Formlabs Form 2 First Look

I am in love with a 3D printer and her name is Formlabs Form 2

Yes, I have seen impressive prints off a 3D printer before, but nothing has ever come close to the prints this machine produces when you know what you are doing (I do not – not yet). The resolution compares to printers worth 10x or more!

These are just my first impressions. I am going to be spending a LOT of time with this printer.

Thanks to Shannon at Fuse33 Maker Space in Calgary I got a quick overview and will be back for a proper play and some best practices.

As well as beautiful output there are a couple of things to know:

• It’s costly – several thousand dollars (in Canadian it works out around $5,000 with delivery).
• You can network it with ethernet or wifi, or use USB.
• The resin is super expensive. Up to $1 per ml! Cost of the machine and resin costs are why I could only really use this in a pro maker space like Fuse33.
• Software is proprietary, but it is a pretty specialized thing, so I can forgive that.
• The build area is ickle but you really wouldn’t want to fill it due to resin costs.
• Workflow is not just slice, print, take off the build plate like it is with FDM. It’s more involved, and deals with icky substances, but worth it.

Now I am hyped about this laser stereolithography (SLA) machine I would LOVE to compare the output with the projector-based Wanhao D7.

Will report back after putting it through its paces!