Formlabs’ new pro 3D printers claim 2–5x speed by ditching lasers for an LCD screen

Formlabs was one of the early Kickstarter success stories, and its laser-blasting 3D printers are now used by model makers, prototypers, dentists, and maybe even action figure companies around the globe. But its newest printers are ditching those resin-blasting lasers because they’re comparatively slow.

With the new Form 4, Formlabs says you can print two to five times faster than its predecessor, the Form 3 Plus — by switching to an LCD screen and a bright backlight that can cure an entire layer of resin at a time.

That’s a common technique in prosumer resin printers already, one called masked stereolithography (mSLA), but Formlabs claims it’s managed to build a printer to do it at a higher quality than ever before. Even so, it may not have quite the same resolution as previous Formlabs printers, with a horizontal pixel size of 50 microns, down from 25 microns. (Both printers go down to 25 microns vertically.)

But between the company’s new “Low Force Display” light engine for curing resin and a series of new faster curing resins, speed is greatly increased up to 100mm per hour vertically. The company says most prints should take under two hours, and small items like dental arches could be completed in just minutes. “It’s not overnight fast, it’s while I grab a coffee fast,” boasts CEO Maxim Lobovsky.

Formlabs claims you could beat an injection molding machine with four of its $4,500 printers, if you’re printing batches of small parts like these:

(Mind you, 3D printed resin parts have to be washed afterward, but injection molded ones need their excess plastic cut away; Formlabs third-party spokesperson Meredith Chiricosta tells me post-processing time is roughly the same.)

It doesn’t hurt that the Form 4 can spit out more and larger parts than its predecessor, too, with 30 percent more build volume and 19 percent more build area — parts can be 10.7 inches long, compared to 8.8 inches previously. You also get an integrated 5-megapixel camera to monitor prints and generate timelapse videos, a larger seven-inch touchscreen, and Wi-Fi 5 (up from Wi-Fi 4 previously), as well as USB-C (instead of USB-B) and Gigabit ethernet.

Reviews of Formlabs’ printers sometimes criticize the high price of the consumable resin, and that’s something the company’s improving today, too — four of the new “General Purpose Resins” that offer “improved toughness and color” will start at $99 per liter, down from the $149 you pay for the company’s entry-level resins today. The company says its resin tanks will cost less and last longer, too. It does consume over twice the electricity at 480W versus 220W, but electricity is comparatively cheap.

Formlabs will also sell a Form 4B version of the printer for medical and dental use. It’s $6,299, and both are available today.

If you’re interested, the company is hosting a keynote today at 9AM ET to discuss the finer points of the new printers: