Hey!
We use a Form Wash for cleaning our parts. So far it works like a charm, but we do loose appr. 200 ml IPA per day due to evaporation out of the closed tank. For comparison, with the old-fashioned wash buckets we do loose only a negligible / not measureable amount per day. The wash buckets do have a sealant put into the top lids, the Form Wash does not … … whyyyy? Please consider including a sealant into the top lid of the Form Wash.
TY!
I support this! I’m always topping off my Wash level. Would be great to have seal!
Same here! The whole room smells horrible and there is a lot loss of IPA not as much as you, but a lot! This sealant lid is an absolut MUST. Banished my Form Wash into the Basement.
So I’m just hopping in since this thread had popped up again. We only had out Wash for a few days but this Monday after a week-end without use I could smell the IPA in the room… and it’s a 75m² room with a high ceiling, the door is open most of the time to a 500m² space… so it’s not a basement, a small room or a badly ventilated area. This didn’t happen with the standard cleaning kit.
I made a notch on a piece of tape to keep track or the IPA level, we’ll see if it drops as fast as some have reported.
We as users may have to design our own seal…
Looking at pictures of the Form Wash there seems to be a little pocket on the lid that would be a natural location for a seal. I am guessing that they probably tried to put a seal in but were having problems with the isopropyl alcohol degrading the adhesive used to hold it on. The easiest thing to try would be to get some thin rubber sheet that is resistant to the IPA and just run it along the edge inside the wash (see red lines in image below) to see if it helps. If it does then you can work on the adhesive to use.
I would start with this one and trim it to suit.
Oh they definitely know how to make a good enough seal, just look at the one on the standard finishing kit, it works very well especially once it’s full of tacky resin residue 
my guess is they had imperatives in regard to costs and chose to not place a proper seal… I have a cartridge of Flexible that I haven’t even opened yet, might try it out for this application… would have to make is a 4 part print and glue the parts together before post-curing, not sure how easy that is with Flexible.
That would probably work. Personally, I would go with a softer sealing solution that would form to the contour of the sealing surfaces more easily. If you do try with the flexible please post the results as I’m curious to see them.
Chris
I’m pretty damn busy at the moment but I definitely want to try it. It will probably not be the most economical solution though, obviously an off the shelf material Wirt a bit of cutting and glueing will probably be more suited to the task.
I’m glad to hear it’s not just me suffering this. I was shocked when I had a failed wash and then noticed the IPA level had got so low in just a couple of weeks. I realise the system always smells, but there must be a lot of IPA escaping per day!
Thanks for mentionning it, happy for me I haven’t fill it yet.
I noticed some big gaps between the black and clear part of the tank, sealing just the lid will not be enough. It look like silicon is ‘conditionnally’ resistant to IPA, I will try a clear silicon sealant between this 2 parts and put some in the lid cavities, as all these parts are not in direct contact with the IPA.
That should be a priority for something containing IPA, proper sealing and proper lock system. The finish kit also should have a proper lock.
Yeah, that issue has been bothering me a lot… I even printed a custom seal in flexible material (not FL Flexible, but a FDM material), but as you said, there remain lots and lots of gaps where IPA can escape. I think Formlabs needs to re-design the form wash completely, in a way that can be properly sealed.
I have a extinguisher next to the washer, it smells like explosive!
@Formlabs:
When working with the Form Wash, we often encountered the problem that the top lid will not close entirely due to the washing basket holder not being driven to the bottom completely. When pushing on the top of the washing basket holder thing, we can still push it down by a cm or so.
Is there any possibility to drive the basket holder down a few more mm in firmware? I.e. by ignoring the endstop for a few 100 ms or similar. That would help a lot!
Have you tried power cycle the machine ? That is unplugging it for >10sec and re-plugging it ? Sounds like a homing issue which may be resolved by a reboot. If not I’d contact Formlabs support.
Don’t know if it’s just my form wash, however when it lowers it’s lid it stays slightly open. My assistant always presses it slightly downwards (the metal mechanism) and the lid then shuts down completely.
I wash parts without the platform engaged when the platform is attached the weight closes the lid completely.
Regards,
Dimitris
Hey there everyone!
Thanks so much for taking the time to contribute to this thread. We really do appreciate it.
Broadly, we expect Form Wash lids to close completely regardless of whether there’s a basket attached or not. It was very intentionally designed this way with convenience and safety in mind.
If you’re finding that for whatever reason the lid of your wash unit isn’t closing all the way and you have concerns, please reach out to our support team at the link below and we’d be happy to investigate further with you!
https://support.formlabs.com/s/contact-support?language=en_US
Please be ready for a lot of new support tickets…
The answer by the support team was:
Please contact your distributor for warranty claim.
Great product, great answer, very helpful. 
We recently bought a Form Wash and have had no evaporation issues as described above. This may be either due to firmware upgrades or just a ‘newer’ batch of them, but I’ve only had to top it up with 200mL after a month of sitting on my desk. The only time we can smell it is when the unit is open waiting for a part to go in/out. Mayhaps this has been resolved over time?
