I just had a liter of castable wax resin expedited to us for a job. Unfortunately, when it arrived I noticed that the manufacture date was almost a year ago! This means that it’s been sitting on the shelf, probably unshaken, for a whole year, and that its usable lifetime has been cut in half or more. In fact, according to Form’s own data, I really shouldn’t use it for more than 6 more months. That’s crazy!
This just seems a little excessive to me. The last tank of CW resin I purchased was already 3 months old when it arrived and had a bad rubber filler nipple (it hadn’t been cut) that I had to cut myself… I went ahead and used it since we were in a hurry, but I still felt a bit cheated out of that extra print time (jewelry is small and you generally use the resin slowly). For this “new” tank to be almost a whole year old is unreasonable for a product that cost me $350 to get here. A couple months I’d understand. Not this.
I understand that you guys want to sell your old stock of materials but this is too much.
Was it ordered directly from Formlabs?
Yes, two days ago, with a rush shipping charge to get it here fast.
I have had a similar problem with the resin being over a year old with one year left in shelflife. They said gave me a coupon for a new resin but said that as long as theres more than 6mo of shelflife left that is acceptable and that this was an exception they were making not the norm.
Look at it this way… When you buy milk at the grocery store, sometimes you get a jug that’s two weeks away from its “best by” date, sometimes you get a jug that’s only a day away. Nothing you can do about it. If it’s still marked as “good” it’s still good to sell.
Well I always check the date on the groceries I’m buying, and I don’t buy it if it’s not fresh. When a customer orders resin from Formlabs it’s fair for them to expect at least a full year of life out of it. In fact if I recall correctly, I think they used to quote shelf life from the date shipped. It’s not a big deal for folks who chew through resin quickly, but for those of us who stock a variety of materials but only print intermittently, receiving aged stock matters. I’ve had to throw out hundreds of dollars of resin before, and as much as I love Formlabs printers, it didn’t make me feel particularly giddy about ownership to do that.
Now in fairness, their actual shelf life tends to exceed the recommendations they quote, and the original poster will likely get more than 6 months use. Although the coupon was an exception, I expect if someone finds resin ordered from the company starts to fail within a year of purchasing (and it’s through no fault of their own e.g. storage, handling, etc), then Support would take care of you and send you a replacement cartridge regardless of the expiry date on the original. No promises but I’ve found their customer service is usually good like that.