I’m in the process of researching SLA 3D printer. I’m leaning towards the FormLabs Form 2 but I’m not real familiar with the SLA Technology yet
The two I’ve looked at is the Form 2 and the DWS XFAB and I believe the Form 2 won out in those two
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Voudas
2
Ive never worked with SLA before I bought the Form 2 (although I have 6 years experience with FDM and jetting printers).
The Form 2 has been a breeze to work with, I can only recommend it! Everything with it is just well thought of IMHO (and compared to other 3D printers), PreForm works great, the GUI in the printer’s touchscreen looks awesome (Not a dealbreaker but nice when you have to pay this amount of money for a printer).
The post processing is not as messy as I expected it to be, I’ve been careful and I’ve not spilled one single drop (on my fourth tank of resin now).
Its also been pretty easy to get a ROI on the printer. I’m 25% through after 3 months use roughly so I expect that the printer has paid itself after 12 months.
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We run a form 2 and it’s super user friendly, before this, I also had never used any level of sla printing. There are tonnes of tutorials from Formlabs as well as the community forum. I can’t recommend the form 2 highly enough, the quality is ridiculous for the price, and it rarely results in a failed print.
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Yes and no Before I was asking specifically about formlabs and the xfab. This time I’m asking about all sla printers
Asiimi
6
Hi Jeremy
This may not be much help as we do not have an XFAB. We do however have a Form 2 we use in store to produce prototypes for jewellery and lifestyle pieces. We have used many materials including the standard resins, flexible, castable and tough. We have been using the Form 2 for roughly 2 years now as we purchased one when they were released. We did have some issues originally with build fails using flexible resin. Since then however new flexible has been released and Formlabs seem to have corrected the problem. Overall both the system and preform software for the Form 2 are very user friendly. For value for money the Form 2 has to be the best SLA on the market. With continued development of materials the Form 2 also offers the flexibility for multiple applications on one system. We will soon be building with their new dental resin. In fact we re looking at purchasing a Fuse 1 upon release.
Hope this helps
Any questions let us know?
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What’s your application? maybe a DLP gives you what you need.
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primarily molded and extruded rubber and plastics
I would recommend the Ilios Photon 2 DLP SLA printer - it is a wonderful machine.
Fantastic quality and rigidity / repeatability+precision. Extremely easy to use. Special small silent cool UV DLP Projector. Small footprint. Very fast and reliable (it should be much faster than the Laser machines?). Large build space. Open (use any resin you like). No PC needed. Practically nothing that can break or wears out or needs replacement ever.
http://www.ilios3d.com/en/shop/shop-3d-printing/ilios-photon/ilios-photon-572-detail
If SLA is in the budget, it is hard not to recommend the Form 2. The machine has consistent and reliable performance, low maintenance, excellent print quality, and user friendly software.
There are some cons, though. The machine has a high cost of ownership. The resin tanks don’t last as long as advertised for the engineering resins (tough, durable), and should be factored into material costs. The Form 2 excels at small parts, and if you receive orders for a lot of small parts through 3DHubs, $15 at a time is going to take a very long time to see a return. But all in all, I still think it is the most user friendly option out there (and the engineering materials are pretty damn incredible).
Both DLP and SLA have really good quality even with lowest settings in compare to highest settings of FDM. It really depends on your budget and how much you want to spend for a mold. If you need a large number of molds to make get a DLP, they print way faster than SLA with very good quality. For extreme details SLA is better but it depends on the brand and model of the printer, in SLAs Form 2 is the best so far but resins are pricey. I think for a beginner DLP is a better choice and won’t lose too much money to learn through the process. There are many cheap resins for them that you can start with.
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What dlp machine would you recommend
I have started with the (pretty cheap) Muve3D 2 years ago (a really good machine to get started), and will switch to the Ilios Photon 2 now. From all the experiences I gathered the last 3 years, it is the absolute best machine if you have to produce perfect parts quickly every day, with minimum effort and cost.
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I would say Wanhao Duplicator 7. Go to their facebook page and see the prints people are getting out of that machine, I never had one but looks very promising. They have a few revisions make sure you get the latest one with all bugs fixed.
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Kaptiv
15
You should get my Form 2 from me 
Enozh
16
Flashforge FINDER is the right choice for the beginners.
I am no expert but what I do know is that I recently bought a Flash Forge 2016 New Creator Pro 3D Printer and have zero complaints about it! It works for both ABS and PLA which is a huge plus in my book… Before I bought this printer I ready the review on topproducts.com and I now I am hooked. They have super reliable reviews so i would totally recommend to check that out as well!! Goodluck!
