Formlabs brings a $699 resin printer to the desktop
Formlabs, the company behind some of the most reliable resin printers in professional labs, has put one on the desktop for $699.
What it is
Formlabs has released the Form Studio 1, a resin (stereolithography) 3D printer priced from US$699. That is well below anything else in its lineup and marks its first consumer-grade machine. It has a 200 × 125 × 235 mm build volume and a few features that have usually been reserved for its pricier professional units: resin heating, automatic resin dispensing, and a free Open Material Mode that lets you print with third-party resins instead of being locked to one brand.
Why it matters
Resin printing gives the sharpest detail of any common process, which is why it is the go-to for miniatures, jewellery, dental models and fine display pieces. Formlabs has built its name on machines that just work, day after day, in labs and studios. Bringing that reliability to a consumer price, and opening the machine up to other resins, lowers the barrier to high-detail printing a lot.
What it means for you
If you regularly need fine detail, owning a resin printer starts to make sense. For a one-off piece or a production run, though, a print service still saves you the setup, the resin handling and the cleaning. We print in resin as well as filament, and we check every file before it goes on the machine. See our materials or get a price on your part.
Source: 3Dnatives, Tom's Hardware. Pricing is US and varies by market.