Hi, I’m Ben, and I recently took delivery of a Form 4, Form Wash and Cure (2nd Gen). I’m a solo entrepreneur, and I make custom motorcycle parts and accessories (www.adventuresonzero.com) for electric motorcycles. I also have two YouTube channels, one for motorcycle adventures (www.youtube.com/c/adventuresonzero) and woodworking/making (www.youtube.com/c/benmarshalldesigns).
The Form 4 is not my first 3D printer, nor first resin printer. For the last 4 years, I’ve been using the Prusa SL1S (and prusa FDM printers) with varying 3rd party resins, mostly the ABS-like. I hit a bottle neck for producing prints to meet the demands I was getting, which recently shot up quite a bit. Thankfully, the spike in sales helped me fund the purchase of the Formlabs kit I have now! I’ve always wanted access to Formlabs resins, but after the Tough1500 v2 came out earlier this year - I knew I needed to take the plunge.
I’d like to share my initial impressions of the Form 4, in the hopes that it will help others make the right decision on whether the form 4 is right for them.
Some key experiences that stand out in my mind after running my first production run print with Black V5 resin:
- Low Odor: Huge difference in odor vs consumer resins. Formlabs Black v5 has a slight smell of latex paint, similar to what you’d pick up in a Lowes/Home Depot. But it’s not an odor that occupies the room. Every consumer grade resin I used had a strong odor, and I had to use a HEPA and Carbon filter to eliminate the smell. The only thing I smell now when in the room is the occasional whiff of IPA from the Form Wash if a print has recently raised out of a wash.
- Clean Work Area: No matter how hard I tried to keep my area clean with the SL1S, it was nearly unavoidable to NOT spill or drip IPA between a rinse and wash tank. I have a steel table for my resin printers, and I was constantly wiping the surface down with paper towels and IPA to keep it clean. With Formlabs systems, my table has remained clean, as have my nitrile gloves. This really has been an incredibly pleasant and clean experience.
- Ease of Use: the Formlabs ecosystem is quite streamlined compared to my experiences in the past. Consumer grade resin printers and resins have a learning curve and I had to come up with my own processes to get the results I needed. With Formlabs and PreForm, I spent little time finessing my prints for supports. I know that my experience with other printers has helped me here, as there was a lot of trial and error to get prints right back then, so I have an eye for it now. But even when reducing my support touch points to almost nothing - prints still came out perfect and literally fell off the supports after washing (this is a good thing, lol). I have to split my time between everything of running a business, including content production and traveling - and formlabs gives me the opportunity to focus on other things as I’m not worried about whether my prints will come out ok. Time has been saved with the Form 4 ecosystem.
- Print Quality: my accessories/parts are by no means complex, but the quality and dimensional accuracy is unmatched. Even my post processing time/effort has been cut in half, if not more. I no longer have to sand faces down from support marks. My parts are nearly ready to seal with UV resistant out of the Form Cure.
One thing that was frustrating though, and it may have been a one time instance, was that my printer and almost all the other components left from Pennsylvania (?), but my mixers left from California. That meant my printer was here on a Monday, but I couldn’t print until Friday. Not a big deal, but kind of the only part of the process of ordering and delivery that I experienced.
Overall I’m beyond excited that I have the Form 4 - and I’m really excited to continue developing, prototyping and eventually selling my products to other riders around the world. Hope this post helps anyone scouring the forums for insights like I did prior to purchase.
I intend to start making content soon on the Form 4, as there really aren’t too many user videos that focus on engineering prints. Figurine and model print seem to be the predominant focus on resin printer videos, which is not helpful for me.
Thanks and I’m happy to answer any questions. happy printing.
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On the SL1S, I could only print one at a time and had to add quite a few supports to get consistent results. Compared to the 14 brackets I have on the form 4 above, with very little supports. The angle of this print is due to the size limitation of the SL1S. if it were larger, I likely would have a similar support structure to that of the form 4 print, but still not nearly as many per print.
external supports literally fell off, leaving no marks or raised marks on the surface. Internal supports inside the webbing takes only seconds with a pointy hobby knife.
This would have taken me about 1.5 weeks on my other printer, and that’s not counting post print work and cleanup. Now it can be done in half a day (from hitting print to final coat of UV sealant drying).
I’m not at the volume of parts to warrant the cost, but if there was an option to recycle 1-2 gallons of IPA at a time, and it was around $1k - I’d buy it in a heartbeat. It’s one of the few pieces of equipment that can pay for itself no matter what.
. Thankfully those consumables last a very long time. I still have a little bit of stock left over from my previous prints, so hopefully I won’t need to pick up the elastic resins too soon.