Gadgetory

hey it's Justin from CNET this is a first look at the form labs form to 3d printer this is the second version of a printer that was initially conceived and funded from a Kickstarter campaign back in 2012 the company was founded by a couple engineers and designers from MIT who raised 2.8 million dollars to build the first form one but today thanks in large part to the feedback from the Kickstarter community and of course years of research and development formlabs is back with the forum too now this one is very different from most of the 3d printers you see on the market today now those models operate kind of like 2d printers but instead excrete molten hot thermoplastics from an actual printhead the form too however continues formlabs stereo lithographic model stereo lithography was actually the first 3d printing technique to be invented and it uses a blu-ray laser that actually traces part of the model image onto the surface of a bed of liquid resin the orange cover blocks ultraviolet lights coming in that then hardens the sliver and the process starts again as the completed object is slowly lifted out of the resin bath layer by layer as complicated as that sounds I checked out an early look at the model at a briefing last month with a form labs team and it's actually a very simple process for the consumer you just unpack the printer install the rural print tray and insert one of the new resin cartridges directly into the machine like you would any ink cartridge on a 2d printer the new model even adds a touch screen display for managing print jobs and a Wi-Fi connection that will automatically send progress updates to mobile devices in case you want to step away from the printer for a while or if you're planning to share it amongst several users so why stereo lithography well one thing is that these printers can add a level of detail that standard fused filament printers can't and that's whether you're printing something big or something super tiny like a ring the ultra-high resolution also does a good job at hiding the individual layers of plastic from plain sight you can barely even see the lattice pattern formed by the plastic layers which really makes it seem like the objects were cut from one solid piece of plastic you can buy the form 2 right now for $3500 which includes a 3d editing we're resin and a finished kit for post-processing you can read more details about the upgraded form - in the full first take but that's going to do it for me you just took a first look at the formlabs form - 3d printers thanks for watching