@ John Morewood( or anyone at Formlabs with the answers )
Could you elaborate on the process of replacing the PDMS within the Form1?
It would be extremely helpful to me to know if this is a process that I can do myself, or am I doomed to purchase a $70 vat every 2-3 bottles of resin.
And just to clarify, my main concern is how precisely does the new layer of PDMS half to be to the original. What are the tolerances in the Z axis for the new layer?
How did you measure the replacement PDMS, by mass? Or by volume?
Is there a recalibration procedure for the build table in the Z axis?
It’s my understanding that the “creator’s name” was deliberately miss quoted - the “creator” does not want to get bogged down with business (which I totally understand) - so Gary Dawson is handling all aspects of sales and distribution …
Best regards,
-jay-
John (jay) H. Morewood
Owner / CTO / Rapid Prototyping Engineer
+1 408.839.4252 www.Zip-Bit.com
I recently printed some tiny chair models from Pretty Small Things on the Form 1 to compare to Shapeways’ FUD (see that thread in another forum post). Mike at B9 saw my post and offered to print them as well for comparison.
First impressions: B9 has amazing quality with their newest resin. The items printed near-perfect (only two small layer shifts on one of the chairs). The B9 chairs are ever so slightly “thicker” than the Form 1 chair.
I’m anxious to see the Formlabs gray resin to see if it helps the sharpness and overall quality. I’ve attached a couple of the pics here, until I write up something proper for my blog. The Form 1 print here is sprayed with Krylon matte white plastic primer.
PS…Greg…Are you running the machine on a wobbly table or work bench, or maybe just keep opening the machine or bumping the table, while checking out progress. The print quality represented, is really bugging me.
I think the advantage here is the resin. The b9c resin is much more liquid and the form 1 clear resin is just too viscous. That’s why we get bumps and smeared details, and on the b9, the only bumps you would get is the layer stepping (and they got rid of most of that too with the new version)
For example if you print a small square frame vertically on the form 1, the top and bottom pieces come out wavy (like it’s melting) When you tilt the frame down towards more of a horizontal print, they are no longer wavy, however the bottom of the piece, the one with supports on, is no longer smooth.
I hope form labs will release these other resins they are working on soon, so we can see some better quality prints.
Monger Designs, Thanks for that. I am aware of the resin viscosity issue. B9C just released the new cherry red (just up days ago, on their site). I am looking forward to trying it in the Form1, if and when, it ever gets here. I may have another DLP printer (way higher resolution), that I rep, before I get my Form1. I am in the jewelry industry, need the resolution and the lost-wax burnout capability.
At this point the quality of the b9 is much better, especially for jewelry. If you are gonna print kid toys and dolls and statuettes then the Form1 is better than the b9, because of the less stepping artifacts and the larger printing volume.
I’m holding on to my Form1 for now and giving the form labs folks some time to get things in order and improve the quality and to release a castable resin. If the quality does not improve soon, I may need to sell it and get a b9.
I’m assembling my Titan1 from Kudo3D. From research not actualy use and what others users are posting on there website. For DLP SLA prints, it’s better in my opinion than the B9. However it does take more setup than formlabs (A lot). More experimenting to get cure rates and pigmentation correct. For a quick desktop solution I still like the form +1. However I couldn’t own both so I wish to wait and see what formlabs produces next. If your curious and don’t mind extra setup time. Look at Titan1 and compare to B9. I can say as I’m building the Titan1 right now that the parts are top notch. Really well made.
