Formlabs

[Chris333]

I was just reading about a newer Formlabs Form4 printer. What was surprising is that they no longer use a laser beam (85 microns) they use LED lights (and screen?) at 50 micron pixels. So equal to my first OG Photon with 47 micron pixels.

Their site says a print that took 10+ hours on a Form3 takes 1h 38m on the Form4.

So did they basically switch everything over to what all of our printer are? And if so why are they still $4500.00 bucks?  https://formlabs.com/3d-printers/form-4/

Is there some magic still there for the higher price?

[Chris333]

It does have a "mixer" in the vat:

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But it seems like a regular printer we all have.

[AlwaysSolutions]

This is just my opinion, but I think since they were one of the first to bring desktop high resolution resin printing to market, they consider themselves a premium brand that demands a premium price.  They seem to attract the crowd with the mentality that, because something is more expensive, it must be better.   I don't know if there's more to it than that.  I've always thought they were overpriced, especially after msla printing hit the market and they were still using lasers with half the resolution and costing ten times that of the lcd units.     At least they do have some bells and whistles on this unit, heat, mixing, etc.  Ain't worth 4500 bucks to me though.  Especially when it looks like they're still pushing their proprietary ecosystem (overpriced resin cartridges)  Any other company would be selling these anywhere from 700 - 1300 on the high end IMO.

Mike

[Chris333]

I just wonder what they are using as a FEP. And they mention an air layer? Is that just the gap between the screen and the FEP?

I know their resins are way overpriced and wonder if any brand regular resin will work. But I'm not looking to buy one, just trying to figure out if any of the technology can be used on our printers.

[AlwaysSolutions]

Yeah, I think you got it.  From my understanding the air layer is not a feature of the FEP itself, at least I don't think it is?  It's between the FEP and the LCD panel like you say.  Their claim is that, by eliminating the suction effect the FEP has on the panel when in smoosh mode, the FEP is easier to flex on the lift thus allowing easier release of the current resin layer from the FEP.  So there must be a transparent bumpy film sitting on top of the LCD under the vat.  For the FEP itself, I imagine it's just a run of the mill FEP.  Of course I could be completely wrong.

Mike

[samusi01]

It'd be interesting to try their new printer. The local fab lab has a 3+. It is a complex beast with lots of features which remains the only piece of equipment that the fab lab has that I have an analogue of at home... in my case, the Elegoo Saturn 2 8k. Things I like about the 3+: the resin reservoir system makes it somewhat less messy and their clear resin is lighter than Elegoo's 8k space gray. Things I don't like: everything else. I do use it for projects that are of lower resolution than the home printer (it wouldn't be able to turn out good copies of any of my HEMTT related models) or to run certain projects on (for example, my wind turbine blades are all done on it). It'd be OK for HO scale except the print volume is small. The re$in... my word... and you can't fool the machine by refilling the resin reservoir from something else.