Independently Tested Reliability of Form 4 and Other Resin 3D Printers

Introduction History: Additive manufacturing (AM), also known as 3D printing, is a powerful, popular tool to accelerate product development and manufacturing across many industries. Reliability is critical for any tool designed to create parts, and 3D printing is no exception. While 3D printing has made huge leaps over the past decade, many printers are still held back by poor reliability. In a 2024 survey by 3D Printing Industry, leaders in additive manufacturing listed “Machine and Process Reliability” as the number one barrier to achieving broader adoption of 3D printing. Problem: Unfortunately,...

commence testing. This resulted in several working days lost purely in replacing hardware, in addition to many hours of labor troubleshooting problems, cleaning failed prints, and resetting the printer to reattempt the print. These results were all obtained in a laboratory with optimal conditions, and with prints that had been validated to print successfully on all four of the tested printers. It's important to note that conditions outside of the lab with usergenerated models will typically be lower across the board. For example, the field print success rate of Form 4 at the time of writing (measured...

Technology MSLA Failure Modes chunks Missing - Print stopped

Non-PrintIssues Outdated Lost Hours Printing Due to Failures Book a Consultation Get in touch with our 3D printing experts for a 1:1 consultation to find the right solution for your business, receive ROI analyses, test prints, and more.

In order to fully understand the different available options, four different types of SLA or resin 3D printers were selected for this testing, all of which function based on vat photopolymerization. The first two were Formlabs' existing printer types — the longstanding Form 3+, an update of Form 3, which was originally released in 2019, and the new Form 4 released in 2024. Additionally, two benchmark printers were selected to compare against lower cost printers with comparable build area. The first benchmark printer costs around $450 and the second costs around $650 in the US. Pricing on the...

• One scanned organ model (an aorta) • One prototype medical device • Dental Models: Two parts • Formlabs Print Diagnostic Models: Two parts All the models, their designers, and descriptions, can be found in the appendix. Many of the parts are actual Formlabs customer parts used with permission by the designers, and those that aren't are designed as functional equivalents of real world parts that have been printed. The two diagnostic models are used by Formlabs to evaluate the performance of both resins and printers. In order to give the best opportunity for printing success, models were oriented...

printers the Lychee Slicer software was selected. Supports for Formlabs were always generated with the default settings (no modifications) using the “AutoGenerate Selected” tool pictured. Similarly, supports for all of the prints for both benchmark printers were generated using the Automatic Supports from Lychee, pictured. In Lychee, the Medium support setting was used for all models with the exception of Model D8, which, due to its large flat surface, was more prone to warping, so Heavy support settings were used to prevent delamination. Settings for each printer were set using the manufacturer...

From here, the resin would be automatically dispensed into the tank as needed by the printer and cartridges swapped out when they ran empty. All of these consumables and accessories were checked prior to selecting the print from the queue and starting the print. Prints were then allowed to run with no interference unless they output an error. Error codes were noted down and then the operators followed the onscreen prompts to either reset and resume the print or fail the print and stop printing as required. If prints had a failure, the tanks were checked for material left in them, which was cleaned...

new IPA every 100 washes to prevent the IPA from becoming saturated with resin and losing its efficacy. Observations and Measurements After each print, the success/failure of the print was determined, being marked failed if there was a significant issue with printing that would obviously render the part non-functional. Some examples are: Non-adherence to build platform: Either the first layer never adhered to the build platform or it delaminated from the build platform at some point during the print, resulting in no print on the build platform Major delamination: Part either printed partially...

Print ending warping: Part warped in such a way that it left the build plane and became unusable Undeveloped features in print: Normally this is caused by some piece of a print delaminating and causing a cascading failure.

More minor blemishes were noted, but as the print was completed successfully, were still marked as a success. Examples are: Surface pinstriping: Surface defect that appears on parts as a series of lines or ripples Limited warping: Part warped in such a way that didn’t impede the print, but could cause issues with fitting Pinholes through print: Unintentional holes in the print, typically vertical

Heavy support residue: Issues where supports left damage on the part that could impede the function of the part The remaining parts were considered perfect, ignoring any cosmetic issues or dimensional accuracy issues that may have occurred. Request a Free Sample Part See and feel Formlabs quality firsthand. We’ll ship a free 3D printed sample part to your office. Test Results Hardware Reliability The first result on the reliability of the printers was whether they came in working order and if they continued to function throughout the period of the testing. All five Form 4 printers, Form 3+ printers,...

with no issues and were all able to be set up and started within 15 minutes, requiring no troubleshooting or calibration procedures. This remained largely true throughout the testing process, with no mechanical issues arising from either the Form 4 or benchmark A’s printers, and the only issue on Form 3+ printers was one of the five developing a squeaking sound in the X axis after 2.5 weeks of testing that did not result in any printing issues. Benchmark A’s printers did require a preventative release film change after three weeks of printing, which was indicated on the UI, although no damage...