I’m in the process of buying a Form3 with wash & cure additions. It will be in an office environment away from natural light and people but i’m most worried about resin on the carpet. I’m thinking of putting some kind of matting down and having something to protect the worktop.
Has anyone else managed to keep an office environment clean with this printer? What have you used to do so?
Looking forward to being part of the Formlabs community 
Hey @BoBros1!
Welcome to the community! We’re glad to have you!
Agreed that carpeting around the printer would make me a little nervous as well! One thing I might recommend is a kitchen mat like this. With something like this you could lay it down in front of the printer, and probably mitigate the vast majority of any dripping issues that you might run into!
I’m sure other folks might have their own recommendations as well!
I’m planning to use a large enough, shallow pan to provide secondary containment around the printer and some silicone pads that are easy to clean for work that is still wet and needs to be set down on something.
For the floor, I plan to use interlocking PVC floor tiles like the ones this place sells:
https://www.garageflooringinc.com/garage/coin-flex-nitro-tiles.html
as individual tiles can be easily replaced if one or more of them gets damaged by a spill.
I’ve been using Formlabs printers since the Form1+ was released. Not sure how long that is, but it’s a while. I have never had a resin spill. A few times, I must admit, I’ve had a print go sailing off in to a corner of the room while prying it from the build plate, but that’s it. Hit wherever it hits with some IPA and a paper towel, then shine a UV light on it to cure the remainder. Carpet is a little stiffer, but that’s it. And you can break up the stiffness by running a beating vacuum cleaner attachment over it for a few minutes. No problem-o. My wife didn’t need to file for divorce, even though she told me not to put the machine in the office/study.
This is the kind of thing I was thinking! Especially for the desk surface
I hadnt thought of the garage style locking tiles so i’ll look into it. Thanks for the recommendations
I would like to think im pretty careful but I cant account for everyone else! If it can happen it probably will…
Good info on the cleanup operation though. I will make sure I have a seperate UV lamp on hand
I figure that doing the prep to contain spills will keep Murphy and his law at bay.
A friend has the PVC tiles from Garage Flooring in his workshop and has had to replace a tile or two. He tells me that it was no problem. The folks in the link will send you small samples on request for the cost of shipping. I only had samples to go by, but like the flexible PVC tile material a lot more than the hard plastic type,
I would think about getting some absorbent mats designed for chemical work to go on top of anything else you put down. These are available on Amazon.
Randy_Cohen is a better man than me if he’s never had any resin get on the floor! I’ve had massive resin overflows (Form 2; never with the Form 3), dripped resin/IPA during cleaning, etc.
I have a printer both in the office and at home and I find Spillguard (for home painting and renovation) works really well. I use it over a layer of plastic sheeting for safety.