The V2 resin is just version 2, it has nothing to do with the Form2. The Form2 does have a higher power laser so perhaps there will be resins that are Form2-specific. But V2 is not. I use V2 resins on my Form1+ and this chart above is showing V2 resins on a Form1+.
Hi
That chart looks great. Does the y axis show the power level and if so, what are the units?
The Laser is (to the best of my knowledge) not modulated in any way, its power output is fixed and constant. The exposure is dictated by how fast the beam moves. The exposure increases as the speed of the beam motion slows down or conversely the exposure decreases as the beam speed increasesâŠ
Because the Form2 has a higher power laser, it ought to âpaintâ each layer faster than the Form1+ because more power means the beam has to move faster to maintain the same exposure. But the peeling processes are very different between the printers. And while I havenât done a timed test yet, at a gut level it feels like my new Form2 is slower than my old Form1+.
I was going to sell my Form1+ but have decided to hold on to it. The Form2 prints beautifully, but I guess I was thinking that a second generation would improve resolution and performance, and that doesnât appear to be the case. Though in fairness, I have only used the Form2 in Open Mode so far.
However, the Form1+ will print Clear02 at 0.2mm, which is great when you want to bang out a rough buck really quickly. The Form2 no longer supports 0.2mm. Alas I canât think of a good reason why this would be true, just like I canât think of a good reason Open Mode doesnât let you control temperature and the wiper.
Hopefully, Formlabs will get around to adding more advanced features to the Form2 some time soon.
Just got our form 2 yesterday. Doing the first print today. It is MUCH slower.
4 pieces no supports 95 layers. We have printed this several times.
Form 1+ 1hr 27min
Form 2 3hr 3min
To be fair, we are printing in open mode as we are waiting on our resin.
Wow, really? I was assuming that with the more powerful laser, and generally being newer/better, the Form2 would print faster than the Form1. If itâs half the speed, thatâs concerning - itâs not like the Form1 was a speed demon!
(edit - I was also surprised by this and was expecting faster print.)
So far, all our prints seem to be much slower than the Form 1+.
But we havenât had a failure yet that wasnât my fault.
With the Form 1+, it was almost unusable for our prints.
We finally started having success with 50/50 mix of black and Maker Juice SF black
It is now usable for some of our prints.
With the Form 2 we have been getting what we initially expected from the form 1+ so we are happy with it even if it is slower.
Does it still show a significant time increase in preform if you switch between the resins/printers?
Yes it does.
Here is a sample.
Checked that with Preform here too - same object, 0.025mm in clear resin - 3â47" Form1+ vs 4â46" Form2.
Somewhat surprising.
Early layers are much slower than Form1+, like way slower. But once it gets going itâs probably really close to the same speed. If you have a short print, then the time difference will be much more than a tall print.
âProbablyâ isnât empirical. Iâve now fed Preform 10 different jewellery models of varying height to see what the estimated print time is and itâs consistently 1 hour +/- 5% longer for a Form2 than a Form1+.
I havenât measured which is why I say Probably
Like I said, it takes a lot longer earlier in the print, so if itâs taking about an hour longer for every print then that seems consistent with that.
After several prints, it does seem to be the first layers that are causing most of the delay.
I noticed that too. The form 2 takes a lot of time to print the first few layers. Is there any reasoning for that? I mean it just sits there and waits for a few minutes then starts printing. Does it have anything to do with the resin settling down?
Also, I agree with the initial post about giving us users more freedom in the Open Mode. I tried it once and was surprised that it has no options whatsoever. Being able to control the Temp & Wiper is gonna be great. Also, Iâd love to be able to have the ability to save different settings to print with. This will make it easy to use a non-formlabs resin with settings that worked perfectly for you previously.
Iâd love to be able to have the ability to save different settings to print with
That is an awesome idea!
I fly Radio Control and this is a common feature on the battery chargers I use. Instead of having to figure out the correct settings for the charger for each pack (not that itâs a major effort, but itâs extra steps and itâs easy to make a mistake), I have a half-dozen custom âpresetsâ saved on the charger and labels on my Lithium batteries that say âPreset Aâ or âPreset Eâ or whatever.
So Iâd say that the requests thatâd change âitâs not really all that open when you get right down to itâ mode to âthis is truly openâ mode include:
- Ability to enable heater and to set a temperature
- Ability to enable the wiper and set a swipe speed
- Ability to specify laser âpowerâ parametrically (vs. having to choose a FL Resin âequivalentâ)
- Ability to save these settings as a preset that can be recalled later
One can only wonder if FormLabs actually wants to support âOpen Modeâ or if theyâre going to intentionally limit the printerâs functionality in order to force the user base to buy their resins in their cartridges to make full use of the printerâs capabilities. The âwe donât want you to damage your printerâ argument is specious. A simple âwarranty is voided under the following conditionsâ would be all itâd take to address that and then we could experiment at our own risk with whatever we wanted to experiment withâŠ
Having spent almost 40 years in the computer industry doing software, firmware and hardware development for everything from cash registers to nuclear power plants, I think I can say with a fair certainty that these would be easily implemented features (unless the code base is very, very poorly implemented, which I doubt).
So howâs about it, FormLabs? Let us use all the features of our new (expensive) Form2 as we see fit!
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Thanks for this discussion.
For me the âopen modeâ was an important factor when I decided to buy the Form 2. Now I see, this mode is not that open as suggested. Thatâs a little bit annoying.
I hope Formlabs will work on that matter.
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