Am I misunderstanding? They’re no longer using lasers but LCD?!
Formlabs Form 4 3D Printer Beats Injection Molding Machine in Speed and Quality [video]
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Re: Formlabs Form 4 3D Printer Beats Injection Molding Machine in Speed and Quality [video]
#12So 500 cycles on the injection moulding machine and 42 across the 4 3D printers. Yes, this is super impressive; yes, if I wanted <1,000 of something I am probably going 3D printer (cheaper, more flexible, less lead time) but it is still 50 times slower.
I don't understand your last sentence. If "you want less than slower ." What does that mean? Isn't it 3d printing end to end from idea to existing faster than injection molding for smaller runs? Isn't the entire point of this video that for a 1000 part sample 3D printing/Injection molding run time were actually more comparable than one might think?
The video chooses a very slow injection moulding machine; creates a mould that only produces two parts per cycle even though the machine could clearly handle far more; then has to use four of their machines and a human to match its pace.
Yes, 3d printing is vastly faster if you measure the time for me to get a part from the machine on my desk vs ordering a mold and shipping the results from Shenzhen. But that was true of the Form 3 et al. The speed of the printer makes no real difference, and they are bing disingenuous in suggesting it is approaching the throughput of the machine they are comparing it to.
Re: Formlabs Form 4 3D Printer Beats Injection Molding Machine in Speed and Quality [video]
#13Isn't the big downside to SLA prints that they have terrible structural integrity? Like worse than FDM prints?
I've got some Formlabs demo prints that seem pretty good -- way better than the SLA stuff my friends and I make at home.
But I can safely assume that they're using much better machines, materials, and processes than I have access to.
Re: Formlabs Form 4 3D Printer Beats Injection Molding Machine in Speed and Quality [video]
#14Am I misunderstanding? They’re no longer using lasers but LCD?!
Lower cost printers are absolutely using LCDs with an LED UV light source. These resin curing printers are pretty darn cheap as well, and have a ton of resolution. They also excel on volume as they do expose the entire plate at once and don’t require scanning a laser around.
The material you get out of such a printer is of course entirely different from an injection molded part.
Re: Formlabs Form 4 3D Printer Beats Injection Molding Machine in Speed and Quality [video]
#15All kinds of pessimism in the comments of course. Obviously they are different processes with different tradeoffs. But there are a growing number of applications where 3D printing is the better choice. But it's interesting that the video didn't even highlight the 6 week tooling lead time or the cost of the tooling! How many more batches or different parts could they have done in that 6 weeks time, or adding more printers with the saved cost? Hardware companies and manufacturers can and will get creative with their mix of production methods and scheduling options available to them.
Re: Formlabs Form 4 3D Printer Beats Injection Molding Machine in Speed and Quality [video]
#16Form 3 owner here.
- What is the material in each process?
- What is the price per unit when accounting for materials?
- If the material is not a Form proprietary mix, does the cost of the printers include the Open Platform license cost? [0]
- What post-processing is required to wash and cure the printed pieces?
- How many human hours are required in the washing / curing of the pieces from each method?
- What is the dimensional stability over time of pieces from each method? EG, do the Form printed pieces shrink over time when exposed to UV as resin typically does? As such is it appropriate for use outside of the UV protected print chamber?
Frustrated with our Form 3 after a year and having consistently gotten excellent results out of our little Elegoo Mars for five years, we purchased an Elegoo Saturn. It runs between 3 - 5x as fast and has less partially cured resin in our complex lattice (jewelry) pieces. The materials are half the price. And the printer itself was 1/4 the price.
Their proprietary PreForm slicer has -some- features that are better than ChiTuBox.
But all in all, at 1/5th the cost, I wonder how fast you could print the same number of pieces with the equivalent (+/- 20) Saturns. Or, factoring in the $4,499 of the Form 4 and the $6k price of Open Platform for the Form 3, how many you could produce with the 52 Saturns you could by for the same amount...
Re: Formlabs Form 4 3D Printer Beats Injection Molding Machine in Speed and Quality [video]
#17Is the injection molding machine just doing one part per shot?
Re: Formlabs Form 4 3D Printer Beats Injection Molding Machine in Speed and Quality [video]
#18They’re ignoring the time to cure and process resin prints though so doesn’t seem all that fair.
They also ignore making the mold, so I guess that evens it out? Mold tools are very expensive and commit you to a lot of design constraints as well as lock you in to minimum production cycles that make sense. I agree its not fair, thought. Given the costs, I'm surprised they didn't do more printers, too.
Design constraints aren't an issue for prototype runs, since you'll have the same constraints for the production mold. Actually, now that I'm writing this out.... the constraints issue is a plus, since it's a dry run of how the actual production parts will be produced. Doing the 1000pc run on a 3d printer won't expose an 'oops' that can't actually be made in a molded part.
Re: Formlabs Form 4 3D Printer Beats Injection Molding Machine in Speed and Quality [video]
#19Isn't the big downside to SLA prints that they have terrible structural integrity? Like worse than FDM prints?
SLA prints don't have the same layer shear issues as FDM prints, but you have to spend on engineering resin to match the same strength as a cheap ABS filament.
Re: Formlabs Form 4 3D Printer Beats Injection Molding Machine in Speed and Quality [video]
#20I've had white plastic SLA prints (not Formlabs afaik) go very yellow in less than a few months, curious if this is common with white photosensitive resins vs plastic you might get injection moulded?