Hi,
We’ve been using the Form 2’s for a little while now and even done a few jewellery pieces for art college and university students.
The accuracy is great and very little needed after print before casting. The printer itself is no problems and very low maintenance, as everyone else has said:
- Keep your printer clean by avoiding drips and spills
- Do or don’t use the gloves - the way the machine is setup you can actualy do most things without getting resin on your hands and the finishing kit is well thought out.
- We found easier to have a couple of the finishing kits set up (if you are using clear resin purely in one and other resins in the other).
- After which do yoru UV curing - BE CAFEFULL HERE - check out what UV curing machine they are offering and look at the materials being used. If you are just sticking to the castable resin for jewellery fine a 405nm UV chamber that can maintain 45 degrees is all good - we ended up building our own chamber which has 2 sets of UV lights 405nm for most and the 365nm for the high temp resin. We did look at a deal to buy the printer with a UV curing machine but it turns out the nm value was way off and wouldn’t have been fit for prurpose.
But again this should all be fine, the process should be something like:
- Load your file into Pre-form (the software with the printer).
- Orientate, support and print from there (make sure you get your supports and orientation correct to avoid print failures - see the formlabs tutorials)
- Lift out the print bed and get up the correct way (to avoid drips) and onto the finishing stand
- Remove part with tools and tweezers provided
- Soak/wash in the IPA (alcohol 90%+) as per guidelines (pretty much 10 mins in each tank).
- Dry out fully (between 5 - 10 mins depending on size of part and % of alcohol).
- Cure in UV chamber as per guidelines, for castable 120 mins at 45 degrees using 405nm UV.
Other things to consider in cost, you do get some resin loss which is washed off (account for 10% on any model and you’ll be safe in the cost/volumes - preform software tells you the use for the print with supports in ml), and as others have said cost in your resin tanks at 66 euros per tank or 33 euros per litre is how we look at it (as roughty every 2 litre you need to replace - although you can use for longer if you’re careful and save some more money).
Generally form 2 and formlabs are really helpful and good quality product, just be carefull of some resellers.
Hope this helps.
