Resin tank life time

Support & Troubleshooting Form 3/3+
1

Hello everyone,

I would like to have your feedback on the life of the resin tank? When the Form 3 was announced, a counselor told me that it was comparable to the LT tray in the Form 2, now the definite release talks about replacing the tray after 3000 printing layers … is ridiculously little, a single impression high enough in 50um quickly passes over 3000 layers …)
When did you change bac? what worries made you change it?

(in my examples it is only a question of standard resin)

Edit:
I apologize in advance if a subject above already existed, but the research did not give me anything, especially since I do not speak the language;)

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2

To add to those questions - what’s the recommended shelf life of the Form 3 tank with the resin inside when stored?

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3

I am on my 5th liter of standard Gray on my original form 3 tank.
I see no sign of wear.

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4

I think the worry is not so much the visible wear as sudden mechanical failure.
(Film delaminating.)

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5

It seems to me that it is a month (to be confirmed) may be possible to do much more, if the container is completely enclosed under the shelter of light and under vacuum ?

6

3,000 must be incorrect.

Is there a chance they meant 30 thousand layers? Even then that is 10 3,000 layer prints. So the either number makes little sense.

7

I printed 15 liters of draft resin in a tank then had to change to get better results

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8

Light isn’t the issue (vacuum? how did you achieve that?).
It’s the fact the resin tends to eat through most adhesives, and both films are attached to the tank using an adhesive.

9

Did you store the resin in the tank between liters?

10

Yes I printed 15L in about 15 days so that may not be much of a comparison

11

Wow, I did not know this. We use multiple types of resin in our shop. While we have one resin type printing, the others sit in the drawer. Is the resin sitting in the tank in the drawer shorting the overall life cycle of the resin tanks? If so, do you drain out all the resin when you swap out tanks?

12

That’s the thing - i’ve got no clue if it shortens the Form 3 tanks’ life (and by how much).
I do know that it shortens the Form 2 (non-LT) tanks’ life, and the recommendation by support is to drain the tank in a container and pour back in if you’re going to leave the tank for more than 2 weeks unused.

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13

I’ve been storing my resins in my LT tanks on my Form 2 for almost a year without problems. I’m storing my F3 tanks in a similar fashion but it’s way too early to tell how well they’re going to hold up.

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14

Same here. I’m curious about the Form 3 as well… if the storage time frame is different, specifically lesser than the Form 2 WITH resin inside, I’ll be very disappointed.

15

What was happening to the prints that made you decide to change the tank?

16

I had a tank fail just last week after about 2, maybe 3 liters of resin.

It had one questionable spot on it that I had been avoiding, but I guess I should have been more proactive.

Side question: support hasn’t yet answered this question yet: how does one get under the plate in the bottom of the printer to clean it? There’s a bunch of resin under there I can’t easily get to. I’m tempted just to pour a half quart of IPA and slosh it back and forth, but there just has to be a better way.

Also, this is Form’s third printer and it doesn’t drain either into an alarmed resin trap or to outside the printer? Really?

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18

It seems to me that there is a plastic cover under the printer that unscrews, in my opinion it is the best solution for a complete cleaning, I plan to place a small “tarpaulin” of protection at the bottom of the printer with borders and a tube to properly redirect a possible resin leak out of the printer …

Where in your resin tank did you leak? do you have a photo of the “hole” or crack please ?

19

That’s disheartening to hear.

20

I am very interested in this as well. I have a possible trouble spot on a fairly new tank (1.5 litres printed with it). My first tank was ruined in transport to have a repair done at a local vendor. Resin was spilled and got between the film layers.

I’m very curious to see what the life span on these might be. Seems like we get to be beta testers for this too. The 15 litres is very promising to hear!

21

There are six screws on the bottom of the printer. Two let you remove the front panel, four let you remove the side panels, but no joy on the bottom. I’ve opened a new thread for this.