3D printing with FORM1+ : dream come true

A friend was able to loan a 3D printer Form1+; we are going to test the resolution and the materials. Here the pictures of the set-up with a laptop.

The software is very easy to use. Initially preparing the printing process with many parts and little details here and there makes the experience a bit messy, but after a while you get use to it and then the fear of messing up goes away and the printing flows more natural and easy.


The first printing was a 10 x 10 x 10 mm cube, the cube is still holding by the supports; also the cube has to be printed in an angular position (since its the recommended way to do it, because of the peeling with the supporting base). Here some pictures of the cube:

We measured the cube and it was 9.7 (approx.) per each side. After some days, the cube measured around 9.8 ~ 9.9 mm. Pretty good in comparison to the other samples I had printed in white plastic or the metallic in other type of printers.

Then we printed another more complex sample: a my little pony figurine from Thingiverse:

We printed this figurine with the lowest quality for the sake of the speed. Not bad at all in terms of quality. By the way; initially we had a failed printed pony and we weren't sure why it failed. After a while of tinkering with the machine and making theories we figured out that in the software there is an option to select the color of the material; this feature seems to affect the final output. We had it by default on black and since we change the resin to grey, we forgot to change this option to gray in the software. We repeated the print with the right color selected and then the printing was successful.

Later my friend printed another pony with a better resolution (half way up the lever of quality), but in my personal appreciation I still cannot tell the difference between both samples. Here I added the samples for your own conclusions:

Then we went for a print batch of several pieces at the same time. I had some 3D models done previously for some vintage toys that I'm reconstructing and I wanted badly to print them on this Form1+ printer. I put some of these 3D meshes into the printer load to see how it goes. The final output is on the pictures below:

We obtained mixed results. Maybe caused by the overtime in the alcohol bucket, the pieces with the thin walls ended eaten away. I guess we will try again paying more attention to the time on the alcohol bucket step.