Just thought I would post this here…I seem to either know what I’m doing…or just have extremely good luck.
Note that I always inspect my tanks for any wrinkling, tears, pinholes, or delamination spots before a print.
I also pour all the resin out for aggressive resins (Rigid 4K, Tough 2000). I’ve been doing this on the Form 3 and Form 3L for years and it seems to have helped in extending lifetimes. I don’t think this is surprising, especially on the 3L tanks which have a significant amount of weight - even though Formlabs has said otherwise.
This tank is starting to get some wrinkling on the right side of the black gasket so I’ll be changing it after the latest print just to be safe…but I bet you could push it even further.
Definitely lucky.
I had tanks leaking before reaching their 100% lifetime. Luckily this was only on the Form 3, not the 3L. I use Rigid 4000 99% of the times and I “safely” stretch it to 150% and no more than 200%. Most of the time that works, except when it doesn’t
It’s had Tough 2000 in it since day 1. I’ve only poured it out once to filter and replace. I don’t store the tray in the printer - I keep it in a drawer in the original box.
A new tray was sent to me by Formlabs after a few prints - the sides were kind of crinkling but looking back, it’s fairly normal. The new tray is still in the box, never been used.
Those are definitely some impressive tank lifetime stats! While I’m thrilled you guys are both still having good success with the prints on those tanks, please do be aware of the tank lifetime expectations on our site to be safe. It is definitely a good habit to manually inspect the tanks periodically, since any tank past its recommended lifetime is more likely to cloud or leak over time (although not a guarantee, as you two have both seen first-hand!). The biggest concern, in my humble opinion, is the tediousness of leaning up a resin spill, especially with the resin capacity of a 3L tank lol.
Additionally, if you ever do have tanks that are expiring or faulty before their expected lifetime (as @Eks mentioned), we are always happy to replace consumables that have not performed to our expectations. Feel free to contact our Support Team in these cases.
Finally changed trays yesterday… no tray failure but I had a print fail (my fault) and I thought that with the resin drained, it was a good time to switch it. I hope I get half the time out of this second tray. I didn’t realize how saggy the bottom of the first one was until I looked at the new one! It’s still a V1 - I got it early 2021. @Corey_M , would Formlabs send a V2 tray as a replacement with the known issues surrounding the V1?
Looking at the stats of that tank in particular, the hours used (435/250 hours) are definitely past its expected lifetime and typically falls outside of our replacement policy - the stats indicate that you were able to get the expected usage out of it.
If this doesn’t seem right in terms of expectancy, you may create a support case with our support team for them to look into this as this is more of a case-by-case basis due to the age of this thread and many factors to factor for.
