I wanted to order a “Resin tank LT” on the Euro store, and I see there is a 10 weeks lead time !
What the hell is going on with these tanks ?
Its about ~8 wks here in the US.
Seems to be that the advertised durability is holding up to scrutiny, and FL is having a hard time keeping up with demand.
With the cost vs performance ratio, there’s absolutely no reason to buy a non-LT tank anymore.
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i ordered and LT tank cus it was backordered till October, I received my LT tank 2 weeks after I ordered it.
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…and since they have truckloads of the old crappy throw-away tanks, they don’t want to make it too easy to get the new one.
I can’t think of any other reason why you couldn’t crank out enough silly plastic trays to meet the demand in this day and age…
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If there is so much capital tied up in the orange tanks, so much so that they artificially throttle LT production, why introduce the LT at all at that point? They did the R&D, testing, sourcing, and set the price for the LT, the value of which would have been clear during the process, not a surprise.
I think, the reason behind the delays is either production, or QA. LT tank is a new product with a new coating process, and there is always issues that come up, and more issues that come up only when production is scaled.
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I can understand why there could be issues in mass producing a Tesla Model 3.
But not a plastic rectangle.
If that was the case, I wouldn’t trust them to make a stereolithography 3D printer.
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Formlabs has acknowledged that there have been production issues that have slowed things down. They have been working to get things rolling out the door.
The LT tanks don’t last forever. Prints fail and when they do it can easily damage the LT surface when you remove the failed layers.
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Sigmazero is right.
Its a new product, and already there have been reports of failures and other issues.
I got two of them… but I still bought a couple regular tanks- Some resins I don’t run very often, and if a tank is going to go bad because I only use it once in a great while, I would rather toss a cheap tank than a costly one.
time will tell if the LT tanks are reliably worth their cost.
I hear you guys, but you can’t deny there are supply and logistics issues with Formlabs.
Recently, I had to wait two months to get some “Durable” resin.
For a company with a business model based on consumables, such lead times are not acceptable.
No one is saying that, and we’re all pretty mad about it I think 
IMHO however it’s a bit of a stretch to imply that the delays are a commercial move in order to flush the standard tanks, and the tesla comparison is also a bit far-fetched as the means and market are so vastly different… Working for a hardware startup I find it plausible (not normal, but plausible) that they would have supply and production issues with these tanks : they changed quit a lof of stuff between the gluing process and the optical windows which is made of different materials (on the inside at least), and they are probably producing these offsite (probably in Asia) which doesn’t make it easy to guarantee quality and supply especially when there are issues… we really don’t know, maybe they are keeping 50% of the tanks they receive because they don’t meet quality standards.
That being said, I am pissed by the delays and it’s an issue I could easily live without so I completely agree with the complaint in general.
The lead time with my local supplier is 2weeks.
The impression I get is the Formlabs is trying to build up a network of local suppliers, with the possible consequence that they are intending to run down their own retail operation. As has been suggested to you in the past, check with your local suppliers, they may be more likely to have stocks of the items you want.
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Yes, check local reseller’s as sometimes we have stock, even when FL themselves are out.
Where is this list of local resellers?
The LT tank sells the cheaper tanks and vice versa. Its common business to have two products or more simply to trick people into buying one or the other. Well this one is more expensive it must be better. Or well damn that one is expensive but this one is much cheaper looks like a deal. You seem to have no clue about retail. Its all business and nothing to do with serving our needs. Bottom lines are more important than what we need at the end of the day.
either You clearly have never run a business, or you subscribe to all manner of conspiracy theories.
The LT tanks were developed because of design issues with the original tanks that kept cropping up.
One of these was that some resins foam up and the wiper arm sloshed the foam over the rim of the tank.
The LTs have a wider well at both ends to help eliminate this issue.
Also- they got lots of complaints about the short lifetime of the original tanks- and they went to an even wider spectrum color filter to reduce light exposure when the tanks are not in the printer.
Oh, and they added a painted on area for writing labels on the tanks themselves.
All of these were issues raised repeatedly and vociferously by USERS.
So they invested money in trying to solve them… but just as with the original tanks… once you think you have a workable design- it will be actual usage by the public that will unveil any problems your in house testing did not reveal.
The longer lasting coating on the bottom of the tank for example has turned out to not be as physically durable.
Moreover, because it is a NEW process- it has been much harder to debug issues of production quality.
Formlabs is Not happy with production delays BECAUSE there could be a lot of money to be made in the initial sales of these tanks.
But, it is NOT some deep state PLOY to manipulate you into buying the old tanks.
Number one- until the LT tanks can be produced reliably in quantity- and their manufacture tweaked with input from user experience… it would be stupid to discontinue the old tanks.
Number two- even when LT tanks are more available- it would be stupid to stop selling a tank you CAN make for less, because the tooling for that tank has already been paid for.
And- because the tanks are not long term… having resin in them eventually loosens the bond between the rubber and tank glass… and they leak- or a tab breaks off… because of that, folks like me who print in a large variety of resins will buy LT tanks for the materials we print the Most often… to get the longest exposure life we can- AND we will buy cheaper regular tanks for those resins we only ever print occasionally- because we will likely have to toss the tank from sheer age before we burn it out thru exposure.
People who actually run real businesses certainly have their eye on profitability… but any business that survives is run by folks who understand that NOT serving the needs of your customers is Not a viable business model.
Get some meds to deal with that paranoia,
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Here, here gentlemen.
I think we can all agree that these tanks are quite troublesome to both users and manufacturer.
Let’s all hope that a breakthrough will happen in that area.
As a matter of fact, in another post, I describe an issue I never encountered yet : clouding between the glass and the silicon, but not the usual one due to repeated exposure.
Pesky resin tanks…
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Where are you located?
I think I can blow a few of you out of the water:
I ordered my LT tanks at Conrad in Germany on June 15th with 2 weeks of lead time. In July that lead time was extended to 6 weeks. Today I received an update with the new lead time being … literally … “indefinite”.
Not to mention I ordered 6 tanks. Didn’t receive a single one yet after three months…
I ordered a LT tank from https://3ddentalstore.fr/ in France.
I received it in 2 days ! Yay ! …except it was a normal tank 
Called and they arranged the delivery of the good tank and shipping back of the wrong one.
Kudos to them. I guess they hire interims during the summer…
Any advice about the LT tanks from people who have owned them ?
I heard they are very fragile. How do you clean them if resin has solidified in the bottom ?