So I printed with a new Resin Tank LT using the new Grey Pro material 3 times without any issues whatsoever. Now I try to print and I keep getting a “Missing Resin Tank” on the LCD screen, and on the web Dashboard it says “Tank Cartridge Mismatch”. Seems like a clear software bug. I updated to the latest firmware, but doesn’t appear to help.
I have repeatably removed and reinserted the tank. I also restarted the Form 2. It correctly detects the removal, but does not indicate when it is inserted. Any ideas?
Make sure the three brass strips on the right hand side of the tay carrier are clean and free to move, also try cleaning the chip on the under side of the tray.
@tgatliff, @welson I think it’s a problem with the design of the Form2 pin contacts reading the resin tank EEPROM chip. The tank chips are recessed into the tank plastic. I think the chip recess on the LT tanks must be very slightly deeper than on standard tanks.
I really dislike using the work “tank” to describe the tray holding the resin and print surface, it’s too easily confused with the resin “Cartridge” which is really much more like a tank. Like @billb I call it a “tray” but “tank” is the FL terminology, so it’s probably easier if I stick to it.
Initially I had this problem on all normal tanks, which I fixed by bending the Form2 tank contact pins up slightly - but with the LT tank. I couldn’t get them to read properly no matter what, and the pins are at the limit of adjustment. I had something similar to you, the display would acknowledge that a tank had been inserted, or removed but no more than that - it couldn’t identify the tank and couldn’t print.
I fixed that by putting smooth rounded solder blobs on the LT tank chip contact points, effectively “de-recessing” the chip by a fraction of a mm.
I don’t recommend that. The specs on the EEPROM chip that FL uses say it’s not rated for soldering, It’s called an DS2431GA+T&R - this thing; http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/1911339.pdf, it’s the same chip in the resin cartridge by the way.
I think the recommended course would be to open a ticket with Formlabs and get them to fix your Form2 by replacing the resin tank chip reader contact pins.
Or perhaps they have identified this issue already and have a second version of the LT tank, where the chip is not recessed so deeply? In which case a new LT tankwould fix it, but that doesn’t seem very likely to me.
This issue has to be quite borderline - and presumably only affects a small subset of Form2 machines, maybe some of the older ones like mine (June 2016). So it doesn’t seem likely that they’ve changed the way they make LT tanks yet.
Thank you very much for the advice. You were right! If I moved it back by around 1mm, it fixed it.
To anyone reading this with a similar problem, simply leave the wiper intact and firmly grab both corners of the resin tank while also holding the front of the machine. Ever gently pull the LT resin tank towards you until you see the notification on the LCD that the tank was found. You will most likely need to do this every time before you print while using the LT resin tank. Once it starts printing, however, you won’t get this error.
To Formlabs engineering… You need to review this ASAP as you definitely have an tolerance issue that will no doubt be a real headache for you if you don’t get ahead of it before too many people buy the LT tanks.