Transcript:
I’ve showcased a lot of filaments based FDM printing on the channel. You’re left with spools like this. You have to buy spools of plastic. It’s hard to sand. Sometimes detail isn’t quite what you might need. Let’s talk about the form to resin based 3d printing and whether or not that is more your style. I will need someone to help me, though. Oh, yeah! I’m Joel, I’m Bill. This is 3d Printing nerd nailed it. That was fantastic while we’re back, and we cleaned up a little bit, bill. The kool-aid man had a fantastic entrance. Well done, bill. The form, too, is an interesting machine. It’s a resin based 3d printer uses. SLA, which means a galvanometer shoots a laser at a mirror and that cures a layer of resin at a time, the build plate drops down into the goo and end and then slowly raises as each layer is cured. This lets it make really really fine details. Well, the form, too will get down to what they say is a point zero five layer height or 50 micron, which is fantastic when you need detail. It is really really cool. This particular machine. I had in my shop for a while, so I got to put it through. It’s paces. In fact, there are a couple of videos on my channel. Go check out, for example, my wedding band, which is pewter. The original of this was printed on the form -. It’s got really tiny. Fine details on it now. I took that piece and I made a mold of it and I cast it in pewter. What was the original material that you printed with the gray? I believe this gray forms gray resin for his gray resin. Yeah, so, and that’s the kind of work that I do. I do prop and costume, making most of the things I 3d print and of getting molded in cast and where this thing is. A powerhouse is on those tiny details. The things that I have text on them really, really, really tiny things. Where if you were to throw it at just about any FDM printer, Those details wouldn’t even show up. Oh, absolutely, something like this. This this base right here. I was able to print this slightly larger using FDM, but but the resin based 3d printer Here does such a fantastic job. The forum was able to complete over 9,000 cubes in this model, And everything is smooth on the angles. You can’t see the layer lines. That’s no hyperbole, like when you get a really good FT imprint. You look at it, you’re like, wow, that looks really clean, but if you get a magnifying glass, you get your Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes, and you look at that next to that thing. It’s it’s not even in the same world. No, it’s not, let’s talk about how we actually go about printing on this so first after a print is finished and the build plate goes to the top, You have to use some tools to get it off of the build plate. Once you raise this up, there’s a catch at the top, and then the build plate pulls out. The model would be here. You are given a sort of implement to kind of hold it in this way. When you’re working with the build plate, you have an actual handle to hold on to once you get the model off of the build plate. There are two tanks of isopropyl alcohol. There’s the initial tank which you dunk in for 20 seconds or so just to get a majority of the resin off of the model. And then you move it over to the secondary tank and you let it soak for what, five minutes? Yeah, and I like to brush it like a toothbrush. Scrape off anything that’s clean on. I don’t know if that’s recommended, but that’s what I did, and it seemed to work pretty well, and then once it’s done here, you need to cure it using UV, so you can use a UV nail lamp or if you’re in the Pacific Northwest, and it happens to be sunny outside. You can leave your model outside which you’ve done quite a bit. I have done, yeah. I will say these post-processing steps after you’ve printed. Your piece are probably the biggest negative to this process. Because it’s it’s not like you can crack it off the build plate and it’s ready to go. You do have to wait. There is additional equipment required. I know that they make their own post curing equipment. Now, yes, Norm does so forum has what they call the forum wash and the forum cure and it’s part of an all-inclusive package, right, so the idea is you take the build plate from the forum to machine, and you move it over to the forum. Wash and the build plate, the model and everything is encased in a machine that circulates isopropyl alcohol around it for the right amount of time, and then once that’s done, you take the build plate out. You take the model off and you put it in there essential. UV oven, which is called the forum cure and then once it’s done there, the model is ready for you to play with and touch and and give to your friends or in my case, mold it and cast it and paint it, which is usually what I end up doing. I will say that does that is. Yes, it’s additional equipment. Yes, it’s additional time on your print. In my opinion, it’s all worth it because the prints come out looking so good. In many cases, a print like this is almost ready for molding. I may just have to sand off the spots where the support touch down, but it be ready to throw silicone on that and get it going. Well, let’s talk about the support really quick. Yes, in fact, we should talk about the software too, because that’s a whole part of it. The software itself. Yeah, talking about Prefor’m Preform Preform. Which is how you get your supports. I thought I’d just hijack the conversation. Go for it! No, no bills got it. Let’s talk about Prefor’m. It’s great. It’s really good, it’s. Wi-fi, I don’t have more or I didn’t use more than one of these, but I have buddies who have several form twos in their shops and they all have unique names. I believe this is young scorpion. This is young scorpion! Yes, my friend has one named shiny goat, which is awesome, but yeah, you can go in the software. Tell it which machine to go to and send it off there. The supports like you were mentioning it. Does a great job of generating supports automatically so that the print won’t fail? Yes, you can manually set supports if you just got the. Machine, I don’t recommend doing that. I recommend letting head pick for you. Cuz it’s pretty good whenever I mess with the supports was when the only times I ever had prints fail, and I think there’s just some some practice with knowing where to put supports how big the connecting points should be right out of a learning curve there. But if you’re not too picky about it, and you just hit the auto config thing, it does a really good job of making sure the print won’t fail. It comes out looking really good, right and mil. Bill makes a very good point. The preform is not trying to add supports in a way that makes it so that there’s less contact points or it’s easier for you to take off. The functionality of Preform is to preparing model in such a way that it will not fail. Yeah, and I mean, there are times when it can fail, but if you look at the gun that bill is holding, you are able to print that gun in a different way using customized supports, however, your chances of failing. I don’t write. It depends on how much support you put and how well tuned the machine is, but in that configuration right there where you just loaded into prefor’m and you hit. Auto generate supports the amount of support seems like a lot, but what Preform is doing is attempting to guarantee a print. Yeah, so in this case here, this thing, it could do it in a different orientation with supports just along one, the bottom or something so that it’s not touching down in as many places because this side looks pristine. It looks really good other side once. I remove all the supports is gonna have little dimples on it, which is less than ideal. So if I really got to know the software and know the Machine, I might be a little more brave and set all these supports myself so that it’s touching down in places where it would be much easier to clean up later. Well, it’s very similar in FDM printing. When you are setting the overhang settings in your slicer, your printer may be able to do a greater overhang than what the slicer defaults at. It just depends on how well your printer is tuned and the filament or the material that you’re using. And how brave you are. Yes, let’s talk about the support removal, though, because we showed the gun. And you’ve got pickle brick over there, right, Here’s pickle. Rick, okay, and you have apple and you have a pickle brick with support removing support. You can do it either after it’s done printing. After you’ve done the isopropyl alcohol before the UV curing, or you can do it after UV curing has happening or has happened. There are a lot of schools of thought on that and you can do your own research, but taking off supports is done with flush cutters or NIPS or tweezers or whatever you can get to pick at the individual points, where the support is touching the model. And then you clip them off. You may want to just try and crush it with your hands or pliers to remove support, But sometimes the connections of the support to the model is so great. You’ll actually chip away at your model, and that is not something you want. And then Bill would have to fill it in before he sands it and paints, that’s right. The good news is though this resin sands very nicely. You could start it like a two or three hundred grit, sandpaper, maybe sanding twigs and I like so much, and if you have these little protrusions of where the support touch down, you can just just gently graze them with some sandpaper to get rid of them. Some air drying filler. Putty would be really good. If you have an indent, you can just fill that in and then sand the whole thing down. If you really want to smooth the surface down, you can spray the whole thing with a filler primer which we’ve done in the past and then give the whole thing a good sanding, but a lot of times. Just I found. It’s not even necessary and again. This all depends on how picky you are about surface. Finish, but if you’re gonna get a machine like this, you’re probably picky about surface finish. I would imagine so, and that kind of leads to one of the points. I wanted to make about this machine. The current price, as of filming for this machine, a basic package is three thousand three hundred and fifty dollars us. And the more complete package, which includes the form wash in the form cure at time of filming is four thousand nine hundred and ninety nine dollars, and before you think, whoa, that’s a lot of money or before you think. Well, that’s actually not too bad. You have to remember who this is geared for. This isn’t geared for the people that just want to print things for an. Etsy store. Well, I guess unless there’s hyper successful or people that just want to print low-poly pokemon, or that just wanna prototype certain things. The point of this machine is to produce nearly finished models mm-hmm, and that would mean the people buying this are would be small businesses who do contract printing for other people, people who do prototyping for things that require a super high level of detail where that type of prototyping service would there be some return on that Sure what you can do because this machine is so precise. Well, it for you being someone who builds props and costumes and stuff from a pure business sense If this machine could save you 10 hours of Sandhya per model, then the that’s more than worth it for someone like you, and if you did something similar, let’s say you did contract prop work or commissioned prop work. Let’s use this thing As an example here full-size this thing is gigantic, printing the entire thing on the form to would be wasteful, and it would take a very long time, but you could print the bulk event on an FTM printer and then the really small detail parts, Maybe this site The smaller pieces that require a higher level of detail You’d print on this machine, which means that this. If you’re in a professional shop, typesetting, fabrication, shop or prototyping shop, this machine or a couple of these machines would be an awesome compliment to a bunch of other, really good. Fdm machines. Well, as an example, I have the hawkmoon printed slightly larger than what it was originally scaled at, and there are a couple pieces that are sort of detail oriented that would require a little more effort to print FDM, so the bulk of the gun is printed using FDM 3d printers, and then the small detail pieces are printed using the form 2 and that’ll be assembled soon and you’ll get to see that, but but I used exactly what Bill said. I used this to print the detail pieces and then use FDM printing to cover the larger parts of the prop. That’s perfect one more thing. I would say that if I did more fabrication in my shop more, I was a commission based fabrication for other people, the price for this and how easy it is to use and how good the software is makes it a no brainer like at the price for five grand for the full package. No brainer. If I did prototyping work, I could make that money back. In no time flat, it would be so worth it at that price. Well, one thing to consider -. A lot of resin based machines are coming down in price. I want to specifically mention the Peopple Eve. Moai 3d printer, which is a little bit of a contrast from this, Whereas Formlabs has the form to the form. Wash the form. Cure all the the tanks, the the resins. Everything it’s it’s almost an preformed. It’s an ecosystem. It’s an all-inclusive ecosystem that’s built very specifically for certain people, but if you want to get yourself into resin based printing, there are less expensive options, and you know, the future is coming. We will have more stuff for less. It’s just a matter of time right now at this point. So, bill, if we were gonna finalize our thoughts on this machine. I’ll give you mine because I’d love to hear yours. So mine are. I think the all-inclusive environment that formlabs has created for this machine, make it very robust and high-quality repeatable, very reliable. It is expensive, but it’s it’s not geared towards the ultra hobbyist it’s built towards someone who is probably going to use this to make some money exactly. Yeah, and those people, so it’s not for everyone. It’s not for everyone. There are other 3d printers. Ftm 3d printers that are designed for everyone, which is fine because the people who this is designed for it’s perfect for and it’s a great price because the next step up from this as far as high-end. SLA 3d printers will cost an order of magnitude. More right and again, like I said, if you are the use case for this, it is a no-brainer. Well, there we go, so if this is if you’re the use case, if the is a no-brainer for you. Congratulations, you’ve just seen your next machine. However, if the price is too much for you, you don’t need the eco system. You like to tinker. There are other options in this in this sort of 3d printer, well said. Joel, thanks. Well, can I take this back to my house now? Yeah, thanks for, let me well. We will will conclude it right there. I just want to say a big thanks to Bill for helping me with this little review if you want to know anything more about punished props. Academy, there will be a link down in the description. Beyond all that you can look in my description down here. There’s gonna be all sorts of links that benefit the channel clicking any of those. Allow me to take Bill to lunch and beyond all that. Don’t forget to hug each other more. I love you guys as always high-five.