Getting that sinking feeling that the company is deciding to close their print system on the new Form 3’s. There is no mention of the system being open to 3rd party materials like the Form 2. If that’s the case the new Form 3’s will cost a fortune per part. Any news on this?
Since it uses the same resin cartridges as the form 2, you can just load an empty cartridge with 3rd party resin. I use 3rd party resins most of the time, but I have never bothered with open mode, I just save my empty cartridges.
The empty cartridge does not hang after 1L used? even if we filled it again ?
Is the Open Mode by settings not available any more on Form3?
Only by using a empty cartridge to fill in some 3rd party resin?
I can not find the Open Mode activation settings like the form2 had.
Maybe I am blind…
The company is struggling a bit that’s clear. The introduction of the Form 3 was a revenue enhancement play that is probably not paying off too well. They simply must have recurring revenue streams to keep going that means forcing users into their high margin resins. So open mode is toast even though they eluded to it being an open system. Its a tough industry for Formlabs, loads of competition. I’ve sold of all of my Form 2’s kind of done with them. The Fuse 1 debacle the larger format 3L not available, their all red flags.
The biggest problem is the mindset: " Im producing product for a lower margin industry because I’m impassioned about it" vs. “we’ll grow our company on the backs of users so we can go public and cash in.”
Its a sad state of affair. Formlabs will crater and be acquired by a competitor.
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Well, for sure it is clear that they want to make money with the resin.
But the market I need it mainly for is just calculated with a lower pricing for the resin (used Photon S in the past).
For my precise master models I need high quality resin and I am willing to pay the 150to 200 bugs but not for series of not necessariely accurate parts.
So is there a chance to use a standard Grey cartride, close its output and fill in the tank the own choice of material?
If I am following the ideas in this thread it is about simulating with the type of cartidge the kind of resin profile and then it is up to hide the resin usage.
Does somebody practice that?
Something like you want already exists and works for both the form 2 & 3: Universal Cartridge
It is a bit more complex than “close the output”.
Just fill it with the resin of choice, select the formlabs resin type and start your print.
There are currently no easier ways(you could fill an empty cartridge but it gets locked pretty quickly).
Formlabs did talk about open mode for the form 3 briefly a few moths ago so let’s hope they will introduce it when all bugs and other improvements are sorted out. Looking at their normal pace, I don’t expect anything functional the coming 6 months.
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Thank you very, very much!
Really cool!
You safed me!
This is not true @eaelec
NOT TRUE THEIRS SOMETHING IN FORMLABS RESIN THAT WILL STOP U JUST FILLING ONE OF THERE CARTRIDGES UP…THIS IS WRONG VERY WRONG INFORMATION PLEASE DONT LISTEN TO THIS OR U RISK BREAKING UR PRINTER.
Breaking your printer? What a joke how do you break the printer? I’ve been filling up carts with 3rd party material, How in the world would I break my printer. The material goes straight into the tray and is uv’d to hardness. How would this pretty simple process break the printer. What a goofy thing to say. The material touches NOTHING but the bottom of the tray.
ohhh easy 1 sec ill explain
Waiting
From what i gather since most people dont understand anything about printing ill start with the basics. Open mode does a couple things but the key changes is, (1) it turns off the wiper to clear out any small fails sitting on the bottom of the tray about to cause problems (2) it turns off the heater which is very nice to help solidify the resin between layers and (3) it turns off the self loading resin feature to make sure ur tray is always topped off. Now lets go threw how turning off any of these three is a problem. (1) not having a wiper wipe is very bad for multiple reasons (1) if any parts do fail the wiper will wipe way layers building up from the tray that should be on the build plate but are no longer building to the plate since they failed (2) any larger parts between the plate and tray that are floating around can cause huge damage if not moved befor the plate touches down. (2) not having a heater isnt the worst since some printers cant heat at all but some SLA resins do better with heat. some different resins need the extra heat to solidify at all so without a heater u can see how that leads to eventual problems for some users. and (3) the self loading isnt required but ur print will pause once it runs out or low, and my guess is that in open it wil try to print without any resin in the tray, thats a guess but since the feature is turned off to sense for resin in the first place im guessing this will most likly happen which is clearly also not good…NEVER FILL A FORMLABS cartridges with none formlabs resin, the Printer could try and scan ur resin for the viscosity and density of the off brand resin, some say Formlabs addes an inhouse chemical that other resins dont have so it can accuretly scan ur resin through a chemical not used by otheres., if u have a resin that cant be scanned properly u risk a malfunction and overflow. Maybe ur using a resin that works with the resin ur tricking the Form2 in thinking its using but from the knoldegs iv gathered the only true way to do this is with a Jale broken catriges that u can overwrite from Formlabs, WHY ARE CARTRIDGES SO CODED! SO U CANT DO THIS!!!, but Formlabs resin has a unneeded chemical that gets scanned for to check how full ur tray is. without this chemical or using a offbrand resin u really need to keep an eye on how things are working before u take ur eye off it…ill take back saying NEVER self load off brand resin into a Formlabs cartridges while not in Open becasue i cant confirm for sure if there is an added chemical in there resins. but from other user experinace doing the same thing ur doing and the strange complications they ran into this only makes sense…Think about it this way, what stopping u from doing the same think witht he Form3 since they blocked Open mode,.,oh i know pick me, the chemical!
The only reason Form 3 didnt drop with open mode supported is because they didnt want to support it and because more users are catching on to there 150$ L shit…More and more Formlabs users are realizing Highend better quality SLA resin is a joke fishing hard for more profit in a company struggling. They hoped the community wouldn’t notice or flame the Form3 for ditching open mode but thats what happend not surprisingly. Now they might addd it to the 3 when they truly didnt want to, to save there resin monopoly concept. They have no right controlling the resin u pump threw the printer however they are tricking u into beleaving there resins better or worth more or worth staying faithful to. I mean lets be honest, formlabs printers are about 30-50% overpriced as it is. the printers great and all but like theres alot of good printers out there especially now in early 2020 so to think u cant get he same quality in a much cheaper and same sized printer is very uninformed now.
sooooo,
@oberst3221 rebuttal?
Sorry, but some things you’re saying are not correct.
There is no special chemical component in formlabs resin that is not in others. The form 2 measures the dielectric of the liquid. The form 3 has a simple float.
There are a lot of people printing 3rd party resin with the form 2 in closed mode and with the form 3. No issue at all.
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Who’s this troll lol? Like they have embedded analytics for screening compounds in the resin…
Its not just Formlabs who try to link their own resins into their own design of printers, if we look at Stratasys, Envisiontech , Prodways and Carbon 3D its a common practice. However there are work arounds!!
With regards the €35 resins you talk about, its the old old fact - you get what you pay for. Its easy to create a material that cures when UV light is applied, however its extremely difficult to formulate a resin that has the desired mechanical properties and functionality after its cured…
A good example is a material known as CTFA (Cyclic Trimethylolpropane Formal Acrylate) It can be made into a photo polymerised material for only a few euros a kg. However its mechanical properties make it very limited for 3D prints.
Many of the cheap resins appearing for 3D printing contain chemicals that are very toxic and have often been discontinued by the 2D printing market due to their toxicity and the effect on the work force.
Then we agree that the casteble wax resin simply does not work? There is some solution to this problem? I just bought the Form3 and I want to sell it
Try Bluecast X5 resin till formlabs releases a decent castable resin. It’s been discussed on some of the formlabs facebook groups and burns out very clean.