Form 1 vs Form 2 for commercial

General Discussion
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First of all I don’t agree with the statement above. If more people defect to 3rd party resin suppliers, FormLabs will most likely be forced to bring their resin prices back in line with the rest of the market, as they are currently overpriced.

But that is not the only reason why some of us, especially the Form 1+ users, are looking for alternatives to the FormLabs resins, a big reason is that, with every new iteration they make of an existing resin, it further leaves the Form 1 behind. I’m not longer using FormLabs resins primarily because they are no longer compatible with my printer. I used to be able to make great prints with Grey v2, and V1, with White v1 and Black v1, but when they introduced the v3 and V2 black (and the newer iterations), I’ve had nothing but problems. The only resin I can still use from Formlabs is the Clear v2.

While FormLabs insists the new resins are compatible, the reality is that they tweak them to print well on a Form 2, and the Form 1 is nothing but an afterthought.

So when a 3rd party resin came along that offered me the same print quality as I had before, that works with my printer, AND it’s cheaper, you bet I’m going to support them.

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I think that’s a more than valid reason to use third party resins.
Its the primary reason why I suggested the principle concern over which printer to buy is future support of the platform.

But I disagree that formlabs resins are overpriced… try buying a liter of Connex resin…
3rd party resin makers are not having to support R&D for a high quality printer. They are not having to provide support services and replace wonky printers when things at the factory go awry.

3rd party resin makers are making as much profit as Formlabs- they just aren’t making the machines and the parts, nor doing the advertising, nor constantly upgrading the software and firmware. Which are all dead costs.

And, once again… if you are already having issues with the form 1 no longer being supported- where will the rest of us using form2s be if Formlabs goes entirely under?

If 3rd party resins actually offer you a better result for your application… or like you say, the company no longer supports firmware to keep your older machine current with new resin formulations… I support that.

I am not an absolutist in any way, shape or form.

but folks complaining that formlabs resins are overpriced are simply and demonstrably wrong when you factor in what their company actually does.

when i bought the printer- I sat down and did a cost analysis so that I could determine how much to charge for prints. I had to guess about the service life of the machine overall, approximate the cost of tanks, platforms, IPA, paper towels, filter cartridges, and the fan and other equipment i installed along with the printer… and divide all of that into the average number of hours I expect to run the Form 2 over that time period.

Because TIME printing is closely correlated with volume of resin, and that higher res printing uses no more resin, but doubles actual machine run hours… I could come up with a pricing factor that pretty much folded in the cost of resin based upon print time estimates alone.

Crunching those number for Formlabs resin… versus the cheapest resin I can find online, yields of difference of only 5% in price per part…

That is… all things being equal… Cheaper resin means I can either charge my client the same amount and make 3% more profit.

OR- I can charge my client 5% less, and make the same profit…

Or I can be happy making a 30% profit on printing while helping formlabs make a profit, too, and help ensure they can keep supporting equipment I make money on either way.

5% is NOT going cost me any clients- because even at that I am more affordable than any service bureau.
so its an easy choice- Formlabs resins give me full feature support and make the form2 a more hassle free appliance.

Because there WILL be people who are hobbiest’s for whom the cost of resin is unrecoverable… or like you who are running a machine incompatible with the newer formlabs resins… or who need 3rd party resin because of its unique properties formlabs resin do not offer… it is even more important that those of us for whom the formlabs resins work support the company that makes the machine on which we rely.

1 Like
23

In my experience with both, the Form2 produces better results, the laser spot is a bit smaller which will produce slightly sharper details, but on top of that things like the resin heating and the layer separation method also improve results. Another big thing is that I don’t have to dust the Form2.

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I never felt the need to heat the tank, and I personally think the wiper is a liability. Maybe the heater is required for the non-standard resins, but I never needed it on standard resins.

I don’t have a Form 2, but i have seen examples printed from both, of highly detailed models, and frankly I can’t tell the difference.

As for dusting, I found that if you have a clean mirror to start with, and you keep the tray and lid on, it doesn’t really get dusty. Besides, dust on the big mirror is not as big a problem, as dust on the little mirror and the galvos. In my case I check the main mirror every few tray swap, but found that I only need to dust it off, once every six months or so.

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The heat helps keep the resin at a temperature where it’s less viscous, allowing the resin to move more helps reduce detail loss from indirect curing since the resin doesn’t stay in the same place so much. The wiper also helps keep the resin mixed and exposes the coating on the bottom to oxygen which helps the print not to stick to the bottom as much, with less force on the print it helps maintain quality better.
As far as detail goes, I had a noticeable difference when I switched to the Form2, the volume made a big difference for me though as well. Some people have said that dusting the mirrors can eventually cause damage to them so the ongoing need to dust them may be a problem more than just the hassle of having to do that.

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So considering all these features that are “needed” to insure a successful print, it’s a real miracle the Form 1+ managed to print anything in the first place, isn’t it.

The Form 1+ doesn’t have a heater, yet it seems to be able to print just fine (BTW, if the resin needs to be less viscous to print, why doesn’t FormLabs make it less viscous to start with?).

It doesn’t have a wiper, true, but I do have a $2 spatula that I can mix and stir the resin with before each print, and that seems to be good enough, e3ven for very long prints (12hours+). And if I spill the resin into the printer while stirring it, it’s my fault, not the printer’s.

And yes, you are right, the mirrors are very delicate since the reflective coating is on top, rather than under the glass, but if you’re careful and don’t use any weird cleaning solutions they’ll last a good long time.

Bottom line is that, if you want to, you can justify anything, good or bad. For me, the Form 1+ does a fine job. MAYBE, the Form 2 could do a better job if it wasn’t hampered by these gremlins that seem to be so prevalent. If I was shopping for a printer here, and actually read all the horror stories, I would really look elsewhere.

It’s kind of like the difference between a Mercedes and a Toyota. They will both get you from A to B, and the Mercedes promises to get you there in style & luxury, but when it starts having problems, it sometimes becomes unusable and not worth the trouble. The Toyoto on the other hand, just keep plodding along.

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It’s not a situation where you can’t get prints without those features, but they were new things that were designed to improve the quality of the print.

As far as reliability, I don’t think there’s been a significant amount of issues more than the previous printers. Plus, you can’t judge overall issues just from forum posts where people post only when they have problems.