This resin 3D printer is built different! (Form 3+ overview)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 มิ.ย. 2024
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The Formlabs Form 3+ is a marvelous piece of gear with more engineering effort put into it than almost any 3D printer that I've used before. But is it actually good? I've got a lot of thoughts, but let's start with the basics about the Form 3+ in this video.
Part 2 of the series: • When Lasers aren’t fas...
Part 3 of the series: • You won’t like this Pr...
Models shown:
Salty McCreedy by Ben Dansie www.prusaprinters.org/prints/...
Rogue strataminiatures.com/shop/
Steamdeck by Valve gitlab.steamos.cloud/SteamDec...
Get the Formlabs Form 3+:
From Formlabs go.toms3d.org/Form3
From iGo3D go.toms3d.org/Form3DE
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Read the article to this video here: toms3d.org/2022/02/25/review-...
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Ooh interesting. We run the Form 3B at work for biocompatible prints used in maxillofacial surgery. I have nothing but great words about Formlabs, especially their fantastic support
I have a Form 2 and Form 3. Honestly, their support is FANTASTIC and one of if not the reason to go with Formlabs over anyone else.
We have the both the form 2 and form 3 for the same thing. We have had some different issues but the formlabs support has come through everytime.
Try Figure 4 Plattform from 3D Systems, it is much more advanced. Especially when it comes to material selection and speed. Of course it is a DLP but has 130mm per hour printspeed.
@@firebloomstudios140 it's 3D Systems
the tanks/trays are 4x more expensive ($600ish compared to $149) than the Form 3's
it requires manual pour of resin
the machine costs $21,900 which is absolutely ridiculous for it's tiny 124.8mm x 70.2mm platform.
@@owencoyne6223 don’t know where you get your information from but I can tell you it is absolutely wrong. Pricing you quote is wrong. Materials start at 250 bucks and productivity is by far higher than the Formlabs machines. Currently I am exchanging a lot Formlabs printers for Figure 4‘s cause of productivity and materials selection which is outstanding at 3DS. And btw. Figure 4 is also available as Modular version with automatic material dispense and 385mm in Z-Axis . But it’s not comparable to the Formlabs cause it’s aiming for mass production.
I'm not a big fan og these segmented videos. I would've prefered one long video with all the details
I'm excited to see the details that this machine can print. I'm doing development of machine tools that require small internal channels to be printed in SLA and my MSLA Anycubic struggles when those internal channels get down to 1mm or smaller.
While it IS wild to see printers at 2-10x the cost with barely 10-20% better results overall, I am always glad to see more and more printers like this popping up - as more of them hit the market, competition goes up, and costs will come back down into the range that actual makers can afford to pay for them (as opposed to medium/large businesses and corporations)
wonderful B Roll Tom! great, quick overview, loved the flow of this video! Excited to see comparisons in print quality and speed coming up!
I have the form3+ at work. The speed of the print varies with the material loaded. With draft it's super fast 4x and with tough and flex slower. The layer height is also set by the material and not equal. Furthermore you should turn on the beta print profile that cuts some prints in half (time). You also missed the idea of loading the material easier and the smart software with preform. So I feel you fell short of what this machine can do. Also, where is the wash and cure station. We love ours and as an engineering company it fits perfect.
I'll cover those aspects in the coming videos! Still lots to dive into.
I love seeing new ways the peel can be overcome.
I'm sorry to say this but this video left me feeling like this was just a preview for the "real video" churned out to provide some meat for the skeleton that was the DataCamp sponsorship. I do realize that you've got to make money for this to work but I feel like the ad/content ratio has been going down recently.
Thank you for making this video!
Speaking as someone who bought all high end premium equipment and never ever got it to work, I say.. tred carefully.. very carefully.. and probably.. avoid completely.
Exactly, this is the biggest scam, the forums tell the truth. Everything is overpriced and it tanks your projects and kills your moral. Should be a class action lawsuit filed.
@@wholeness Yeah, ditto on killing your moral and enthusiasm. Let me rather bitter and emotionally damaged. It's hard to explain.
Like saving up all your life for a new car, dreaming about it, and then when you finally buy one, a week later it slings a rod and the engine is destroyed. Someone tells you, well, just rebuild the engine.. but the engineis front wheel drive and it's packed int here like sardines and complex as phvvvkkk... it's not going to happen. Instead of the realization of a dream, all you have is a very expensive brick. You bought the dream of freedom driving in the countryside on holidays with the wind in your hair, but all you got was a reminder parked dead in your back yard of your foolishness.
If you're wondering why I used the car as an example, it's because I have just such a car so it readily comes to mind as my go to example of the dissonance between the promise that is sold, and what you really end up, and the heartbreak that follows. It will mess you up.
That's what it feels like. Products that promise something, but never deliver on it. Some you buy, you get nothing but a box of parts in the mail or a never ending headache.
The tech is interesting. Looking forward to the next video.
I have the 3B printer in my lab at work. I decided on it because while resins are more expensive compared to other printers in its class they aren’t to bad and they have a lot depending on the application. True engineering resins can be a delight. So far I haven’t had a print failure which is nothing like my photon S at home. I will say the slowness of printing surprised me, but it’s not horrific. Prints look amazing and with tweaking come out super consistent batch to batch. For home I don’t think it’s worth it. For work since messing with stuff and and ease of use save time and money, I love it. Normal resins are 150 per liter.
We've recently installed a Form 3L at work. There are some downsides like you said; it isn't very fast, and the material is expensive. Really expensive. Pretty much 50% of customer jobs won't be financially viable on it, killed by cost of resin.
But for the other 50%, we've found we get quite good results, and cutting down on expensive labour and failed prints is a major win. I can be pretty confident in quoting with it as most jobs are reasonably trouble free, and while the markup might be lower, rework and labour expenses are down too.
Gratz to 400k
Right after the launch of Form3, formlabs discontinued support for Form2 at my former employer.
Formlabs is still supporting the Form 2. If you have an issue with the machine, get in touch with services and they'll help. The thing that might have happened is that coincidentally your Pro Service Plan ran out at the same time so you don't get extra speedy replies etc. anymore, but regular customer service is still helping out with Form 2
@@Chaosghoul in fact, we contacted official support, but the only answer was to get a new printer
@@MartinWolker Normal industrial behaviour after such a long time. They will hopefully make you a good offer.
@@lazyman1011 The company spent approx. 12000 € in total and after half of year they just dropped the supprt? It is not good.
@@MartinWolker Sounds bad
The speed improvement also applies to the form3 since it's mostly a software update (The surface finish is better on the 3+ because of the new LPU, but the speed improvement is transferred)
It's exciting to think that this will be a whole video series! I've recently been using my school's Form 3 quite a bit, and I'm finding it works really well, the flexible bed would certainly be an improvement though. Thanks for the video! 💙
Also, I'm trying to work out what the strange block with buttons on it that you printed is?
This is like classic vector games vs later raster games. Resolution is essentially infinite in two directions. Very nice.
Hey Tom! What hoodie is that? It's so cool
Thanks.
I've got a form 3 that runs their high performance resins (10k & 4000 mostly). The resins AND the vat really get you cost wise. The way I run it the life of the vat accounts for 80$ everytime I use up 300$ of 10K resin. Amazing material but the costs are extremely high for resin.
WARNING after $10K plus in Formlabs products the reliability is terrible. You can't sue these companies or they would have lawsuits. I highly advise looking at the forums before you buy, you have been warned.
Please post a link!
The college my brother goes to has all formlabs equipment. He says that all of them have incredibly annoying bugs that you have to deal with. Even some bugs that make you almost completely unable to use the machine. The customer service was apparently also not the best.
I've used a formlabs 3 for a while now and it's a very nice printer. Once it starts I know it's going to finish. The only error I have had in it is the touch screen goes bad and needs power cycled to get it to work again. Not sure if it's a software or hardware bug tho.
If that is happening more than once, get in touch with services
Yeah we have two Form 3 printers and one of them is having some glitching on the LCD screen as well.
Hey Thomas, super interesting to see what you will think about it. We got a Form 1+, Form 2 and Form 3 at work, also some Prusas and Mars and we found out a lot of pros and cons about all of them. Also have some good testsprints to compare them.
Short overview:
repeadability:
Form 2 and 3 +-70um
Mars 1 +-50um
Prusa MK3s with PLA +-22um
Min Hole:
Form 2&3 0,9mm
Mars 1 0,7mm
MK3s 0,2mm
And other stuff. Please also mention the resin differences of SLA Formlabs resins to MSLA resins! You can use the resins of Formlabs in the Mars but they will take up to 60s exposure time per layer! So a 4h Formlabs print is a 36h Mars 1 print. Also the resins itself are completly different and Formlabs one don‘t smell.
Just hit me up for more information :-)
Greetings from SW Germany
Hi Thomas, i am using Ultimaker S5, with both breakaway support material or PVA support material, I do get very smooth and clean surfaces which were supported. I Watched your Feb25 Form3+ overview. Could you please share your feedbacks, about the resin supported planar surfaces, is it possible to have smooth surfaces just like we can get from FDM prints, I can see that the visible surface on the video is perfect, what about the other side after removing the supports how does the other side of the 3d print looks? Do we need to sand and clean the contact points? is there any small bumps that needs to be flattened, can you share some images and your expertise, I am considering adding resin 3d printers to my work shop. Best Murat
A better machine would be one that can do the outline with the laser and use a shape backlight to fill in the rest
I saw your Twitter post. If you can't edit supports you can always generate supports in another slicer and export the stl. Obviously not a great solution but it's something
Hey Thomas , does the printer work also with other resin brand or just formlab ? Best wishes David
I used several Form2 printers for jears now and printed thousands of pieces. The biggest problem with a Galvo-SLA is that the optical unit is getting out of alignment or dirty. Being able to exchange the whole unit would be the only benefit of a Form3 (don't know if even done).
The printing of fine features was never challenging because of cohesion, either of cross-hardening: later layers will cure resin on the already printed parts.
The advantage could be fine tubes, where the part usually sucke them selves to the bed/film/tank.
Using a "paper-scanner" method instead of a "laser-show" method reduces the resolution / accuracy of curved features.
The user experience is great for home-user, but you are stuck with a limited technology.
So how do you replace a laser once it's used up and how many hours do they last?
Will you try one of the flexible resins they offer? I have a demo print that was made with their 50A resin, the print quality and the flexibility is just amazing
Unfortunately I've only got a single resin tank to use and only have standard grey resin.
Flex 50a has a caveat....it can't handle islands. So it might not be the right material if no matter how you orient the part it still ha multiple s islands. They cover this issue in their product page. I use flex 80a almost daily and is quite neat stuff. It still carries good detail and is surprisingly resistant to tearing. Your support touch size will have to be a bit larger than a typical Grey resin
Could a company combine this 2 tecniques and use a laser for the skin layers and the lcd for the infill?
Does it have the on/off button?
C'mon!!!! It was getting so interesting 😭😭😂😂
Steamdeck! Great vid
This reminds me of what 3DSys was doing in the 90s
0:07 - Wasn't the Markforged Mark Two that you reviewed more expensive than that?
You're right!
there is question in my head, why did they made the laser reflected in that way,why they didn't make the laser just hits the resin directly?
Not sure you are correct about it tracing the outlines. It looks more likely to be a single line raster scan ??? If it moved the head it'd be sqeezing and peeling as it tracked so not a good idea
That's the point of the "low force stereolithography" approach - the print is continuously peeled from the separator film instead of being ripped off in one go. It does do raser scanning for the infill, but it wouldn't be able to get smooth contours without tracing them.
@@MadeWithLayers Mine indeed never traces the outline, it scans the layer left to right. I am printing tall clear resin parts at the moment, so the movements of the laser dot is pretty visible at the moment. Or would this be part of the experimental beta profiles preform offers (that i never use)...
Random question but... I love your sweater, where can I get?! Who made that?
I also want one
Based on this picture from his Twitter:
twitter.com/toms3dp/status/1487078369430810624/photo/1
I'm assuming the brand is Naketano, but I can't find the exact hoodie he's wearing.
It would be great for formalbs to give the early form3 buyers discount or discounted exchange, makes me feel like a beta tester because I never had any print at the speed and quality they promised, and I've spend a few hours fixing problems coming from them (and a bit of expensive 150€/liter resin) at the begining. At least a free LPU change to get the newer version... I mean, layer shifting is a PIA on the form3 which seems to be solved on the + because of user feedback.
Form 3 is interesting but where's that Hoodie from??!! 😂
First off thank you for this review! I’m replacing my Elegoo Saturn with this printer, mainly because of resin temperature control. Tough resin is usually extremely viscous and consequently is prone to failure. Even after installing a heater it’s nearly impossible to control temp precisely. This trial and error process has a real cost associated with it, and I’m tired of that dance.
I have Elegoo Mars 2 Pro with a heater and PID controller for it with temperature prob in the resin vat. I print most of my prints with tough engineering resins and never had any issues.
I doubt that temperature is the only reason you want to upgrade, but if it is you can try buying a PID controller and see if it helps.
@@armLocalhost what engineering resins are you using? I am having the same printer and the toughest stuff I used until now is various Abs like + 10 -15% flex100 resin
@@armLocalhost can you give me more details on your setup?
ooooh so it's a laser copier unit repurposed as a line projector. Clever!
Spotted a Steamdeck print there.
I have one, what's he making?
@@octapc Looks like a full size mockup.
@@allyourbasekris for what purpose
Hey TS, big time fan... even though I just said I am a fan. I did not join your Patreon until now? Don't know why till now. But whatever, better late than never. ;-)
So, this basically combines the quality of a resin printer with the speeds of a FDM machine? Fair trade, I'd say.
Quite the cliffhanger there.
Creality HQ: TAKE A NOTE, TAKE A NOTE.
I'd hate to think what the parts cost for repair would be.
Not that much, I mean for a professional machine, I believe remembering the LPU assembly is around 600
I don’t understand why maker companies are still pulling up the model
Instead of sinking the vat. Never worrying about warping, separation, or weight of the model dropping off.
Wouldnt it still be relatively similar? If someonething falls off the build plate, then you have to actually tweak the settings. Your exposure times would have to be crazy off for that to happen. Warping would probably also happen if you have messed up exposure times and way too fast lift speeds. Lowering the whole vat seems like alot of bad problems could occur.
split video 😭
Differently
So only for Adam Savage.
Have you 3D printed a shark with that laser printer yet? :)
Him: reviews an almost $5000 printer
Me who can't afford a $250 printer: hmm yes interesting 🤔
I was I kinda don't care. Not because I am not intrested in 3D printers but because there are a lot of these kind of high end 3D printers and non of them I can afford. (or build a business out of)
I just dropped $500 on an Flsun Super Racer and goddamn it was so worth it. It's so fast stock and excellent quality. With how fast it is 3 or 4 of them could replace almost a dozen cheaper bed slingers (looking at you ender 3).
@@YourLocalRaccoon I sadly bought a Q5 short before the SR came out. But due to my experience with it I recommended the SR to a friend as his first printer and he still is very happy with it. Plug and play and really good results in a reasonable time.
@@lazyman1011 definitely a great printer
If you have a 2 minute sponsor segment then stop splitting up videos into 8 Minute parts...
Splitting it this early feels unnecessary... This video very much feels like the product description on the manufacturers website, but with ads and sponsorship spot...
I read on Twitter that you thought you had too much to fit the review into one video, but this video could have used some substance... (not that I agree a 30 minute video would be bad)
Surprised nobody is upset at the blatant design plagiarism with the red enclosure. Why can’t we get a nice blue SLA printer?
/s
the orange red colour is so that it filters the laser beam if anything goes wrong.
You do get the color is to avoid UV light from the environnement to cure the resin inside and to avoid the laser beam to damage your eyes... Formlabs had orange covers like that since their begining in 2012 (it's brighter andorangfe in real life t, only the video gives it this red tint) because it is needed...
6:26
We hear you're leaving, that's okay...
I thought our little wild time had just begun
I guess you kinda scared yourself, you turned and run
But if you had a change of heart...
This machine is total garbage and so is the company
This is overpriced
Thats great but how does it help Ukraine
I love your channel but I'm unsubscribing from all Patreon supporting channels. For blocking Come Back Alive campaign. Good luck.