Today I started working with Autodesk Inventor Professional.
To my surprise, I found that in the choice 3D printer is not represented Formlabs printer. I think if you formlabs will play on its own turf, and the system will be closed, I can not consider my Form 2 for professional solutions.
It is up to us to Formlabs inspire to expanded the “open mode” and allow users advanced settings. It look like the Formlabs wants to maximize their profits by selling their own resins and customers are not important.
Radovan, Czech republic
Auto Desk have their own printer called the Ember
Of course, by the way, and it can be set to print another 21 types of printers that have their own control as foresight.
Leaders like Stratasys, Ultimaker, Makerbot …
We too use Inventor, and we too would find it nice and convenient to be able to print from within Inventor.
In all fairness, the current procedure is not too painful. Just export to STL and import into PreForm.
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Just started using a Formlabs 2 and Preform.
I’m working with Rhino and I think a live-link plugin similar to Keyshot would be nice:
Instead of exporting an STL to disk, you would be able to send geometry from your modeling software to the 3D printing software.
Any thoughts on this?
Interesting thing is, when I contacted the manufacturer of resins A-Spot, if they are planning to produce some resin compatible with Form 2, they told me that Formlabs is a closed system and because they can not adjust Preform on their product for them it is too difficult to solve. In Preform are not options for other resins, or at least fully user settings. It’s like Apple company - open the object and print and pay -).Why? Yes I now, Formlabs wants to guarantee the quality of prints and bla bla …, and actually it’s doing.
But sometimes I need to print a lot of prototypes before they arrive at a some good results. I would prefer to use cheaper resin.
It is the same software. None of the companies Autodesk, Rhinoceros, Pixologic ZBrush, SolidWorks, etc. a closed system is not interested.
Have you ever tried this? http://www.makerjuice.com/shop/sf-for-form-1/
Maker juice is great, and you can speak with their Chemist, Shaner, he knows his stuff!.
I had not tried yet it on Form 2 (still have the Formlabs resin), but had tried their in my Pegasus (a closed system as well) and works excellent!.
One last recommendation, If you really need open systems, then try open printers ecosystems … it is not that hard, and not less awesome 
Cheers!
No I have not tried yet. 1 liter resin $ 65 + $ 80 shipping (Europe-Czech Republic). It is cheaper to buy the original resin -).
But I read here in the forum that makerjuice damages PDMS layer.
Open system is intentionally unusable for colored resin.
Wiper function before printing each layer mix resin and pigment does not settle out - cause printing failures. In the otherwise excellent resin of Photocentric it is happens.
Furthermore you can not adjust the laser output during construction support and other during the construction of the model, etc.
Ability to set only Formlabs resins - why use the open mode?
I thought that was your original intention about open mode. Probably I misunderstood.
Regarding the PDMS layer being damaged, I had used it in other models with no problem. But I like to experiment myself, as soon as I have the opportunity I will try. If the layer is damaged then I can recoat it, no big deal.
Cheers!
No you’re not wrong, I’m interested in open mode,
But open mode have to be more “open” open mode.-)
I fear that the resin formulation for Form 1 is different than for Form 2. See the table here. http://forum.formlabs.com/uploads/formlabs/1779/0af5bc0e9d40cce9.png
Radovan
The resin is the same, the settings of the Form2 have been tested and adjusted to support those same resins.
It is a bit annoying that the printer doesn’t support the option to adjust exposure/speed settings so that you could better support other resins, but I understand why they don’t do that–it creates problems with Warranty situations, they want to make sure that if there’s an issue with the printer that it is due to something they did wrong rather than you doing something to your printer that breaks it.
That being said, the Formlabs materials work extremely well, out of all the printers I’ve used they have their settings dialed in the best.
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