Hi there.
So finally I bought a new Form 2 Printer. It should arrive tomorrow or on Friday. With Form Wash and Cure.
I watched a lot of Videos and read a lot of Text. But I want to know if there are some very important points, to look for the beginning. I know the form 2 is like Plug and Play, but I want to know about maintenance stuff after the jobs, or like cleaning Plattform? How long should a build hang on the top to let the resin drops back from the Build in the tank? What kind of abrasive paper you use? 240? and what are your favorites CAD programs for free?
When a print is finished you can immediately take it and rinse/soak in IPA, there’s not much need for you to wait after printing, at most there would be only a couple drops of resin to come off, since the resin will go down the sides as it prints there would only be a little bit left on the very tip after printing.
It depends on what you are using the sandpaper for, if you’re talking about roughing up the build platform-I haven’t needed to do anything like that. For sanding a part after printing, it takes lots of different types of sandpaper for that, depending on the finish you’re going for.
I usually take the build platform off after a few minutes and uses the flat metal scrapper to get the extra resin from around the print and then scrape it back into the tank. I don’t know if you are a student, but if so you can used Fusion 360 CAD/CAM for free.
@Zachary_Brackin: Thank you for your answer. The Question was to sanding parts.
And on Preform side should I have a look at something? Or for the first prints only press the “automatic” button and print? I hope I can try it today
@waveformer Thanks for your answer. I think I will also let the build platform a few Minutes and scrap the rest off. And how long can a job stands in the machine? When I Start a Job at the Morning. 6 AM and its finishes at 11 AM and I come back from work at 17 PM it should be a problem? or its a thing to not care about? No I’m not a student. so I have only the FreeCAD Software until now
Regarding prints waiting in the printer : I often start prints on friday evening and remove them monday morning. It’s not an issue at all.
CAD : Fusion 360 is free for “hobbyists” as well and professionals if you don’t make more than X ammount of money per year. It’s also pretty cheap if you want to pay for it. Another powerful alternative is OnShape which is completely free but your models are public, and about a thousand bucks per year for a subscription which is an order of magnitude less than Solidworks.
Please don’t use FreeCAD it’s horrendous
Look as the numerous guides, instructions and white papers on Formlabs website. They should teach you how to orient the parts yourself. You should orient them manually, use the automatic support generation and check the supports manually and edit them if needed, this is the best way to get good prints. One-click print should not be used, it’s a bit of a gimmick and won’t help you to understand what you are doing.
There are quite a few threads like yours on the forums with great tips, on the top of my head :
Great guide by @rkagerer which is still mostly valid for the Form2
It’s not a simple one-click print. While it has the option to automatically orient the object and create supports it is not likely to produce ideal results.
You can usually get better results if you understand more about the object and orient it yourself
A few things about orientation:
-try to have it so that it uses as few supports as possible, and have it so that the more detailed parts are facing upward as much as possible.
-have it start at a small point and build up, this usually means you angle the part at around a 45-degree angle
-if you can’t get a good orientation, consider splitting the part into more pieces that will allow you to orient those pieces better
as far as supports go
-you usually need fewer supports than what it would automatically generate.
-try to place supports on areas that will be easy to sand afterwards
-make sure you have supports in places to keep the print stable while it prints, the part can flex when it goes through the process of lifting the print to do the next layer, so if it’s unstable then it will flex more and your layers will be misaligned.
