Hello fellow engineers, tinkerers, hobbyists, business owners or who ever uses the Form 2!
I have a brand new Form 2 which I have printed about a total of 1 L and it works fantastic! I love this printer and it works great with the Form Wash and Form Cure. I use it for my side engineering business for creating prototypes for medical devices.
My client has now asked me to produce many of these units were my printer would be running 8.5 hours a day 5 days a week ( about 180 hours per month and about 3.2 litters per month) potentially for 6+ months . My question is has anybody had this kind of use on the Form 2 for a prolonged period of time( 2+ months)? and if so was the printer able to maintain print quality, did you have to replace the laser, send it in for calibration, or do any major repairs that took a considerable amount of time and money to keep the printer going? I am just trying to get all the information here as to what price per unit I need to charge to in order to make this worthwhile. I have already taken resin cost and build tray into account, I am just concerned with print quality after extensive use, and potential costly repairs or total printer replacement in order to continue production.
Thanks!!
I have 2 Form 2 Printers running production using over 4 liters of resin a month. The quality is fine. Now I use AWL resin and so my build plates and resin tanks last much longer. Most of my builds are 3-4 hours but I run multiples a day on both machines. Haven’t had any real issues with this setup once the Preform and Firmware issues were resolved.
Thank you for you quick response Walter! This is every helpful, and I really appreciate it. That sounds fantastic, I am curious to know how long you have been printing at this rate for? I am using the Dental SG bio-compatible resin which needs to have more or less pretty stringent tolerances, to fit patient’s anatomy. If you don’t mind me asking, I have never heard of AWL resin, would you mind telling me a little bit more info on this type of resin and your application? Thank you!
I’ve had a Form 2 for 2 years and a Form 1 before that. Bought the second Form 2 earlier this year. I’ve been running this way since then. You can see the HVAC products among others that I print with these machines at our website at https://www.rustystumps.com
I only use a Grey resin V2 for my materials as that fits the needs. Your resin might work differently. This ALW resin runs real clean. I also distill my own API as I find it to be cleaner than the commercial bulk that I buy. Parts come out really clean with no stickiness at all. Also far cheaper than paying to dispose of it.
I am an engineer for a conveyor company. I have used our Formlabs for many prototypes. I have 2 Form 2’s and did have a Form 1+. The 1+ had a resin tank crack that flooded the machine and it never ran again! Anyway, great for prototypes but parts are way to brittle for production parts. This chain was prototyped on the form 2’s. Had it completely designed before we made a mold. Saved a lot of time in the mold making process. https://spantechconveyors.com/products/pillowtop/ As for the machines, the Form 2’s run fine and I have had no problems with them. My dashboard is showing I have used over 21 liters since March of 2017. I think it is probably more because one of the printers did not always show up in the dashboard.
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