is at fault here, and FL is absolutely responding the correct way. If they changed their policy to provide warranty coverage when there is no clear indication they are at fault, they would very quickly deplete their “warranty reserves” providing service on printers they are not actually responsible for fixing. Maybe some of those cases are legitimate claims, but there’s no way for them to prove it without further expense and they can’t make an exception for one user’s case and not expect to be overwhelmed with other users demanding the same treatment.

Lastly, I want to say that my comments have nothing whatsoever to do with you being an Austrian (in fact, until you mentioned it above, I had made no assumptions about your physical location, in my mind you were just another FL user, or “JAFLU” for short). As mentioned above, I work in high-tech computing field. I have dealt with many European companies over the years and in my experience their behavior with respect to warranty claims from their customers is no different than US companies. Everyone learns the same things when they go to business school. If you manufacture a product you need to protect yourself against unjustified warranty claims. Business is business, doesn’t matter where the business or the customer is located.

The situation you find yourself in (and the feedback you’re getting from the user community, me included) has nothing to do with FL being a US company and/or you being a European user. It is exclusively in reaction to your asserting that FL owes you warranty service. They don’t, and it has nothing to do with where you live. I live in the US and if I called up FL and complained that a resin tank full of 3rd party Vorex resin started leaking all over my printer, I guarantee I would get the EXACT SAME response from FL that you got (= we’re sorry to hear that. Clean up your printer using our approved methods, and don’t use Vorex anymore. Call us back later if the problem occurs with an authorized FL resin).

I think the only real difference between you and me is that, having worked in high-techn and consumer electronics for decades, my expectations for how a manufacturer will respond to an issue like yours are more in line with standard business practices.

5 Likes
18

Thanks for your feedback Mr. Cohen!

Again - i have learned my lesson! I am a goldsmith since many years and i have a lot of very expensive machines in my shop. casting machines, polishing machines, cnc machines, galvanic machines and so on. But i have never had so much problem with any of them. To be honest i did not have ONE problem with most of them. Maybe i just have a bad form2 model or bad luck but if i had that many problems with all of my machines a production would be impossibe, nevertheless what reasons you tell me what is ok and what not. And when you read this forum there are A LOT of problems. And i had only SOME of them. In my opinion and also from some others, this is not ok. You and other users may tink different and really thats completely fine. I have my opinion and you have yours and mine is clearly that for sutch a product, for sutch a price, there should be not that many errors/bugs. And again i dont talk only about the resin problem! This whole package (for me) doesnt feel finished! Like i described why i feel as a beta tester!

Maybe it was my bad when i really wanted to compare this machine with a 30000USD DWS machine or with a 45000USD Solidscape. As i said. I have learned my lesson why some machines cost more and some cost less!

Take care and have a nice day!

Chris!

1 Like
19

It’s not really fair to compare anything that costs X to something that costs 10 times as much. You’re sort of complaining that a $20K Toyota Tercel doesn’t do everything a $200K Ferrari California T convertible does.

The FormLab printers have been extremely reliable for me. I own a Form1+ and a Form2 and if FL ever comes out with a Form3 I’ll probably give it serious consideration because I have been so satisfied with the performance of my existing machines. Used the way FL intended, the printers do exactly what FL says they will do.

I can’t explain your issues, but part of the problem as you yourself suggest might be that your expectations of how the Form2 would work compared to a machine costing 10x as much were too high. It’s a shame you’ve had a negative experience. IMO the F2 is really quite a lot of 3D SLA printer for what it costs to own and operate.

{EDIT} not intending to compare a F2 to a Toyota Tercel. It’s quite a bit more upscale than that.

20

Also–issues that people have posted on the forums are not a good indication of how good the machine actually is—people that have perfectly functioning printers are unlikely to post about how well their printer is working while people that do have issues are more likely to post.
Considering the amount of issues that people post here the printer seems to be pretty reliable. That’s actually one of the reasons I like the printer because they’ve done a good job of getting their printer to work with their resins. A user can get successful prints immediately whereas many other printers require a lot of testing before you get good results (if you ever get good prints at all)

1 Like