Hi all, just a quick update.
Formlabs support got back to me on Friday and are going to change the laser at their UK facility. The original laser will be shipped back to their headquarters for testing and investigation etc.
Obviously this is great news.
They also explained a little on the some of the difficulties they are facing with regards to determining form a customer’s laser spot test or print, whether it’s the laser that’s causing prints failures.
This I totally understand. I’ve been guilty in the past of blaming a failed print on laser flare, when it has been down to lack of experience and poor part orientation on my part.
When I first looked at my laser spot test I automatically assumed that the laser was faulty. I was expecting to see a small focused dot, instead and I saw the typical carrot shaped pattern.
I how understand this is a fairly typical laser spot test pattern for the Form1+ and doesn’t automatically suggest a problem with the laser. It’s only the very small, brightest part of the dot that cures the resin. This makes it very difficult for us or Formlabs to determine whether there is a flare or what they refer to as laser aberrations from the images we take.
To demonstrat this, reciently @KjellNilsson printed the minimum feature test and got awesome results. When you look at his laser spot image, it’s not that dissimilar to mine.
@KjellNilsson Minimum Feature Test, FL Black Resin @0.1mm Layer Height
My Minimum Feature Test, Clear V2 resin, 0.1mm Layer Heights
@KjellNilsson Laser Spot Test Image
My Laser Spot Test Image
Formlabs also explained that the porosity I’ve been experiencing has not been linked with the laser or the mirrors. It’s something they’ve been able to duplicate in their labs and are addressing it with software updates. This follows @Ante_Vukorepa theory in his post –