I received mine on Thursday. First print failed badly. Already sent an email to support.
I believe with mine it has to do with laser alignment. It’s also a bugger to get level but i have seemed to have fixed that. I asked ALLOn Scale here since he’s had the most success. I filled the resin tank with a gray resin manually first before the cartridges dumped there’s into the tank. Saved a ton of time and it seems to be functioning normally. Mine showed up and is put together very well with nothing out of wack that way.
I updated to the latest firmware before attempting a print at all. But again it did not turn out well. I moved to a smaller print and let one side print it and it turned out good. Machine is basically a full beta unit and needs some major work to become a full time workhorse.
Hi Steven_Brower.
Never had a screen failure but, at least on mine, I can open the door anytime (tank filling, printing, etc) and nothing stops as it does on a Form 3 so you’re not alone there.
Regarding the door I think I was one of the lucky ones that had it working without any issue or bents so it seems that most of us can share a few bugs but that doesn’t mean others have it… it’s kind of an annoying randomness for some reason.
But back to the screen, if the printer didn’t “crash” then I would guess (without any technical expertise) that some cable that makes the screen work might be loose? If it crashed then it could be a software / firmware bug but it didn’t.
Do let us know what support says because one of these days (knock on wood) one of us may share the same
Hi Titon.
Seems like the issue BILLUCAS is having, no? Somehow one of the lasers is not right.
Manually filling the tank is great to avoid wasting a full hour or close. The only problem with that is that the printer will think the cartridge is full when it isn’t BUT, with the Form 3L, you won’t have any issues at the moment because it can’t even calculate that right for some reason. I had a print stalled for hours because it was attempting to fill the tank mid-print and while it said that each of the 2 cartridges was half full both were empty. Not even a warning, just a “let’s try to fill the tank” loop.
Welcome to the beta nightmare!
The resin seems to be reading correctly. I pulled the cartridges out of the machine and from what i can tell it seems to be accurate. Maybe as time goes on it will deviate…don’t know. I have no had the black screen happen. Have not idea what that entails. My machine seems to be well constructed. Everything fit’s as stated. Door closes and opens nicely and there is nothing out of place. As we all know the machine itself is the size of a freaking oven. Even though it is packaged nicely it get’s jarred quite a bit in transport. I am hoping that the lasers on mine are just misaligned and tech support can help that get resolved. One side of my print came out great, other side dropped badly. If i upload a smaller print to either side of the 3L seamline it prints fine. Although i still do not like standard grey at all.
I will say though with the cartridge errors people are getting when i first start preform, the machine before it connects to preform, does show the cartridges empty. Take’s about 20 seconds or so before they show properly. Which is weird.
This is definitely more Beta machine than expected. Some have had great success with it and with any new machine i understand there will be a learning curve. That being said when you shell out the type of money it requires to obtain this unit it should be more road ready than it is. I am patient and have my Form2 yet so i can hope for a resolution to this soon.
I have the same issue, like I tried to describe in previous replies.
Yes, like you are saying; more Beta machine than expected.
I completely agree with your statements. We are hoping having some help and improvements soon.
I am in discussion with Formlabs support. I am sure they will help us.
I spoke with support today and they are sending me out 2 new tanks and resin to see if that fixes my issue. As some have stated there seems to be issues with the 3L tanks. When i move the print off center i print fine.
@Eks Your last statement is resonating with me so badly I had to publically agree.
We just bought two 3L’s and every print has failed out of the box with this beta machine. We have only started printing last week and found out our LPUs have issues and are now stuck trying to repair a brand new machine.
Good. I had the same discussion with FL support today! They will send me the exactly the same thing soon. They gave me a “Form 3L Test Print” to try. In order to narrow down the source of the issue.
I have asked them a lot of questions too in my last email. I am waiting a reply.
O my, really feel for you guy’s. After going through the “beta nightmare” on Form 3 and the delay with 3L with a lot of patience I was so happy receiving the 3L. Ours printed straight out of the box and I still have a 100% succes rate with it on Grey V4 only. I have one tiny spot in the tank that causes the print defect you guys seem to have on a larger area. In my case it creates a tiny hole in the print in vertical direction if you manage to place your print exactly there. I also received two new tanks for this but haven’t bothered swapping it yet.
Our printer came with slightly twisted door which wasn’t a very impressive thing to see from a brand new printer. Bending it back (official FL solution) helped and its now fine. Our printer was very level sensitive at the beginning. Every print start it said the printer was not level. I kept adjusting it and seems after a while I found a sweet spot, or FL changed something in the firmware, anyway it’s fine now. I also had the cartridge level issue but only on the first two. After that it’s fine and the estimates are pretty good now.
So at the moment, appart from the one spot in the tank I have no issues with the 3L. Its what I expected and needed for the business. Hope 50 micron will be available soon.
On a positive note yesterday I tried a 14 hour print using the Model resin and it came out flawless just as with a Form 3.
Removing the rafts from the build plate was a bit hard but not as hard as my infernal experience with the White resin.
An odd thing is that the Model resin prints at 50 (and only 50) instead of the usual 100. This obviously contributed to the print being much longer than usual and perhaps it also helped in making the result perfect. All details were there and all of the 14 parts I threw on the bike plate came out without any issue whatsoever.
I know I shouldn’t be so excited with a simple “It works as it should” but when it comes to the 3L this is a reason to celebrate, unfortunately.
Please keep in mind that while this worked for me it may work differently for others but, so far, it was the best (actually perfect) print I got from the 3L.
Yes it is. I have printed this file today. Some features are not printed on 2 parts ( Front LPU zone again).
The big long part is deformed in the region printed by the Front LPU. I will have to filter resin again. Send pictures to FL.
Good to know that some of you are printing good. I think it depends on the resin type, from what I understand.
As far as we’ve seen, resin type plays an important part in getting a good print with the 3L. You got issues with black and me with white so the standard ones (or those two at least) seem like a fail at the moment.
We just throwing ideas because we know nothing and we can only compare our good and bad experiences.
Did support tell you anything about the LPU issue (besides trying the test print)?
Nothing specific about the FRONT LPU for now. Maybe after I send pictures of this Print test.
They think I have a defect tank and cartridge. After replacement and test printing, support will possibly see the problem I am having.
I would be curious that some of you try to print with Tough 2000.
There is a Preform update:
Form 3L
Compatible with firmware version 1.4.6 and later
Improved support for high DPI displays on Windows
Various bug fixes
Yesterday, I have printed with clear resin. One part by the Front LPU and one from the Rear LPU.
Both parts are successfully printed. I had no issue removing them from the build platform.
And like Eks says, the Japanese tool is my new favorite one.
The only problem occured in this printing case was that each time the build platform goes up,
it is beeping a sound, and we see on touch screen it’s indicated " tank removed", then " tank inserted".
During each layers…
This is really anoying. It’s like the sensor is not working well with some tanks.
So, in summary, my big problem is still with Tough 2000 versus FRONT LPU…
I will see if it’s a tank problem when I will swap it. I wrote this in case you are experiencing the same problems.
So the issues from the form 2 are still present on the 3L.
From what i know this is electronics related, in my case if I move the wiper or the tank doing the peeling manually the tank can be disconnected, after repeating the operation it is reconnected sometimes, also removing the cartridge causes the same random tank is not present behavior.
The form 3 we own needed to be swapped 3 times due to several issues.
Today we have a new firmware update for the 3L that does nothing substantial:
Compatible with PreForm 3.14.0 and later
Prolonged idle state now puts the screen display to sleep
Added on-screen instructions for manually filling a resin tank
Various bug fixes
Let’s just hope that the usual “Various bug fixes” do have something and not like PreForm 3.15.0 that a day later had 3.15.1 due to a windows install issue that also had “Various bug fixes”. I guess that’s just the default text to say “We may have fixed something, can’t remember.”
We have problems too, mainly with the back LPU and Tough 2k. The Form 3L is unusable for us currently, we’ll try the second exchange tank, but I still suspect the LPU…
I am supposed to be receiving my replacement tanks today along with resin they sent as well.
I have been able to print on either side of the laser seamline but have not attempted again to print fully across the seamline since the first print failed so badly. As all on scale has said i did seem to finally find a sweet spot when it comes to leveling this beast. I have not had the tank connect disconnect issue and my machine is very nicely put together. I am hoping once i switch the tank that a lot of my issue will go away. I do know several people that are successfully printing with the unit so it’s not fully a lost cause but again frustrating that something of this value is not up to par. I have my form 2 which still is working fantastic but there’s a reason we all purchased the 3L and it was for the larger build volume. If i cannot use the full bed of the printer it’s no better than my form 2.
