Formlabs2 castable resin

[GarryB]

Has anyone used the Formlab2 castable resin for pressing emax?

I know they have a burnout schedule on the form's website but was looking for a bit of advice before I dive in.

I have 4 interior's waiting to be printed and pressed. If no one has used it yet i'll work my way through it and report the results back.

 

[eyeloveteeth]

we tried it, and the results were kind of 50/50. out of a batch of 30 crowns in Large and regular investment rings about 12 failed for reasons we cannot quite pin point. Form is looking into it, but their initial target was for metal casting.

Also, adding wax to the castable blue resin was a bit difficult - although easier than the visijet green material.

All in all i think it's simpler to mill wax - the Form2 really shines for model making and denture base printing

 

[GarryB]

we tried it, and the results were kind of 50/50. out of a batch of 30 crowns in Large and regular investment rings about 12 failed for reasons we cannot quite pin point. Form is looking into it, but their initial target was for metal casting.

Also, adding wax to the castable blue resin was a bit difficult - although easier than the visijet green material.

All in all i think it's simpler to mill wax - the Form2 really shines for model making and denture base printing

Wow that was a quick reply!

I did wonder about adding wax to the printed resin and how it would take. I would normally design and outsource for milling but as we have a printer thought id like to give it a go.

Thanks for your reply.

 

[Freakin teeth]

Wow that was a quick reply!

I did wonder about adding wax to the printed resin and how it would take. I would normally design and outsource for milling but as we have a printer thought id like to give it a go.

Thanks for your reply.

I used a whole cartridge of castable resin trying to get an acceptable internal fit ran the gamut of cement gaps I would not call any a success now sits in corner looking technical

 

[eyeloveteeth]

I used a whole cartridge of castable resin trying to get an acceptable internal fit ran the gamut of cement gaps I would not call any a success now sits in corner looking technical

care to share your material profile? did you get a DME for 3Shape on the castable? Sorry to hear you're having issue, but not using your machine for other things would be a bit silly.

Like I said, i do not know if they have a DME For the castable - but i DO know that printing models and diagnostic wax ups have been a dream on the Form2 and the results have come out very nicely.


For example -

We use V2 White for Diagnostic Models (V3 white will be slightly less translucent and have a bit more pearl to it similar to Dental Model)

We use 25micron High Temp resin for Dies - they are extremely heat resistant AND they look cool as hell when the doctor receives it

We use Gray and Dental Model for working models/unsectioned models

SG material for Surgical Guides of course.


We have 4 form2s going - and i don't wait for the build plate to finish - i just start when a case is ready - if i have 2 cases ready, then great, i'll throw both on.

But unless i am doing mass printing of models for aligners that were mass scanned, I'm never gonna have more models than what I can print immediately to justify waiting.

And honestly at the cost of the Form2 - it's pretty easy to say it's better to have 8 form2s with piece meal jobs going at different machines in my opinion.

 

[Freakin teeth]

care to share your material profile? did you get a DME for 3Shape on the castable? Sorry to hear you're having issue, but not using your machine for other things would be a bit silly.

Like I said, i do not know if they have a DME For the castable - but i DO know that printing models and diagnostic wax ups have been a dream on the Form2 and the results have come out very nicely.


For example -

We use V2 White for Diagnostic Models (V3 white will be slightly less translucent and have a bit more pearl to it similar to Dental Model)

We use 25micron High Temp resin for Dies - they are extremely heat resistant AND they look cool as hell when the doctor receives it

We use Gray and Dental Model for working models/unsectioned models

SG material for Surgical Guides of course.


We have 4 form2s going - and i don't wait for the build plate to finish - i just start when a case is ready - if i have 2 cases ready, then great, i'll throw both on.

But unless i am doing mass printing of models for aligners that were mass scanned, I'm never gonna have more models than what I can print immediately to justify waiting.

And honestly at the cost of the Form2 - it's pretty easy to say it's better to have 8 form2s with piece meal jobs going at different machines in my opinion.

Had for about a year didn't know 3shape had a dme for it . Used begos bece cast dme for a while after they bagged the outsourcing also tried default zirconia crown removed drill comp saw no difference. I'd like to see it working myself no call for models yet.

 

[LuthorCorp]

I had similar issues with castable material, we used it for Cast Partials and Crowns. The Crowns always had some marginal errors and we didn't get the best results. For cast partials we had lift issues because the material was really flimsy and flexible because of how thin the frames were so we had to stop using that. That being said we did start using SG material for casting partials in metal and that worked great! It burns out no problem and we had the nice stable fit of the rigid SG material and still burned out no problem. You might give that material a whirl and see if the results are any better, although making sure you have the processing DME file for each material will be a really good idea.

 

[Freakin teeth]

I had similar issues with castable material, we used it for Cast Partials and Crowns. The Crowns always had some marginal errors and we didn't get the best results. For cast partials we had lift issues because the material was really flimsy and flexible because of how thin the frames were so we had to stop using that. That being said we did start using SG material for casting partials in metal and that worked great! It burns out no problem and we had the nice stable fit of the rigid SG material and still burned out no problem. You might give that material a whirl and see if the results are any better, although making sure you have the processing DME file for each material will be a really good idea.

I downloaded firmware to my knowledge there's not a specific dme I will try sg but proper dme has me confused ?

 

[LuthorCorp]

I downloaded firmware to my knowledge there's not a specific dme I will try sg but proper dme has me confused ?

You can get hopefully get design perameters in a DME from either Formlabs, 3Shape, or someone who has figured out the ideal parameters for the design. You could technically do it manually every time but the DME just allows you to preset them from the start of the design. There are so many small parameters to test tho and thats what makes it tough to manually test but I am sure there is a DME of the castable specs floating around somewhere.

 

[eyeloveteeth]

or make your own DME. The SG material is so expensive, I still don't understand why you would print with that material, vs just mill something out of Duracytal? got any pics? curious to see what they look like. We're still extensively using the Form2s for all our Trios work.

 

[LuthorCorp]

or make your own DME. The SG material is so expensive, I still don't understand why you would print with that material, vs just mill something out of Duracytal? got any pics? curious to see what they look like. We're still extensively using the Form2s for all our Trios work.

The material is about double the price but we have printed over 30-40 cast partials and about 3 Surgical Guides and still I have yet to replace the cartridge, we were surprised by the volume we have been able to produce and it of set the cost quite a bit. We are trying to get all uses possible out of this small printer because we have 4 mills running pretty much all day, 2 Eden printers printing, and this form lab has basically become the center of our R&D testing because its fairly quick to bang out tests. Thats how we stumbled on the SG casting, simply because we needed a more rigid material and thats what we had on hand, we basically said "Lets chuck it into the oven and see what happens" haha.

I don't have any photos as of right now unfortunately but if I find some Ill post em here, till we print another one and ill make sure to snag a photo.

 

[eyeloveteeth]

awesome to hear! i'm a pretty big fan of the form2 - i think it's a dental sweet spot like the DWX-50s were back in the day

 

[LuthorCorp]

awesome to hear! i'm a pretty big fan of the form2 - i think it's a dental sweet spot like the DWX-50s were back in the day

Yeah for sure I love its usability, its really flexible and for its price, anyone can grab one and start rolling stuff into production with it with little effort. Its got a small easy to manage learning curve and opens a lot of doors in terms of accessibility.

 

[rookiee]

Guys what light curing unit for models made with formlabs2 printer do you use? I've heard so many different variations, going from you only need to have a proper unit for surgical guides, others materials can be cured in cheap nail light etc... I will be using white resin, standard grey resin, new dental model resin and castable. And I need a real result.

 

[patmo141]

I used a whole cartridge of castable resin trying to get an acceptable internal fit ran the gamut of cement gaps I would not call any a success now sits in corner looking technical

want to sell? I need an expensive paperweight

 

[CoolHandLuke]

I used a whole cartridge of castable resin trying to get an acceptable internal fit ran the gamut of cement gaps I would not call any a success now sits in corner looking technical

did you cure your prints in alcohol? harden your investment with boric acid? a miscast would create poor fit through no fault of the printer or design software, and seeing you ran through tond of design parameters, im going to go ahead and rule out the design software as the cause of fault.

 

[Freakin teeth]

Most didn't make it to invest cast or press what few that did were fine.But only after either internally adjusting or cut margins and readap with wax.If they didn't fit die prior to investing what's the point of going forward

 

[eyeloveteeth]

Guys what light curing unit for models made with formlabs2 printer do you use? I've heard so many different variations, going from you only need to have a proper unit for surgical guides, others materials can be cured in cheap nail light etc... I will be using white resin, standard grey resin, new dental model resin and castable. And I need a real result.

So I'm not 100% certain of the scientific fact - but it seems LEDs lose some strength in heat. We've been using the metalight from Primotec - which i'm sure is a rebrand. I Have both the 320-400nm and 400-500nm bulbs in there.

Also, remember that 3D prints shrink about 3-5% during the curing - so not fully cured models would produce non-accurate fits.

did you cure your prints in alcohol? harden your investment with boric acid? a miscast would create poor fit through no fault of the printer or design software, and seeing you ran through tond of design parameters, im going to go ahead and rule out the design software as the cause of fault.

Most didn't make it to invest cast or press what few that did were fine.But only after either internally adjusting or cut margins and readap with wax.If they didn't fit die prior to investing what's the point of going forward

i'm sure there is a simple reason to it not fitting. Have you considered making a ticket with formlabs? who sold you the printer?

Also, I'm curious as to why people are printing their crowns/copings? The DWX52 mills a molar in about 10-12 minutes....

Even back in the day, i was very perplexed by using the DP8500 to print rows and rows of crowns - just to be pressed or casted

 

[CoolHandLuke]

just did a cost analysis of printing models on the form2 and i can't make it make financial sense.

we know the costs. we know the prices of material, and we know the avg model weight.

knowing these things, to make it cost 20$ per model (instead of per pair) you need to have 4 printers, making 40 models per day (one bottle of material per printer per day) at an average model weight of 20grams before you begin to break even with costs vs production.

for one employee.

who, for all intents and purposes is the business owner.

so no, with this cheap printer your models still cost too much to be worth buying specifically for models.

 

[eyeloveteeth]

Printer cost about $4500 with trays, resins, printer curing light.

We charge $55/model.

Once we finish the 82nd model, we will be even.

$199 resin + another $80 in parts let's just say = $299 - 7 arches is about 130 mL in resin. roughly 54 models per tank. 54*55 = $2970 - $299 = $2671 once we've paid the machine off.

That doesn't include the fact that the resin tank lasts for about 2 tanks of resin.


I think the ROI on here is pretty straight forward. Now, I am of course only using this specifically for digital wax ups and implant cases - would this fit a full production model? most likely not.


But i hear your point CHL, there are MANY ways to make this not fiscally viable. To which I want to point out, for many labs out there, sometimes they just need a faster solution than sending it out (for the model) - this is where this shines. It's in similar thought to our laser - how often do we use it? Almost none, but we need it here.