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..."

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.

@pen2l what are you even talking about…?

1) form studio can use any material out of the box you just have to design your own print settings for it

2) form studio wash + cure is $200, not $699

3) the new resins are UL certified for low voc/indoor use, as well as score as non-skin irritants (OECD 439), and post-processed parts comply with ISO 10993 for long term skin contact

4) the new resins cost $30-$50ish per L, as opposed to fdm ~$25ish per kg. you also have to buy a tank that eventually wears out but imo when i’m printing a lot with the same material the tank cost doesn’t add much to the overall

5) fdm is great too, i have both in my shop. you should always use the right process and material for the job. if you need higher detail than what fdm can provide, more sophisticated materials, and an order of magnitude higher volumetric print speed, the form studio is a great option.

source: i don’t work at formlabs, but i used to

I have a Phrozen SLA printer, and I would actually appreciate it if they integrated their design with the resin formulation more. Sure, it sounds bad to be locked into some material ecosystem, but resins are just not 'plug and play' by default, as filament is in FDM printing.

I just want it to print and not study chemistry & physics before doing anything. Formlabs seems to be able to deliver that.

> Formlabs will happily upsell the "Form Wash" for this for another 699

(A separate aside, since the main ones were addressed: Formlabs also launched a new "Wash+Cure" station that does wash and cure for $199, instead of their standalone (but better, of course) units that cost something like $1000 together.)

I love resin printer, but boys the amount of post-processing is really off-putting.

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.

I cannot emphasize enough how much I hate these Formlabs printers. I am dealing with them at work and wish to be working on anything else.

Do you have any specific recomendations?

One of the main reasons to get the studio one is the UL GREENGUARD Gold Certification right? Their resins are much safer.

> 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...

As a 3D printer enthusiast (I model stuff in OpenSCAD and print to fix / DIY stuff around the house/car etc.) and seen how easy 3D printing using filament as become, resin 3D printers just seem... Extremely messy to me.

I understand that for people doing stuff like miniatures resin might be more precise (but filament printers with tiny nozzles became extremely precise too) but it just feels like a lot of work compared to... Just 3D print with filament.

I may be wrong though.

Yeah & as I have said before - I'd rather fix my printer every 5 prints and/or have worse print quality, than to use a printer I can't fix & can't use generic material of my choice on.

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.

I recently did some research for a project related materials to be used in a wet environment. The problem with resin is that it's hormone active. Tangentially, the same is true for standard epoxy from the hardware store. There are scary skin damages some people got that work daily with epoxy

Health stuff is always safety first, but I think everyone undersells just how much of a mess and pain it is to work with resin. For a rough magnitude comparison, go to your work area and spray a can of spray paint at nothing in particular for a full minute. Also, imagine you dropped your phone into an open can of paint, and now you have to fish it out and clean it without getting paint everywhere. If your setup can't cope with the fallout of doing that, you are not ready for a resin printer.

As an aside, I have found the smell of curing resin to be one of the worst things I have ever smelled; an extremely pungent plastic-y chemical smell which is hard to describe, but at least you get a warning if you don't bother to look at the pictures of dead trees and dead fish on the bottle. I'd much much rather work with hide glue again, which has the consistency of warm snot and smells like vomit.

A organic 3m respirator and lab grade gloves really should be required with these things. The cheap overseas options I expect them to downplay the hazzards, hopefully formlabs manuals etc are better w.r.t. safety (I don't own one.) I love my resin prints for their near flawless finishes compared to filament, but it comes at a pretty steep cost.

You're ruining this advertisement with your negativity.

i used to own a resin printer and used it maybe... three times? specifically because responsibly disposing of resin waste was too difficult.

now i'll just go to my local public library if i want a print made. i love that maker spaces in libraries have become more common.

> isopropyl alcohol are toxic as well

As long as you have moderately good ventilation and don't drink it, IPA is completely safe. If the resin is similar I wouldn't worry about it because of this.

But I agree about the waste, and in general it looks like a right hassle. IMO the online MJF printing services are cheap enough that it would take quite a lot for me to bother with owning a resin printer, at least for occasional use.

Consider water-soluble resin, but always use 99% IPA to wash. First, dab with tissue paper to soak up drips, wash in used/dirty IPA, and then wash again in clean IPA. This will remove most if not all uncured resin. You should be able to hit within 0.1mm repeatability with anti-aliasing turned off.

Finally, the UVA cure chamber must be able to kick off the resin. After 15min on each side, then wash the build with a hand cleaner. Place all PPE like gloves in a clear bag, and leave in the sun on both sides for 1 hour.

"USD700" is almost double what a mid-sized Creality printer costs, and aftermarket 3M flex plate kits are about $30.

Without a garage/outdoor/lab work-space people shouldn't buy stinky resin printers. =3

Yes! Exactly.

So much of the content around this printer is adressing what resin printing is, and comparing it to fdm printers. I already know what resin printers are and what their general pros and cons compared to a a fillament based one. But they don’t bother answering why should i choose this resin printer over an other one.

So i will just wait until the hype dies down and people who owned resin printers review it.

There are two reason why i’m cautiously optimistic about this printer though:

- i’m a member of a hackspace. And training new members on our elegoo resin printers is a pain. In particular explaining safe resin handling is a battle. In theory this model from Formlabs would require less contact with the resin. So that sounds great. Of course that promise is only good as long as things go well. But there might be benefit there.

- in my private practice i make jewellery. One of the techniques i use is lost-resin casting. The resins involved are tricky. The designs are intricate Because of that there are many print failures. In theory their printers and slicer should be much better engineered to minimise such failures. Does it work that way in practice? Only a review could tell.

I thought FauxHammer's review was pretty good. He also talks about his interactions with Formlabs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJxnWQdjIyk

Adam Savages Tested did like two whole episodes on it.

I’m ok with it. It’s the kind of thing they would look at. But it did stand out.

Isn’t part of the point of these ones that they now have a line of safe resins?

Honestly asking. I’ve never owned one. Just seen some of the tsunami of videos for this one.

On the other hand, once you have everything in place, get used to the process, have made it a habit and stick to it rigorously, it can be extremely rewarding to do resin printing.

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)

https://formlabs.com/uk/blog/ultimate-guide-to-stereolithogr...

It prints by curing a resin instead of heating and forming plastic. They've been around in industry for decades.

I have a blog post up for those who don't like extracting the relevant info from a video :)

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/formlabs-form-studio-...

He got one for free in exchange for making a video that glosses over the fact that it uses proprietary resin cartridges.

"A tad messy" really undersells it. You need a solid process to manage the (sticky, carcinogenic, smelly) liquid resin both as an input and waste product, along with having to dispose of (carcinogenic, smelly, flammable) cleaning solvent.

The problem isn't so much the process of a successful print as how you deal with a failed one. At that point you've got a vat full of resin with some solid parts stuck to the bottom, so you need to filter and clean the damn thing which means taking it out of whatever containment you've got. And that step you can't use the usual solvent for because it damages the sheet. But you'll have ample time to figure all this out because you'll get loads of failed prints as you figure out how slicing and supporting for resin works: it's different to FDM, some knowledge carries over but not that much.

Focusing on the 10-30 minute curing process ignores the part prep step: SLA is much more reliant on supports than FDM in general, so there will be either rough surfaces hopefully out of sight, or (if it's not a model that orients well) scraping/sanding/filling. And you want to do support separation and get that as clean as possible before curing, while the resin is still a bit soft, but that means it's only partially cured and you need to be PPE'd up.

When I'm doing anything with my resin printer I don't even go into the room without a breathing filter, don't touch anything without gloves. It really is a very different experience to FDM.

The finish of SLA regularly failed to meet my expectations. You either have warping and elephant foot at the build plate or you have a hundred support contacts to clip and sand.

Desktop CNCs are getting very capable and cheap. It’s hard to beat the tolerances and finish quality of a machined part.

Resin is much more precise, but its still plastic.

The stepup to CNC will allow aluminium and brass parts, but depth will be a challenge. Making anything deeper than a few cm on a desktop CNC is possible but has limitations.

Use a Matte filament, proper print settings, and low layer heights and you really won't be able to see the layer lines easily.

What FDM printer are you using?

>This just seems like it's aimed at SLA novices

That's exactly it. That's why the entire influencer campaign exist and almost every influencer is saying the same thing.

Surprisingly complicated question. Most hobbyist grade machines are low powered and can only cure resin with pretty poor mechanical properties. Industrial resin printers can actually make incredibly strong parts. The studio 1 can apparently print in Formlabs Tough 1500 which is a decent strength resin. It’s noticeably better than the average “ABS like”. Resin prints are also isotopic (unlike composites and fdm prints) which has a lot of advantages for mechanical parts. Asking if resin prints are strong is a bit like asking if metal parts are strong; it really depends on the metal or resin being used

Resin is generally very stiff but also very brittle. They are not as tough as composites (depending on resin used).

My experience is the resin is very stiff but very brittle, but I haven't kept up with the latest resins.

I’ve now seen two that were also flown to FormLabs to talk to their materials science teams. They sure went all out on influencers.

Doesn’t mean they’re not nice machines, I guess.

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.

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

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.

> what would I do if this is my first 3D printer

Resin printers are very special type of printers. They are great at some things (tiny intricate details, surface quality). They are absolutely the worst in other ways (soo much faff with post curing). If you need their pros you can’t do much else but suffer the cons. But you should really think through what you want to print before getting one.

Your question is a bit like: “what if my first shovel were an excavator?” Having an excavator is great when you need one. But if you don’t need one it is a complete nightmare compared to other shoveling solutions.

> I don't have the ability to wash and cure

I don’t know what you mean by lacking the ability?

If it is not knowing how, then the simple answer is to buy the wash+cure formlabs sells with the printer and follow the instructions. Best if you watch a video tutorial first before you even buy the printer so you can decide if you have the space, want to bother with resin printing.

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.

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.

[1] https://aliexpress.com/item/1005010131053964.html [2] https://aliexpress.com/item/1005012796313088.html

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.

Don't get a resin printer unless you can get it ventilated properly and have a proper work area for wash and cure.

Stick with a good FDM printer.

Honestly a Bambu printer is so insanely easy to use you'd be making printing ^25 harder with this.

Return the printer immediately. Not kidding.

For another $250, you can get another box that washes and cures.

Just don't. Resin printers are a pain. Get an FDM (filament) printer first.

If I had to guess, the latest Applied Science video on YouTube which somewhat showcased it.

The upvotes look genuine to me. I guess people are just excited?

There is nothing like that currently available, or likely to be created (resin curing is a chemical process, not a melting/solidifying).

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.

> "true" SLA

What is that? Why is it better?

John Formlab here, I check the referrer and charge extra to people coming from wealthy people websites

In general yes, resin and FDM printers both produce toxic VOCs.

But FormLabs for this printer and resin have focused on safetey and acquired a certification on their Alpha resins which show low VOCs that should be safe to print in an indoor room with low ventilation.

I still wouldn't, I would add ventilation and wear PPE, it's still going to be releasing some VOCs even if it comes under a tolerable limit. But I do appreciate what seems to be the first ever initiative in 3D printing to address the elephant in the room of VOCs directly at the material level.

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.

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.

Amazing detail, a resin allergy, and cancer

If you imply making it taller, I think tall parts are increasingly more wobbly, there must be a limit there.

SendCutSend has CNC machining but the costs are no where comparable. And they don't have metal 3D printing available either. Surr you can laser cutter some things out of metal, but that's not really comparable to 3D parts.