If you read through all my posts in past year…I’ve been trying to print nylon 12 GF consistently till Formlabs finally acknowledged that there is an issue and it cannot…
Supposedly a month ago they confirmed my issues and say mid April they will have a software patch to fix this…. Hit them up a few days ago and they said April 18th… we will see….
But right now the only thing the Fuse can really print apparently well is Nylon 12
Let’s see what we get on the 18th. I have also looked over the last few days to see if there is an update on this.
I could imagine that if the temperature development is looked at more closely, perhaps other improvements for the other materials will also be released.
Back when I started researching SLS between the Formlabs and the Sinterit Lisa over a year ago I kept being told how the strength of the Sinterit was how many years they been doing SLS and in particular their “software” capabilities being their bread and butter as a company. Nothing else with that system as far as hardware, post processing, it being overseas and the software being PC only…really impressed me over the Fuse 1 and Sift.
However, now it makes me really wander…as a company hardware and software are two separate things to juggle and often tough to bring together under the same roof.
Hard to get both right sometimes but on a closed material model in Formlabs versus an open material model in Sinterit…you’d expect the Fuse to be able to successfully print its “four…now fifth (Flex)” materials they advertise successfully….
We will see on the 18th…
We had both systems shown and demonstrated live at our dealer before deciding to buy.
Working with the Fuse was much easier and cleaner than with the Lisa Pro.
The Sift is also more pleasant to work with than the PHS (Powder Handling Station).
A strong argument against the Sinterit printers for us was that the smaller models (Lisa pro and x) do not have an automatic coater at the beginning of the print job. Here, the powder in the printing chamber has to be compacted by hand using a manual spatula before each print. In my eyes, this leads to an irregular printing experience.
We also compared the software. While the nesting function in Sinterit Studio seems to work better and more intimately, the models are not rotated in x and y direction, but only in z direction, which entails manual adjustment of the print orientation for most models.
Finally, the main advantage of the sinterit machines is the fast material change. Unless this is absolutely necessary, I consider the Fuse to be a better SLS system.
Our dealer’s recommendation was to buy a fuse as the first sls system. if more materials are eventually required, it would make more sense to invest in a sinterit system than several fuses and sifts for different materials.
so far, i would support this recommendation.
SLS is the way…. I believe one of these two or a new company will come in and get it right eventually.
Right now one has hardware right…one software.
I’m on the fence at this point whether I believe the 18th will bring a true fix to this issue.
Fingers crossed…but right now my machine has been sitting here idle and it definitely hasn’t paid for itself in the year I’ve had it…
Not sure if you received it but I also found it concerning, the survey email that was sent out just a few weeks ago on the Fuse…during all this…made me feel like Formlabs was accessing their future with SLS as a whole…
In this crazy new additive manufacturing space with tons of startups and folks coming in…things can get “strange” when discussions of going public, raising capital and where the “board” thinks things should go once they and more money gets involved…
Maybe I’m a rare case but I have found absolutely no usefulness in Resin printing… so it might take a company fully dedicated to SLS to nail this thing down but again, maybe this thing will start cranking out parts with this new software update next week and I can stop posting on here and get back to work!
This system is almost there…. I really want to love it.
The day is here…April 18th.
The day Formlabs promised to put out a firmware fix to finally make their system successfully print anything other than just Nylon 12…
After a year…I’m patiently waiting for some sort of announcement today… anyone else out there excited to actually use this system for something other than Nylon 12? 
Because you mentioned the 18th regarding a new update, I also looked twice today for an update. 
Although I’m fortunately not too dependent on the PA12GF update, I’m still curious about new developments.
However, I wouldn’t be surprised if the update is delayed a bit…
No no no, they ensured me it was a “hard date of April 18th”…. I mean they’ve now had nearly two months to patch this now “known issue in temperatures”…It is surely getting launched today with the capability to print their entire advertised material portfolio…that they continue to advertise yet it not being an option…. 
I’m starting to wander how they can keep having these SLS material webinars monthly…with a straight face. I was busy last week and unfortunately I couldn’t attend their last one…but you’d think all the discussion they’d need to have were questions of “When will this thing actually print anything other than Nylon 12?” Instead they go ahead and launch another material type in flex while this is all going on…
My next question will be “Has anyone in real life been actually printing this new Nylon Flex material?”
Update: So I was just informed that
"The software team found a last minute, release-blocking bug, they are now targeting Thursday 4/20 for both the new firmware and Preform… "
As someone who leads software development and considers myself to be an excellent “bug hunter”… finding a “last minute” bug the week of release…tells me there has been very little final and/or repetitive testing done up until this point on this firmware they are about to release….
Sounds like “we” will be the testers again to discover more bugs in this system… and that they threw some coding at this thing hoping it would stick while crossing their fingers…
Again, as someone who runs software development teams… you can’t assume they are testing this. How it runs in their “simulators”…does not reflect how the actual machine will run that update in the real world. I’d like to know who at Formlabs has been running this next update night and day for at least the past week to confirm it did in fact fix the problem…GIVE ME A NAME!!
There needs to be a Fuse system in this company running each of the materials 24/7 to target and refine the system and at a bare minimum discover their own bugs… and not relying on the consumer to do so.
It took me a year of my own troubleshooting and complaining before this company even tried to confirm that there was in fact a major bug in what they’ve been selling… sounds like we will be the ones to test this new “fix”…
Unacceptable. 
I can tell you what… if your current setup is printing Nylon 12 fine and that is all you plan to print…DO NOT UPDATE YOUR FIRMWARE…EVER!!!
Hi @LEADNAV,
I appreciate you sharing your concerns here regarding our testing and validation process. I wanted to share some insight into this from the team:
Thank you for your patience as we worked to finalize this release.
Best wishes,
Jesse K.
I have to say, I am now actually looking forward to the feedback from @LEADNAV regarding the update.
Optimally, the new PA12GF beta settings now meet the requirements and enable reliable printing with the material.
In fact, the update is also very worthwhile for us due to the now available support for 3mf files. For SLS printing simply a must if I want to print over 30+ different objects and otherwise have to export them all individually.
To what @Jesse_K said:
I cannot assess the problems with the PA12GF so far. But from the feedback here and from a dealer here in Germany, I also have to believe that the Fuse1 could not even print the material reliably.
In this context, the question indeed arises as to what extent Formlabs noticed the problem when there are so many test centres (which I see as absolutely positive that there are so many).
Jesse
While it is great to hear that there is an entire team consistently testing these machines and all materials, as Carlayer points out, the fact that I have been dealing with hundreds of support emails, reps and a person who finally showed up on scene here at my shop, for half a year, a swap in printers…chambers… it is a little troublesome hearing that and knowing that they did not finally confirm this major issue until last March…
But sounds like this team is new with the Fuse 1+ launch and this will eliminate these issues going forward which is great news.
I will be fully cleaning out the system as it has been sitting for awhile and will give these new updates a go over the weekend but I do have some questions from all this extensive testing that took place on this update.
What Refresh Rate were you testing/settling on and do you now suggest for Nylon 12 GF? I see one of the updates is that you added “1%” adjustments to the Sift… So assuming you are incrementally creeping this in a better refresh rate zone to match the 30-50% advertised. While I have had no luck under 70%…where should I start?
I see that you “thickened” the layers to 110 microns? What was it? Wandering how this will look in the final product and affect the current tolerances in our designs. Assuming this is in hopes of better keeping the layers from curling. Is this now reflected in the data sheets (I will have to take a look)
Received the email to “reset my calibration to zero” before testing the new firmware…this would be good to publicly discuss and note in the firmware update so folks don’t overcook their bulbs and chambers like I had done with your last update that “made the chamber calibration settings actually work”
I’m in high hopes that all this testing and these updates makes this system now successfully print anything other than Nylon 12…will give it a shot and report back.
Hi all,
Regarding @CARLAYERS’ question: we are not able to share occurrence rates that were observed during development. I understand that this would be good to know, but in general we want to avoid setting false or inaccurate expectations.
Best wishes,
Jesse K.
Jesse
Nylon 12 GF hasn’t been printing at anything under 70% refresh…so you’re saying you have run continuously at a 50% successfully now…?
Also, if the layer thickness didn’t change why is this write up in the firmware release…?
And Jesse…
Before I give this a shot…
PreForm I see now has a Print Settings option of
Default v1.1
Beta v2.0
So…which one do you recommend to be successful with Nylon 12 GF?
I am assuming Default v1.1…as you stated how much time and testing went into this Nylon 12 GF fix…and this would have been launched in confidence and not as a Beta for us to all test…? But then my question would be what is this “Beta v2.0” about…?
All materials have so far always been printed with a layer height of 110 microns.
The formulation comes from the updates for the SLA printers, as there are several layer heights to choose from here.
It sounds a bit strange with the Fuse (because there is only one here), but in updates to print settings the material and the layer height are always mentioned.
Which refresh rate I would try is a bit tricky. Since Formlabs recommends 30-50%, I would actually start with the said 50%. Keeping in mind the development process so far, you could also start with 70% and then work your way down again in certain sets.
The “Beta v2.0” settings are now the new ones that were released with the update. The “Default v1.1” settings are the same as before. We also work with Formlabs’ SLA printers and therefore know the way Formlabs designs the updates.
So you definitely want to try the beta settings. It can take several months until the beta settings become the default settings. I assume that Formlabs wants to have printed enough test hours with the beta settings before changing the status here.
Hi all,
CARLAYERS is exactly right here. All new print settings are released under the “Beta” label. After some time, those settings then become the new “Default”. This is standard across all of our new print settings, both for SLS and for SLA as CARLAYERS mentioned. The “Beta” phrasing does not imply any level of reduced confidence in the settings themselves. We include both the new and old print settings as standard practice when updating any print settings to not prevent users from printing with the previous settings if needed.
Jesse
After running three prints successfully with no issues I was optimistic…but as I tapered down to a 55% refresh (now that you added the 1% increments I started to get the same warmup failures and aborts across the bed as before.
Shown is two different chambers run back to back even after sucking out the bottom layers of the dozer before the next attempt.
Its like all of a sudden it started failing out consistently after running a few successful prints… This is obviously a warmup issue as it crumbles the surface like this at the peak of the warmup cycle every time…
The first three print jobs the surface powder was left very fine and powdery. Now suddenly during warmup at its peak when its at that 179-182 range about to go to print mode… its crumbling the surface again consistently. Then aborting out.
No changes in print settings… IR sensor and port is clean… same as before no change.
To me it’s almost like the machine is changing in the software end to cause these issues suddenly from one print job to the next. Since its at the tail end of the warmup phase obviously something is spiking it higher than it should go…but again went from 3 successful prints thinking all was good to all of a sudden its acting like it was.
Or… the material in the hopper is getting hot and cooking slightly (as we see the black oxidation coming through the hopper powder all the way to the top after a print).
Before running the printer with the new firmware I did a Hopper dump with fresh powder put in. So after three prints maybe the tail end of what’s left in the hopper is crusty from heat of the previous print.
Confirmed the last sliced prints were still running the Beta as to me its almost like it ditched the Beta and went back to the original but no…it’s still running the Beta…
See how it is now cracking and crumbling the surface on warmup as before.
So no fix yet for me with Nylon 12 GF as of yet.
Jesse
At this point…I’m willing to pay for the flight out to one of these “testing facilities”… I’ll pay for the Nylon 12 GF…and I’d like to see you run the thousands of parts I have POs for that have been backlogged for over 6 months….to in fact see you all run this system continuously…to show me what I’m doing wrong…
Right now I have at least two dozen chambers that need run to fulfill my POs in Nylon 12 GF…
Let’s do it…prove me wrong that this system can continuously print anything other than Nylon 12!!!
I’ll bring a camera and the You Tube equipment and we can put out some real world printing of your Nylon 12 GF!!!
