Cheap printer vs Form 3

Hi everybody, my initial experience with my Form 3 so far has not been pleasant for say the least, because of the Wax Resin, i was using, what made me look for other options, and found cheaper printers like Elegoo or Anycubic that seem to do a great job at a fraction of the cost, can anybody tell me if the prints made with Form3 are really that superior, and if it´s really worth the price difference, i print jewelry mainly.
Thanks

To be frank, if you like the printer(s) you mentioned and the prints are acceptable for your usage, then go with what you like, especially if it’s more affordable for you. If the Form3 didn’t work for you, then it is certainly understandable that you move on to another solution that is a better fit. We have been with Formlabs since Form 1 and now we are on the Form3 printer and we are always happy with the prints. The machine prints money, especially if you are in the jewelry business, so a minor savings on the printer or consumables is really a minimal issue for us.

Thank for the answer, i haven´t personally seen the prints from the cheaper printers, only from what i see in the reviews on Youtube, i bought the Form 3 because it seemed to me it was a good option, and i didn´t really looked other printers, as i mention the problem was while casting the Wax resin, do you use it? or use other resin? And abusing you, if you use the purple resin, there is a tip or tips you can share?
Thank again.

If just for jewelry level job, then buy those cheap LED printers as you mentioned. Try the Phrozen 4k screen one. It will be ideal for jewelry job.

Use the 3rd party slicing software like Chitu Box also.

The only thing you need to pay the same is to get a good wax resin. There are so many on the market and you can find the setting to run any of those printers.

Ciao

We used a Photon before getting the Form 3. There is no question that the resin quality, build quality and convenience of the Form 3 is far better. The Photon is definitely cheaper to operate from a materials perspective, but not from a time perspective. The software is not as nice as PreForm. We had quite a few failed prints too. The FEP membrane at the bottom of the tank on the Photon is a major hassle to change too., and you will change it often as prints will cling to it and cause it to pop.

I’ve heard of people having good luck with the Photon, but with something like a 90% print success rate on the Form 3 I would never go back. My time is not worth wasting it fiddling with a cheap resin printer.

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I work in modeling, 99.9% of Photon owners are in the amateurish side, professionals use Form or higher 3d printers, the reason is obvious.

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If anyone has used both a Form3 and a Prusa SL1 printer for functional prints, can you compare the results from both?

I’m not usually critical in these forums but that figure seems contrived, and rather than saying “it’s obvious”, it might be helpful to point out specific reasons not yet mentioned for those to whom it’s not as obvious.

New to the whole 3D printing gig here, but for our purposes, which is proto-typing small plastic parts with intricate detail, it was all about resolution.

If I could have found a printer with 25micron layer resolution for less I would have considered it.

The other factor was my desire to get a resin printer “system” that would eliminate variables and maximize the probability of successful prints and repeatable results.

So far, we are not disappointed with the Form 3.

As far as the cost, we run a profitable business and our time is money, and dropping $5k on the complete Form setup was a low dollar proposition compared to any of the other commercial/industrial printers we looked at.

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Personally test. The Nova3D print in 35um layer thickness 100% destroy my Form 3 printed in 25um.

The xy resolution of Nova3D Bene 4 Mono is 47um.

I don’t know why.

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Got to remember Formlabs 25nm printing is complete garbage so once you compare 50nm printers there is some stiff competition without the cost. The actual NOVA printer hardware cost about the same as two liters of Form Resin. Its crazy how cheap and competitive in quality these are to Formlabs.

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What I hear some people say is they bought a Form3 for 25nm but after finding the problems are happy with 50nm. Fair enough. If I knew I could work with 50nm maybe I’d be tempted to promote a printer with a failed function I`m unlikely to use.

Formlabs have told me they know about the 25nm problems. They dont even offer 25nm in the BETA MODE because they are still working to improve 50nm etc.

not to mention the coming 4K LCD printers.

I don’t think there is any chance for Formlabs in the small item printing area.

So please school me about From 3 and 25micron failure?

I’ve selected 25micron for several prints… I get a little warning message that says “are you really sure you want 25micron”, which I ignore and then print away.

What is the failure?

Hello , the prints im 25micron in Beta version are good but the surface on the support side is a joke for a 4k € machine .
no sharpness , all details look like washed all is a little bit round on the edges.
Please do not say that is normal by resin printers , the support side is always the not so beautiful side , the form 2 has this problem not.

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