Hello,
next week I should receive my form 4. I am a private user but always wanted to go into resin printing (from fdm) and now I am finally able to get this wonderful machine. The reason why I did not go into resin printing yet with cheaper alternatives is mainly because of the health risk. All other resin printers either don’t provide accurate safety certificates and also none has the easy handling of the secured tanks as Formlabs has - so yeah there was no choice of even trying cheap alternatives 
.
So but now to my question.. since I have already prepared my workspace, a good and flat area, space for Wash and Cure etc. I now wondered regarding the Flexible Build Plate. The printer includes the normal build plate (as it is not removable in the standard configuration), so I also ordered an additional flexible build plate… now I wonder when I start printing with the flexible, shouldn’t I first align this plate before printing? The documentation says the printer comes pre-calibrated - but I would guess only for the included normal Print Plate - so when I want to use the Flex, I guess I should calibrate this beforehand…. or is the build plate alignment really only necessary on LPU replacements and if you encounter issues, and should not be required just for different build plates? The documentation is unclear here?
Thanks in advance for your help!
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@Prinzesschen Congratulations on joining the Formlabs family of users. This will be an exciting time for you!
Typically, you don’t need to calibrate the printer for each build platform; however, it may be necessary. I’d suggest calibrating using the flexible build platform. If you have any non-adherence using the standard build platform, then calibrate it again. You should not have to go back and forth each time. If you encounter any issues, please get in touch with our Support Team, who will be happy to help you resolve any questions or concerns.
Thanks for you warm welcome 
!
Shipment was so fast, I already got it today 
- awesome that you packaged them on a palette so they came without any damages - because i guess with single packages they usually arrive in bad condition 
Was a pleasure to unbox everything and get it up and running! My first quick 2cm Ameralabs Test Print on Grey Resin V5 came out not too bad 
. I haven’t done any specific calibration just setup and go, but the most nice thing is, that I wasn’t in contact with any of the resin during the complete process.
For now I have just used the default build plate - puh not so easy to get this very tiny print off it - so may switch to flex build plate soon. But thought I would give it a try. So let’s get back to some real work - need to check some dimensional accuracies for fittings etc. soon.
Anyway machine feels and looks of high quality so let’s see what they can produce !
BTW at the end of the print, the mixer was far left so was it ok to move the mixer manually to the correct position so that I could put the cover of the resin tank in or is there another method - I don’t want to leave the tank open inside the printer during the night - so what is the common behavior here, I just put the mixer to the right, put the resin tank cap on and closed the resin cartridge cap.
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Good questions! Moving the mixer manually is fine, and you can leave the tank (and vent cap) inside the printer as long as you keep the lid shut. You can also leave the vent cap on while its in the printer.
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Hi @Prinzesschen
I initially printed with the standard build plate and only later switched the Flex. As you now know and as @jessbuck mentioned, there is no need to calibrate anything, it works seamlessly
As for the mixer - I leave one tank in the printer mostly and only remove it when I am switching resin, so no need to install a tank cover whilst in the printer.
ps: If you een find yourself printing directly on the platform (like I do most of the time) I would suggest - when possible - try to stay clear of those ‘dotted areas’ on the built plate as they tend to make the part harder to remove.
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Thanks for your reply… yeah I already found out the print parts stick very well to the print platform - I didnt print anything on the flex yet but on the normal one - and all was fine.
Regarding keeping the tank open - so is the Resin itself not vaporizing into the air if I keep the resin tank cover off within the form 4 - I mean the form 4 is not isolated - so for me having the tank with the tank cover open inside makes me think it would slowly vaporize into the air - sure its not like ipa, but still resin may also gas out slowly or am I wrong here? That’s why I am always putting the resin tank cap over it again inside the printer 
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Hi -
Sorry I should have bene more clear The adjustments I made to the material profiles are actually to reduce how well it sticks to the plate. This really only matters if you print parts directly online the platform as you will notice some “deformation” of the part at the build plate due to layer compression. By adjusting this, you can reduce this effect, but if you adjust too far, the part might not stick to the platform.
I have note seen any noticeable change in the resin properties or levels when left in a tank inside the printer. Of course some particles in the resin might sink to the bottom if you leave it stationary for a ling time (same reason why Formlabs suggest shaking the cartridges before printing) but before printing the mixer will reduce this as it mixer quite a lot while heating the resin anyways.
I suppose this cannot hurt, better save than sorry
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Yeah I can imagine that, I definitely also see some elephant foot when printing directly on the build plate - also dimensional accuracy is wrong there - so I think it would benefit to have some relaxed settings when printing on the print bed directly - but I would imagine there is a sweep spot on how much you can relax the stickiness and when it will fall off the plate - also something you really want to avoid, so I understand why they went for the stronger adhesion profile in the end…! But its interesting to see that the build plate is definitely completely parallel - even though I did not do a calibration - curious if that will be the same for the Flex plate - normally I just do the calibration anyway to be 100% sure and to avoid hassle - just in case… but seems like the factory default is fine.
And yeah I think the resin won’t evaporate like crazy so you would see the level going down over time - its too sticky for that - but I am pretty sure its still slowly gases out a bit so I like to have the cover closed .
Have a great new year!
P.S. Right now I am waiting for some more resin… but the shipment seems pretty slow over the holidays - hope it’s not always like this 
. My additional orders from 22. December and 25. Dec. were put to “Shipped” status in a day but are still not picked up yet (only label generated 
).
P.P.S. Also interesting - since I haven’t used the form wash for 2 days now, all the resin dust has settled on the floor and the rotator and I can see totally clear IPA now again - I wonder if it would be worth it to gently pull the above IPA out with a solvent pump or so and then just throw away the last 1-2cm of the IPA on the floor, to have almost clean IPA again?
Hi @Prinzesschen, welcome! I think you’ll find this thread interesting. TLDR, “dirty IPA” refers to a combination of two things:
-
Chemical saturation. This is resin that’s been chemically dissolved and is saturating the IPA. This cannot be “filtered out” without an IPA distiller or recycler.
-
Physical debris. This is cured or semi-cured resin that floats as sediment in the IPA, and looks like dust/powder. This is what you’re seeing settling in the bottom of your wash. When I first started resin printing, I did what you described, and would occasionally run the wash through some coffee filters with a solvent pump, but quickly became too much work to sustain so I stopped. But that thread I linked above seems to be a much more automated way to solve #2 and get the physical sediment filtered out just by running the wash with some water filters inside it. If you search “filter IPA” on this forum theres a few more threads of people experimenting with recycling (or at least prolonging) IPA.
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Thanks for mentioning that… so I bought an Intex Pool Filter Typ A today from my local store - they are easy to get because many pools use this Typ A water filter and only cost 9,99€ here… and wow it fits as it would have been made for it (200mm high)… I put it in the basket, let it wash for 50 mins… and wonderfully clear IPA now - the saturation is still far below the replacement, the filter can also still be used - so nice to not have all those resin dust inside anymore… quick and easy IPA filtering at least for the “physical parts”. Like this “hack” .
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All we need now is a wash for the Form Wash 
I despise cleaning it… mostly due to me having the slightest case of OCD (hehe) so I of course want to clean the thing to the point where it looks like it was just unboxed 
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Yes for sure… I recommend printing small cubes (eg, 10mm x 10mm x 10mm). This way you do not waste too much resin and you can keep adjusting settings to the point where there is no elephants foot. If you have calipers you can measure to see if you do indeed get 10mm on y-axis (or close to).
At least this is how I did it. I dod suspect this might differ from one machine to the other though. Here is my current settings for Tough 1500 V2 at 0.1mm layer height.
I am sure they can be adjust a little more upwards, but you can experiment with these if you want. For me they work on both Flex and normal plate, no issues.
For standard V5 Grey resin at 0.1mm layer height, I currently use the settings below:
Hope this gets you started.
Regards, Friedl.
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Sorry for the late reply, but I am still waiting for new resin… the last order took over 2 weeks sadly - not sure i guess the holidays made some troubles with the GLS delivery… ! So I should be able to start printing again this week ! Thanks for your tips and settings I will give them a try for sure because I also like to print directly to the build plate if possible.
And yeah a wash for the wash sounds good to me… nah I just hate all the dust sitting on the floor and then the next time in use the ipa is so cloudy… - so this intex water filter solution is really cool , easy and a nice way to have not cloudy and “good” looking ipa, at least for the eye.
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I am thinking of either getting a second wash or at least one more wash “basket”. Just trying to figure out where I stand with resin-printing.
I have been having a hard time getting the type of parts I require to be dimensionally accurate. FDM and CNC might be better alternatives for me, or just outsource 
Yeah seems like the impression to get perfect dimensional accuracy with form 4 right out of the box is illusional…, its what its advertised and shown in videos but I am also not seeing this being totally true - still try and error. But in FDM you usually also have dimensional accuracy problems depending on orientation, shrinkage etc. so this won’t really solve your problem.
In general parts fits together very well here when trying 0.2mm gaps and offsets - haven’t tested too much in this regards yet but can’t confirm that they are really only ±0.1mm in tolerances…
