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The Definitive FORMLABS FORM 4 Review - Delicate Shark
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Apr 15, 2025
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View Video Transcript
0:00
okay here it is The big one And by that I obviously mean the expensive one Or perhaps the infamous one If you know
0:07
resin printers chances are you've heard of Formlabs chances are you already have some opinions Cool I've got a comment
0:14
section Crack on and fill your boots For everyone who actually wants to have a look at this machine and system and see
0:20
what powers it welcome There's a lot to unpack here This is a different machine to most and they sent me a ton of stuff
0:27
to go with it So grab some popcorn a drink a cup of tea some biscuits Strap
0:32
in and enjoy this comprehensive look at the Formlabs Form 4 system Hi I'm Ross
0:40
and this is Fauxhammer Videos So here's the deal Formlabs offered to send this
0:45
kit out to myself along with some other creators There's no affiliate links this time Formlabs just don't do that So if
0:52
by the end you were entertained or bought one especially and you want to donate with a super thanks or sign up as
0:58
a member to help me out and let me pay my bills please do No please do Like I
1:04
never said I was above begging and that's begging with a B BB B To be fair
1:09
though if the money's right Anyway Formlabs want more awareness of their machine amongst creators in the resin
1:16
community I want hands-on with this printer as something I can compare or future machines do And I'd say as the
1:22
one they're all competing against but well we'll get to that in the conclusion Also so you're fully aware an extension
1:29
of this deal is that if I want to keep this kit I have to make three videos for them I already have this one and I've
1:35
got another in mind but that's actually a comparison with another printer But for the other videos the two that will
1:41
suit Formlabs I want to know what it is that you want to know about it So watch this then let me know in the comments if
1:48
you think I actually should go further with it and what do you want to know The thing to talk about this product up
1:53
front and so that you fully know because this is kind of a key point of the review is this is not intended as a
2:00
consumer machine Not at all And that will become glaringly obvious throughout In fact as I said it's the key element
2:07
of this thing that I want to point out the whole way through To prove that point let's start with the price which
2:12
I'll talk about in US dollars considering that's what I've been using on this channel since we began thanks to so many brands not always showing my
2:19
local currency So at the time this script was written at least cuz it might change the printer alone and that's
2:26
without a bill plate or VAT is over $3,000 A basic build platform is $119
2:32
with the cooler flex platform that I'll come on to at $249 You only need one of
2:37
those You You don't need both I got both to show you the difference Anyway each vat is $99 And you'll also need a mixer
2:45
bar for each which is $25 The form wash is $699 And the cure station or the one I
2:52
got cuz there's a newer one is $750 Beyond that I also got hands-on
2:57
with the finish kit which is some buckets and tools for handling the resin That's another $99 and finishing tools
3:04
which are for model cleanup including electric sanders and such is $249 And I've even got a batterypowered
3:12
solvent pump to get liquid out of the form wash at another $60 And all that is
3:18
before the resin So I got two bottles of precision model which sells at $129 each
3:24
and two bottles of tough 1500 which is $149 each We're not done There's also a
3:32
one-year pro service plan which got included with this machine and that is another
3:38
$549 Now if you want to save a bit of money you can get the cheapest resins
3:43
for this machine and they're $79 a liter So if what you see before you plus the
3:49
service plan at over $7,000 for the lot doesn't put you off buying one as a home
3:54
user let's continue I'll find some more stuff Okay let's get to the printer Now before I even got the machine I was
4:01
advised of this pro service plan they bundled in it for me which came first as an email that instructed me to check out
4:06
a whole series of product training guides And I even got an introductory meeting with my dedicated service agent
4:12
Devon who I've got to be honest like everyone at Formlabs who spoke to me has been absolutely lovely to me and beyond
4:21
almost every other brand incredibly helpful Now for those who didn't faint at the price or those who have since
4:27
woken up and skipped back in the video just to learn how this is worth that much let's get into the hardware
4:33
Starting with the printer of course Now the packaging is easily some of the best I've seen I don't mean looks although
4:39
uniformity across all but one of the boxes is nice What I mean is the packaging materials are clearly designed
4:45
to properly house a product of this value rather than everything being bunged in and sandwiched between two
4:51
cheap sheets of foam And let's be fair the machine looks absolutely gorgeous too I mean it's easy for me to put this
4:57
in the category of properlooking technical products And for a bit of flash and I guess well practically some
5:02
protection from UV rays during downtime in an office environment The lid also has this soft hood that you can put over
5:09
it As I always say I love the up and over lid which you can easily lift one-handed because there's a cutout for
5:16
the handle area And I especially love the soft close function In fact I'd love
5:21
to have this in my kitchen cabinets All in all from the absolute off you can tell this isn't a toy This is a proper
5:28
industrial style product Now ports wise we've got an Ethernet socket along with a USBC socket on the rear but it's worth
5:35
noting that this USBC socket is to connect the printer directly to a computer with a USBC cable There's no
5:42
USB socket on this machine for a thumb drive In fact the only way to transfer prints to this machine is via the
5:48
network And yes it's got built-in Wi-Fi or with a direct PC connection using
5:54
that USBC cable Kind of like many modern 2D printers which I suppose makes sense
6:00
but I'm also sure many consumer resin printer users will say limiting cuz we're used to USB drives There's also
6:07
the power socket and switch on the other side of the back And between these is a large vent hole So now is when I'll
6:13
mention that whilst printing and the fans are operating this is one of the louder 3D printers that I've used
6:19
External to the machine there's also a couple of extras too Both of which are elements that are clearly printed on
6:25
other Formlabs machines At the top at the back you've actually got a removable tool caddy for Allen keys and leveling
6:31
shims And the other extra is a circular vent hole which I was actually advised was only added due to user feedback as
6:38
Formlabs resins are typically much safer than most And look I've got no way to quantify resin safety I don't know
6:45
enough about resin safety I like you I'm waiting for the articles on what is and isn't safe in UV resins I'm just
6:53
reiterating what I was told Right let's get to the fun stuff inside So the first thing to talk about is the build plate
6:59
They have a standard plate which is a large block and we've seen this style before Many of us love the convenience
7:05
of never getting resin on the top of a build plate But the flex plate however is super cool And I expect this will be
7:12
the thing that most viewers will walk away from this video wishing they had because I wish I had it We've seen
7:19
removable flex plates before but this one has clips on top that you can actually press together in order to
7:24
easily flex and loosen the parts on the surface avoiding a lot of the manual scraping that's often required on
7:31
standard plates Now this doesn't always just pop off all of your models Smaller pieces or at least pieces with smaller
7:38
supports still need some encouragement Nevertheless this is super handy to have and makes me very envious of built-in
7:45
flex plates I want this on every single printer Now why can't we have this if
7:51
you know please let me know in the comments It's also worth saying that whilst plate leveling to make it
7:56
parallel with the screen is a process you can run through And to do this you use the small blue shims I mentioned
8:02
earlier and two screws on the build arm I didn't actually need to do this for any of my testing So they should come
8:08
pre-leveled You can however in fact you need to level the printer itself which
8:14
is done in a pretty cool way And well it gets you to do this during the setup by telling you how level the printer is on
8:20
your worktop and giving you this disc which slides into the feet which are nuts and then turning the disc raises
8:27
and lowers each corner Going back to the plate this attaches to the Z arm with a spring lever which is awesome for
8:33
one-handed operation However moving down the mechanism I was actually surprised to see a single linear rail and standard
8:40
lead screw which might actually explain some of the print results I'll come on to later But even saying that I don't
8:46
think it's right because I've had much larger machines with this style of mechanism and no issues So this should
8:52
be fine Now moving on to the VAT These are plastic And I say these not only because I've got two but because well
8:59
that's intentional with this printer If you've got multiple resins the intention is for you to have multiple vats as well
9:06
Now each vat here is plastic and comes with a clear release film that I'll assume is PFA Now for those of you who
9:12
already hate the idea of proprietary resin yeah get your pitchforks ready because the release film on these is
9:18
non-replaceable In fact they are so non-replaceable that they're plastic welded to the frame of the vat However
9:26
there is a reason for this So how these work is let's say interesting before I explain it and then you can add your
9:32
comments about it afterward So the VAT when it's inserted is registered to the printer I'll assume it's got an NFC tag
9:39
inside it or something And this allows the printer to track how many layer peels it's had or how many layer peels
9:45
each vat has had when you insert it but also it knows what resin you use in it
9:51
because as soon as you use a particular resin in the tank the printer stores that information and should you try to
9:57
use a different resin it just won't let you In fact there's a little square on each tank where you can place a sticker
10:03
that comes with your resin to keep track of which tanks are for which material Now before the work printer mob gets its
10:09
knickers in too much of a twist don't worry There is actually a process on the printer which will allow you to
10:15
re-register a tank with another material should you have made a mistake in registration or just wish to clean it
10:20
out and switch The whole point of this like some of the other features that I'll come on to are to prevent incorrect
10:27
use from a user In fact the whole system here is designed to be idiot proof which
10:33
yeah I'm I'll kind of agree in fairness that many viewers who are experienced in
10:39
modern resin printing consumer printing will probably actually see as a printer
10:44
for idiots Well let's not get ahead of ourselves too much Like I said there's more stuff like this to come So you know
10:52
yeah we're going to cement that opinion But the truth is look what do you think of this limitation so far let's continue
10:59
What I think we're all going to love about these plates is how they latch into plates The spring-loaded levers make this another process you can pretty
11:06
much do one-handed In fact you can do it one-handed You've just got to push down the second side as you do it Now you may
11:12
have noticed this notch in front of the bat This is for Formlab's wiper arm During printing when each layer lifts
11:19
this will actually wipe back or wipe back and forth It's different for different resins mixing the resin and
11:24
distributing the heat so everything is evenly warm And once again this is
11:30
attached with a spring latch And I like that the plate gets a spring the vat gets two springs the lid gets a spring
11:36
this wiper gets a spring Everyone gets a spring with the form 4 This video is sponsored by springs Yeah I wish Please
11:44
please donate Told you I'd beg Anyway before a print the plate will lower and this will
11:50
actually run across the bill plate surface to ensure it along with the surface of the release film are both
11:56
clean before anything starts There's no pressure sensing to do any of these tasks in this printer And what this also
12:03
does is mix the resin as it preheats And by the way heating is done from a frame
12:08
around the LCD within the frame of the LPU I'll explain what that is shortly
12:14
and temperature is monitored using infrared sensors again underneath the LPU or LCD And this arm should also
12:22
detect resin stuck to the build plate mid-print if you've had a partial fail But I actually had a couple of partially
12:28
failed prints on one of my plates and the arm would actually ramp over almost a centimeter of resin each time it
12:35
swiped until that print was done But to be fair that part did have a smooth taper creating a ramp rather than being
12:42
a solid flat object sticking up that would actually block the arm Now this is certainly a more interesting mechanism
12:48
than what I've seen elsewhere But I also wonder if this gives the resin enough time to properly settle post white
12:54
before each layer is cured because well sometimes I could actually see the resin start to cure a layer as some of the
13:01
liquid resin above it was still mobile But as I said we'll come on to print quality Now the LCD is also interesting
13:08
and this is what's dragging this video out The printer's got all the elements of other printers but they do so many of
13:13
the things we've seen before in so many different ways Here you'll see the LCD surface isn't smooth It's actually got a
13:20
wavy texture to it And the main point of this is just to prevent the release film from being able to stick flat to it
13:26
because in other printers this often causes a vacuum requiring stronger pull forces in order to release the resin
13:32
from it And that makes sense based on what we've seen in other machines And I was curious and asked Formlabs about
13:39
possible light refraction that this pattern could cause but was advised that this texture is an extremely deliberate
13:46
size and shape to keep all of the light rays perfectly parallel to ensure accurate exposure of the printed part
13:53
Now as for the LCD itself Formlabs don't directly tell us a resolution but 4K has
13:59
been quoted to me and we also know from the specs it's got 50 micron pixels Now we also know the build volume is 200x
14:06
125x 210 mm So with a bit of math dividing the screen area by the pixel
14:12
size we can work out it's approximately 4,000x2,500 pixels which yeah is 4K And
14:20
for those wondering how this performs in a world of 16K printers again print result section we'll come on to it later
14:26
Now the printable area however is listed as a 10-in screen but this printable area only has a diameter of 9.3 in And
14:34
whilst it's not significantly smaller yeah there were a couple of times I found this marginally limiting when
14:39
compared to some of my other 10-in machines But this screen is actually referred to more as an LPU or light
14:46
processing unit And the unit has things like a filter and the screen elements itself and the heating element and all
14:53
of that And this is why it's also responsible for heating the resin The whole module though is easily
15:00
replaceable by simply unscrewing and unclipping some of the cables No tiny ribbon cables here Everything is a nice
15:07
simple plug Now according to the specs this has a lifetime of 600,000 to 1.9 million layers Now
15:15
obviously that's depending on material and layer height but still that's pretty impressive As for the light source
15:20
itself when we see it taken apart this looks to be a custom star matrix LED array No COB light source here though
15:28
there is a filter of some kind between this and the LPU which may be responsible for sharpening the light as
15:34
it hits the LCD But it's also nice to see that this unit is also easily replaceable too And with these
15:40
considerations actually put in mind yeah you can easily see that the intention is for the Formlabs products to be long
15:46
lasting or at least be used a lot and repaired rather than replaced A couple of extra features to cover include the
15:53
webcam And watching this work is also something that's rather unique Other than just snapping a picture after the
15:58
completion of each layer and then dumping that out as a time-lapse the way this works is that it actually raises
16:04
the plate higher out of the bed than it typically needs to for the resin to peel So you can actually get a time lapse
16:10
showing the model print from near the beginning rather than only what's visible after the model's tall enough to
16:17
actually leave the tank The result is a pretty smooth though drippy time-lapse Although in a dark room the camera LED
16:24
actually bleaches a lot of the detail on lighter materials kind of ruining the overall video quality But with portrait
16:31
orientation videos at 720x 960 resolution it's still pretty decent You
16:37
just need to be aware that this additional rise in height to take each image will add some additional time to
16:42
your prints too Okay then resin This is another machine with proprietary bottles
16:48
You can use your own resin but to do that Formlabs want you to enable open material mode which will cost you
16:55
$25,000 per printer Now again guys I've got a comment section and let me just remind you I review these machines for
17:02
what they are I don't make them write company's business plans or fight them on what those plans are I present the
17:08
products that we're given So if you've got something to say look I'm the messenger You know what to not do to the
17:16
messenger Anyway I know people are against proprietary resin but as I said in the intro and may briefly mention at
17:23
the end this is very much not a consumer printer I am not here asking anybody to
17:31
buy it I've said this before but I clearly can't stress it enough Buy the printer that's right for you Anyway to
17:37
use the resin here simply insert the bottle into the rear of the machine which opens up a small rubber grommet in
17:44
the base of the resin bottle and the machine will feed this resin into the bat And it's also recommended to open
17:49
the lid of the bottle when you're feeding it in because that allows air to flow in as resin flows out In fact the
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printer will actually warn you of a slow pour when this isn't open And just like the resin tank so again I assume RFIDs
18:02
the printer will detect what material is inserted at any given time And there's also a small cutout inside the chamber
18:09
so you can actually easily see from reading the bottle through that hole what is installed And I do think that's
18:16
kind of cute The printer's also able to determine the remaining bottle volume of resin in each bottle too But I'm not
18:22
sure whether it does this through weight or whether it just remembers how much you had in a bottle when you first
18:27
inserted it But it's still cool to know Now the printer will only feed in a small amount of resin into the bat at a
18:34
given time Somewhere between 1 and 2 cm if I eyeball it And I expect this low volume actually helps on heating
18:40
efficiency due to the persistently small volume of resin that's actually there I
18:45
suppose just be aware that when you remove a bottle you might want to wipe out the rubber bung on the inside just
18:50
to prevent drips onto your work surfaces Okay making progress Onto the UI Easily
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the best UI I've ever seen on a resin printer The out-of-box walkthrough is seamless All of the settings are not
19:02
only obvious but more complex processes give you clear written guides on screen with pictograms and sometimes a QR code
19:09
to articles with even more detail The printer literally tells you how to operate the printer In fact sometimes it
19:17
stops you using the printer intentionally because another of the idiot check features are present on the
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main screen at all times In fact you literally can't start a print unless the printer can verify that the build
19:28
platforms installed along with the tank and a resin cartridge Also after each
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print you need to confirm that the plate is free of the previous print before you
19:39
can actually start the next And the wiper arm will validate this too along with confirming a clear release film
19:46
Also during a print the only thing I ever care to know during a print is how
19:52
long until that print is done how many hours or minutes left And this is one of
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the few printers that puts that front and center massive I can see from across the room that's how long I'm waiting
20:05
until my print's done Every printer should do this Every single one Well done Formlabs This is all I want to know
20:12
Now I know I've used the term idiot a couple of times but before you think I mean that as an insult to you I'm
20:18
actually talking about myself Though in fairness I know I'm not alone in doing daft things like starting a print
20:23
without a vat secured or still having a print on the plate or you know not even having the plate installed in the
20:29
printer at all If you've done any of these things let me know in the comments In fact what is your stupidest resin
20:35
printing fail because I'd love to hear them But the point is all of this stuff
20:41
is considered and planned and thought about and through the software through
20:46
the process all but prevented on the Formlabs printer So we can see the
20:52
convenience in that Right Okay Now the software side of things There's no USB drive even included with this machine
20:59
Instead you actually need to head over to the Formlabs website to download Preform which is the dedicated and only
21:05
slicer you can use with this printer And yes you can use this offline and still
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send prints over the network to the machine Now there's no phone app for the Formlabs printer that I could find
21:17
though you can access the dashboard for your printer or fleet via the web and
21:22
even set the system up so you receive SMS notifications once a print status changes And I could see instantly that
21:29
both the web dashboard and Preform app are more than just for monitoring It's clear from the dashboard that this whole
21:36
thing is intended for multiple machines and fleet management What I did find amusing though is how the printers are
21:42
given a random name on first boot Like they pick a random adjective in a random noun Mine decided to call itself
21:48
delicate shark A it's rather fitting as you'll come to see Now slicing and
21:55
printing itself is pretty straightforward for anyone who's used a 3D printer before Select your machine
22:00
select your resin select your layer height and you're ready to import models Now it's probably worth knowing that
22:05
things like layer heights are predetermined for you in profiles by what Formlabs has made available in the
22:12
two materials I had For example only the precision model was able to go lower than 50 microns down to 0.025 mm or 25
22:21
microns Though whilst all of these settings for the resins including layer height are predetermined by Formlabs to
22:27
give you what they feel is the best results you can actually edit a lot of the settings and create custom profiles
22:33
yourself Which also leaves me wondering why it costs so much for open material mode when surely we could just edit an
22:39
existing profile and game the system Maybe that's my second video idea Just be aware for those of us who are
22:46
chitubox and lyche or other users we'll swiftly find that these settings are
22:51
incredibly different to what we're used to Where we'd normally adjust only say layer height and layer exposure time
22:58
among some other stuff here we seemingly have no control over the time a layer's
23:03
cured for Instead we adjust the UV energy for each layer And not just for the whole layer either for the shell the
23:10
internal structure the supports and top surfaces They all have their own values
23:15
And that's just the start There's a ton more too But all of this is pretty well explained both on the page and well with
23:22
much more info available on their website You can go and read this now Anyway once we get all our stuff
23:28
selected we just import our models Everything I imported had errors detected and I was asked to repair them
23:34
And this will be common stuff like intersecting shells in the model which you get in most 3D prints I've printed
23:40
And the repair process is essentially ensuring everything in the model is one solid piece But I wasn't able to find
23:47
any kind of report as to the changes this process is actually making Also in
23:52
my call before I used the printer with my support rep Devon I was actually advised after explaining what I'd be
23:58
printing to stay away from the one-click slice button because this is specifically meant for very basic
24:04
geometric shapes rather than really detailed small models Now I've done a selection of models that I'll come on to
24:10
in the print quality section We are getting there I promise And this was both a selection of supported and
24:16
unsupported minis so I could use FormLab's own support system Now you'll have all the tools you need to move and
24:23
orient models in this It's all pretty intuitive It's all very intuitive but if you've got one of the aforementioned
24:29
apps there will be some relearning to do and that's only because some of the mouse buttons may do different things
24:34
And well it's a layout we're not used to I've been playing with it for a few weeks and I could easily get it to print
24:40
within 20 minutes of getting it set up but I'm also still learning stuff Mainly because the depth of info Formlabs gives
24:47
us about all of the features is worlds beyond anything I've seen in the resin space But when it actually comes to
24:54
supporting models in this slicer however I've got to be honest this is a bit limited in my view Now not only can you
25:00
not manipulate the support struts location themselves in lie of just placing dots on a model where you want a
25:07
support to connect to and both these manual edits along with the auto supports often placing those struts both
25:14
well they start from parts of a model where you just wouldn't want a support to be and in some cases actually
25:20
intersect through a model I had one print I was trying to do where it pretty much gave a guy an earring The bit I
25:27
struggle to get my head around though is that at 0 55 mm for the smallest available connection size on the
25:32
precision model resin the contact points themselves here are over twice the size
25:37
of what I've seen on other machines that share this same type of workflow In fact to make sure that this wasn't a one-off
25:43
I actually went through all of the available resins to check the connection point sizes and they all ranged from 0.5
25:50
to 0.65 65 mm with only silicon and castable resins at the smaller end of
25:55
that range So I've got to be honest considering the limitations of the supporting module itself and these sizes
26:02
I was pretty keen to see how detailed miniatures would fit both with me supporting them in here and in their
26:08
pre-supported state that I and many other users would typically go for So we'll get to that I'm sorry this is long
26:15
There's a lot here and I only have so many jokes So just two more things
26:20
before we get on to the print quality and that's the wash and cure stations Now I don't typically review these
26:26
products because they're much the same as each other Some are bigger some are better quality some are more expensive
26:31
In this case these tick the latter two boxes I've got to say both devices impress me And yes I say that with the
26:38
absolute luxury of getting them for free because both of these individually would
26:43
cost more than most consumer printers So the WAS station first This is really
26:49
nice In fact probably one of my favorite things I've reviewed This is your typical affair of fill it with cleaning
26:55
fluid and turn it on The huge impeller in the base cyclones the water like no other machine I've seen before It is
27:03
super powerful Good Now it also comes with a basket and I do feel this is a
27:08
little shallow and this is for when you want to cure models that you've removed from the build plate But you also have
27:13
two attachable arms which can be mounted in different configurations depending on what machine you have and how tall the
27:19
models are And this lets you take the build plate straight from the printer straight into the wash station but
27:25
without submerging it and without you handling any of the resin Now personally I prefer to take the parts off and give
27:32
them a pre-wash in a smaller tub just to keep the wash station cleaner for longer but you do you What I love about this is
27:40
the mechanical rising plate on the back You just mount a plate or fill a basket and then when you start a print this
27:46
will actually lower into the wash station wash for the predetermined time you set on the UI and then raise up when
27:52
it's finished so the parts can start to air dry And I especially love that there's actually an inner lid too which
27:59
spring closes when this mechanism rises out of the station preventing the cleaning liquid from evaporating So can
28:06
we get another yay for springs more printers should have more springs to Form Labs have a patent on springs or
28:12
something And I also need to mention the resin pump here because this is such a large wash station the only way that I'm
28:18
actually able to get the cleaning fluid out of it is with this resin pump There's no nozzle on the side to empty
28:25
it And I've got to be honest of everything I've got here and they may want this back if I don't do two more
28:31
videos I'm going to keep this resin pump because it's I think it's going to come in useful Now then on to the cure
28:37
station But literally as I wrote this script Formlabs just announced a second
28:43
generation of Cure Station but they've sent me this one so now I have to show it Now to be fair the new one looks like
28:48
it does the same stuff but has a door on the front and is both larger and more expensive Tick tick Now this is a small
28:55
and compact unit and well doesn't seem quite large enough for some of the models you could potentially print on
29:01
the Form 4 if you pushed it to the max printing volume but it's still decent enough for my testing Now the inside is
29:08
completely mirrored for the UV reflection but when it's curing you can actually see through the lid from the
29:14
outside So that's pretty cool And it's also got a built-in heater which preheats before it starts to cure your
29:20
resin And I think many of us have heard for a while that heat really helps when curing resin But most postcuring
29:27
stations don't have this function And even if they did I don't think any of us would have any idea what setting this
29:33
should be on Let's be fair most of us don't even know how long we really should postcure any resins for We're all
29:39
just guessing it And that leading statement was intentionally used because here the curing station actually has
29:46
built-in profiles for Formlabs resins You literally select your resin type on
29:51
the UI and it determines both how hot and how long the chamber should be on for And it may shock you because it
29:58
shocked me to know that this tough resin I have was actually cured at 70° C for
30:04
an hour I normally bung things in a curing station for 10 minutes and then go thumbs up crack on But in fairness
30:10
I've got no idea what the UV strength is for a comparison to the much cheaper units we've all got Okay here we are
30:17
Print quality I hope I make this worth your while And thank you so much for sticking with me this far with a massive
30:23
thanks to my editor because he's going to be pulling his hair out trying to do this one Well okay Look as I said
30:30
earlier this is a 50 micron screen But remember guys this is a very special type of printer Yeah So can those 50
30:37
microns show significantly improved print quality than what we've seen before you you can guess this because if
30:45
you've seen my videos before you know that was a negging leading question Honestly no This is pretty much on par
30:51
with other 50 micron printers I've got and other ones I've tested As I can see in this XY test I print on every machine
30:58
whilst it has printed all 15 posts many of the holes are filled in so it's
31:04
slightly overexposing That makes sense You need prints to overexpose to get the supports
31:09
to work And bear in mind this is also their fine detail resin too And well I'm
31:15
sorry this print broke but I noticed this precision model resin was incredibly brittle If you print thin
31:21
things they're going to snap Most of my model supports and thin prints broke on the normal plate Anyway even at the 25
31:29
mm layer height for precision resin we can still see some quite strong visible
31:34
layer stepping on models at the top of round surfaces And whilst the light color of the material does mask this a
31:41
little we can also see voxalization on the sides of surfaces too And this is with the default anti-aliasing setting
31:48
built into the resin profile And I check that setting is on Now this smooths out
31:54
the resin somewhat but for both of these elements I still think this is where I'd like to see some more control over edge
32:01
image blur or fuzzing settings that we see on other printers because that would smooth this out And I think that's
32:08
needed especially on a printer with 50 micron pixels Now I also printed this flat stability torture test in the tough
32:15
1500 resin which we can actually see both horizontal and vertical lines going
32:20
up the flat surface And I can only assume due to the evenness of this vertical pattern it's potentially I
32:27
don't know due to rendering the gaps between the pixels But that is just a guess Whatever it is it seems like a
32:34
very deliberate result So that tells me it's coming from the hardware Now I also
32:39
wanted to talk about the models I printed both in their Formlab supported and pre-supported form Now all of the
32:45
Formlabs auto supported models came out just fine But got to be honest removing these supports even with heat applied
32:52
was quite difficult Though I was happy to see that all of the supports broke off leaving small parts of the support
32:58
on the model other than pulling out small holes and making pock marks on the surface cuz it's much easier to sand
33:05
this down than fill holes in Now I expect that this is due to stronger UV
33:10
light being applied to the supports themselves in the print making them more brittle than the model surface Something
33:16
that can only really be done on Formlab supports because well the slicer's got no way to determine what a support is on
33:23
a pre-supported model It's all just a model But speaking of pre-supported I
33:29
had mixed results with minis All of the models I'd supported myself a while ago were an absolute no-go They all failed
33:35
But I've had much better success with Trench Crusade models which I believe were supported by Atlas 3D who if anyone
33:42
knows them are kick-ass at supporting minis However I still had some of these models fail One of them even tore
33:49
halfway through its large body which well that's nothing to do with the supports It's just quite odd on a
33:54
printer this reliable And some of them had partial fails where only a few of the supports had peeled away So all in
34:01
all it's a mixed bag Look you'll still get some fails on this but like with any new way of working not so much the
34:08
hardware working with any new resin printer spending more time with this and understanding its quirks is going to
34:14
lead to more frequent success But still focusing on the application of miniatures and models and the stuff that
34:21
we all download in the community and print online you know the pre-supported stuff I printed the cones of calibration
34:28
And this kind of tells us a lot about applying this printer for the home user because we can see that the settings
34:33
used for both resins just weren't enough for any of these success cones to print
34:38
And since this is such a commonly used test within the consumer community as a measure of support strength this alone
34:45
is enough to show that for the most part these machines are not going to work great out of the box for pre-supported
34:51
models But we can also look at this cones test to validate that what we're getting here is dimensional accuracy and
34:58
that's within tolerance But on the other hand at least you can play around with
35:03
the exposure power settings which is something But for me with all the myriad of values available and having not quite
35:10
learned it yet this isn't an avenue I fancied delving down in this video And I think you'll agree we've been here long
35:16
enough Speaking of time I need to mention as for the speed of this printer well it's significantly faster than the
35:23
Form 3 because that was a true SLA printer and it used lasers to cure each
35:28
layer kind of in a similar way to how FDM works by plotting it all out in lines But in comparison to any modern
35:36
dialedin consumer machine the Form 4 wasn't noticeably different to anything else that uses a raising and lowering
35:42
mechanism with a PFA release film So that's it guys Let's get to the conclusion because well I'm tired and I
35:49
suspect after watching the print results and potentially like me being somewhat disappointed you may be wondering where
35:55
the hell is the value in this very very expensive printer Well I'm going to come
36:00
back to what I said in the intro This isn't a consumer machine Not at all I
36:06
literally said not at all at the beginning Yes the price but look at the workflow All of those nice to have
36:12
elements warnings preprint checks the limits of using the wrong vat with the wrong resin they aren't designed for a
36:19
home user convenience As much as we'd like other brands to adopt them they're designed for operators in a workplace to
36:27
follow a defined process and not get it wrong The whole point of this machine is not for printing miniatures or models at
36:33
home In fact with this pixel size and with the limited support options and lack of surface fuzzing to remove voxal
36:40
and layer lines on a 50 micron screen it would probably be the absolute last
36:46
modern printer I'd recommend for miniatures in any application Okay actually no There are some printers I've
36:53
reviewed that are just damn terrible So I'd rate those below this far below You know who they are If not comment section
37:00
The point is there are printers I think are poor value to all buyers This however has a lot of value to a lot of
37:08
users And here's where the value is It's in practical application Let me show you
37:13
who I think this is for Because Formlabs also sent me a whole box with examples
37:18
of their materials as practical prints And there's a few So let's look at them as a speed
37:25
round Flexible resin for bendy things PU resin for hard grippy things Tough resin
37:30
for springy things Yay springs Fast model resin for rapid accurate things Flexible resin for more clear bendy
37:37
things Rigid resin for spinny things High temp resin for hot things Durable resin for turny things Flame retardant
37:44
resin for fiery things And I put that one's name to the test It stank Tough resin for manifold things Black resin
37:52
for Batman's things Clear resin for clear things ESD resin for static things
37:57
Rigid resin for thermofforming things Precision resin for toothy things PU
38:03
resin this time for bikey things Gray resin for whatever this thing is Fast model resin for faster bitey things
38:10
White resin for white things And finally silicone resin for very bendy things Now
38:17
you can find a lot of more accurate and detailed information about these materials online but this is a decent
38:23
summary of what they sell And I think this kind of says a lot if not everything about this machine I've run
38:29
this channel now for a couple of years As someone who is into miniatures and models I initially saw 3D printers as
38:35
little more than a tool to enhance that hobby Now I've grown and I'm so grateful
38:41
to be thought of as one of the main resin printer guys out here And yeah thank you all I'm I'm just here telling
38:48
you what I see in these products But anyway it it was at form next last year that I could well I hardly saw a
38:55
miniature in sight and it was there where I realized just how wide this world of resin printing is just how many
39:02
applications there are for this technology And you can probably tell by how poorly I articulated the uses of the
39:08
resins we've just looked at that I still don't have a full grasp of all the uses
39:14
beyond the general term rapid prototyping But in my understanding this
39:19
is for that This is where Formlabs exists This is for businesses who make
39:25
their own products and just want to call someone up and say "Hi we manufacture XYZ and we need to make a prototype
39:32
where the materials will have these properties Formlab's product is for and they will sell to people who have that
39:39
use case." And their support has been nothing to be sniffed at either the level of detail in their user guides is
39:46
second to none We all have to agree with that because we're out here in the consumer space guessing everything In
39:52
fact when I say it's second to none there's form labs a desert a shallow
39:58
ocean a barren wasteland continent and then a small town called Consumer User
40:03
Guideville and they haven't even got a chip shop with them emailing me before getting the printer giving me user
40:09
guides having a dedicated support rep Everyone at Formlabs being lovely to talk to just having first language
40:16
support really helps And the user guides after all that are designed for someone
40:21
to go from no knowledge to experienced resin printer user Not quickly that's
40:27
the wrong word because there's still a lot to learn but most directly is probably an apt way to put it So whilst
40:34
we can look at this as a consumer and be upset about proprietary resin the expense and all the rest of it we've
40:41
still got to be able to look at this and go it is probably one of the only machines that actually does its job and
40:48
fills its role to this level At the very least it's some cool hardware and a very
40:54
interesting approach to resin printing that I've really enjoyed looking at So I hope you have too And that kind of
41:00
spells out the future of this for me Yeah it's fun to look at It's been great to play with the technology and get
41:06
hands-on with it It's fantastic to have this as a model that I can look at and compare to others in future And I hope
41:13
as I said you've enjoyed this ride along with me But as for what's next well I've potentially got two more videos to make
41:19
if I want to keep it And honestly as expensive as it is I genuinely have
41:24
absolutely no use for it So unless you guys want to give me some ideas of what you want to know or maybe you live in
41:31
the Midlands in the UK and you want to make me a cash offer aside from the comparison to another printer video I
41:36
already intend to make I'm probably going to be sending it back But let me be clear I don't hate it I'm not sending
41:43
it back out of objection I understand its purpose I understand its value It's
41:48
just not for me for my particular home hobby application This is amazing in so
41:54
many ways but I'm sure many of you out there will agree There are also so many ways that our consumer printers are more
42:02
right for us the consumer Is this printer one for you seriously I'm asking
42:07
Is it one for you if you've got one of these what do you use it for how are you finding it let me know in the comments
42:13
And once again if you've enjoyed this video and especially if you bought one after watching in lie of any affiliation
42:20
pretty please consider a super thanks donation Anyway thanks for watching and I know I say that every time but
42:26
seriously thank you so much especially at this length This channel exists because of all of you watching And if
42:33
you lasted through this one welling done A huge thanks goes out to our members
42:40
who are on screen now They get early access to this and future content So by signing up please consider it You'll get
42:47
your name on screen like these wonderful people along with Discord rolls too Thanks again I can't say thanks enough
42:53
Until next time 99 God I miss that show Fauxhammer out
43:00
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