Yes the tank is still “usable” however because that area is so brittle i have had a print fail because the little chips fall into the resin.
I try to remove as much of the broken area as possible, but small pcs keep flaking off.
so no, a broken tank is really not usable, at least not without applying some packing tape over the break…but that should not be the practice for such a machine.
Well Ren. I feel your pain. My tanks cracked and Formlabs did replace them. Now, however, the latest issue is that the resin tray bed itself has become jammed in the machine at a 45 degree angle and won’t budge! I don’t know if Alex works for/with Formlabs as he seems to champion their cause, but I can safely tell you that you will have 1 issue after another with this technology until you finally can’t take any more. My machine is going back. Just be thankful you didn’t make the same mistake that I did; I thought they were great and bought two!!!
Sorry that you’ve had a rough time with the machines, @Brian_Merrigan — it can be frustrating to see all of the problems early on. I promise you — if you work with our support team, we’ll get you on your way. The resin tank jammed down sounds like a defective peel motor mechanism, which we’ll gladly replace (at our cost).
Haha, no I’m not with the formlabs team. Though I would have like to work with them from an innovation p.o.v!. My printer has been sent back to the engineering team right now because of laser issues, so I’m pretty unbiased. However, I’m still realistic. I have the same cracks and noticed some pieces of acrylic floating near the side, but after taking them out nothing ever interfered while printing. Perhaps I’m lucky and @Renwick had less luck, but still, in my opinion, the trays are still useable. I do, however, agree that these cracks shouldn’t appear. Especially for the price we are paying.
The tanks are injection molded. and the issue is they made that corner too thin as a silly attempt to add a pour spout. They will need the mold machined out. Luckily since they are subtracting from the mold they don’t need a new one. If you need to add material to the mold it’s goodbye ~$10,000 mold. Not sure why that hasn’t been changed.
One email to support and a few pictures to show all my tanks together along with the cracks, and they have new tanks shipping out today.
The support from Fromlabs is getting better and better!
Thanks
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My own experience has been poor customer service. A cracked tank led to leakage into the machine which has caused a peel motor failure which also damaged a second tank. Customer services have offered only one tank and a replacement motor despite all three being due to manufacturing faults. What have others experiences in similar circumstances been?
Man, I am SOOO glad to read this thread… I had this problem by the end of the first week, and thought someone in my office had been fooling around with the tank, had maybe dropped it!
Only one tank affected so far, in about 5 weeks of fairly intensive printing, with a fair bit of changing tanks/swapping lids (5 of them in total all with different resins); it’s clearly to do with the thin walls due to the well-meant spout.
The worst thing was: because of the crack, and how far the resin is pushed up when the build platform dives in at the start, the tank had leaked… was REALLY lucky that the leak stopped just short of the edge of the black tank support frame, so no mirror damage or the like, but it was CLOSE. One more reason to only have just enough resin in the tank for the current job, instead of keeping it filled up close to the max!!
At any rate: I WOULD NEVER USE A CRACKED TANK BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF LEAKAGE AND THUS PRINTER DAMAGE!
(Glad I kept the tank, too… was sooo close to binning it… at least one mosquito got taken down in the process 
!)
yeah I got one starting to crack. Is it to do with that thin area of the corner? Why is it thin?? I haven’t found a purpouse for that, just seems to make it week as my tank is starting to crumble in the thin area.
I patch up cracked areas with sellotape. The cracks are starting out and the tape seems to hold everything well.
Run some clear packing tape around the perimeter which will help keep cracks from getting worse, keep chips from falling inside and help keep the tank from leaking.
The point of failure is in the back corner on the hinge side which takes the highest force during compression layer process. The slightest deflection is making the tank pop. From what I gather there are new tanks in the works that address this issue.
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With a crack that significant in the corner I wouldnt want to chance it with the tape. Also getting bits of the orange acrylic crumbling off into the resin. The crack I have looks the same as Seagulls and the tank has had very little usage. I only tape areas where cracks are starting.
open ticket, get replacement.
Just to complete how it went with me:
I opened a ticket due to degrading quality - this is not yet cleared, but support in the form of Nicholas Quinn is being very helpful and we both think it is ‘just’ mirror contamination, which should be solvable in the next few days without sending the printer back; currently I am waiting for a (free) replacement main mirror, replacing it looks a breeze - thanks to the design of the printer :)!
In the course of this ticket I mentioned the crack. The first statement I got was to not use cracked tanks. When I responded I had the above tank, but also 2 with significant cracks, plus one showing stress marks, and only one further tank that was completely ok, I got the following (reasonable and understandable) answer:
“Overall the two resin tanks with smaller cracks look very stable and you should be able to print with these for a bit longer, but you will want to keep a very close eye on them and inspect them after and during every print job. If these start to get worse or begin to grow then it would be best to discontinue use.”
I got a voucher for a free tank to replace the totally unusable one; what with now knowing the reason (lifting the black lid off like a ‘hinge’, which stresses the back left corner), I am fairly confident this is a reasonable compromise, and that the damaged ones (see the pics of the tank) are useable after all:
The main worries I would have with a damaged tank are a) leaking of resin messing up the main mirror or possibly the ‘hinge’ (nothing else is really vulnerable, as far as I can see), or b) bits of tank crumbling into the resin during a print job - this happened to me with the wrecked tank, without consequence. Theoretically, this ‘crumb’ could damage something, most likely the tank itself, or at least ruin a print job; a worst-case would be the ‘crumb’ being big enough to get trappedbetween build platform and tank, I guesss possibly cracking the base of the tank and causing a leak onto the main mirror. Since the main mirror is easily replaceable, even this is not an absolute catastrophe, but would, of course, mean the printer being out of action for some days and another wrecked tank.
Hopefully for you guys out there: Forewarned is forearmed; if a tank is actually damaged, open a ticket and ask for a voucher.
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Same here, have a couple of tanks which cracked at the upper left corner. At leas the crack doesn’t ran through the bottom…
It has happened to me.
soo sad.
I was doing my best to watch, careful not to strain against the corner with the lid.
this crack happened in storage.
I put the tray away intact, retrieved it two weeks later cracked.
I sent in a ticket. This is a molding problem in my vast experience
Ken has a very good idea.
This ‘flaw’ is a design intent; pour spout. However, due to very poor user research before release for consumption. My first two tanks broke apart after first use because the sticky resin holds onto the plastic cover. when you pull the cover off, unless you pull perfectly vertical, the weakened corner will break off every time.
My remedy was to beef up the weakened corner on new tanks before using. I put two strips of masking tape in the corner making sure the bottom of the tape was very secure against the wall. I then pour a series of clear resin into this hollow. Just a few drops at a time and then use the UV lamp to cure. About 10 times and you finish at the very top. Now, the wall is super thick and hard and will not break (well, at least not for me yet 
) - but I also am very careful when pulling off the plastic cover.
Hope this will help until Formlabs runs out of Rev 03 and changes the design for Rev 04 as this feature is completely useless and makes for many unhappy customers.
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From what Inhear this flaw is being addressed for future tanks.
Current tank and earlier tanks cracked at the same spot. After looking at the tank design and more importantly the forces applied it occurred to me that the same corner that fails first it’s always in the back of the column closest to the hinge side. Keeping that in mind and the displacement of the pdms layer causes the corner to fail.
On my latest tank though I only have a couple of prints out. I used clear packing tape to beef up the walls. Maybe masking tape would do the trick too? So far so good here.
I’ve taken to ensuring I lift the black cover off at the back 2 corners first. Do that, and the corners never get stressed, i.e. no need to ‘beef’ them up. I’m stacking up to 6 tanks on top of each other for several weeks, swapping tanks several times a day, printing several jobs a day, no problem since I found out what the cause of it was.
It’s a pain in the ass problem though… I pity the poor person who suggested this on-paper-really-great-idea to pour the resin out - NEVER needed THAT function, but I ALWAYS need the function of a resin tank actually HOLDING the resin without cracking and leaking everywhere.
Sol
P.S. Just to put my ‘pity’ into perspective: I’m a product developer myself, and I’ve integrated a few such ‘great ideas’ myself over the years… so, in case you, the person who came up with this idea for a pour spout, are reading this post: I really do feel for you… nobody’s perfect, that’s what redesigns are for!! And kudos to FormLabs for replacing my cracked tank without complaining!
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Yeah the pour spout was a silly idea since it’s on a corner anyway so I’d assume the revised mold will just do away with it completely.
To combat this any time I get a new tank before I do any prints I run a piece of packing tape inside and outside of the tank at that corner and whenever I put my plastic lid on I NEVER press it down. I just rest it on top and let gravity do the rest. That way it’s never fully pressed into the groove which when combined with sticky resin almost always results in really bad cracks the next time you go to remove that cover.
Really looking forward to that updated tank though 
I missed your post! Thats almost exactly what I do but I haven’t actually built out the area yet. I just reinforce it like you do and it’s helped out a lot. Like you said though this is really useless so hopefully they just do away with it for the next revision.