Hi, New user here. Bought a Form 1+ from a friend and started using it recently. Very impressed with the capabilities. But the last couple prints didn’t print…nothing in tank or on build platform, which indicates to me a laser issue. Taking the tray and the platform out I resent the project just to see if there was anything going on. I see a dim light in the back of the machine and assume that is the laser. It’s not very bright. Is there a way to troubleshoot the system to see what needs fixing? Thanks.
The Laser is UV so it’s not very visible. If you viewed it with the cover open, I hope you didn’t actually try to see it by eye because that’d be kind of bad for your eyes. If you looked at it through the closed cover, that cover is orange because that color blocks UV light so if it’s doing its job it’s blocking most of what the laser is emitting.
Your problem could be any due to a couple of different things. Ask FL for help. They will help. They always help me. Usually within a day or two of my asking.
Thanks for the advice. I saw something online about placing a piece of paper over the build area with the tank removed so that the light would (or wouldn’t) appear on the paper. It didn’t, but after a day of rest, the lazer light did re-appear when I sent a project to the printer. Do lasers get finicky as they get older?
Electronics can indeed become “intermittent” before failure, and the older something is, the more likely it is to fail (ref: laws of thermodynamics 
). Particularly when temperature is a factor. for example, if the behavior of the laser is different when the ambient temperature is higher or lower, that wouldn’t be too surprising a failure mode.
There is a way to invoke PreForm to initiate a laser test on the F1 (or at least, there used to be). It just points the laser at the center of the print area and turns on the laser. That’s what you want to be using. That and a sheet of paper. But if instead you’re telling the printer to print (but without a resin tray or build platform) and the printer says it’s printing and you use a sheet of paper and you never see any laser, that’d seem to be pretty definitive.
The laser spot test isn’t something we use anymore as it didn’t prove to be a reliable troubleshooting step. Thanks for doing a few experiments on your own and if you get in touch with our support team, we’re happy to help to troubleshoot further with you.