Form2 thoughts!

Re: pricing.

Exchange rate movements over the last year have not favored the US dollar. Forget for a moment the overseas shipping, general business/partnership agreements and import duties, or the cost of repatriating foreign sales income.

Imagine someone lopped off 13% of your gross sale price of your product…because over the last 12 months that’s what’s happened to the USD/EUR rate.

$1.27—>$1.11/EUR

I’d be curious if Formlabs has an arbitrage desk or someone buying option contracts to hedge against currency movements in the foreign markets they serve.

The european store is a different matter in regard to exchange rates between the USD and the EURO, the international store however lists priced in USD and thus it is not clear why there should be any difference from the north american store.
On a second look it appears the international store marks everything up by approximately 20% compared to the north american store. This seems like a rather unjustified kick in the teeth.

Yeah i’m buying from Australia so it’s even worse - about 30% more expensive with the strength of our dollar at the moment. As Brendan mentioned though, this is in regards to the international store, where the increased price is listed in USD, so no exchange rate has been accounted for yet.

Jory, still waiting for this email. It looks like kickstarter coupons will not apply to Form2 cartridges - correct? (Not a complaint) Thanks.

How does the new printer deal with getting trapped air out between every layer? The Fprm1 didn’t pull the bottom of the print out of the resin when it did a peel, the 2 looks like it does. Wouldn’t this tend to trap air bubbles in solid parts?

@ChristopherBarr Here’s that heater:

1 Like

I think even a form1+ printer could do justice to your detailed sculpts at 25 micron or maybe even 50 setting. To get better details than the Form2 you’d be looking at a much, much smaller print area. Even with a form2 you are looking at a max height of 6.9 inches so something like your 12 inch cthuhlu would still need to be broken up into a couple of print runs. But I’ve seen your work before… I really think you are the sort of person that should have a printer like this.

Thanks for the information, Lucas. I’m really curious to do some tests with the Form 2. I do have experience with 3d printing as my day job calls for it so It wouldn’t be a problem to cut up the Cthullhu amd finish it.

That said, what I’m really interested in is designing creatures that would truly push the advantages of a 3d printer like the Form 2, the possibilities are endless. Undercuts, crazy shapes, silhouettes that would be hard to mold, basically one of a kind designs. The Cthulhu is very conservative in design because it had to be mass produced.

I’ve been holding back since the Kickstarter but this time round, it seems all the features are in place. Plus the community and support seem really helpful too!

1 Like

I printed my Cthulhu on a form1+ and it looked great. www.formwurx.co.uk

1 Like

I am more interested in possible reduction of distortion due to the old peeling versus the new one.

@Francesco_Pessolano yes I would also love to hear more about how the new peel system works in practice VS the old one.

  • Can we print finer structures now (thin vertical lines?) with less warping?
  • Is there an increase in visible surface lines from the peel force being perpendicular to the print direction?
  • general impressions?

From what I can see in your piece it looks like it would only need supports on the bottom of the base, so all of the details should come out really really well. When you do other projects the main thing to consider is where you have to put supports and that usually downward facing surfaces will have less detail due to the light penetrating through the current print layer which will cure extra material.

Shearing is a good way to think about it and this peel process was chosen because it exerts lower forces on your part during printing than with the Form 1+ peel mechanism.

You’re right Brandon - we’ve moved to injection molded polycarbonate rather than acrylic for the Form 2 tanks. The cracking at the back of the Form 1+ tanks was also at thin point in the design.

Thanks for the tip!

Cant seem to figure out how to start a new thread so I guess I’ll just post here. I had a question about pre-orders. Does it charge your credit card right away or will it at shipment?

Thanks,
Josh

Can you share examples or videos that let subset the advantages ? How it performs with tall structures or hollow things (like electronics casings)?
I have been using the form intensively for product casing design but the deformation coming from peeling has been a pain.

1 Like

Right away.

Ryan Luis at formlabs mentioned this to me over the phone today im SOLD!! cant wait for my form2 to get here. dust is my only issue with my form1+.

4 Likes

Well, I’ve just ordered mine. Very excited :smile:

1 Like