… and since i had the same model printed at the same scale (50mm tall) on my FDM printer lying around, i thought it might be interesting to compare the two:
Sadly, there’s no Formlabs silver resin, so the comparison isn’t quite 1:1. The Form1+ print was printed at 100um layer height, the FDM one was printed at slightly over 100um layer height and somewhere around 250-300um extrusion width (can’t remember exctly). The tail broke off on the FDM print a while ago, but it printed fine (you can find an earlier photo on the Thingiverse page under Makes).
And just for fun, here’s the output from my modified mUVe 1 (SLA, kit), same layer height, theoretically smaller laser spot, but lower resolution (even less of a fair comparison, different perspective and lighting, different resin, different color, linearly stepper-driven laser):
Ignore the white patches, i wasn’t very gentle during post.
Without more detail it’s hard to say which is better. From your pics the model is too soft on it’s features to show any difference in feature quality, all three show striation, this can be fixed on the FDM with tuning and some design changes, and on the Form1+ with hollowing the model and choosing an ideal orientation. The FDM print appears to have roughness on the legs but that can be fixed with proper tuning as well. Other than that from the pics it’s hard to see much difference.
A macro shot of an edge perpendicular to the print plane would show the cleaner layer profile on the Form1+, and a macro shot of some of the top facing layers would show the notably cleaner infill on the Form1+. To really compare smallest feature you need a sharper model with fine details.
The model was hollow and properly oriented.
Was it the ideal orientation? Maybe not, but it was the orientation with the best surface quality i could get.
Currently, the layers are noticably more uneven on my Form1+ than on my FDM printer, making them clearly more visible in prints.
Wow that is pretty different from me. On my Form1’s that didn’t have flare the features where somewhat softer than on my FDM at 250um to 300um extrusion width. However the profile of the edge of a layer was much cleaner on the Form1’s so if I printed a cylinder on both, the FDM would have clearly visible layers and the Form1 would not, but if I printed a cone both would have clearly visible layers, and the edges of the layers would be clearer on the Form1 print. On all of my Form1’s the infill has been much more uniform and closer too flat, this has varied from printer to printer, but has always been much better than any FDM printer I have seen. As for ideal orientation one that minimizes surface contact per layer thus decreasing peel force necesarry fore act layer. However the striation may also be that your black resin is possibly not right.
