I received an email campaign from Form Labs today, touting the Form 3’s ability to make smoother, finer jewelry prints. I’m curious if other jewelers agree.
The link specifically mentions 25 micron resolution on the Form 3, but says nothing about the current (Oct 2019) beta state of Preform and firmware required to print at that resolution.
Are you finding the Form 3 prints acceptable quality Castable Wax at 25 microns for your casting needs?
My testing is ongoing, but we are still printing all of our production pieces on the Form 2. Thoughts?
I’d be curious to hear from jewelers as well. My impression is they’re still working on ironing out some issues (see Form 3 vs. Form 2 Faceoff!) but I might be wrong.
From what I gather from the forums, I’d stay away from the Form 3 for that application - at least for now. I don’t have any personal experience with printing jewelry cast patterns, but what I’ve seen in terms of banding in other resins would make me think twice before getting a Form 3 for small, detailed models of any kind.
Also the Formlabs Jewelry resins don’t really seem to be the best ones available, to put it in kind words…
Banding is a surprisingly bad problem with the Preform 25 micron Beta on the Form 3, and I get much cleaner casts and less complicated burnout schedules with BlueCast than with any of the Form Labs Castable resins released thus far.
Notes on the Formlabs 3 printer print jewelry in castable resin.
The jewelry print surfaces at the supports are of poor quality. This problem is particularly visible in geometric forms, e.g. rings (loss of shape), flattened, wavy surface.
You cannot print horizontally because corrugations form on the edges. surface with defect. This is a big problem with the shape.
In addition, the 25 micron print accuracy is really good! For the resolution of a big plus from the jeweler.
The experimental preform 3.1.2 gives the wrong print time. Lowers him by 50%.
The latest preform 3.4.2 prints estimated time compatible with the print time, but jewelry prints do not hold dimensions from .stl files. Prints are thicker by about 10% from the initial ones.
The problem with surface errors at supports requires a solution. I read in the forum, the surface problem also applies to other Form 3 projects.