Personal thoughts about Formlabs :)

General Discussion
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Hey there,

I’m at a loss. I recently purchased a second Form 3B printer (broken) intentionally. :slight_smile:
After plugging it in, there’s no sign of life. I’ll give it a try to fix it.
If I don’t fix it, then it will be a source of parts.

I’m curious to know what caused this issue. :smiley: While the price of materials is high, and the Form 3 support is expected to be discontinued in three years,
I can’t help but feel a bit attached to Formlabs. :heart_eyes:
I thought I would visit your labs, sign an NDA, and look at how you work.

It’s not just about the printers; I’m also in love with the Wash/Wash 2. That elevator for cleaning parts has captured my heart. I’m even considering building my own simple wash (if I can’t find a cheap Wash2).

In the meantime, I’ve been searching for used, or broken Form 4, but unfortunately, most of them are under warranty. A new set is out of my budget.
This is insane! :face_with_spiral_eyes:
And I’m not a pro user!!!

Congratulation to your marketing and PR team. Their tricks work on me. :clap:

BR,
Sebastian

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Hi @strojano

Thank you for reaching out.
I’m happy to hear that our hypnosis worked on you, I’ll forward the feedback to marketing.

About your printer
If it’s “not turning” on, there are a couple of things that could be at play:
Power Supply, SOM (System on a Module, aka the “brain”) or the motherboard.
The first thing to check would be if you can see the little fan at the bottom turning on once you plug the printer in. During the booting process, this is one of the first things that happen.
I’m attaching the guide for SOM replacement to this post, you can use this to reseat the SOM and additionally there are a couple LEDs around the SOM that should light up/blink during booting/operation.

If you take the back of the printer off, plug the machine in, take a video of every LED you can see doing anything and send this to us in the service team, we can help you identify what is broken.
You can open a ticket with us by filling out this form.

Kind regards
Jakob

Replacing the Form 3 SOM.pdf (4.0 MB)

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Sebastian,

Thanks for your interest in Formlabs.

What’s the most that you’d pay for something that prints like the Form 4?

What’s the most that you’d pay for a kit with such a printer, wash, and cure?

Thanks,

Max

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@MaximLobovsky It’s a tough question to answer.

Hobby users cannot pay $4,000+ for something they don’t make money from. Professional users also want lower costs.

I think an acceptable price is something like what used Form 3 is going for now, from around $600 to $1,500. A bundle is achievable around $1,500 to $2,000.

My personal experience. I bought my Form 3B for $800. It came with 3 resin tanks, 2 build plates, and several resins. The price decided that I bought a used one.

Current Form 4 prices in Europe $5,200 for just the printer, and $8,400 for the full kit. Open Material Mode costs another $3,589

I like to test new things and experiment, but I cannot afford these prices.

BR,
Sebastian

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I had a Form 2, and deprecated that for the benefits of the Form 3+, bought a second Form 3+ to meet a deadline, added pumps for each, and now I am looking at adding a Form 4, for tray life with engineering resins, and lower resin prices, plus of course, fast prints. I am also enamored with the new color resin paradigm, being able to pick a specify color, and at a reasonable cost.

That would be something I would like to see for the Form 3.

With that, I will probably be running the 3+’s with standard resins for the rest of their lifetimes.

All in all, very satisfied with Formlabs, and looking forward to yet more new innovations to be announced a few years hence…

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All I can say is that I’m done with Formlabs. After more than six years of working with Form 2 and Form 3/3+ printers, I’m now switching to another company. Overall, Formlabs’ products were just a disappointment. Our Form 2 printer had to be replaced six times due to a variety of different problems. A Form 3 printer broke down after 10 months and the replacement Form 3+ printer after 9 months (250k layers printed). Both times they could not be repaired, and this time Formlabs is hesitant to replace the broken 3+. So it’s time for me to leave, and I can only recommend that everyone stay as far away from the Form 4 as possible. It’s hard to believe that this model is now anywhere near robust after many years of producing only “disposable printers.”

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We haven’t had very many issues and the machines work great we love the new Form 4 its so much faster and better quality and the 4L has been working just as well only a few glitches and bad parts but that’s what you get sometimes buying a machine right when it comes out got to work out the bugs and Formlabs has been nothing but helpful and supportive with replacement parts.

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The support was mostly helpful, but if the machines are of such poor quality with so many unsolved bugs and mechanical problems, there’s not much they can do.

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The Form 4L has been a big step up for me compared to the Form 3 and 3L. Those both had their own share of problems at launch and also limitations even after many of those issues were sorted (eg. annoyingly short tank life). The 4 ecosystem solved alot of those pain points while allowing you to print super fast which has been crazy. Just my experience!

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This^

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Even though the Form 4 might be improved, I don’t think it’s right to leave users to their own when it comes to irreparable and poorly produced Form 3s. After this experience, I can’t believe that the money for a Form4 is a good investment.

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@custom_lab_in We’re truly sorry to hear about the frustration caused by your printer issues.
As far as I can see from your cases with our support team, a major hurdle is that the defective component in your Form 3+ is not replaceable. We know that irreparable issues are a source of frustration for our users. Please know that we took experiences like yours on the Form 3 generation to heart, and serviceability became a massive focus for the Form 4 development. On the Form 4, the majority of parts are customer-replaceable, meaning most issues can now be fixed without replacing the entire device.
While I know this doesn’t solve your current issue, please know that customer feedback like yours directly guided the improvements built into the Form 4 series.

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It’s very nice to hear that my money and time over the last few years have helped to eliminate the massive flaws in the previous models 2 and 3.
Irony aside, I would be very happy if Formlabs would replace my 2nd Form 3, which has only run 250k layers (the first one broke even earlier) and is now completely unusable, but unfortunately this company only seems to want user feedback and make big promises but not provide support back.

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if it was under warranty Im sure they would.

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That’s right. Now I understand why they give such a short warranty. It is not very reassuring that new Form 4 printers also only come with a one-year warranty.

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@custom_lab_in We truly understand your frustration when dealing with issues on a printer that is out of warranty.
Unfortunately, our options for resolving hardware failures are limited once the warranty period has ended. Our team is still happy to assist you with troubleshooting any print issues, but printer replacement is no longer covered under warranty terms.
We know this might be disappointing. For future peace of mind and longer coverage, we do offer Service Plans for up to five years, which is a policy that aligns with industry standards. Despite the limitations on replacement, we’re still committed to assisting you with troubleshooting any issues that are fixable without replacement.

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Hey there! I was on a long vacation, so I’ve been limiting my forum visits and just catching up on this thread now.
I started this topic because I can’t quite understand my own attachment to Formlabs printers even though I’m not a professional user. I don’t make money from prints, so logically a standard consumer-grade printer should be enough for me. But here we are – Formlabs printers and resins in Europe are significantly overpriced, yet I still want to use them. I have to repeat: Congratulation to your marketing and PR team. Their tricks work on me.

I’ve managed to source resins from people who’ve sold their printers or bought the wrong type, but resin tanks aren’t as easily available on the secondary market.
Reading through this discussion, I can really relate to the frustration about non-replaceable components. That’s exactly what drove me to try something different. I ended up buying a failed Form 3+ for around $100 and managed to repair the motherboard.
Through this repair process, I discovered that if the SOM isn’t completely burned or damaged, it can potentially be repaired. Each SOM has its own calibration data, which adds complexity, but it’s not impossible. I think I’ve identified what might be causing many of these bricked printers, but I can’t share details yet – partly because I’m still researching the repair process, and partly because I’m unclear on the legal status of these repairs in the EU.
It’s encouraging to hear from Sophia_M that serviceability became a major focus for the Form 4 development. That said, it doesn’t help those of us dealing with Form 3s that have failed outside warranty, especially when you hear about printers failing at only 250k layers. The one-year warranty period feels quite short given the investment these machines represent.

So if some of you have broken SOM on 3/3+ just keep it.
BR,
Sebastian

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18

In defense of FL, it’s a bit of an ignorant bias to blast them for ‘only a one-year warranty’..

Hell, Apple - arguably the best hardware design company in history - has a 1 year warranty. That’s it. and that’s with units which sell hundreds of thousands or millions of units. AND that’s in a MUCH MORE mature industry than resin 3D printing.

FL would love to achieve the same market penetration, but well, $4k isn’t really a ‘pure hobbyist’ price point….

That said, in the current stream of tech, it’s become much harder to maintain supply-side for ongoing parts and support after a few years.. it’s just challenging - because tech is changing SO much right now, finding suppliers who’ll keep older products afloat.. Not to compare to Apple too much, but they consider machines legacy at 3years, and obsolete at 6 (and quit supplying parts/support at that point). The form3 is now legacy, so while one could have frustration at the current support issues, it’s not surprising - the entire resin sector of the industry is in its infancy still.

We run 3 Form4 systems, and are planning for a 4L in Q3 of this year. Product prototyping, product development, and production use. They just run.. we produce 2500-3000 parts per month on 3 printers.
Generally right now we’re seeing 1 or 2 part print failures per month.. That is 1 or 2 bad parts out of 2500 parts. Just for perspective, you don’t even dream of that quality ratio even in automated CNC operations. Even being overly pessimistic (say 5 failed parts out of 2500), we are seeing product consistency at rates equal to or exceeding even the most well-controlled CNC mfr rates from say automotive Tier 1, aerospace prime, or medical OEM (typically .2%-1.0% scrap rate). [we’re doing biomed, not aerospace, so YMMV, but still, it’s arguably world-class output]. In December we produced 2400 parts, with 0 failed parts. In November it was ~2550 parts with 2 failed parts.

Is this an overpriced toy? I don’t think so.. my next choice would be Stratasys, Carbon, or say ETEC… In that world, the comparisons are mostly in the “add a digit” category - none of the industrial/production-capable systems.. Even the Nexa3D is 50% more cost than the Form4.. and your ongoing cost base is constant.

  • Nexa3D - $6k + a lot of additional add-ons.. and required annual ‘membership’ - realworld comparable is around $9k.
    • the Nexa3d NXE (actual production use) is pushing $65k
  • ETEC - Envision One - $18,000.
  • 3D systems
    • Figure4 is around $22k.. and it’s really antiquated, limited resins
    • Origin One starts at $100k
  • Carbon - the M3 starts at around $25k/year (subscription model)
  • Prodways - around $250k to get in.

I know a lot of hobby types are trying a direct comparison to the bambu or Elegoo. I have to say both of them are…..well. hobby grade.

If you like to tinker, are willing to spend loads of time adjusting, prepping, de-f**ing your printer every run, etc, then yeah, that might be the printer for you. You can spend a few hundred and tinker all you want.

We bought a group of Saturns this summer to do a comparison with Formlabs, as we were trying to decide whether to go deeper into FL or save money by getting lower cost units and have the luxury of open-source resins. retail costs on resin were a major consideration..

  1. The quality comparison is not even in the same ball field. Not even close.
  2. The engineering is an order of magnitude better.
    1. ongoing production management
    2. automation of flow
    3. remote control & monitoring
    4. ease of maintenance
  3. Support with FL. Outstanding.
  4. Resin costs. This was a real one for us. We’re running 10-20L/week of resin in production. That’s an actual cost aspect, when it comes down to decisions. BUT - Formlabs has production programs for this, and we were able to bring the ongoing production costs down to a level that we could see work, when we took it all into consideration.
  5. Continued platform development. I really believe the FL guys understand the need for ongoing platform development, and are staying committed to that - thru expansion of resins, software, printer enhancements (flex build plates are awesome), and more.

So yeah, is it all perfect? not 100%.. actually had a single part fail on a build plate this morning (3 printer runs, 54parts each, 1 part failed). That said, we had zero since THanksgiving. so 1 part out of the past….4,000…

i would say a lot of folks who complain about FL price are trying to compare FL to say the Elegoo Saturn, or a Bambu A1 or FDM system… the numbers don’t really add up in my opinion, because those printers don’t really approach production capable systems.. so yeah, for tinkerers, sure… real-world production? nah…

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That’s a bold move picking up a broken 3B for parts! If you do manage to get it running, definitely post an update. I think a lot of us here are stuck in that middle ground where we love the output but wish the hardware was a bit more ‘prosumer’ friendly when it comes to self-repairs.

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