I kept getting a cartridge error, so I pulled the cartridge out to inspect the bite valve, and sure enough the cartridge seems empty. According to Dashboard I have consumed a total of 0.4L of the 1L cartridge. I can understand this is inexact, but a factor of >2 seems more inexact than I would expect. Is there something I am missing?
I wonder if it doesn’t include rafts and supports? Anyway, I downloaded the .csv file from Dashboard, and it comes out to 456ml consumed.
Hi,
There was an error in the firmware which was detecting resin level in tank and like result for each print the printer was pouring much more resin than needed inside the tank. So you really consumed 0.4l resin and the remaining 0.6l is inside the tank - can you check that in idle state the resin is lifting the level sensor (it’s on the left side, float sensor ).
The solution is (while your cartridge is empty):
- Update the firmware with the latest one
- When you start printing and you get the error - insert a piece of wood or a book (15-25mm thick) under the right side of the printer to allow the resin to flow against the level sensor on left side. Wait 1 minute and press Retry button. - printer should start working just as the tank was filled. Once you get message that tank is filled - remove the wood/book from the right side. Like result you can consume big amount of the resin in the printer tank while cartridge is absolutely empty.
In case there is still some resin in the printer and you’d like to use the excessive resin in the tank - close the valve on top side of the cartridge before doing 1 and 2
In short - Form2 and Form3 printers measure the quantity of the resin inside the tank with float level sensor, it takes some time for the resin to settle down and lift the level sensor, a glitch in the old firmware decides that it needs more resin and like result you finish with more resin in the tank and empty cartridge. A small tip of tilting the printer while pouring the resin can help to use the excessive resin in the tank.
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Thanks, I woke up in the middle of the night last night and realized - oh, of course it’s in the tank. I could try using this “leveling” trick, but I have another cartridge on the way so I’ll probably just wait. Still, it seems like the SW should allow some kind of “override” if you want to just consume what’s in the tank. Otherwise, there will always be some wasted resin held “in inventory”.
Hi,
There is one another possibility - the resin tank was not filled with 1 liter of resin. Here is my case - I bought my Form3 printer just before new year with two cartridges and started intensively printing after 10th of January this year. Mainly I’m printing one type of detail which is about 14g in weight and with supports comes to 23 g, already printed about 36 of them and on 29 or 30 Jan I replaced the cartridge with the second one (this is what should be expected). There was still some resin in the tank when cartridge was empty and with the tilting trick I was able to print few more details with the excessive resin in the tank left by the firmware glitch I described before. Now the interesting part - on 1 Feb I started printing a new batch of details and I got a message that the resin cartridge was empty, surprisingly it was really empty (the cartridge weight was 370 g !). It’s obvious that the resin in the cartridge was not 1000 ml - with first cartridge I managed to print 40 details with 1 liter and some resin left in the tank, now I printed like 8 details and the cartridge is empty (despite that the tank was prefilled with resin!). Already filed a complaint about this issue - my guess is that they inserted in my package a semi filled cartridge or cartridge was not filled to 1000ml in the factory. As resin is quite expensive I’ll try to chase this thing to the end.
I would suggest you to measure the weight of all details you already printed or if you registered the printer on Dashboard you can take a look at the list of the prints you did. In the resin tank you should not have more than 200 ml of resin. If the calculations of total used resin + residual tank resin (<200ml) doesn’t show something close to 1000 ml maybe you have similar issue with semi filled cartridge and you can also file a complaint. In case if it matters the batch number of the cartridge with semi filled resin (printed on label placed close to the cartridge nozzle) is WHITE 20190828KC, my first cartridge which was OK was from the same batch.
Personally from now on I’ll measure the weight of all cartridges I buy and see if they show 1400g (resin + cartridge + wrapping foil), I recommend you also to do this.
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I have checked all my prints (raft and supports included), since I started using my form 3. The usage of resin according to dashboard is 2.5 liters, assuming there is still 0.5 liter in the tank the real usage is 3.250 liters. The dashboard usage assumption is therefore 30% off… That is quite a lot. Although I have not weight my cartridges, from my feel they where all full and I do not think the problem is in the volume of resin in the cartridge. It would not surprise me if “we” loose the 30% of resin in the process of cleaning the prints. Anyways I have changed my costprice calculation for now and I will monitor my resin usage sharply.
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