Formlabs uses a proprietary resin cartridge... it's the paper printers situation all over again, the printers themselves are not that expensive but the disposable ink costs an arm and a leg.
Don't go with Formlabs, support any of the open-platform alternatives.
And also, be aware that these printers require some serious development work (you need solvent to wash away uncured resin (if you ask me, this basically necessitates a chemical hood... Formlabs will happily upsell the "Form Wash" for this for another 699). If uncured resin falls on your floor (which has happened to me a little too many times), boy is it a horror cleaning it up even if you have industrial grade solvents; FDM printers are easier and their "ink" is much, much less expensive by comparison.
mhb 1 hours ago [-]
It says it includes "Open Material Mode" which let's you "...print with any 405 nm photopolymer resin or 1064 nm powder on Formlabs 3D printers..."
augment_me 1 hours ago [-]
The amount of upselling, extra parts necessary for basic functionality, predatory resin pricing and specific open "modes" that are free to be subjects to amendment by contract makes this seem like a cash grab for investors rather than serious product. Really sour taste in the mouth from this.
Just buy an open source version from China that has the necessary hardware in an open format and let Claude adjust the software if there are concerns.
jdboyd 50 minutes ago [-]
I'm unclear what the open source version from China of a resin printer is. Creatlity and Elegoo don't appear to be at all it as they lock you to the chitubox ecosystem.
bsder 39 minutes ago [-]
> Just buy an open source version from China
References and links?
There is currently no open source version of the high resolution monochrome LCDs. The LCDs and their drivers lock you into the Chitu ecosystem.
The problem, as Chitu figured out, is that as soon as you cough up the NRE to make the LCDs and make it publicly available, EVERYBODY will copy you and then there will be no profit left to sink the NRE that you just spent.
zimpenfish 1 hours ago [-]
* If you buy the "Form Studio 1 Resin Tank Pro" extra at $79 because the included tank "is not compatible with Tough 1500 Resin or materials needing to utilize Open Material Mode"
y1n0 49 minutes ago [-]
OMG $79 more! That ruins everything!
geerlingguy 38 minutes ago [-]
You need to buy a tank anyway, which is $50 or so — that works with their new Alpha resins. The slightly more expensive tank is necessary only for their engineering-grade resins (only a couple are certified for the Studio 1 so far) and 'OMM' (Open Material Mode), which as mentioned above, comes out of the box on the Studio 1.
(Not replying to you directly, but generally to this thread)
onion2k 38 minutes ago [-]
I'm not suggesting Formlabs would do this, but advertising the $79 add-on and then making very few of them available would be a way for a manufacturer to look open while actually not supporting openness.
avianlyric 4 minutes ago [-]
The $79 addon is also needed to use all of Formlabs existing engineering grade resins, which are more expensive than the Alpha resins. The engineering grade Tough 1500 is already validated on the Studio 1, and requires the $79 tank, plus is a major selling point of this printer.
There no reason for FormLabs to limit supply of the $79 tanks, it would also limit their ability to sell their more expensive resins to Studio 1 customers, and also removes a clear pathway to get people to upgrade to their more expensive machines, capable of working with their even more complex, and expensive, engineering resins.
doug_life 1 hours ago [-]
This printer at least comes with the "Open Material Mode (included)" that lets you print with 3rd party resins. I'm sure the workflow won't be quite as nice as with the Formlabs native resin. That is unless you can somehow refill the old jugs or buy empty ones. Before long I imagine 3rd party compatible containers will show up.
jdboyd 51 minutes ago [-]
What are the open-platform alternatives? I was under the impression that the majority of printers used the CHITUBOX hardware platform internally, which was now locked to the CHITUBOX slicer. Has this changed? That would be wonderful news.
I don't think that Formlabs locks you into their wash and cure stations. Some of their printers lock you into their resin, but it looks like the Form Studio 1 discussed above and the Form 3, 3L, 4, and 4L let you use resin of your choice, although the Studio 1 does require you to buy a special $80 tray.
pen2l 38 minutes ago [-]
> I don't think that Formlabs locks you into their wash and cure stations.
I would posit from the the getgo the average joe shouldn't consider resin printers, they should opt for FDM printers, because with FDM printers when the printer finishes printing a part... that's it! You more or less just pick it up from the printbed and there you have it... with resin printers, you -HAVE- to wash away the surrounding uncured resin. So, sure, it doesn't lock you into the wash and cure station, but doing it manually is an absolute chore any which way and chances of getting gooey resin on your hands, your clothes, your furniture goes way up and it is the most profoundly annoying thing when it does.
Try out a resin printer at your local makerspace to see what they're all about and the work that's required to print a part and develop it with solvents; for yourself get an FDM printer, they're plenty good enough for the average joe.
everforward 27 minutes ago [-]
Agreed, but it's worth calling out that some niches more or less require resin.
Anything small and aesthetic is going to basically require resin. Warhammer minis and jewelry (tiny filigree) come to mind.
FDMs have gotten better, but you're still not going to get those fine sub-millimeter details like you can with resin.
specproc 2 minutes ago [-]
Yeah, resin is a must for minis.
I outsource to a guy a know who's a jeweller and has his workflow down. Tried doing it myself and hated it.
1 hours ago [-]
bigwheels 1 hours ago [-]
Do you have any specific recomendations?
dyauspitr 1 hours ago [-]
If you’ve ever used resin printers, you know the cartridges are a good thing because the liquid inside is basically carcinogenic if it comes in contact with your skin, so a lot of people just don’t do resin printing for exactly that reason and this gets around that.
1 hours ago [-]
pen2l 1 hours ago [-]
Except you will have failed prints (for me it's 1 out of every 10 with my form 4), which will require taking out the tank to clean obstructions and free-floating debris... and when you're having to filter the resin (like so: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/UdX94R3k7YU ), it's exceedingly hard to not get it in contact with your skin.
jborichevskiy 43 minutes ago [-]
Jeff Geerling has a great video about this printer that got me up to speed on resin printing as well - coming from the 3d printing world I'm stoked to see the price dropping but it also seems like a lot more hassle to me at this stage
This page really needs to explain what is “resin printer” and why would I need it. I have no idea how is it different from my regular 3D printer.
dofm 52 minutes ago [-]
Your regular printer, like mine, presumably puts down a line of melted plastic material with an extruder, bit by bit, so the print time is guided by complexity as well as size.
Resin printers, basically, are stereolithographic. They:
- dip the build plate (upside down) into a thin tray of resin
- push it all the way onto onto a screen at the bottom of the tray
- blast that screen with UV through a translucent LCD display that contains a mask image of the current "slice" of the whole plate, enough that the thin layer of resin partly cures
- lift the plate out of the resin so it peels off the screen and the resin replenishes below it
- repeat, with the next slice.
- then the whole model is taken out by hand, washed off, blasted with UV light to completely cure it, and the (more or less inevitable) supports snipped off.
So instead of printing line by line, the entire plate prints layer by layer — a small print takes (approximately) the same time as a full plate.
There are several big differences, notably that it is single-colour, much higher resolution, the various peel/adhesion forces are managed differently, larger parts need to be hollow with a vent so uncured resin drains out, most resin prints are quite brittle, and the whole process is traditionally really rather cytotoxic.
There are eco resins, tough resins, and printers that do a better job of not being chemically evil; this is one.
I've stayed away from it, because it's not the kind of printing I need (for all except one part that I might end up subcontracting) and because it is chemically nastier than b/w darkroom printing, which until now has been about my limit of risk.
The above is a bit of an oversimplification but it covers the main differences I think (happy to have corrections/additional comments)
No it doesn't. Don't be a baby that needs every little bit of information spoon fed to you. Google is right there. So is ChatGPT. YouTube if you prefer video explainers.
Eji1700 1 hours ago [-]
I've always found the best approach to a commercial product for the masses it to belittle them first and only appeal to the enthusiasts...
seabird 49 minutes ago [-]
The commenter you're replying to doesn't represent the company and they are 100% correct. The company sells expensive products to educated commercial customers pretty much exclusively. A five second Google search for "what is a resin 3D printer" gives you a very good idea of what's being talked about. Clarifying every single obvious details in the comments doesn't improve the conversation being had here.
bethekidyouwant 10 minutes ago [-]
I also buy $900 things without googling them to see what they even are
Jtsummers 55 minutes ago [-]
It prints by curing a resin instead of heating and forming plastic. They've been around in industry for decades.
orwin 24 minutes ago [-]
How stiff can you make the resin with those 3d printers ? Probably not as much as carbon fiber, but how does it hold against aluminium or fiberglass? Also, can you do composite fibreglass/resin with 3d printers ?
tonyhb 54 minutes ago [-]
I used to use an older, more expensive version from FormLabs in my last company to print our (more accurate) version of Invisalign negatives, and we'd thermoform the aligners over the top of the cured resin (with a barrier).
The accuracy was great. They'd hold up. Printing took a while, but generally pretty solid as we scaled from in-house to full lab setup. They're great as resin printers go.
fancyfredbot 1 hours ago [-]
Why is it showing me $749 excluding tax? Did the price increase by $50 since this was posted?
ghm2199 2 hours ago [-]
I have a noob "reverse" resin creation question. The product page says it has low VOC emissions. Could certain recyclables(e.g. 4,5 HDPE types) create the resin from my stuff at home with low VoC that I could use/sell etc?
My gut would say economically/technologically prohibitive but a low throughput table top recycler seems like a great way to reduce my recyclable garbage.
fhn 1 hours ago [-]
there are products where you can re-melt and create filament for 3d printers or push it into a mold. Can probably build your own for $500 + a $500 3d printer.
gavmor 51 minutes ago [-]
Seems to be sharper, faster, and larger in volume than their previous offerings—and for < half the price, too!
Pretty cool.
syntaxing 2 hours ago [-]
Wow this price is interesting. I guess the Chinese competition is really driving prices down. I do miss the first generation (I think second was too) where they were "true" SLA but they got sued into oblivion by 3D Systems.
mhb 1 hours ago [-]
> "true" SLA
What is that? Why is it better?
Brian_K_White 45 minutes ago [-]
Stereo lithography using lasers, vs "sla" now has nothing stereo about it nor lasers, just an lcd screen that exposes a 2d slice.
Why it's better is a little complicated and maybe not all one-way.
Definitely there are a lot of difficulties inherent in the way the lcd type has to move the part for every layer and fight a lot of suction every time, damaging a film that needs to stay optically perfect, frothing up the resin with bubbles yet another source of optical defects.
Maybe the laser machines have their own problems but not having to move the part (or move it much less and in a different less violent way) and not having to physically abuse an optical part has to make some difference.
mkw5053 2 hours ago [-]
Honest question, what would I do if this is my first 3D printer and I don't have the ability to wash and cure? Or do I and I just don't know it, ha
shitloadofbooks 1 hours ago [-]
Please, please do NOT buy a resin printer as your first printer; IF you want to print intricate details (where resin excels) at least start with an FDM printer anda 0.2mm nozzle. Lots of information can be found here at r/fdmminiatures.
Resin is extremely toxic and requires a dedicated area and handling and care.
doug_life 2 hours ago [-]
You can wash manually with some isopropyl alcohol in a wash basin and then cure in the sun. It will be a pain to do, and somewhat inconsistent, but its possible. You can also get a cheaper wash and cure station for other 3D printers that would likely work well enough with some tuning.
twelfthnight 1 hours ago [-]
My first printer was resin without a dedicated wash/cure set up and it was difficult enough that I sold the printer and got an FDM. Currently I'm using an Snapmaker U1 and it's really awesome and much easier. It also prints in multicolor seamlessly.
That said, if you do spend the extra for this along with the wash/cure and the voc extractor, the demos are really impressive. It seems like this printer is blazing fast, for single color prints it will print basically anything at better resolution than an FDM in <2 hours, whereas FDM could take anywhere from 4-12+ for a similar part with bigger layer lines.
virtualritz 1 hours ago [-]
You can wash the print in an ultrasonic bath [1] in isopropyl alcohol (IPA).
Then cure using a UV LED strip (5m w USB plug ~2 EUR) inside an empty can (another 2-5 EUR) and a solar-powered rotating base [2].
The light from the LEDs is cures as well as powers the base. All four will set you back less than 50 EUR.
We don't have a wash here at our office, we just use a small container with IPA.
We have a UV cure cube, but often I just cure under a $20 amazon desktop UV light.
syntaxing 2 hours ago [-]
Ive been 3D printing for over a decade, SLA printers are just not worth it IMO. There useful for certain applications, especially industry but for home hobbyist, FDM + 0.2mm nozzle would go further as a first 3D printer
doug_life 1 hours ago [-]
Agreed, unless you need to print intricate 3D figurines or high resolution engineering widgets, get a FDM printer and avoid the mess of SLA.
fhn 1 hours ago [-]
$699 is an incredible price
1 hours ago [-]
pclark 1 hours ago [-]
Honestly a Bambu printer is so insanely easy to use you'd be making printing ^25 harder with this.
mhb 1 hours ago [-]
For another $250, you can get another box that washes and cures.
iLoveOncall 1 hours ago [-]
Just don't. Resin printers are a pain. Get an FDM (filament) printer first.
user- 2 hours ago [-]
How did the preorder form for this product endup #2 here on HN in 10 minutes with no comments?
Theres no new blog or video or news, preorders opened 2 weeks ago
fishgoesblub 1 hours ago [-]
If I had to guess, the latest Applied Science video on YouTube which somewhat showcased it.
mitxela 1 hours ago [-]
The company that made the printer paid a marketing agency to promote it, and the marketing agency posted it here. Where are the spam filters?
mhb 1 hours ago [-]
I'm not a marketing agency. I just saw it on Applied Science and was impressed that mainstream resin printers were available for that price.
Does it come with MCP integration for Claude/Antigravity CLI?
amelius 51 minutes ago [-]
Does it produce toxic fumes?
passive 1 hours ago [-]
As someone who got into FDM printing about a year ago, and still finds it very exciting, this is a really compelling resin printer. It's priced very well for the capabilities, especially in terms of providing everything a beginner might need to be comfortable with resin printing.
That said, I just noticed Costco online has some FDM stuff, which I think is a pretty exciting development, so if I have any money to spend on 3d printing stuff in the near future, I'll probably spend it there. :)
mitxela 1 hours ago [-]
This is just a naked product advertisement. You literally just posted a link to a product and implied to buy it. I flagged this post.
altairprime 1 hours ago [-]
Another front page post today is to a new MacBook’s store checkout page, so I’m not sure this logic holds for the site as a whole. Consider emailing the mods; if they support your viewpoint they can kill the post without waiting for user flags.
singularity2001 1 hours ago [-]
I have the sensational $200 bamboo lab printer what would the $700 thing give me more?
hingler36 1 hours ago [-]
From the hobbyist perspective, the main thing this gets you is much more precise and detailed prints, so they're very popular in the model making community.
From a professional perspective, this gives you access to a bunch of different materials that open up all kinds of options for prototyping.
SchemaLoad 1 hours ago [-]
The slight increase in fine detail is just not worth the toxicity imo. Put a 0.2mm nozzle on your FDM printer and you'll get good enough quality. Leave resin to businesses that can set up a proper warehouse with fume extraction and PPE.
You can even prototype your designs at home with FDM and send the final file to a company to do the resin prints.
hingler36 50 minutes ago [-]
I agree that for most people it's not worth it, but for people who need it it's absolutely necessary. The biggest hurdle is making sure new hobbyists don't just assume it's like FDM with minimal post-processing.
twelfthnight 60 minutes ago [-]
Wrote this elsewhere, but this printer prints a full volume in 2 hours. In many scenarios it's 10x faster than FDM with better resolution and compatibility with advanced materials, like food grade / skin contact, ultra strength and rubber-like consistency.
You actually would probably want the wash/cure and VOC extractor upgrades so it's more like 1200$ before it's useful, but if you have the clean room space and ability to handle the toxic resin, functionally resin printing is typically better than fdm for single color prints.
Balvarez 1 hours ago [-]
Amazing detail, a resin allergy, and cancer
echelon 1 hours ago [-]
> a resin allergy
How many months before it develops, on average?
1 hours ago [-]
Rendered at 23:10:27 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
Don't go with Formlabs, support any of the open-platform alternatives.
And also, be aware that these printers require some serious development work (you need solvent to wash away uncured resin (if you ask me, this basically necessitates a chemical hood... Formlabs will happily upsell the "Form Wash" for this for another 699). If uncured resin falls on your floor (which has happened to me a little too many times), boy is it a horror cleaning it up even if you have industrial grade solvents; FDM printers are easier and their "ink" is much, much less expensive by comparison.
Just buy an open source version from China that has the necessary hardware in an open format and let Claude adjust the software if there are concerns.
References and links?
There is currently no open source version of the high resolution monochrome LCDs. The LCDs and their drivers lock you into the Chitu ecosystem.
The problem, as Chitu figured out, is that as soon as you cough up the NRE to make the LCDs and make it publicly available, EVERYBODY will copy you and then there will be no profit left to sink the NRE that you just spent.
(Not replying to you directly, but generally to this thread)
There no reason for FormLabs to limit supply of the $79 tanks, it would also limit their ability to sell their more expensive resins to Studio 1 customers, and also removes a clear pathway to get people to upgrade to their more expensive machines, capable of working with their even more complex, and expensive, engineering resins.
I don't think that Formlabs locks you into their wash and cure stations. Some of their printers lock you into their resin, but it looks like the Form Studio 1 discussed above and the Form 3, 3L, 4, and 4L let you use resin of your choice, although the Studio 1 does require you to buy a special $80 tray.
I would posit from the the getgo the average joe shouldn't consider resin printers, they should opt for FDM printers, because with FDM printers when the printer finishes printing a part... that's it! You more or less just pick it up from the printbed and there you have it... with resin printers, you -HAVE- to wash away the surrounding uncured resin. So, sure, it doesn't lock you into the wash and cure station, but doing it manually is an absolute chore any which way and chances of getting gooey resin on your hands, your clothes, your furniture goes way up and it is the most profoundly annoying thing when it does.
Try out a resin printer at your local makerspace to see what they're all about and the work that's required to print a part and develop it with solvents; for yourself get an FDM printer, they're plenty good enough for the average joe.
Anything small and aesthetic is going to basically require resin. Warhammer minis and jewelry (tiny filigree) come to mind.
FDMs have gotten better, but you're still not going to get those fine sub-millimeter details like you can with resin.
I outsource to a guy a know who's a jeweller and has his workflow down. Tried doing it myself and hated it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l9xU3_36Xs
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/formlabs-form-studio-...
Resin printers, basically, are stereolithographic. They:
- dip the build plate (upside down) into a thin tray of resin
- push it all the way onto onto a screen at the bottom of the tray
- blast that screen with UV through a translucent LCD display that contains a mask image of the current "slice" of the whole plate, enough that the thin layer of resin partly cures
- lift the plate out of the resin so it peels off the screen and the resin replenishes below it
- repeat, with the next slice.
- then the whole model is taken out by hand, washed off, blasted with UV light to completely cure it, and the (more or less inevitable) supports snipped off.
So instead of printing line by line, the entire plate prints layer by layer — a small print takes (approximately) the same time as a full plate.
There are several big differences, notably that it is single-colour, much higher resolution, the various peel/adhesion forces are managed differently, larger parts need to be hollow with a vent so uncured resin drains out, most resin prints are quite brittle, and the whole process is traditionally really rather cytotoxic.
There are eco resins, tough resins, and printers that do a better job of not being chemically evil; this is one.
I've stayed away from it, because it's not the kind of printing I need (for all except one part that I might end up subcontracting) and because it is chemically nastier than b/w darkroom printing, which until now has been about my limit of risk.
The above is a bit of an oversimplification but it covers the main differences I think (happy to have corrections/additional comments)
https://formlabs.com/uk/blog/ultimate-guide-to-stereolithogr...
The accuracy was great. They'd hold up. Printing took a while, but generally pretty solid as we scaled from in-house to full lab setup. They're great as resin printers go.
My gut would say economically/technologically prohibitive but a low throughput table top recycler seems like a great way to reduce my recyclable garbage.
Pretty cool.
What is that? Why is it better?
Why it's better is a little complicated and maybe not all one-way.
Definitely there are a lot of difficulties inherent in the way the lcd type has to move the part for every layer and fight a lot of suction every time, damaging a film that needs to stay optically perfect, frothing up the resin with bubbles yet another source of optical defects.
Maybe the laser machines have their own problems but not having to move the part (or move it much less and in a different less violent way) and not having to physically abuse an optical part has to make some difference.
Resin is extremely toxic and requires a dedicated area and handling and care.
That said, if you do spend the extra for this along with the wash/cure and the voc extractor, the demos are really impressive. It seems like this printer is blazing fast, for single color prints it will print basically anything at better resolution than an FDM in <2 hours, whereas FDM could take anywhere from 4-12+ for a similar part with bigger layer lines.
Then cure using a UV LED strip (5m w USB plug ~2 EUR) inside an empty can (another 2-5 EUR) and a solar-powered rotating base [2].
The light from the LEDs is cures as well as powers the base. All four will set you back less than 50 EUR.
[1] https://aliexpress.com/item/1005010131053964.html [2] https://aliexpress.com/item/1005012796313088.html
We have a UV cure cube, but often I just cure under a $20 amazon desktop UV light.
Theres no new blog or video or news, preorders opened 2 weeks ago
3D-printed, alcohol-powered, Einstein-Szilard absorption refrigerator https://youtu.be/doZ5e4YVdEs?si=WNiw0_R7efE6M_jM
That said, I just noticed Costco online has some FDM stuff, which I think is a pretty exciting development, so if I have any money to spend on 3d printing stuff in the near future, I'll probably spend it there. :)
From a professional perspective, this gives you access to a bunch of different materials that open up all kinds of options for prototyping.
You can even prototype your designs at home with FDM and send the final file to a company to do the resin prints.
You actually would probably want the wash/cure and VOC extractor upgrades so it's more like 1200$ before it's useful, but if you have the clean room space and ability to handle the toxic resin, functionally resin printing is typically better than fdm for single color prints.
How many months before it develops, on average?