u/leonhart8888

This is a self promotion post - but I think a pretty cool one for anyone out there printing in Formlabs Silicone resin for a business.

I now have a thoroughly tested, much improved, Silicone 40A print setting for the Form 4L and the Form 4 on the Ember Prototypes store 🔥

Silicone 40A isn't available on the Form 4L and it's reliability and print success rate on the Form 4 is pretty poor. It's taken a ton of time, effort and consumables to get this working, but not only do we get reliable prints on the 4L, but the same settings transfer over to greatly improved results on the Form 4 over the stock FL profile. No more torn and failed prints 💪

I plan to make a YouTube video and/or blog post talking about this in more detail, but trying to recoup some of the time and cost associated with dialing this in right now - Silicone resin is $$$ 😬

Silicone is still a tricky material to print, and you always want to minimize supports and print direct on BP as much as you can, but these print settings have allowed me to print WAY more geometries than would otherwise (let alone large parts on the 4L that aren't possible any other way) 😁

Link to buy the settings here: emberprototypes.com/products-formlabs-silicone-print-setting

The flex plates are great but just wanted to share the two biggest improvements I've made to them which have been working wonders for me:

1. Sandblasting the sheet. This (mostly) got rid of the little spot welds along the edge and also gives me a beautiful matte finish that matches more closely to the rest of printed parts. The brushed finish was cool, but it was often a stark contrast to the side walls.
2. Made better handles. I hated how the stock handles sit flush to the table and also didn’t lock into place with the original 4L build plate jig. My new handles now solve both problems and makes working with the plate way easier.

Currently not sharing the handle design (really easy to do if you have a free day or two), but I've put a few on our store here if you're interested in buying one: http://emberprototypes.myshopify.com/products/form-4l-flex-plate-handles-v2

I hate how fragmented and gate kept knowledge around additive manufacturing is. I'm hoping to build a cool community of engineerings, manufacturers and power users who are interested in learning and sharing knowledge in a casual, real time environment on Discord.

If you're interested in building a community with me, join me on Discord: https://discord.gg/T2KgFvuEvg