Many thanks for the input. Glad, well not really , that it appears to be a common issue. Actually more helpful and responsive than support staff. It appears I get a little email from them every two days after I respond to their email. I do not know why they cannot correct this issue. And for me I just really want to send the machine back and start afresh. I cannot even do this…They said they would send me a new tank…so we could continually test the machine, over a week ago …it has yet to arrive. I am still waiting so I can do this. Now I have a non functional piece of equipment just sitting here. This is not a support team, how pitiful.
@Hrvoje, that’s a good suggestion, and something we’ve discussed before. I’ll make sure that your request is passed on. That’s a nice feature.
@Lawrence, I apologize that it’s taken some time for your issues to be resolved. The optics in the Form 1 are sensitive and it can be somewhat time-consuming to diagnose the specific issue at hand. I apologize that it’s taken so long in your particular case – we’re redoubling our efforts to make sure that you’ll get a timely response to your questions. If the ultimate solution required replacing your machine, we’ll make sure that happens.
BOA TARDE PESSOAL, ESTOU TENDO O MESMO PROBLEMA QUE O MARKUS, OS MEUS PROTOTIPOS ESTÃO SENDO DANIFICADOS DA MESMA FORMA JÁ EXISTE UMA RESPOSTA PARA O ERRO ??? AGUARDO UMA POSIÇÃO POR GENTLEZA.
Here are my failures. One of them shows all of the failures in a bunch, the other ones are failure-wise a bit more zoomed in. Everything is printed with 0.1mm layer thickness with the appropriate color settings (grey, transparent).
It can be seen that the print starts in a perfect condition and than it’s just starting to fail somewhere. The interesting thing are the two parts which contain two solids that print out parallel to each other. One solid (let’s call it the tube) starts to fail, the other solid (let’s call it the box) continues printing. It actually does not matter if the object is hollow (silver sprayed print) or solid (transparent print).
This lead me to the conclusion that the resin tank wearing happens (also) within larger prints and the prints start to fail. The tubes have a larger cross section and are therefore “wearing” the resin tank more than the boxes which have a smaller cross section.
I think it can be predicted when the print starts to fail. After a certain print time, the resin tank starts to get “sticky”. I have noticed that the tank starts to stick to the printed part and does not move down smoothly. It wants to move down, gets stuck for a fraction of a second and then “jumps” down. First I thought there is a failure in the printer mechanism that moves the tank up and down, but when I moved the next print to an “unspoiled” part of the tank this staccato disappeared.
This method is not very scientific and costs time and resin, but at least the user can “predict” that the print will start to fail and can start to pray that the resin tank will have enough good will to finish the print without a failure.
I hope this will help somebody out there to reduce frustrations and the Formlabs team to bug track the resin tank. Obviously the resin tank is THE weak point of this marvelous printer.
