There is a line that appears for approximately the first 5 mm up from the build plate on every print job. I am also having lots of resin tags produced in the vat and on the parts. This is on every print job that I send. The resin is ApplyLabworks Modeling Beige. I am using the setting for White Version 1 on the Form 2 printer.
I have tried making the adjustments in the Z direction, first .5, then .7, then .9. It seemed better, but now it is as bad as ever. Perhaps there is some other issue. It is leaving tags of resin all over the place. The line was visible even very faintly in the Gray resin from Formlabs. However, now it is like the laser is scattering and the prints are not distinct.
I filtered the resin, I cleaned the glass with 99% IPA and lens wipes (however, it was pristine before I cleaned it), and I changed to a new long life resin tank.
It did seem to temporarily make an improvement. However, I am still having all kinds of problems with tagging, and that line that steps out for about the first 5mm off the build plate on every print!
Do you have flaking like that with Formlabs resins ? Anyhow, it looks like an issue on the optical path of the laser. Check the bottom of the tank, the optical window, the mirror at the bottom of the printer and ultimately contact Formlabs to get the instructions to clean the galvo mirrors.
You could print this and post the results, it’s a great torture test to assess if the laser is obstructed in any way.
Thanks so much for taking the time to post. The resin tags as you called them are a print defect we call ragging which is typically due to contamination along the optical path somewhere, which causes the laser’s light to diffuse in a way we don’t want.
Now, this get’s slightly more complicated because you’re using a 3rd party resin, which is obviously fine, but that can make it difficult to troubleshoot because we really can’t nail down whether the problem is with the printer, or with the resin itself without eliminating that as a potential variable.
As for the line in your prints, this can be caused by a few different things that just require a little more in-depth investigation. So if you’d like our support team to dig into that for you please don’t hesitate to reach out at the link below and we’d be happy to help!
The line is caused by the change in the exposure setting, it uses a higher exposure on the first 5mm so that it sticks better, but it causes a noticeable line when it changes settings.
