Hey All,
It’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I now have a reason to fire up the KickStarter Form1+ that I have not printed with in forever (a Win7 VM talks to it now) and I really really need to print a part with a lot of living hinges. I was having it done at Shapeways using MJF PP, and early results were great - problem is they use the cheapest service bureaus they can find and the quality tanked over time. Thought I would dust off the Form1 and give it a go.
Tough 1500 Resin seems like the right material, but of course the Form1 is deprecated, so it’s unclear if it’ll work. Anyone tried this, and if so what were your results and what advice can you give me?
Thanks in Advance for any advice you can give me.
-C
Really depends on the application, but I am very happy with all the Tough resins. Can you share what the part looks like and how it’s used? Not sure if Formlabs is doing part samples, but you could talk to sales and see if they’ll print for you so you can test it before ordering.
I can’t share images unfortunately, but suffice to say two identical parts behave similarly to a zipper, where the two halves come together and create an interlocked single part. The living hinges are between each zipper-module section, like the fabric does in a normal zipper.
@Formlabs_Sales is getting a part done as a test of this resin’s functionality an option? I did support you guys from the very beginning… (wink, wink 
They are quite selective on printing parts and sending them (you can request a NDA), but if you are a previous/current customer exploring resins, it would be a good idea to try. That’s how I validated I wanted to go with FormLabs last year just before getting the form 4
Hi Christopher,
Thanks for reaching out! Since neither Tough 1500 Resin V1 nor V2 are validated for the Form 1+, we unfortunately can’t guarantee successful prints. Because of this, testing a sample part wouldn’t give you an accurate picture of what to expect, as it’s uncertain whether you could achieve the same material properties on a legacy machine.
If you’re based in the US, a great option would be ordering your parts through our printing service Form Now - that way you could get them printed on a Form 4 using Tough 1500 Resin V2, without having to invest in a new machine for this project.
Hope this helps!
Fantastic! I had no idea about FormNow. I will use that to see if it can work, and if so I may be due a machine upgrade!
Thanks for the info.
-C
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