Does anyone know what the expected failure mode for LT tanks is?
I have one which has a rash of small divots around three sides of the bottom, which could be from physical damage but has a pattern similar to the laser damage that the orange tanks were prone to.
The tank is about 15 weeks old and been used for about 10 lt of standard grey resin.
Would be very interested to see an image of that tank !
i have not yet had any quality issues or visual defects on my LT tanks, but I haven’t reached 5l or more with any of them.
I have some tanks that failed due to dents and scratches mostly. Some that we used for large prints have wrinkles on the sides and there is one damaged sure to the wiper being pressed into the material by the build platform
15 weeks! Your lucky it’s still holding resin. I would throw that tank out now. 10 prints also is a lot. Depending on the resin the tanks life is storten greatly. I’m currently working with elastic, and am lucky to get 3 prints in the same spot.
I would error on the safe side and replace more offen
We exclusively use LT tanks and have only had to replace the one we use for Rigid resin. All of the others have lasted months of storage. The rigid resin appears to swell the film which creates ripples or waves in the surface of the tank. I believe the Rigid has a different solvent than the others which is why it only appears with that resin (just my guess). Unfortunately, there is no way for me to accurately look at how many liters have been used on my various tanks, Dashboard should be able to track that but it doesn’t.
3 prints in same spot on LT tank should be no problem, very odd that you are getting that result.
In the end, replace when things stop printing to your satisfaction. I think failure mode typically ends up being mechanical damage from scraping for most LT tanks.
I also have the same scenario as gjgomes. Use the LT tank for my Rigid resin as this is the resin we use the most for our part. Resin has been in the tank for about 4 months (used about 3L) resin; almost no print failures and print almost every day with this resin /tank, (High Temp resin, on the other hand, I have had very poor success with getting good prints).
I have noticed some ripples on the surface of our parts and did not understand why (no actual failure of prints yet) until I drained the resin tank and saw how extensive the ripples were in the film of the tank. I was under the impression that the tanks could hold resin for over a year with no issues.
Is there a Formlabs recommended life span of the LT tanks using the Rigid resin? Length tank can hold the resin in storage, min # of prints/life of tank, etc.? LT-Tank_10-15-19.PDF (421.6 KB)
@Minntronix Im having also very bad luck with LT trays with standard Gray resin and have very little understand to why im getting the “ripples” u described. I acrtually dont fail if ever now and so these ripples are very concerning and misleading becasue i have yet to pump a single L threw mine and i have not failed so i dont understand at all
this is some examples of said ripples…both my trays have almost idential damage going now, im alsmot thinking i have a bad printer or somethings wrong with the XYZ location becasue for the most part i cant complain about the Form2 other then thease ripples which are becimg a huge problem becasue iv onluy printed about 1L in both
