A week ago I bought a Form 1+ printer, unfortunately I could not get prints with good quality. I read all the maintenance manuals, so I already carry out the following actions:
Clean the resin tank (top and bottom)
Clean Mirrors
Clean building plate
Fine tuning
I only got the impression of small cubes (10 x 10 x 10 mm) with good quality, but increased the height of the cubes and the results are of bad quality.
Today I will buy another tank of resin or other resin to see if the error is solved. Is there anything I have not read? Calibration? Any packaging that needs to be removed? The tank is uneven towards the front, there is no constant level of resin, is it normal?
I read something about what the laser can be and a test to verify it, however in the Preform I did not find that menu, I want to think that this happened in Form 1.
Attached images of all the pieces that have gone wrong.
Did you purchase the printer new from FL?
If it is second hand, was it sold as a fully functional printer?
What did you clean the mirrors with and how?
Which resin are you using?
Thanks for the info. I have taken a few minutes to review your pictures. You are right, the models look horrible.
I would print the FL butterflies. That is a good basic indicator if the printer is printing properly.
With a new printer, you should not have to clean a new vat that you just got. The machine should not need any fine tuning as a general rule. By the pictures, you do not need to do any fine tuning as your rafts are sticking to the build platform. The printer should not need any calibration. Can you take some pics of the resin level. Is the printer sitting level? The little feet will unscrew so you can level it. The Form 2 has a neat tool but our feet can be used to level the printer. It just takes a little more effort.
You are thinking of the laser spot test. The odds the laser is bad in a brand new machine is almost unheard of. It is possible but I doubt it. There is a special way you have to launch Preform differently. Are you using a mac or pc?
You said you are printing the Formlabs test print to submit a ticket, can you post up pictures of the results.
For those specific prints, the main issue is the orientation of the objects and the supports–
First off, you have the bottom of the cube parallel to the build platform which will cause issues because the first layer will be much larger than the supports holding it up and the layer will fall apart as it peels before doing the next layer. Because of that it is recommended to angle a print, so for the cube you would angle it so that you start at a corner and then each layer would just get larger from there.
The other issue is stability, since you only have a little bit of support on the bottom it will not be very stable and you can see as the print gets taller the quality gets worse, and that’s likely due to the print flexing more due to stress after each layer peel.
If you angle it a bit, you can place some extra supports along the height to hold it in place better.
I changed the place of the printer because the tank was very uneven, now has a constant level. I mentioned the laser because there are articles about that, but only mention the Form 1 printer, I have the Form 1+ (I did not have the budget for Form 2, although I would have loved it, it will be another time).
I’m using Preform on Mac and I’ve printed the FL test, I got 4 prints with very good quality and one failed, I think it was by the level of the resin, I share some images http://bit.ly/2lGjjy8. I have two conclusions:
I need to learn to print with this technology, I thought it was similar to FDM but they have a world of differences.
The printer is in good condition, otherwise the print test would have failed, therefore I have not sent the ticket.
Now I’m testing with small parts and taking time to configure the supports, I think that’s where the problem lies. Any tip for the supports?
I will keep you abreast of my progress and again many thanks for the help.
Thank you very much for your answer. As I mentioned to @DavidRosenfeld , I have a lot to learn with this technology, so far I have discarded any failure of the printer. I have enough experience with FDM printers, but with these is my first adventure.
I started to print small models, including small cubes and I have oriented them to 45, 35, 25 degrees have come out better but not excellent, I guess as you say, I have to increase some supports to improve the resolution, do you have some model that can I print to understand this better?
I appreciate the explanation because I now understand the peeling process, the reason why reduce the area of contact of the piece with the build platform and the flexing and stress of the piece.
I’ve seen posts of people cleaning the inside with IPA or other cleaners.