After months of preparation and various stages, our SLA printing setup is finally operational. Initially, it was meant to take up only a small amount of space, but technical realities forced us to thoroughly rethink our original concept.
Indeed, the odors emitted by both the Form 4 during printing and the Form Wash, which continuously releases isopropyl alcohol fumes (even when closed), were far too unpleasant and potentially harmful to health.
We therefore built an enclosure connected to an air purifier typically used for lasers (xTool AP2), equipped with a significant amount of activated carbon. The air intake and outlet holes were designed to ensure flexibility for any future needs.
Solvents are stored in a dedicated cabinet for obvious safety reasons.
As for the Form 4B, I had much higher expectations and almost regret not choosing a Form 3B+ with its more advanced and proven technology. We are encountering surface finish issues on nearly every printed part, and based on feedback from other users, this seems to be the norm. It appears weâll need to be patient while the engineers work to resolve these issues.
Fortunately, this machine was purchased to produce our components, and I can adapt the part designs to optimize the printing process as much as possible. However, this adds considerable time to the workflow and contradicts Formlabsâ philosophy of saving time!
For now, I cannot recommend this machine, but Iâll have to make it work for us. I sincerely hope that Formlabs will improve this product, which has great potential but is far from what their marketing suggests.
Your setup looks great! I really like the enclosure you built for the Form 4 and the post-processing station connected to an air purifier.
I would definitely advise you to stop using âone-clickâ settings on PreForm, as orientation is super important for high accuracy. The algorithm doesnât fully understand what is being printed and which surface needs high detail, for example, to determine where supports are necessary and where they should be avoided. Itâs always better to do the orientation yourself and even manually adjust it a bit to get the best results.
Letâs take an example of printing housings, as shown in your illustration. When printing housings, I aim to keep both parts aligned at similar angles to ensure even tension between the layers. I also avoid long straight lines or surfaces (horizontal to the buildplatform) and try to reduce the cross-sectional area between layers as much as possible.
Hereâs an example of how I would orient the housing:
I intentionally place the support structures on the inside, so there are no visible marks (or almost none) on the outside, and the box looks nice and clean once closed. The smaller the layer thickness, the sharper the surface will look. Try to avoid suction cups because the over- and under-pressure formed during the printing process can cause visible layer lines.
If you follow these orientation tips, your results should improve already. If you need more help, feel free to reach out and we can discuss things in more detail.
Iâm sure we can solve the issues together and make sure the print results meet your expectations.
Great to see you on the forum Shiden! You are going to take things up a notch around here
Iâll second Shidenâs comments. For the form 4, consider that horizontally, the pixel structure is square-ish at 50 microns. Yet certain resins allow 0.25 microns in the z direction. Orient your parts to take advantage of that.
And yeah, donât use the âone clickâ settings. Over the years, Iâve learned itâs best to manually edit supports once theyâve been placed.
Great setup for an office installation, but I would like to make one comment. Do you have any ventilation in the cabinet where you store the isopropanol? As far as I have heard it can be dangerous to store flammable chemicals in a closed cabinet as the concentration of flammable fumes would be higher than in a normal ventilated room. Just what I have heard maybe good to check.
@Shiden Thank you for the feedback! Weâre not really planning on printing enclosures, nor big parts, with the Form 4. It was more of a test for a specific situation, but I ended up printing it with our FDM printer, with much better results in this case.
Regarding manual orientation and support placement, thatâs what we were already doing for our parts. Iâm indeed achieving much better results, but it involves a lot of trial and error to find the best option. Iâll let you know if we need more assistance.
@linus1 Thanks! Itâs a safety cabinet made to safely store solvent with perforated doors and a retaining tank in the bottom in case of leaks. The isopropanol and other liquids are stored in airtight containers inside.
Technically, OSHA requires IPA to be stored in a certified flame cabinet. If you are in any sort of commercial environment, this is absolutely necessary. If OSHA or the Fire Marshall sees that IPA is not stored properly, you will be fined. There are also limitations to how much IPA can be outside of the cabinet. In our building itâs something like 2 gallons per 10,000 sq. feet.
Interesting! In Europe, fire safety tends to be more about general recommendations. For example, smoke detectors are not mandatory in most countries, just recommended.
We monitor PM2.5, PM1, VOCs, CO2, temperature, and humidity in the workshop. We also have cameras and a smoke/heat detector linked to the fire department.
That said, I prefer to empty the Form Wash into an airtight bucket when Iâm not printing for a few days. It feels safer.
Europe takes a much more âtoo bad youâre stupidâ approach since most countries in EMEA are nowhere near as litigious as the U.S. I am a fan of âyou make the mistake, you pay the priceâ. In the case of IPA, if itâs in a sealed container, itâs not going to pose any problems. IPA vapors can be an issue if they are allowed to build up over time, but IPA evaporates very quickly. If the fumes come in contact with arcs or sparks, it will ignite. I assume that in Europe the attitude is, âif youâre stupid enough to have IPA near arcing, sparking, open flames, then too bad, so sad.â
Unfortunately, the rest of the country doesnât see it that way so we have to conform to strict rules when handling large amounts of IPA.
so, those enclosures on your Bambu were printed flat on the build plate. The enclosures you showed printed on the Form 4 were definitely not printed flat on the build plate. Not a very good comparison. Fingers crossed those snap hooks work for you since they are printed in the weak direction.
Print them directly on the Form 4 build plate with no raft and the print quality will definitely exceed your Bambuâs print quality. Plus, you will have an isotropic print with a better chance your clip will survive.
Yes, it was printed flat on the X1C because itâs the best orientation for the machine and our needs in this specific case. We donât need this enclosure to be isotropic or strongerâjust to have a nice surface finish on the top lid thatâs visible and flat (inside and outside) to be installed properly.
If we print this same enclosure directly on the Form 4 Build Platform, it will create a huge suction cup and tensions in the material itself that will probably warp (others have already discussed this in other topics). Even with the recommended orientation, the âtestâ enclosure printed on the Form 4 warped.
We didnât buy the Form 4 to print big enclosures, so I donât mind muchâitâs only for much smaller parts.
One of these parts is a round-shaped lid for a small case that needs to be watertight, and Iâm printing it directly on the Flex Build Platform for easy removal. Printing directly on the Build Platform without supports (after many trials) ended up being the best orientation, and tensions are reduced in a part thatâs only 3 cm in diameter.
Each part has different needs, so Iâd say it really depends on the situation
