Third form1+ machine - LASER FAIL! I am about to jump!

Stuff like this is why I sold my printer already.

Iā€™ve had the similar laser test with the bunny ears and just submitted my ticket this evening. Iā€™m getting many globs of cured resin that remain in the resin tray unattached to the build platform. Is this suggestive of a faulty laser (disclaimer: I havenā€™t yet given time for FL support to respond to the ticket)? Iā€™ve had the printer for less than a month, followed troubleshooting instruction and had more failed than successful prints. Thanks for any input.

I still have NOT heard from my customer service repā€¦ must be on vacation. Iā€™ve gone through a bottle and a half trying to get ONE LOUSY PART! Hereā€™s yesterdayā€™s attempt: Guess Iā€™m stuck in the mud until I get some help!

Hi @Ralph_Roberts! Iā€™m sorry for the frustration! Have you been responding to the ticket thread that was already open? I checked our logs and we havenā€™t seen a new message from you since December 1. Weā€™re more than happy to do everything we can to help you out, so let me know and weā€™ll be in touch right away.

Yes, sent one today and one Monday. Iā€™ll try againā€¦ Thanks Roxanne for chiming in.

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I probably was not on the right page of the thread. I went back and you should have it now. Thank you!

These are the same sticky strands I am getting on my recent printsā€¦

What a week! Alex hasnā€™t got a ticket because my email server is down. Iā€™ll send it as soon as my hosting provider fixes that!

@Ralph_Roberts you can reply to tickets via the support website - which Iā€™ve used in the past when I had troubles with my old flaky email host - I used to use enom, but now I use the free zohomail service, which is awesome, no adds, not flaky, just genuinely free.

Go to the submit a ticket page, login, and then hit the settings button drop down and select ā€œview profileā€ - all your tickets open and closed are listed there - and you can select the ticket you want and add to it.

Thanks Kevin! I was able to log in that way and continue our conversation. Hopefully I can start down the road to recovery!

One thought for folks having problems with printers printers. Make sure you keep your work area warm enough. Below 70 degrees F, the resin starts to cure more slowly. I keep my shop at a balmy 75 to enure good curing. If youā€™re getting printers out of the box, Iā€™d add this to the list of things to check.

Just a thought. Good luck with the printer. Itā€™s a great machine when it works well!

-Andy Hudson

@Ralph_Roberts - have you looked at this thread? Is the Y galvo mirror supposed to be transparent?

And specifically these two pictures?

and this one showing a see through galvo mirror?

Yes. I have been watching that thread, many similarities. I had bad rabbit ears on my last machine. Sent the laser to Michigan and the printer back to San Diego. My ticket tech is saying that tech has found out the rabbit ears are a non-issue. I am unsure. I have gone through almost two liters of resin since I started getting bad parts and no amount of mirror cleaning is helping. I also have a stack of resin trays eight high. I am leaning now toward issues with the resin. I have stopped cleaning the build platform with IPA thinking that perhaps it collects extra IPA when I clean it and dumps it back into the tray as it prints the next piece.

Now Iā€™m thinking the shop might be too cold or perhaps the strained resin (which has practically turned to jello) is the issue. We did learn that a paper towel dispenser was creating a lot of loose fibers and they were making their way into the unit and on the mirrors.

Anyway, Iā€™m running another print, this time iā€™m using 70-80% new resin and 20-30% recycled resin and separating five smaller pieces (one center and four to all corners).

Weā€™ll see what happensā€¦

Well, I did have some base peel issues with the new support structure design, but over all these prints came out with minimal flaking. I did have some resin scabs on my tray so it was not perfect. Iā€™m straining this batch and going to start again with 70-80% new resin and slowly introduce strained resin to my future prints. Iā€™m thinking the strained resin may be the culprit. Iā€™n going to avoid using 100% strained resin for a while and see if that helps. Also I have some maker juice that Iā€™ll go back to trying if I get good prints from the different resin Iā€™ll focus more on FL resin care.

Make sure to shake the resin well before pouring it in ā€” also, and this is mostly anecdotal, but Iā€™ve seen people have dramatic reliability improvements by moving their printer to warmer temps.

When I print, I tend to not even bother cleaning the build platform (unless switching resins). I just scrape it lightly to make sure there are no solid bits adhering to it.

I also think that since all I print in is clear, I may not be mixing what is in the tray well enough before adding more resin and/or starting a new print. With colored resins it is easier to remember to keep the resin mixed well simply because you can see the separation. With clear it is easy to forget. This time I made darn sure the resin was well mixed. Diging the new structures/supports!

Prints are still failing. Time to warm things up. I brought the printer into a 70-74 (F) degree room and I am warming up the resin to about 80 degrees. The prints I was getting in the colder workshop were very hard and brittle something I havenā€™t seen until it temps started falling. Using the last bit of new resin I have with a new tray and checked my mirrors again. Here we goā€¦

Failed again! After bringing the printer inside, warming the resin to 76 degrees and shaking the hell out of it, I have another failed print. New tray, new resin. This is absolute madness! Two liters completely shot and I have two useable (not perfect) parts that require less than 150ml.

So out of my last order from formlabs of two liters of clear resin I only made one acceptable large (75ml) piece and five smaller (20ml) pieces. I have an order for 18 more large pieces so at this rate I need to order 36 liters of clear. There goes my price margin!

I scrubbed the mirrors and I cleaned the galvos. I examined each tray. I warmed the resin, mixed the resin. I strained the resin and I printed inside the house at a nice and tasty 75 degrees. Here are a few of the results:
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Howā€™s the FormLabs ticket going Ralph? Your printer is just screwed.