I completed a print yesterday on my Form 2 using Tough V1 that had a mfg date of Oct 26, 2015. The print turned out great despite the resin being 2.5 years old. I suspect Formlabs is fairly conservative with their quoted resin shelf life (12-18 months). Has anyone else successfully printed with resin as old or older than this? I’m sure the practical shelf life varies between resins and storage conditions. I also have kept resin sitting in the tank for over a year with no noticeable adverse effects.
I just printed something recently using Clear v2 that had expired in Jan 2017, and it came out OK, except it’s not crystal clear anymore, it’s sort of yellowish amber. It’s still fully transparent, but it’s not colorless.
Currently using 14 month old clear and it looks and performs great! I’ve got some 14 month old grey as well that’s doing okay though it does seem to be getting foamy while printing. Some minor white streaks in the final print but I’m not sure if that’s due to age or not.
Currently using the last bit of Gray V2 production date 06.2016 on my Form 2 and the print looks just fine.
In contrast the Draft V4 production date 05.2020 on my Form 3 is having problems…
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I bought a used F2 printer with a pack of 6 different resins - all after the manufacturer’s expiry date - some 2-3 years. I decided to take the risk and use cheap resins. Since I also had some of my own, I poured the same types of resins into one tank. It turned out that the prints turned out great. Moreover, I mixed different versions of the resin: V1 and V2 and they also worked well. The conclusion is that the time indicated on the tank is greatly underestimated than the actual usefulness of the material.
I’m currently using a Clear V4 from 10/2017 and it prints fine from what I can say. But I have my Form 2 for only a week so I don’t have any reference.