I’ve been following this and I for one think this is a great idea. I think Formlabs should take @LEADNAV up on his offer. Maybe if we include @dogichow on this, something might get done.
UPDATE -----
I think I pinpointed the problem causing this specific issue and I have it well documented and patterned with video. I will put it all together and highlight the issue over the next few days in a separate thread.
But First, The Surface Armor Curling Bug with Nylon 12 GF may have been finally fixed or at least improved from their last update but I still want to test it more as I have not gone under 60% refresh rate.
However ---- Second issue that I reported tonight with the surface cracking and crumbling that just started happening again…back to back… I am certain I know the issue and I am 99.9% confident in my assessment.
This is a hardware design issue and I believe the problem was made worse with the addition of the mixer they added at the bottom of the hopper on the Fuse 1+ 30w that was not on the first Fuse but the problem existed on both.
Again, I have full video of this and I patterned it out pretty well and here is the issue.
The first three successful prints after the firmware update were with a cleaned out hopper adding 60% refreshed Nylon 12 GF and only enough powder for each print. The first two were shorter prints whereas the third print was a little longer “AND THE HOPPER HAD 4kg of powder left in it…after the print”… that being the key issue…
So here’s what’s happening.
The chamber heat is transferring through the Dozer that brings in the powder and into the hopper. Its baking at least the lower third of the hopper (about 3-4kg). You can actually see the black oxidation transferring up to the top in a full hopper as I pointed this out to the rep that came out here and he thought it strange as well on the new Fuse 1+ 30w. So basically with a full hopper after a print job…the lower third of the hopper is no good. When it primes and preheats on the next print, you can see its flaky and cracks easily. This is even after vacuuming out the trays and running the dozer 4-5 rotations…the heat damage goes up much higher in the hopper than that.
I just got it to preheat successfully again after 2 back to back failures (shown tonight/above) by literally vacuuming out the lower third of the hopper. I have it recorded where the next job just kicked off fine. You can plainly see that the powder is no longer flaky on the preheat and is a fine powder again.
Again, I will put this in another thread with detailed explanation and video showing exactly what is going on but you essentially have to dump the remainder of the hopper after a print job or dial in the exact amount you need for the next print job as to not go over that in the hopper…otherwise you have to Empty the hopper and try to Sift it again or throw it out.
I believe the Dozer is absolutely transferring heat into the Hopper and is also made worse by the mixer under the hopper spinning that hot powder like a rotisserie on the new Fuse 1+ 30w…
I am certain this is an issue in design and the cause of what I have been seeing with Nylon 12 GF in the preheating issues. Nylon 12 GF obviously being more chamber heat sensitive than regular Nylon 12.
Will continue to test the Surface Armor curling but so far so good with the new Beta…
I will be trying your theory with only “fresh” powder in the hopper on our Fuse1+.
We are always running on 50% refreshrate in the Fuse1+ and Fuse1 but as we are out of material right now i had to run one of our Fuse1 on 0% refresh. All recycled material and so far so good.
And thats with Nylon 12GF as thats the only material we use nowadays.
I´ll keep you posted on our findings.
Cheers and thx again for all your hard work trying to figure this out.
I noticed in your video that your printer is backed up against the wall. I read somewhere that might cause circulationissues with the exhaust. Im not suggesting that is causing anything to your printer but you might want to give it some breathingroom so nothing happens down the line… Just e friendly tip. 
Not an issue.
It’s got plenty of breathing room with the recommended distances around and against the wall in a shop that stays at 69-72 degrees, 29-35% humidity and air circulation in the room it’s in cycling it around the printer as verified by a Formlabs rep on scene.
Our Fuse 1+ is now consistently running Nylon 12 GF at 70% refresh with none of the aborted cracking issues in preheating as seen in almost every attempt below that.
This printer to us can not run Nylon 12 GF below 70% with the 30-50% advertised being highly unlikely. Maybe a prototype or two at 50-60% or maybe you can squeeze a print out of it in those ranges without failing but your part will also be brittle. So even if they get this level achievable it wouldn’t be a production part and no where near the strength on the data sheet which is obviously reported at a 100% fresh powder rate.
We still have had random issues over the past few weeks with a “totally clean” optical cassette (which we have 5 of them now and clean prior to every print…before anyone asks) getting significantly dirty over a half chamber level while attempting a full chamber and causing warp marks in half the parts (50 good parts and 50 warped). So now we are sticking to half chambers as I believe the buildup with this fuse 1+ and it’s faster more powerful lasers is adding to something in that regard…but haven’t patterned this fully yet…
Right now I have POs backed up months to fulfill and while this thing is actually somewhat running we’re just trying to get use out of it.
You absolutely have to add a big overhead in costs at production running this machine with anticipated failures, throwing half your Sifted powder away at 70% refresh and replacement parts like filters, optical cassettes, chamber heat bulbs… if you can consistently keep this thing going daily you’d be changing all those out monthly from what we are seeing.
Lot of folks have reached out to us personally with similar experiences and I have yet to hear from one person able to run production Nylon 12 GF on this machine. I’ve been told to try this and that…but I’m telling you the first thing to try is bumping out of their advertised 30-50% refresh range to 70%+…. Pretty sure that will fix most of your issue.
But then there’s gotta be some serious discussion on your ROI and cost per part… and I’d add to that the possibility of one failed chamber per 3-4 full print jobs whether that be initial priming and preheating phase ($ in time and powder) or a full bad chamber of warped parts ($$$ in wasted print time and as you figure it out in all that post processing time. Also, of course at least two $350 jugs of powder gone).
On our POs with this system it’s becoming more like gambling in Las Vegas… even at our high quoted rates we have the possibility of making real good money with no hiccups… but then there’s that one failure that will knock you back down or even to zero quick in wasted time and especially powder…
However, we’re starting to at least beat the house by staying above 70% refresh and playing more conservatively with only a half chamber commitment at a time.
Well, my 0% refresh runs failed, but that was kind of expected.
As soon as i can i will try your 70% refresh rate and see what happens.
Out of all 3 machines yesterday the only one that did not fail was the Fuse1+ and that had a refreshrate of 50%.
They are being blasted as i type this so we´ll see how they turn out. I will update once i know how they look.
Just to be clear as i must have missed something in the previous posts.
Is it Fuse 1 or Fuse1+ you are having trouble getting to run Nylon 12GF?
We have both our Fuse1 running Nylon 12GF at 50% refreshrate without any problems whatsoever.
The Fuse 1+ is another story.
Edit: I have now read up and saw u got the upgrade to the Fuse1+. I missed that earlier.
My mistake.
I’ve been following the posts and from what I remember he originally had a Fuse 1 that got damaged from one of their beta firmwares they gave him and he ended up getting a Fuse 1+ to try and fix the issues, but still ran into the same problems.
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As an update and final conclusion, Nylon 12 GF cannot consistently print successfully under a 70% refresh rate.
I have stopped trying to report with the Formlabs team over the past few weeks as I have been continually doing so weekly for nearly a year on both the issues with the Fuse 1 and now the Fuse 1+.
They have back and fourth acknowledged the issues with this system and their production materials that we have discovered and reported. We have last heard they are working on it but have yet to see anything different or anything back… if we don’t say anything…they don’t say anything and the whole thing just drags out.
Again, I don’t think this is fixable. If they do get it to even print under a 70%, the parts you make will suffer and be brittle if they are smaller parts, which per cost of material would be the only thing worth doing on this system over any larger parts, that would possibly print fine under 50% refresh but per cost of material would be way too high.
If you can’t get a few dozen parts in a chamber or 100 units as we are, then your cost per part is too high for manufacturing.
So 70% refresh is allowing us to at least keep the system running.
However, you will also have to account for machine maintenance and replacement parts. We are on our 5th optical cassette, heater bulbs, filters and have had faulty chambers.
The other thing we decided was to stick to half or maybe 3/4 chambers… if we feel lucky. It’s just too much for this new Fuse 1+ with its higher strength laser to print a full chamber as we have seen it warp half an upper chamber when the optical cassette got too contaminated (and yes we clean it every single job, not just every few jobs as they recommend). It’s also one thing to realize half a chamber of parts warped or failed out…and another to loose an entire chamber at once.
So we will be sticking to what this system and material can do which is 70%+ refresh rate (30-50% should not even be advertised in Formlabs marketing…at all) and we will only print half chambers at a time and rely on the Fuse 1+’s increased speed and our multiple chambers to make up for that limitation. We can also only do unique higher end jobs where we can charge well above any normal manufacturing cost.
Hopefully one day the cost of materials comes down to help offset these true refresh rates and wasted material as well as all the above….and chamber failures. If it wasn’t for Formlabs support being at least very responsive and them working with us on these issues, sending us free powder after all these failures…we’d be way in the hole on this entire system and our attempts at using it for production parts. We’ve literally thrown cases and cases of powder n failed parts in the trash and even without that you are still tossing nearly half your powder away at 70% refresh.
If you stick to that 70% refresh rate though…and charge accordingly…you should be able to make it work…this just ain’t no “Etsy machine” so you better have some high end clients! Or at least be selling your own parts in-house for your own company.
Bunch of people have been reaching out to our personal emails about their own frustrations and similar issues…please stop doing this…and make them known here where others can learn and Formlabs can be aware. Even if Formlabs offsets all these issues with free powder and parts I believe it still needs to be known and accountable…to get improved and fixed.
If you are having any issues with Nylon 12 GF…my first suggestion though would be to go to 70%+ refresh rates…I wish I would have done that a year ago while troubleshooting all this but it was never suggested by Formlabs support.
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Every picture of a failed print I se here carries the classic signs of under extrusion.
The simple cure is to ramp up the Powder dosing from the calibration menu.
Start with 0.5 degree and up with each next print until the prints come out right.
Be aware that this will result in some powder been spilled out of the chamber, but in my experience with the Fuse 1+ (the one I use), no spilling of powder always results in some parts close to the walls under extruded.
Ramping up the target temperature is a mistake in your case. You’ll be better off if the temperature setting is reduced by small steps, while the powder dosing is increased.
The factory setting of the Fuse 1 is set so that almost no powder get spilled out of the chamber, where the Fuse 1+ spills quite a bit, but it doesn’t under extrude.
Sounds interesting…would love to have a “simple cure”… but with hundreds of emails back and fourth, dozens of support reps, a rep here on scene all unable to provide a solution or fix… not so sure that is the cure.
The instant fix for us was to bump up to a 70% refresh rate for Nylon 12 GF which simply cured everything.
We see this issue come back every time we go below that 70%.
Assuming you are currently running Nylon 12 GF successfully?
No. I’m not printing Nylon 12 GF, only the standard Nnylon 12, but I don’t bother with any refresh rates what so ever. Just dump the old used powder in the machine over and over without failure. I don’t even have the Sift. Just sift the used powder manually through a Palin flower sift, not the finest mesh out there, but it removes any dangerous size particles.
The only time when I had failure was when I reduced the powder dosing by about 2 degrees as it came too much of a change I had exactly what I saw on your pictures. Curling.
It happens when there isn’t enough powder to provide resistance against warping of surfaces and shrinking.
I have a friend with Fuse 1 with the exact same issues as you.
Fuse 1 is programmed by default to print without spilling powder. This results in the near impossibility to print any part right on the limits of the build chamber, so every part needs to be a couple of centimeters away from the walls of the chamber.
In my Fuse 1+ which spills powder while printing I stuff the chamber to a bursting point with parts. The maximum print material in one changer that I got was 32% from printing 288 small parts at once.
I moaned about the spilling a lot to Formlabs, but later I realized that clean print always results in at least partial print failure.
If you increase your powder dosing (by small steps) this will eventiually get to a level where there will allow you to print what ever you like, but it will be a bit messy around the chamber.
You see, those adjustments are there to be used, not just to stay.
The Target temperature is there to combat possible potting problems. The Powder dosing is for under/over extrusion problems.
In your case more powder with lower targets temperature will get better results and above all will lower the cost of running your print business, by allowing lower refresh rates or even possibly no refresh at all.
I’d start with -0.5 degree target temperature and +1 degree powder dosing. You can watch the print and cancel it at any time if it doesn’t work and then try further changing these settings. But by the look of your reports, it will work this way.
Unfortunately the dudes from Formlabs themselves are bugged by their own inventions and only very few know what to do with these problems, but I don’t see many of them working at the support centre.
As I live and work in the ass of nowhere I have to maintain my Fuse 1+ all by my self. Any repair and maintenance is done by me, so by now it is likely I know more about this printers than many support employees at Formlabs.
Cheers.
Georgi
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Interesting info…and definitely agree that Formlabs support is not very informed. I will say they definitely try and are at least very responsive but they are definitely lacking in one on one experience on the machine itself. They seem to be “reading from a manual” versus personal experience on the system. I too… got to where I am with this system by troubleshooting and figuring out everything myself to get it running as it currently is. This was only doable because support was essentially sending me free powder (or should I say replacement powder) for all the failed prints I have experienced basically making me a beta tester on their own system.
I will say that with every user I spoke too, Nylon 12 is a simple material that runs pretty well whereas Nylon 12 GF is a completely different animal.
Everything you said sounds interesting but the curling for me was in the software side of things in how PreForm was handling the surface armor on Nylon 12 GF. After a year of complaining about this Formlabs put out a PreForm Nylon 12 GF beta that improved the surface armor handling and fixed the curling. The curling was happening mid chamber and not just the edges.
The “clumpy” powder, cracking of the powder…still happens below a 70% refresh rate and I believe this is due to the added Glass Fill in the material. This issue is eliminated above a 70% refresh. I don’t think up’ing the dozer would fix this but I would definitely try it if it wasn’t for the next issue…
On our specific production parts… if we go below a 70% refresh the part itself becomes more brittle and cracks under use…above 70% the parts are a lot more durable and no longer breaking when being used.
Other than the ridiculous high cost of material and maintenance of this system making it very hard to run production parts…I have not complained much anymore about these problems because even if I could get the system to print succesfully down at their advertised 30-50% refresh rate for Nylon 12 GF…the parts themselves are then too brittle and weak for physical use…
The other issue is with the Formlabs software team. They cannot be actually testing these firmware updates they do… I am currently running older firmware (that works) because every time I update… there are major bugs and issues with the new releases. Several times I have updated to then spend thousands of dollars in powder to try to get it dialed in again to only point out the major issues in their new release. After “convincing” them that the new software is “unusable” (this typically takes months) they finally acknowledge it and add a fix.
I run software development myself and know that they need to seriously up their beta testing methods and procedures as currently “I feel like the beta tester”…
Good info though and it sounds like you figured out some good stuff on your own. If I see the under-dosing again I will surely look at up’ing that feed rate.
To add to what I am seeing. I just tried bumping the refresh of Nylon 12 GF down to 65% and while the print was luckily successful… there was cracking along the chamber wall that luckily filled itself in (so up’ing the dozer might have worked better as you suggested) but I can tell when a print job will fail. (see photo) Along the edge of the roller path if I am above 70% refresh the powder is fine but as you can see, bumping down to 65% you start to see the “clumps” forming in that edge pile. At 50% the entire edge of powder is clumped up and the job will most likely fail with cracking.
And here is what that edge of powder looks like at 70%+. It remains a fine powder with no clumping which eliminates all issues that we are seeing and providing a strong finished part. Even though this makes the system extremely expensive and unrealistic for running production parts in cost…
Again, I could probably get past this and get down to 50% off the recommendations but then our parts are breaking under use and stronger with no issues at 70%…
Appreciate the info
Damian
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The used powder will always produce more brittle parts, because of changes in the material matrix. BUT. If printed at lower target temperature the parts will be less brittle as the lower temperature will make the material more flexible.
“whereas Nylon 12 GF is a completely different animal” - no, it’s. not. It’s only Nylon 12 diluted with glass beads.
Ramping the powder dosing does one other thing. It adds more Nylon to the printing volume which in turn ensures less shrinking. When glass is added to Nylon powder the Nylon gets diluted as glass doesn’t melt/react with Nylon. This will cause more shrinking, curling ect.
The newer software versions address exactly the temperature settings, because there is nothing else that can be addressed in this case, nothing.
If parts are coming out brittle you start with the lowest target temperature available and work your way up until you get the desired stiffness.
Higher temperatures always results in stiffer, but more brittle parts.
Above all Formlabs will never tell you how to print, potentially with used powder only. They want you to keep buying this shit as much as possible. Don’t they? It’s a close system after all. Who knows why???!!!
I enquired about their new Form Blast cleaning station, of what media it uses. No answer. So I’m not buying it as I don’t want to end up with another close system that will bleed me to death with expensive consumables. printing parts with their printer is expensive enough.
I am looking in manufacturing my own powder mill, but it will take some long time. Grinding Nylon is very challenging.
Cheers.
Georgi
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