I bought a few liters of the digital forge grey and did email them with a few questions before I started printing and they seemed pretty helpful. I started some prints last night and have a few pieces finished, however, I am going to wait until after a few more prints before I report back later with photos of prints, what I think of it overall, etc…
New digital forge 3d resin
twrelectronics
#64
One thing I would like to ask is how do I know if I got V2 or V1? You say that the odor is virtually non existent with V2, yet the stuff I have is actually stronger odor than any of the formlabs resins I have tried.
Dxxxx
#65
Did you get a SDS for the material - I asked on here and by email for one, yet they have remained silent about the SDS.
twrelectronics
#66
Yeah this is what came with it.
Honestly the smell is appalling and even remains after washing it in an alcohol bath twice and leaving it to sit outside. However, I will say that the print quality so far actually is pretty good. I printed my parts directly on the build platform as suggested and with internal supports on large pieces and they came out pretty good. I also tried one part without any supports and with the shape parts I was printing there was mild deformation on the one. This does not seem to occur as long as I use internal supports.
Other solid models I have printed directly on the build platform and with no supports and they came out great though. 
The material is definitely not brittle like formlabs grey and is much more durable, it does have some slight give to it so it will bend a little if you try without breaking. They mentioned there was nylon added to it and it does seem to go with the properties of it. I think this resin could be great for prototyping parts but as for production? For one thing, If I cant get rid of this strong smell on all of the parts then I cant see its value in production.
Dxxxx
#67
Thanks for that - I think I shall avoid it, it looks very risky with regards toxicity compared to other resins which use much safer formulations. The residual smell you mention may be resin within the printed part that has not cured properly. That will be just as toxic as the uncured resin.
I was hoping to see a proper SDS rather what you had sent you - that is an SDS that conforms to the relevant safety standards. If you suffer adverse effects then that helps the doctors identify what has caused it. Something like the Form Labs SDS for grey: https://archive-media.formlabs.com/upload/Grey-SDS_lQLbyNE.pdf
The one hazard symbol on there is extremely worrying - that is:
Its exactly what it says - A SERIOUS HEALTH HAZARD…
oberst3221
#68
The health hazards are no different than any other 3RD party or 1st party resins. You simply don’t want to inhale or touch it without gloves when it hasn’t been post processed. So nothing new there really. The health symbols are scary because we wanted to really grab folks attention so they would ACTUALLY read the warnings TW Electronics simply needs to post cure it and let it dry to vacate any residual smell: its just that simple. We’ve been using DF Grey for two years creating loads of products ( www.thecollectorsshowcase.com ). No matter what material your using, lets face it, its messy business. But its the early stages of a great industry and Im sure things will improve in the years ahead. Anyhow Im glad to hear of the success with the printing! enjoy the resin. Post cure it, its half the price of FL material so you can make some dough with your parts? I hope 
oberst3221
#69
There was no way for us to make any money doing batch manufacturing with the FL material prices. No way. I tried to negotiate with them on drums, pales they weren’t listening trust me. So we formulated our own material and have created so many cool projects. We typically do runs of 50-100 products using Form2 printers. Formlabs really seems to have no interest in scaling the material for small batch manufacturing on a serious scale. But with DFGREY its possible to do just that. It seems some of the other 3D printer manufacturers may see the light soon enough, or, I hate to say it: China companies will. Anyhow some pics of our batch runs using DFGREY ( no smell once they dry and cure
Cybuster
#70
did you use it in combination with the universal cartridge? It would be awesome to know how this resin handles when used on something other than open mode.
twrelectronics
#71
I printed in open mode. I did not have any parts that were over 100mL so it never had to stop for a refill. I simply topped off vat in between prints. Print quality is pretty good overall I would say. Even with no raft it adheres to build platform pretty well but I didn’t have much trouble removing them. They are very strong parts so I wasn’t worried about breaking them on removal. Unlike with something such as formlabs rigid resin where its very brittle and adheres to the build plate like crazy and can easily break on removal. The digital forge resin is very tough and Id recommend it if you need something more durable than formlabs grey. However, the smell as I said… Make sure you can use it in a closed room somewhere away from you. I did wash and cure my parts and the ones I printed about 12 hours ago still do have minimal smell to them but only noticeable if you hold the parts close to you. Perhaps one more wash would eliminate the smell completely? I can give it a try. Overall I really cant say too much bad about the resin as far as quality goes, just don’t like the smell. I’ll give it a shot for some more time though and see what happens, If I can eliminate it completely it should be good to go.
twrelectronics
#72
I do agree it would be tough to do manufacturing and profit while using formlabs resins. I did also negotiate with them and the most I could get down to was 5% off orders of $2,000 or more, and 10% off orders of $5,000 or more as far as resin goes. That’s still pretty minimal discounts especially when also charged for sales tax and for shipping… It does get expensive. Which is why I gave your resin a try. Its certainly not the worst resin ive used and is actually pretty good for the most part. I’ll give it a shot for some more time and see how it goes.
Cybuster
#73
I personally like setting up supports holding the model up because I had a real tough time taking the model off from directly on the bed due to the suction.
Did you run into this problem???
JoatrashFX
#74
I’m sorry but that is a grossly irresponsible, misleading and dishonest (or perhaps simply ignorant) statement to make!
Do you know the compositions of all other resins out there? Have you taken into account that there are bio-compatible formulations that are subject to stricter safety requirements (and likely much safer to handle, even uncured, than production resins)? Are you aware that many toxins take many years (not just ‘two’) before their adverse health affects may become evident, even after short exposures?
Your statement reads as a something a snake-oil salesman from the 1800s would write.
The instruction sheet contains misleading or incorrect statements as well. But hey, anything to “make some dough”, right?
twrelectronics
#75
Heres the verdict, from a totally unbiased, honest, and truthful perspective- Most of the prints with this resin went pretty well actually. I can’t complain much about the print quality. On one print, I did notice a lot of cured material in the Vat while printing which actually caused me to have to abort the print and start over but it was a one time occurrence out of about 10 prints. The material is not as brittle as formlabs standard or pro grey, however the main reasons I do not like this resin are still because of the strong smell. Even after washing the parts twice, curing, and leaving to sit outside over the weekend, they still have an unpleasant smell to them. If I do the same procedure to formlabs grey or grey pro there is no residual smell. This digital forge may be okay if you are looking to do some heavy prototyping and printing a lot of variants to perfect a design, something that could get very costly otherwise, but as for a final production part to sell to others or use? The smell for one thing will not allow me to sell as a production part, so I will stick to formlabs resins as far as production stuff goes. I purchased 3 liters of the stuff here and may go through a liter or so on some prototypes, but if anyone on the forum wants to try some of it out and you are U.S, just pay for shipping and ill send you a liter for free.
Cybuster
#76
Dumb question but is there any adverse effects if the DF Grey mixes with a bit of leftover FL Grey v4 that was in the resin tank?
jallore
#77
oberst3221, do you print everything in open mode? If so is the lack of heat a problem? Would be nice to print in closed mode with the heater on and just pour the DF resin into the original gray V4 containers so you don’t have to wait and wait and wait for the Formlabs printer to try to fill the resin tank. I noticed in closed mode I get “sensing resin” a lot during printing when the resin tank isn’t nice and full
eaelec
#78
Very strange, the resin is smelly when it’s in the liquid form, but after a part is cleaned in IPA and then a quick UV cure (about 15 mins on each side), I can’t smell anything. Now all the parts I print with grey are only about 1 inch or less long and I tend to keep the wall thickness down to 1 or 2 mm to save resin. If your pieces are large with very thick walls that might explain the difference.
aarongorga
#79
I think this it the best thread to ask/ add info to. I purchased a new liter for GreyV4 from FL and at the same time I bought some ALW and DF grey. So far all has been well, I did a few prints with the FL resin, then tried the ALW, all worked. When I tried the DF I got 2 failures in a row. I am printing in Closed Mode with the bed heater and wiper. I thought that would improve the prints, but for some reason with the DF it hasn’t worked. The material left in the tank is very soft and flexible, as is the stuff on the build platform, it’s extremely soft.
Should I retry this in Open Mode? Or have I missed some critical step. I reprinting the exact part using the FL Grey V4 now, just to see if it’s not some setup issue. I did print the same part in the ALW resin perfectly so not sure.
I really want the DF to work out because I live in Hong Kong and they actually ship here, so it’s by far my cheapest option.
Any advice is appreciated.
ApplyLabWork
#80
hi, aarongorga,
ApplyLabWork ships worldwide. Just go to our website www.applylabwork.com and there are different shipping options.
aarongorga
#81
Hi,
Thanks for letting me know, I must have missed that, I picked mine up in the US. The next time I need some resin now I know what I’ll be buying. Also you guys have a great bottle, you should sell refills to save on waste it’s a solid enough bottle to reuse.