I had an old clearV4 tank and cartridge that I wanted to use up while printing some prototype designs. When I put those in my FORM3 the screen display does not light up normally, (display is very dim) but I still can see a warning that the tank has limited life.
It looks like “clear V4” is now “clear V4.1”. Should I not use that old tank and old cartridge?
The General Purpose V4.1 Resins were launched to bring some of the better aesthetics of the General Purpose V5 Resins to Form 3/3L users. While Formlabs does not officially recommend mixing V4 and V4.1 due to potential inconsistencies, in practice, if you’re transitioning an existing tank over, you could use up the bulk of the remaining V4 resin in the tank and then reprogram it for V4.1 as you switch over.
It should still print, but the first few parts may have some inconsistencies in appearance. For best results, we recommend fully cleaning out the tank before reprogramming and refilling with V4.1. That way, you’ll get the most predictable and reliable performance from the new resin formulation, but I totally understand if you are willing to have that transitional period in order to not waste the remaining V4 resin.
Slightly separate note, but still important to keep in mind, the V4 resins officially only have a 24 month shelf life (should be longer if it’s in the box unopened), but if the old V4 tank/cartridge is older than that, it might be worth just cleaning that out and switching over to V4.1 entirely and saving yourself some potential failed prints.
One of the nice things using clear resins is you can see if the tank gets damaged or is contaminated. I put that tank back in the printer and the display came on working fine so that first time it was very dim must have been a glitch.
Many years ago I printed some parts with clear resin. Now when using clear resin it seems to print much faster then the black V4 I was always using. I guess there was a printer update that increased the speed. Does it print faster because the laser can penetrate the resin better. Also would the post cure work better just because it’s clear?