Manual replacement and calibration of form 1+ Galvanometers

Support & Troubleshooting Form 1/1+
1

Hi,

I have a broken y axis galvo on my form 1+ and I am looking at a $800 USD fee for replacing the galvo as my warranty has run out. If anyone has any idea on how to manually replace and calibrate the galvanometers it would be much appreciated. I have seen some other topics, but they say that the form 1+ has electronically calibrated galvanometers. However I have seen a video on you tube that shows calibration of the form 1+ galvos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dy8zwyQgM1s). Any info or tips would be appreciated

Thanks, Stuart.

2

Rotating the galvo due to it being knocked out of position is not calibrating them. Unfortunately your only option is to spend the $800.-. In the video, he most likely got the placement “close enough” but I highly doubt that it went back to the calibrated position. He would have been able to print a calibration piece and fine tuned it in software.

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Ah I see, thanks for the clarification. Do you know if the galvo in the form 1+ is different to the galvo in the form 1? I was thinking I could maybe replace the galvos with the older versions that can be manually calibrated? not sure if this is a feasible option or not, but I’m willing to give anything a shot, as I live in New Zealand, and by the time shipping costs are added, it will not be worth doing, because the cost will be over a third of the cost of the printer.

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@Stuart, I’m the one who first publicly replaced F1 galvos (and control boards) and manually tuned them here on this forum. Note that the galvo mirror units themselves are not tunable - it’s the controller boards they plug in to which are tuned - the F1 used commodity laser light show galvos that came with a controller board for each galvo with adjustment trim pots. The F1+ uses a single custom controller board for both galvo’s which is presumably tuned programmatically via proprietary FL software.

Basically - it sucks, but in your shoes I would get a new printer, or pay the repair …

5

Thanks Kevin, Its good to know for certain that there is nothing I can do. I am going to try having a look at what is actually wrong with the y galvo itself and then see if it is fixable, and if it isn’t, then send it back to Formlabs.

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