Formlabs Form 3L is .......I am not happy with it

I am enraged. I want to share with you my experience with Formlabs Form 3L. This printer is not even worth $5. I spent many thousands of dollars on original formlabs resins and resintanks. I was able to print a few prints. The rest are garbage. I am furious. I want to return the printer and get my money back. A Chinese printer for one tenth the price of the Form 3L prints faster, better and cheaper. The printer has been sent to the seller. Allegedly everything is ok with it, logs and parameters are supposedly fine. The problem is that I want to send quality printouts to customers, not logs! The only thing Formlabs is good at is advertising.








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That is not normal and I haven’t ever seen that before but id guess that you selected the wrong material somehow. Also check your tank, the bottom silicon layer could be damaged. If this continues id recommend reaching out to formlabs support directly.

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I also see 4 different resins used in those photos. Did you use separate tanks for each resin?

That’s definitely not normal.

Mine works almost every day (roughly 30 prints with about 15 liters of resin every month) and for the past 9 months (give or take) I had zero failed prints.

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Hi Gentlemen. Thanks for the hints. To answer your questions: I have 4 different resin tanks. I have repeatedly contacted the seller who says everything is ok. The printer was sent to the seller under warranty. They say everything is ok. They claim its in factory condition. All in all, I have the impression that they dismiss me and ignore me. The best proof of this is the following example: I reported a problem with the printing of the nozzle. The nozzle outlet is distorted. The quality of the nozzle outlet is very important to my customer because it is the outlet that shapes the product. The seller told me that it was a lack of supports. At this point I got angry. How can I support the nozzle which is on the opposite side of the table? Clearly they are making an idiot out of me and are trying to talk me down. So I drew a diagram on which they were supposed to mark the supports for me. I have not received an answer to this day.


I would deal directly with Formlabs support.

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That sucks but I do not have this issue with mine. It’s been an uphill battle but it’s been working well as of late.

I would do what billb says and open a ticket with support.

This warping is indicitive of two things:

You’re either setting up your prints poorly (large cupping areas, not enough supports or too large a surface area per layer)

OR

You have faulty tanks.

I’m assuming it’s the latter - you need to email Formlabs support directly and they’ll send you new tanks.

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It looks like the re-seller does not know the subject well. I would definitely contact Formlabs support directly. They are always very helpful. Also, I would consider subscribing to their pro support.

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The SolidWorks screen grab does not provide any useful information about what the printer is doing, so it does not contribute in any way to troubleshooting your problem.

Post a screen grab from PreForm showing how the part is oriented on the build plate and where the supports are making contact with the model, for the actual print job you sent to the printer.

I will prepare some clearer visualization. What I wanted to show is the location of the place where the supports have no access. On the printout the very end of the nozzle was distorted. The seller claims that there should be additional supports there. My question to the seller was: how to add supports at the very end of the nozzle?

Preform will add internal supports where necessary. Or they can be added manually. Preform will also tell you if a region of the model does not have enough supports (it’s not perfect though, in rare cases it may think the model is supported enough when it is not or it may think the model is not supported enough when it is).

Sometimes, repositioning of the model can eliminate the need for internal supports.

That’s why I want to see how the model is positioned on the build plate and how Preform has supported it. There is no way to make suggestions for fixing the issue without seeing what’s being done when the issue happens. :slight_smile:

I would bet my money these warping issues are just tank issues. Every time I’ve seen this, they have been faulty tanks. Formlabs will send you replacements free of charge you just have to email them directly instead of your reseller.

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Thank you for the hint leonhart88. I hope the Formlabs people don’t get mad at me for writing that Formlabs is worth nothing :slight_smile: I’m frustrated and kinda don’t know what to do :frowning: I wrote to them yesterday. Until today I have no answer. I hope that they will write back. I do not count on the seller anymore. I find them to be incompetent and they are pushing me around. I hope Formlabs help will be as helpful as you say.

You shouldn’t worry about this. Much of the ethos of Formlabs depends on the feedback they get from customers, good or bad comments help them to improve their products.

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