We got our first liter of tough resin in and haven’t completed any prints yet.
We received our bottle today and set about printing a job. I had hoped to report back with glowing reviews, but I’m afraid I’ve had 3 failures in a row. I recycled an older tray, which has some slight fogging, so maybe that’s part of it, but I’ve had the following problems:
1 - the base “raft” peeled off the platform on several pieces. I have my fine tuning set to -0.6mm, and that works great for the other resins. I wonder if there is an adhesion issue with the Tough?
2 - several parts actually cracked (pictures to follow, tomorrow). This is before any post-curing, they came off the platform with fissures.
3 - several of the parts are 3mm thick planar solids and they warped. These had good adhesion on the raft, just the part was cupped by about 2mm over a 75mm span (15mm wide).
I’ll try again tomorrow with a new tray. right now I feel like i’ve just flushed $50 down the drain… Again - I’m not blaming the resin per se, just noting that it’s a bit more finnicky than black/gray.
dh
I haven’t had a print stick to the build platform at all yet.
Brand new tray. Settings from our normal -.4 all the way to +1.0.
I currently have a ticket in with support and we are working through it.
Biggest reason my title is a question and not “My prints won’t stick”.
We don’t know for sure yet if the tray is the fault or not.
I am printing fingers for a 3 jaw chuck right now (30 minutes to go) just looking through the cover all looks fine but I will report back after removing them. Also using used tray.
Here are the fingers fresh out of the printer. They came out beautiful . They are currently in the UV curing cabinet but I did pull them out to check what dimensions I could and all are in tolerance that I could check… I am actually surprised because I was concerned about my tank. (I am ordering new) but no problems here.
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Awesome, we have a new tank on the way now. Pretty sure that is our problem.
Oh and another thing I am not sure of you can tell by the picture but not near the excess resin left on the build platform right after print. It was printed with latest version of preform at .1 resolution.
We have tried the tough resin too. We are having the same issues with the base not staying on the build platform. I have a ticket in with FormLabs. I have tried placing the build platform closer and that did not help. I expanded the base…no luck. So now, they suggested I move the platform away from the tank to start. I’m running something tonight. We’ll see.
Like some of you, I feel a hole burning in my wallet wasting this very expensive resin on “experiments in printing.”
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Hello again. So, I ran some other tests last night on the tough resin and came up with interesting results. My attempt to run different parts through yielded the same outcome. Neither part stuck to the build platform. The platform height offset was set to -0.1mm (per FormLabs recommendation). The parts were positioned near the hinge side (I figured the stress on the part raft would be less).
After this failure, I changed tanks to my clear resin and ran another customer’s order. (BTW: the tank I am using for the tough resin is perfectly clear…no ghosting yet and no smudges on the bottom either). That part was about the same size as this one. It printed perfectly. I kept the platform height offset to -0.1mm. When I tried to remove the clear resin part from the build platform, it really did not want to come off! I fought with it for 15 minutes trying to release it. That was very intriguing.
At this point, I have asked FormLabs to ask what their engineers/material scientists have to say about this issue. I don’t think I have an equipment problem since other resins I have (clear, black and flexible) all perform fine on my Form1+.
I just finished my first print with the new Tough resin. It did not turn out all that great. I am using a new tank and still I had issues. I have opened a support ticket to see if I can get the issues resolved. I print just fine with the other resins I have tried so I do think it is an issue with the Tough resin formulation.
I also had problem removing my next print in black.
I cleaned the heck out of the build platform with IPA before switching back to black.
Then let it dry. I am very paranoid about mixing or contaminating resins.
Thanks for keeping everyone up to date on this. I have not heard back from FormLabs today (yet). As soon as I do, I’ll share their thoughts. I’m worried about the initial formulation of tough resin as well. 
I continue to have adhesion issues. Also, I have post-cured in the UV chamber for a LOoong time (6-8 hours) and the parts are still surprisingly flexible. The are approximately 3mm thick flat slabs (20x70mm) and they bend like high-durometer rubber. Not necessarily a bad thing, I suppose, but not what I was expecting. I’m going to try blending it with some gray and maybe that’ll help the rigidity and adhesion issues…
So far I’ve printed 20 parts and have about 5 that stuck. Unfortunately, the cured resin is too flexible for my application…
Update: I ran the test form file though the printer and the five butterflies came out flawless. The Tough material is really great when it works properly. The surface finish is just as good as any of the other materials I have tried. The post cured prints have a really wonderful quality about them. A nice amount of give, paired with the durability that the flexible material lacks (the flex stuff tears really easily). I am going to test a two part mold in Tough. I think the Tough will work great in that application.
Declan: Hello. Please let me know if your “blends” with grey yield better results with adhesion. I still cannot get Tough Resin to stick to my build platform no matter which settings I use. Clear still sticks like glue. “!?”
If is does work really well, please let us know what % the mix is. Thanks!
Ben: Hello. What setting were you using (regarding platform height offset and raft size)?
I had the same issue. First print didn’t stick and the supports were printed into the actual print. Now on my second print and I can’t get it off the platform…it’s STUCK! 
I had the same issue with the black resin. I ran a print in tough resin using the black build platform. After cleaning it off, I ran another print in black resin using the same building platform.
The base of the part appeared to be welded to the build platform. Had to use the snips and to break the build platform off piece by piece. Thankfully I was wearing eye protection, by the end, it looked like a resin covered battleground.
Something to keep in mind, get tough resin with its own tray and build platform.
I have found the tough resin to be a big expensive bottle of fail. Used a new tray, tried an old clean and brand new build platform, and only one of ~14 parts attempted over 5 print cycles actually stuck to the build platform. I am pretty unhappy with this stuff.
Todd: I use the default settings for just about everything I print on my Form1. I will occasionally, adjust the support setting depending on the model.
I will add, that I mistakingly used a different layer thickness when I printed the test butterflies. When I printed my model I was using the 0.5 layer setting; when I ran the butterflies I used 1.0. I will need to go back and either run the butterflies at 0.5 or run my models at 1.0 to see if everything is working properly.