How My Form 1(s) Stopped Forming, & Formlabs’ Awesome Support

So you may have noticed my posts have kinda trickled off a bit. I sincerely apologize, it wasn’t intentional. In the end weeks of July, my printer started producing some very hideous prints, such as the one above. The bad prints were consistent; nothing was printing nicely at all, and I hadn’t seen prints fail so badly up until that point. During an open support conversation with Formlabs, the printer gave up completely, refusing to stay powered on without tripping the power supply’s internal fuse. Something was wrong, terribly wrong...

A Little Update

Hello, everyone! I apologize for the wait for the Form 1 Stress Test v.1.1 write-up. I’m actively working on it when I can between other projects I’ve been working on. The main reason for the delay is that as I’d been working on the write-up, I’ve also been printing other things, like test prints for prospective Form 1 buyers and further tests on the Stress Test.

Unfortunately, there’s some bad news. In my time with the Form 1 thus far, I’ve yet to get many successful prints off it. This includes prints both large and small, parts with supports built by the software and built by me, and with all different layer height and resin type settings. This is all with the Formlabs Clear resin, unmodified and using a clean resin tank (just had to mention this because, as some of you know, I’ve been dabbling with other resins and pigments).

Build Platform Map

Looks like I'd been a bit busier than I hoped this weekend. While I work on the next write-up, here is a little build platform map that I’ve been using to help me figure out where I should place parts. This has been especially helpful in my experiments with placement of objects and how they are affected by the forces caused by the peel process. As marked on the map, it’s based on the current build of PreForm that’s out now (version 0.8.1-rc7, build number 13). Hopefully it will help you as much as it has helped me. ^_^)

Success...!!

Here is the latest version of the Form 1 Stress Test model, v.1.1. It’s currently drying after its 10 minute alcohol bath, but hopefully you can see that the model is pretty much all there! The color and texture reminds me a bit of the skin shed by the Xenomorph in the movie Alien. Feels a bit symbolic, like the test is growing more mature. lol

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to post much more about this one possibly till later next week since I’ll be busy with some other things, but when I do, I’ll cover what was done to get the print working better and what tests were changed or modified. Meanwhile, I’ll try and post about some other things that won’t require too much time to write.

In this version of the test, I’ve included a tasty treat that replaces a similar test from the previous version. Can you see it? ^_^)

First Print EVER! \(^Ɐ^)/

My first print ever... and it failed!

Truth be told, I expected it to fail in several areas, so it was also a success in that it taught me a great many things about printing on the Form 1 3D printer. This mangled mess is a print of a model built specifically for stress-testing various properties of the Form 1 and Formlabs’ clear resin. I’ll explain each of the different parts of the print and model below, and if they were successful or failures (and if I know why).

A Little History

3D printing my models has long been an interest of mine. When I saw Major Chip Hazard and Archer emerge from vats of clear liquid in the opening of the movie Small Soldiers, I wondered if such technology actually existed and immediately started researching. My research led me to stereolithography, the process of using a laser to harden light-sensitive liquids layer by layer. Not surprisingly, the process was exaggerated and dramatized in the movie, but the portrayal was pretty accurate. Unfortunately, the machines were in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, far out of my reach.

Not long afterward, I was sent on a business trip by my employer to GDC 2001 (or was it 2002? I can't remember). While there, I ran across a booth that had a bunch of small random objects on a table. They were printed via stereolithography! I inquired about the models and the process, as well as costs. As it turned out, printing a small figure, something perhaps 1:10 scale, would have cost about $120 to print through the company, or half that under the table. I gave it some serious thought, but I never actually got around to getting anything printed.

Years later, FDM printers started to come around. The first ones I had heard of were the MakerBot Cupcake and the RepRap. Prints from them seemed fairly crude, and the DIY nature of them didn't seem worth the time and money, especially after reading about peoples' trials and tribulations with them. I decided to wait. I didn't wait long.

It was only perhaps a couple years later that the B9Creator went live on Kickstarter. The resolution of the prints shown were far above those done on FDM printers. On top of that, it used liquid resin as the print material, just like stereolithography! I was extremely excited, and was so close to pulling the trigger to get one, but a friend talked me out of it. It was good that he did, because months later the Form 1, a desktop stereolithography printer, also turned up on Kickstarter.

The Form 1's print quality was at least as good as the B9Creator's, and definitely far above that of FDM (even the Ultimaker, which I had started looking into being talked out of the B9C). I researched the Form 1 a bit and kept my eye on it for a while. It was a lot of money to spend, and I'd need to borrow money to pay for it. The project was definitely going to be successfully funded, since it had already long-surpassed its original goal of $100,000.

I went for it. Months later I now have a stereolithography printer, and it is amazing. I've always watched technology grow from generation to generation, since most of the technologies that were growing were all around me. Cell phones, televisions, computers, game systems... they were always nearby. 3D printing at home, especially stereolithography, was something that was always out of reach till now, and it's like the Form 1 came straight from the future.

Thank you, Formlabs, for making my dream of owning a stereolithography printer come true!