LithoForms!

OK first of all Lithoform, coolest Form Phrase coined so far or what?!

I recently got my replacement printer and the serial “number” is_ Fuzzy Avocado_, so I made a lithoform of an avocado and another of an old favorite pic of my son. Both were done with the dark areas made thicker so that they’re darker with light passing thru, but I’m going to try some done the opposite to see how they look next. The hard parts are figuring out the thickness for printing sans supports and then getting them off the build platform after printing without breaking it.

I’m totally stoked about these myself, hope you guys like em!

Happy Forming, Vince - President of My Thing in 3D

Screenshots of Preform

Really hard to get a decent pic but I made one with the lights/darks in the opposite direction, its more like a braille picture.

I haven’t perfected the red resin yet but it turned out pretty frikn awesome!

Cool prints Vince! I just have a question though. I see you wrote that you had to get a replacement printer. What went wrong with the first one you received?

Richard- it was galvo failure causing stretched parts - see Vince’s thread here: https://support.formlabs.com/entries/39240678-Skewed-after-latest-firmware-update, also another one more recently here : https://support.formlabs.com/entries/42056996-Stretched-out-prints#post_%23{post.id} and many other similar such threads from earlier. I heard from another owner this morning who’s on his second replacement for failed galvos.

It seems to be a very very common issue that occurs repeatedly, my Y-axis just failed a little over a week ago (after about 2.5 litres of resin).  So far it looks like more a matter of when rather than if, for galvo failure with the current Form1 hardware.

Thankfully the Form1 galvos are available for sale separately and are in fact easy to install if you are out of warranty (like me) see here : https://support.formlabs.com/entries/41140023-Swapping-out-a-bad-galvo-the-PhenixTech-PT-20K-is-a-drop-in-replacement-video-of-tuning

When I say available for sale separately - of course I mean not by Formlabs, but from shops that cater to the laser light show industry - which is where the Formlabs galvos were originally marketed to by Phenix Technologies.

Thanks Kevin, answered that better than I would have! Formlabs got me a replacement pretty dang fast and so far so good.

And thanks Richard I just got a kick out of the lithophaning/forming process and the few I did turned out so nice I think!

Someday I hope to get a better picture taking situation so others can actually see.

Nice prints Vince. I’ve been trying lithophane prints for acouple of days now, using photoshop and the "makealithophane.apn’ action.
For me, results are not so good. First, I find  really hard to peel the part off the build platform and i worry to break it.
Second, first layers seem to be to thin and are pulled off the print when trying to take it off.
What is the size (x,yand z) of yout prints, and how do you peel them off the platform ?

Regards

Well my X and Y you can see from the PreForm screenshots, usually a little less than the build area, but the Z thickness is usually only 3 or 4 millimeters. Thicker would probly be easier but would use a lot more resin! I have an extra build platform and leave my prints attached as long as I can then use a razor blade held with locking pliers and carefully and slowly work my way around. I snapped corners off a couple it’s not easy at all! Mine still warped after I took them off. Sometimes they straighten back out a little on their own but keeping them pressed helped a little too. I haven’t made anything for a while but just got another replacement yesterday, so as soon as I can save enough money for resin I’ll be back at it.
Oh yeah I used Microsoft Office Word to sharpen my pictures up a little, it made for a crisper lithoform image. I’m sure there’s a Photoshop filter that you could do the same with since your making them that way.
Hope that helps, Cheers

Thanks a lot. Be sure that it helps.
I’ve tried a print with supports but result is not as good as i expected
I think the filter in Photoshop gives thin layers for the highlighted parts of the picture.
I’m gonna try another way to create lithoforms.
Sorry for the delay of my answer, the email coming from form labs was in my spam directory.
Have a good day.

Try the program called Processing 2 that’s what I use and its free. You’ll need the code for it which I’ll try to help you find if you can’t.

https://processing.org/download/?processing

thanks for the link. I m looking for an easy-to-use software. Yesterday I’ve found ultimaker’s software named Cura and printed the object. Not so bad result.
Instead of loading an object, you have to open a jpg or bmp image and the program creates a lithophane with “amf” extension. Nettfab can then convert amf to stl.
When i get time i’ll take a better look at processing2. It seems to be a very powerful software but a little bit too sophisticated for the use i’d like to do. If you can, i thank you to help me to find the code…my poor scholar english isn’t very helpful to understand the whole website.

Wow I just saw the Formlabs blogpost by Lydia Yao here: http://formlabs.com/en/company/blog/2014/07/22/make-your-own-3d-printed-lithoform/
in which she credited and complimented my coining of the term lithoform.
How cool is that! Thanks!