I’ve been transitioning from V1 over to V2 on my 3L. TLDR is that I’ve been able to successfully consume my remaining V1 resin by “tricking” the printer in using V1 settings but with V2 resin.
This isn’t recommended by Formlabs but it works great, and allows me to use up the rest of my V1 resin without having to throw it away. It would be great if this was “officially” supported.
Now that I’m fully transitioned, I decided to switch to V2 print settings. However, I noticed some pretty big differences in estimated print time and resin consumption. So much so that I would prefer to continue printing with V1 settings or even continue printing with V1 resin itself (which is a problem since it’s being discontinued). See images below (confidential info removed).
Has anyone else noticed how much slower V2 prints and how much more resin it consumes? Is there a way to officially print V2 resin using V1 settings?
I haven’t noticed it running slower but all the prints weve been doing have been over 12 hrs anyways but, we are having way more success with the parts printing and not tearing during post processing. So we are slowly getting rid of the V1 job by job that are easier to post process. we run the V2 on the 3L
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Hm interesting, thanks for your experience. V1 definitely had a tendency to tear but I felt like I learned how to print crazy things without that happening…sounds like V2 has less of a learning curve which is great.
I used Elastic V1 for research in college and can also confirm that the tear strength is much better with V2. I’ve reached out internally to find out why resin consumption seems higher for V2 compared to V1. It’s most likely due to differences in the support structure generation algorithm and overall optimization for V2, but I’ll update here once I get a solid answer.
Print times may also be different as a result of optimizing for the newer material properties. I’d imagine there’s a reason for the changes in performance and efficiency with V2.
However, if you’d like more control over your prints, you can adjust settings using Print Settings Editor. You can even copy over the V1 settings to V2 and tweak the print settings to match what you want. While it’s technically not recommended, it’s an option if you’d like to experiment, especially since you’re already experienced with both materials. Just keep in mind that we wouldn’t be able to guarantee the print success rates or final material properties when using edited settings.
Let me know if you have any other questions, and I’ll keep you posted on the resin consumption details! Are there any specific things about how V1 printed, other than the lower resin consumption stats? Happy to find answers for you.
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Yes I suspect that’s why but just wanted to raise it (I have a support ticket open as well) in case this wasn’t on anyone’s radar internally as it seems a bit of a step backwards at first glance but understandable if that’s what’s required for the other additional benefits of the chemistry change.
Also, I remember looking at the datasheets previously and took another look now.
As I remembered, the tear strength of V2 is actually slightly worse than V1 in its post cured state and around the same in the green state. The major difference seems to be stress and elongation of V2 in its green state is different than V1, which I suspect is why it doesn’t tear as easily if one were to remove supports before curing (which is the best way to do it). Tensile strength seems to be a little higher too but marginal.
Don’t mean to be pedantic here, but just want to make sure we’re all on the same page (unless the datasheets are wrong haha) 
Understood about the print settings editor. I haven’t played around with it too much, but I presume it won’t necessarily change the way supports are generated and thus might not solve the problem of increased print time + material consumption. Is that a correct assumption?
I just wanted to comment back on this thread for anyone who might be interested.
I definitely notice the improved support removal on Elastic V2. With some very sensitive anatomy models I was able to peel supports off much more aggressively than before, and the support nubs left over were much smaller than previously with V1.
So while V2 seems to print slower and also consume more resin, one could argue that it’s better than having complex, thin walled geometry tear during post processing
The comparison of mech properties on the datasheet is interesting though…as many people anecdotally say V2 has higher tear strength but the numbers contradict that.
Now if you guys can just make it so support bits don’t stick to the model during removal, that would be amazing 
