jimy_f_84
Glad that Formlabs is stepping up to take care of your “DISASTER”
Good for you that you will be back printing soon.
Good for Formlabs because they can analyze and reconfigure things
and fix this issue with resin cartridges.
Cartridges is a good idea but…there maybe better ways.
Holy Crap! That’s awful. So much for the sealed enclosure. What happened to the testing where they were spraying dust at it from what appeared to be a firehose? Some kind of mil-spec sealing job supposedly. Apparently not.
That totally sucks!!! I would send it back immediately and demand a brand new one - not a frigging refurb either. Like someone said above - it’ll never be right now. It’s on the boards, in the power supply, and in every nook and cranny. You will never get it all cleaned up. The error is a design flaw - not your fault at all.
DEMAND a new one NOW while you can. They owe everyone this happens to a new printer ASAP. They’re forcing the cartridge on everyone to lock-in the resin market and make it hard to use third-party resins. OK, fine, so they can pay for their mistakes then.
Q: Is Open Mode still a crippled joke too? I haven’t heard anything about it lately.
It’s sealed for the most part on the outside, but on the inside around the tray it is not so in big spills like this it will drip down inside.
As for the cartridges, I’m perfectly find with pouring the resin in myself, it doesn’t seem like the valve design is reliable enough. For an inexperienced user the idea of cartridges makes sense, they’ve really made the printer easy to use compared to most others, but it really has to be solid in performance.
I would be perfectly happy myself to be able to just add the resin myself but the chips prevent you from doing that also unless you go to open mode and like you said it cripples the printer… I have not been able to get one successful print in open mode.
I am almost tempted on my new cartridges I just ordered is to pour the resin into an old cartridge and seal off the bottom then insert them into the printer and manual fill the printer from the old cartridge as needed, But I think they have a sensor that will block you from doing that also.
You know after this failure i am really weary about using the cartridge. But its under warranty.
Also filling the printer in open mode disables the wiper and heating. so unless you install a dummy cartridge i dont see how it will work fine.
Plus, the valve gets worn out over time so if you refill one then you runt he risk of it failing and ruining your printer.
When my Form1+ overflowed and dripped resin into the optics and electronics, Formlabs said I’d voided my warranty and charged hundreds of dollars for repairs. So if they’re taking responsibility in this case, I’d call that progress.
But in the F1+, YOU over-filled the vat - not the proprietary, computer controlled cartridge you had zero control over. Big difference.
Are the resin over-fill issues entirely due to valve failures? That seems to be the case from the postings here, which calls for a different method to mitigate the risk.
Is there any sort of inspection/test protocol that could be performed prior to using a cartridge? For example, gently squeezing the cartridge with the relief valve closed to stress-test the dispensing valve?
Given how poorly the printer handles overflow (hence the term “disaster”), it seems really unwise to let the printer run unattended. I suppose one could close the relief valve for short periods, but that’s not a long-term solution.
A valve failure is beyond the scope of the current printer’s control systems, but I can picture adding an overflow siphon that could clip onto the edge of the tank to preemptively pull away excess resin before it crests the top of the tank. A peristaltic pump could be used, which can run dry and self primes. Anyone have other suggestions?
My suggestion was a proper spill trap. The Form 2 spill trap is the size of THIMBLE - HOPELESSLY UNDER SIZED for anything more than a very small spill. It needs a drain tube and a polythene bottle on the left hand side inside the machine where there is plenty of pace for it. It would add pennies to the cost of the machine and save loads of returns.
I would hope the resin never, ever spills out of the resin tray. Once that happens then we’re simply talking about mitigating the disaster - why not avoid it? I’m rooting for Formlabs to eliminate the single-point failure of the gravity-fed dispensing valve altogether!
In what could be the rather lengthy meantime, what can we as users do to prevent these overfill disasters without putting Formlabs in the critical path for that solution?
Really they just need to have the option to allow you to pour the resin in yourself but still use features like the wiper/heating
The reason they aren’t is because you could use other resins that way which the system won’t necessarily work properly for which could cause resin spills–though of course if you use a different resin and it spills into the printer then it’ll be clear that it’s not the Formlabs resin that caused the spill.
I agree with Zach, I would manually fill the tank on my form 2 if I had all other functions enabled, wiper etc… This should be done NOW so customers can avoid the Disaster if they choose. There seems to be no other way to predict this failure until it happens, and chances are that it will happen when you are not monitoring the printer, hence Disaster.
Mike A.
Scout Design & MFG
I don’t have an empty cartridge to try this, but could you put an empty cartridge in the printer and lift the cover to manually pour in resin?
Alternatively, could you use a nearly empty cartridge and keep pouring in more resin through the upper vent as the print proceeds, keeping the amount of resin in the cartridge below the point where it could cause an overfill disaster?
The printer will from time to time pause and test the resin level, if it doesn’t have any resin in the cartridge then it won’t fill enough and it’ll pause the print with a warning message. You could try to keep a little bit of resin in the cartridge, but that would be a pain to deal with.
hi jimy , that just happened to me this week, can u please help me with the procedure of opening a support ticket, i am new on this thing, my problem its exactly as yours, thanks!!!
It’s important when there are overflows like this, that you get in touch with support before further handling the machine. When I first started, I got a bit ambitious with open mode and resin ended up inside the printer which isn’t always obvious from cleaning the exterior. When you contact us, it helps us get you the right information to care for your machine and track instances of the issue, which is important to inform product improvements.
Every time I read of another “disaster” I start wondering if it’s just a matter of time before I find my printer sitting in a puddle of resin. From what I’ve read, I really-really-really don’t want this to happen to me. What actions can I take to assure this never happens?
Most posts you’re going to see are from people that have issues rather than people that aren’t having any problems. So the chance of something going wrong are much less than it seems by looking at the forum threads. Most likely, it’s something like single-digit percentages.
If you really want to avoid the chance of happening, then you can use Open Mode, but as you might know, that means you can’t use features like the heating/wiper
Really, I think they should just make Open mode work the same way as it would with the cartridge, just so you have the option if you don’t want to risk the chance of a long print going wrong.
Or they can design the cartridges to have a more reliable valve.
Norman, use this link:
Follow the instructions as much as you can and click on submit a ticket right a way. They will help you and send you PDFs of instructions of what to do. They are great!