Form 2 is an outstanding machine and totally worth the money. For me, it worked right out of the box! This is positive feedback to combat the overwhelming negative feedback. Compare the Form 2 to an industrial CNC machine. It works and does the job better than a cheap garage CNC kit. With great power comes great responsibility. So all you need to do is operate the machine like a professional. Every time you want to print something new, pretend you are setting up a new manufacturing line in a factory: plan carefully, take your time and read instructions. Multi-million dollar machines are not bulletproof to human error so we can’t expect the Form 2 to be.
The Form 2 is simply outstanding for speed, print quality, and reliability. If anyone has positive things to say, please post it here so newcomers can get the other side of the story. I’ll be back later to give details. Please keep negative feedback away from this topic.
Formlabs is an awesome company.
I am a fan of Form Labs and their products too. But, that being said, potential buyers need to be aware that there can (and probably will) be issues with their printer sooner or later.
We currently are running 3 Form 2s and we were also early adopters starting out with a Form 1. We have had issues with not only it but the form 1+ (which I think was worse than the Form 1) and have had issues with our Form 2s as well.
People being people generally complain when things go wrong but seldom praise when things go right…so I surely understand your point. I highly recommend the Form 2 and ours have paid for themselves countless times over. That said they are far from perfect and some issues that many have experienced should be addressed quicker and with better solutions than has been done.
Nothing is all good and nothing is all bad. Form 2 is more on the good side IMO but the other side exists too and I will not hide my head in the sand. Quality issues can be very frustrating to both the commercial and craft user, they should not be overlooked or understated. Let complete information be known and let the potential buyer decide if the positives outweigh the negatives.
Our Form 2 brought a level of accuracy and build speed to the desktop that we didn’t expect for some years to come. More than just a prototyping tool, after a year and a half it has become part of the development process. Building small parts and assemblies in a few hours, we can quickly check our data, assess, refine and rebuild components.
At first the resins were fragile and brittle like boiled sweets and almost as sensitive to heat.
New resins have appeared; Tough (too toffee-like) and Durable (great for sliding parts) still have some way to go, perhaps borrowing from (and giving something to) the GF Rigid resin (impressively rigid even in thin walls).
The important thing is that the resin development continues apace.
I can’t ignore the problems; give me a great tool, then take it away for a month with contradictory information about why things have gone wrong. I’m going to be pissed off!
I still have misgivings about Rigid and why the wiper has to press the GF resin so hard onto the LT tray, degrading the surface and the build quality.
Looking to see how they solve ongoing problems.
Can’t wait to see what they do next.
I’m a mechanical design engineer at a medium sized product design and manufacturing company. We purchased our Form 2 about 1.5 years ago now. We had been debating going for a “professional” machine and decided on the Form 2 as a demo to see how 3D printing would help us in our design process. We’ve probably put 15-20L of resin through it of all the different types and have had very few issues. We’ve had the occasional failed print (usually our fault in how we supported the parts) and only one issue with the machine itself (a $170 fix to replace a faulty touchscreen). The Form 2 has paid for itself multiple times over. We’ve quickly iterated through design and testing processes, caught design mistakes before investing in production tooling and made countless jigs and fixtures to aid in prototype assembly. I can’t say that another 3D printer wouldn’t have had the same success but I think the quality of the SLA over traditional FDM has let us put more samples into customer’s hands without having to offer any explanation of the part quality. With the exception of hand polished lenses we don’t even bother mentioning that parts are 3D printed (unless we want to brag a bit ;). We currently have no plan to purchase a more expensive printer. Instead we can take that money and put it towards other fabrication equipment like CNC machines, laser cutter etc. As far as we’re concerned FormLabs has delivered everything we expected from the printer and more.
Our printer is well over 1.5 years old and the touchscreen started to look white-ish. I opened up a support ticket and they sent me out a new touchscreen assembly with no cost or questions. I’m pretty sure we don’t have a Pro Plan so not sure why it was free. I think it was because they had a bad batch of screens and they knew it was going to be an issue for a certain lot. Not sure but I would ask them for a refund. It doesn’t hurt to ask.
Chris