Hello all!

I have done a review for the Form 4B printing suite in the past, but it was more of a first impression of the hardware and general intuitiveness. This time I will be reviewing the full experience of the Formlabs 4B suite, including the software, hardware, materials, support, and more. Feel free to skip to the end for the CONCLUSION, because I sure as heck have a lot to say and I understand if you don’t want to read it all.

PROLOGUE

I am a Dental Lab Technician working at a privately owned Orthodontic practice. Working at a practice instead of a dedicated print lab means my priorities are a little different from a normal Lab Technician. Labs usually have to turn around their appliances within a couple of days. Whereas I turnaround my appliances in under 30 minutes. The reason for this is simple, but twofold; My doctor tells me she has long dreamed of the day that she could deliver a patient’s retainer in the same exact appointment that they get their braces off. Not only is this extremely satisfying for the patient (or so they tell me almost every time we do it), but it helps save us ~$300 (best estimate based off our 2024 financial reports) every time we successfully do it. The Form 4B was the first printer we ever used that could actually accomplish that.

So, to summarize, this review is from the viewpoint of a LAB TECHNICIAN who works in a PRIVATELY OWNED ORTHODONTIC PRACTICE. We used to have the Sprintray Pro 2 suite in our lab and I have had the pleasure of using a few other brands as well. Most things will be compared to the Sprintray Pro 2 suite because of this.

The Formlabs Form 4 printing suite has been great for me but that doesn’t mean it will be good for you. Please understand this review is based on very specific priorities and goals that may not apply to you if you aren’t in a similar scenario. This entire review will mostly apply to Dental Labs and other Orthodontists, not home users or other biomed industries. This is also not advising you to go out and buy a Form 4B suite or Formlabs products in general without doing your own due diligence. This is not a sponsored review - I just love talking about my job. Thank you and onward!

SOFTWARE

The software, or slicer, to use with the Form 4B is Preform. This is a proprietary program developed by Formlabs for their printers and I have to say that it’s pretty darn good from a technician’s point of view. But that doesn’t mean it’s “good”, so-to-speak, at least for my industry. Let’s dive into Pros and Cons:

PROS

• Desktop app, not cloud-based
• Settings have useful and easy to understand presets/profiles
• Responsive, faster than other slicers I’ve used
• Automations help speed along workflows
• Dashboard/History is detailed, comprehensive, and exportable to CSV. Chefs kiss

CONS

• Import process takes 5+ clicks per raw scan (90% of our scans are raw before import)
• No chamfering
• No custom cutting
• Workflow automations fail sometimes
• Not the most intuitive program for clinicians. Techie-oriented

There’s not much more to say about Preform. It’s a slicer like any other, just missing a few key features and automations. There’s no reason the import process should take 5+ clicks. It’s just taking my raw scan and throwing a base on it. Should be mostly if not entirely automated for ease of use and speed. Chamfers being unavailable is also bad but not the worst, especially when you have the Quick-Release build plate that just pops the models off. Custom cuts would help me trim unnecessary bits of certain models, saving some resin here and there. As for the workflow automations - it just helps layout the models or flip them the right side up, repair holes in the scan, and various other minor automations. Anyways, they sometimes just don’t work. No idea why but I am collecting examples to pass along to the Preform dev team.

HARDWARE

Before I begin on hardware, I want to reiterate that I had two main priorities, speed and accuracy. As long as these could be met to expectations, nothing else actually mattered. They are all bonuses at that point. I will also break this section into 3 for the Printer, Wash unit, and cure unit respectively.

Form 4 Printer

The Form 4B boasts a very impressive 11 minute print time for retainer/aligner models while retaining high accuracy. But that’s just what they boast; in practice with the same config they used, my average print time is actually only ~9 minutes. This is 2.5x faster than our last printer, the Sprintray Pro 2, which averaged ~23 minutes on its fastest, official configuration.

So, it’s fast as heck, and accurate to boot. Very nice! I do have one minor complaint though; Preheating is not available to be manually turned on without tricking the machine. Currently, I tell the machine that I removed and added back the build plate in order to kickstart the preheating process. I have found no better workaround for this. So, let’s talk about its other qualities, starting with the accessories that come with the Form 4B printer:

Resin Tank: The resin tank is fairly simple. It clips in at the sides and is quite large. I have not had this tank long enough to come to any meaningful conclusions about its maintenance and lifespan.

Resin Mixer: The Form 4B has a detachable mixer for the resin. As of this moment, I have had 0 failed prints on the Form 4B and I think one of the main reasons is due to the automated stirring between every single layer. It saves me time from mixing it myself and ensures a good, clean layer every time.

Quick-Release Build Plate: One of the nicest QOL features of the Form 4 is the new accessory available for it - the quick-release build plate. This build plate allows you to squeeze two handles together to flex the build plate and break away any models with extreme ease and efficiency. This also alleviates the need for chamfering in most cases. It takes a little extra time to clean, but ultimately this is not a big deal compared to its benefits.

Dripper: I wasn’t actually sure what to call this, but it’s…. bad. It’s essentially a desk clamp that lets you mount the build platform over a sink or tank but it’s actually a really bad design. For one thing, it mounts the build plate only about an inch above whatever desk you are mounting it too, meaning there NEEDS to be a sink or some kind of dipped section for you to set a tank, otherwise the only place it will drip is the very desk you clamp it too. Sure, every lab has a sink, but resin straight down the sink? Limited compatible desk sizes? Why was this the solution instead of a dripper that could attach to a spare tank? Or one of the provided tanks that came with the wash unit? A mount that lets me angle it within the printer so it can go back to the currently loaded tank it came from would be a much better solution than whatever this thing is.

Wash unit

Let’s move on to the Wash Unit. The wash unit is nothing new, just an alcohol tank with a fast fan at the bottom to stir everything up. But it still has some interesting design choices and I think it’s the worst unit in the 4B package. Not bad, just the worst among its peers.

To start, it’s only one tank. All of the alcohol dirties at the same rate. Compare this to the Sprintray wash unit that has two tanks and you’ll quickly see the inefficiency of this. They do provide an extra tank and technically there are ways to filter out your alcohol and prolong its use but I am reiterating that this is all taken care of for you in the Sprintray suite. It’s not all bad though, it comes with a decent tradeoff. It means there are less parts requiring maintenance as there are no built-in pumps, filters, or drainage ports. On top of that, it has no plastic touching the alcohol that discolors… like the Sprintray did. Sprintray’s lids for the alcohol tanks are made of some sort of dyed plastic that, yes, bleeds when exposed to alcohol. Apparently making your alcohol tank out of materials that can handle exposure to alcohol is not a given. Last but not least, the Formlabs wash unit has no built-in drying options. You either need to let things air dry or blow dry them yourself. Anyways… Let’s talk about the accessories that come with the Wash Unit:

Pump: Formlabs includes the weirdest pump you ever did see for swapping out their alcohol. Due to it’s unusual, elongated shape and the fact that the alcohol tank is a regular square shape, this pump will never get the last bit of dirty alcohol out of the tank AND you’ll have a hard time finding a good place to keep it. You will need to lift the tank and pour it out by hand if you want to ever clean it properly. I’m not sure yet if maintaining this silly pump is worse than maintaining a drainage port though. Resin/alcohol would mess up the drainage ports on the Sprintray unit about once a year. Pump is still going strong at the moment.

Hydrometer: Formlabs includes a loose, plastic, cheap-feeling hydrometer for measuring the cleanliness of your alcohol in the wash unit. You have to remove it and store it elsewhere when not in use since it gets in the way of the washing if left in the tank. And if it’s ever been slightly rubbed the wrong way, you may have to reconfigure it by hand. Ultimately, by the time the tank even is dirty, you can’t even see the hydrometer through the tinted plastic and foggy alcohol and you could just eyeball it and say it’s dirty by that point without using the hydrometer at all. It’s functionally useless and all the other dental-specific wash units have hydrometers built into the tank that you don’t need to maintain yourself. This is maybe not a bad solution, but it seems dated by comparison and I never use it.

Cage/build plate mounts: Formlabs provides a cage for models to drop in and mounts for the build platform so that it can be safely lowered into the wash unit for cleaning. Stainless steel. Solid. Nothing else to add, these are as good as they can be.

Cure Unit

Last but not least, the cure unit. It spins the model and cures it. It has more room for models than some other cure units I have seen which I really appreciate. The Sprintray Pro Cure can barely fit 4-6 models in it at once whereas the Form Cure can easily hold as many as you could possibly print off one plate at a time, around 12-16 for sure. I am also a fan of the swinging door instead of Sprintray’s pull-out drawer, allowing for easier access to the models. The cure unit did not come with additional accessories and I have nothing more to add about it. Good product, needs no changing as far as I see it.

MATERIALS

Alright! Let’s break into materials. This section will be short as there are only 2 materials to go over that are a staple with this suite. Resin and Alcohol. I will go over prices, availability, and how much we go through.

Resin

For Sprintray, we used their Die and Model 2 resin, any color. For Formlabs, we are using their Fast Model Resin V1. Formlabs fast model resin is $63 cheaper per liter than Sprintrays when buying the 1L bottles. Formlabs, however, also offers bulk pricing if you buy 5L bottles at a time, offering even bigger savings up to $80/liter. When you go through as much as I do, this ends up being about $3000 in savings every year on just Resin. Big win!

Alcohol

The wash unit is dead simple, one tank and a fan. This means that the alcohol all gets dirty as the same rate, unlike a 2-tank system like you’d see in Sprintray’s wash unit. That being said, it can hold more alcohol than other tanks and the fan seems to agitate it more violently, perhaps allowing the mixture to clean better even while dirty. At the moment though, compared to Sprintray, I am using roughly 30% more alcohol than before. This is one of my cheaper materials when bought in bulk, but we are spending an extra $900/year on alcohol based on current rates compared to last year.

So all in all, our material savings from switching to Formlabs from Sprintray is $2100/year. Noice!

SUPPORT / TRAINING

Based in the USA, Support from Formlabs has been nothing short of amazing. They have always been fast to reply and the person I get hooked up with is always knowledgable about my issue. My only complaint is that they are not dental specific, and have little to no knowledge about the technical aspect of the Dental industry. For example, I have priorities that Formlabs was not even aware was a want/concern, not because they are incompetent, but because they are engineers first, not orthodontists. It’d be nice if Formlabs had some technicians specific to the Dental Industry for more advanced support, especially since they advertise supporting Dental directly, but this is fine. If I had to grade Formlabs support based on support alone, it’d be a 9/10 consistently. But…..

Training is not great or really even there at all. This is the only Dental-focused 3D printing suite that did NOT offer a formal training upon purchase. Every other company I researched offered either an in-person or remote training with a technical expert. Formlabs technically offers some online training courses, but when we made our purchase through the distributor, no one gave us that information and I never even knew about the courses until I confronted their support about lack of training directly. Okay great, they have something, but this left a sour taste in my mouth.

The dental industry is not made up of engineers and technicians who can figure out or even want to figure out their technology. It’s made up of clinicians who want their tech to do everything for them so they can focus on fixing smiles instead. This only leaves you with two options when selling technology to solo clinics, either it’s dead easy or it comes with formal training. The Form 4B offers neither. With that in mind, I actually would rate Support/Training at 5/10 and it’s one of the main reasons that I would actually suggest a clinic go with Sprintray instead if they didn’t need to be as fast as possible. If Formlabs could improve their training and ease of use, I would not have any reason to suggest any other printer to any clinic or lab.

CONCLUSION

All things considered, this review is certainly a positive one. I don’t like writing as much as this review might lead you to believe so let’s grade it with some minor notes:

Preform: 6/10 - Built by engineers, clearly. That’s good and bad - needs to be made a lot easier for clinicians to understand. Clinicians aren’t always interested in the tech, they just want it to work. But also, it’s got a lot of good features and I think most tech-minded people will have a pleasant experience.

Form 4: 9/10 - High resolution, high speed, accurate, and intuitive. Accessories included help make the printer stand out from its competitors

Wash unit: 6/10 - Incredibly simple, makes for low maintenance. Also makes for high work. No drying options built in.

Cure unit: 10/10 - wouldn’t change a thing. It’s huge, cures fast, and is easy to access.

Support: 9/10 - fast and knowledgeable

Training: 2/10 - Needs the most work. If ease of use/training is your utmost concern, I would not recommend Formlabs.

The Form 4B printing suite has been nothing short of an excellent choice for our practice. Not only do our patients save both time and money by choosing in-house retainers, but we save money as well. Enough money that this printer paid for itself (roughly ~$13,500) after only 45 cases. A slow month’s worth of work for our practice.

What would I like to see in Formlabs future?

1. Preform:
   1. import process cleaned up to 3 or less clicks (after clicking “import”)
   2. Easy mode for clinicians. Advanced settings and presets should only be available in “advanced” mode
2. Form 4 Printer:
   1. Preheating should be manually available via the LCD screen, one button.
3. Wash unit:
   1. The included hydrometer is annoying to use - build it into the tank and make it clearly visible
   2. A fan for quick drying would be really nice
4. Accessories:
   1. The pump needs to be redesigned so it can actually clear the wash unit fully and not take up so much space.
   2. The drip mount should come with a drip tray or a better mount should be designed so that it can attach to existing resin tanks

I would definitely recommend this suite to anyone in the orthodontic world looking at 3D Printers, unless of course, training and ease of use is your utmost concern. I’d also be happy to answer any questions, if people have them. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.