With the launch of the Form 3 we are excited to introduce Low Force Stereolithography technology so you can fabricate parts in-house with incredible quality. Lower forces on parts leads to incredible surface finish, higher precision and a platform for cutting-edge materials development. However, some of our resins are not yet validated for production on the Form 3.
Rigid, Elastic and Grey Pro are incompatible with the current Form 3 Resin Tank and so they cannot be printed on the Form 3 at this time. We are committed to developing a solution to ensure compatibility between these three resins and Form 3 tanks, but currently do not have one that meets our standards.
We know that setbacks like this can disrupt your workflow and we apologize for any inconvenience this causes. We do not have an established timeline for when these resins will become available for the Form 3. We will let everyone know as quickly as possible when that changes.
If you are looking to emulate the material properties of these resins, please consider the following alternatives:
Unavailable Resin → Alternative Suggested Resin
Grey Pro → Tough
Elastic → Flexible
Rigid → Standard (Note: Standard has less rigidity)
You can also learn more about our library of Engineering Resins on our website, here.
Just to be clear, the performance of these resins on the Form 2 are not affected at all, and will continue to print at the high quality you’ve come to expect from our materials.
Again, we apologize for this delay in resin availability for your Form 3. We’ll continue to work hard to remedy this situation as efficiently as possible.
Disappointing, Grey Pro & Rigid are my two favorite materials, I was looking forward to their release especially as I don’t keep many cartridges of standard materials around. Oh well, hope they figure out a tank soon.
Wow, that is a pretty big setback! Rigid is our number one resin at the moment as it is strong and very accurate. Standard resin is nice, but just doesn’t do the job fully. I guess we have to stick with the Form 2 for now and the new printer will catch dust.
Rigid and Grey Pro are pretty much the only resins ( together with Durable ) that give the level of accuracy and most importantly dimensional stability in time required for professional / industrial end users.
Having a lack of support on these resins is a huge setback for a printer that is claimed high and loud to be designed for professionals.
Tough is horrible and completely irrelevant for industrial use. It changes physical characteristics so much and so fast. It warps within days ( depending on the shape printed ).
Graphene charged resin are the next generation materials and we have had very nice results making our own mix and printing on the Form 2/ LT tanks. But these need the cyanide based binder that Grey Pro and Tough use…
When Formlab announced future new generation materials coming with Form 3, I thought that they were talking about graphene charged materials. So it looks like we will have to stick to our in-house made mix for now and stay with the Form 2 for longer than expected.
exactly why I will not take a major loss on selling my form2 machines. I knew this would happen and would rather have a back up while this form3 sits in the box lol. Now if only my warranty could start the first time I put in a resin tank LOL. FL never fails to surprise…
Oliver would you mind sharing more info and/or links on this graphene charging stuff? Understand if not possible for IP reasons but sounds very interesting! I’m always on the lookout for higher performing materials to emulate the high performance engineering resins we do production molding with.
@DKirch I’ve pre-ordered a 3L for the very specific reason of being able to create larger elastic parts. Is there any timescale as to when this might be possible or have a wasted my money?
When you say that it doesn’t meet the standards; does this mean that the trays just don’t last as long, because I could probably live with that?
Thanks
How is this only being caught (or at least made public) at this point in time? Let me be clear, I would not have ordered a Form 3 if I knew it couldn’t print Rigid and Elastic (the two most special and useful resins for our company). This is very disappointing.
I have to agree with this. I don’t see how this wasn’t known before they started shipping. I’m trying hard to not lose my positive opinion of FormLabs as a company.
Well, you can do your own experiment using Grey pro and charging it with a bit of graphene powder. You can’t add too much of powder or it would thicken it fast, but 5% charge will give you a good idea of what it does to the material.
@DKirch I would also like to know what you mean by the resins are not compatible. Do they outright fail? Do they slowly damage the film used with the new tank setup? Do they work but have layer issues?
Like others, I’m also pretty disappointed that this wasn’t tested beforehand…I was also hoping to be able to print more Elastic parts without worrying about the shear forces encountered during the side peels.
@DKirch; I need to use durable. As others have said, Tough is a PITA and isn’t a lateral switch, more like two steps back. Can you elaborate as has been asked about what fails and how quickly it happens.
Thanks. If the worst of it is reduced tank life, this may be a moot issue depending on how much it shortens the usability by. Anything that can result in a resin leak is a non starter. Failure of prints is also.
We are joining the group of disappointed users. Your work is still in process of development, testing, certifying, but some things should never happen… We mainly print with rigid and in march 2019 we received your offer to pay 100% in advance for Form 3 and get 500€ discount. It looked as a great opportunity and we took the chance. Since march/april there is no trace of that printer (october 2019) and now (only now!!!) you give a notice that some materials are not compatible with it? Please do your best to make it happen ASAP, you keep our hands tied that way… with such a great community, so much feedback, this shouldn’t happen =(
Ouch. I’ve got to say I’m not impressed. I think FormLabs as a company should reconsider their handling of product releases, a “work it out as you go” is simply not appropriate for a professional environment. For now we have our Form 2’s for those resins, but those will inevitably fail sometime as the laser degrades…
We still value very much that we have affordable, and comparably hassle-free SLA 3D printing with very responsive customer support (and I really like the Form 3 engineering), but I think it would be better to wait with an announcement a bit longer and then have it all ready for prime time…
@DKirch, Could you try and get us an answer here please? this is a serious problem for several of your customers. I need to know if I should be cancelling my order. We just need to know what is the failure mode so we can decide if it is a showstopper or not. Thanks.