Review: Formlabs Form 1

The current king of at-home 3D printers is the MakerBot Replicator 2. The latest-generation machine from the MakerBot folks has so far proven to be wildly popular with the DIY and hobbyist crowd, as well as artists and students. And its popularity makes sense: the machine is fast, easy to use, runs on good software, and is supported by an online community of people eager to share their designs. It costs $2,550, about as much as a beater automobile.

There's something undeniably cool about printing with lasers.But the Replicator 2 is limited by its printing mechanism, which (like many other 3D printers) uses heated polyester filament to build models in three dimensions. The machine basically acts like a super-accurate hot glue gun, adding the material layer by layer. It has a maximum resolution of 0.1 millimeters per layer (about 1/250th of an inch) which is good enough for most home applications like model-making and small parts replacement, but not accurate enough for people working with crazy-intricate designs.

The Form 1 is built for more demanding work. It prints objects by way of stereolithography, a form of 3D fabrication that uses an ultraviolet laser to cure liquid plastic resin. A laser "draws" the object by shooting into a reservoir filled with resin, and the resin hardens layer by layer as the laser does its work. This method gives you a very high-resolution print – 0.025 millimeters per layer, or 1/1000th of an inch – so it's better suited to late-stage prototyping, tiny parts replacement, jewelry, and other things that require perfect edges and incredibly fine details. Stereolithography machines are professional tools. So of course, they're inaccessible to most people, enormous machines that cost hundreds of thousand of dollars.

But the Form 1 is very small and relatively cheap – $3,300 for the unit and $150 per liter of resin. Also, the company's custom PreForm software that runs the printer is very easy to use and is available as a free download for Windows and Mac OS X. It's a pro machine built for the mass market.

The company set up a Kickstarter last year to produce the machines, and raised almost $3 million. The first Form 1 printers have been rolling out to early adopters for the last few months, but if you want one, you can pre-order and get it around the end of 2013. Formlabs sent us a first-run unit to test, along with a liter of clear resin and the "finish kit," which is a small assembly of tools for dressing your completed print.

The Form 1 itself is only 18 inches tall and has a footprint of about one square foot. Also, it's beautiful. The hinged lid is crafted from a translucent orange plastic which, in addition to lending the Form 1 a striking, colorful visage and allowing you to safely watch the printer in action, also serves to protect the resin tray inside from UV light. You can leave the reservoir filled with resin and, as long as the lid stays closed, the liquid will remain uncured until you hit it with the laser.

Setting the rig up for printing is as simple as plugging the Form 1 into the wall, connecting it to your PC via a USB cable, and installing the software. After that, you have to find something to print. The machine is limited to printing objects less than 4.9 inches wide, 4.9 inches deep, and 6.5 inches tall (though like with other 3D printers, you can make larger objects if you print pieces separately and join them together).

You can drop any .STL file from almost any CAD program into the software, or you can do what I did and turn to one of the internet's various repositories for 3D printing enthusiasts. For my first test print, I searched for objects specifically made for printing on the Form 1, or at least things posted by other Form 1 owners so I could compare my results against theirs. There weren't many out there – objects made for testing the Form 1 or actual Form 1 owners – given how new the machine is. But I did find this cute little robot pendant by Gregg Wygonik. He described it as "simple, tiny, and intricate," and he modeled it in Blender specifically for testing his Form 1. Exactly what I was looking for. I downloaded the robot and gave it a go.

The printer offers a few default resolutions: the high resolution of 0.025mm per layer, a medium resolution of 0.05mm per layer, and a low resolution of 0.1mm per layer. For the first print, I decided to try out the highest resolution first. I loaded the robot's file into the PreForm software, selected the default support option, which tilted the figurine's body about 20 degrees from prone and inserted a bunch of support pegs into his back. Clicking the big "print" button loads the instructions to the printer – you can see this happening by watching the only display on the printer itself, a small LCD screen on the front of the case. After a couple of minutes, the printer's LCD reads "Ready to Print," and you set things in motion by pressing the big button next to the display.

The Form 1 works quietly. It also works very slowly – my little 6-centimeter figurine took over six hours to print at the highest resolution. It's mesmerizing to watch as the platform dips down into the resin tray at the bottom of the unit, then hangs there while the laser fires at it and cures each layer. It's a trip to watch your model appear, upside down and dripping, from the clear puddle of goo. But it's not quite enchanting enough to entertain you for an entire a six-hour print. Still, the machine creates a spectacle. There's something undeniably cool about printing with lasers.

When it's done, you pop open the lid, slide the platform out, and scrape your model (along with its supportive base) off the platform. Then, you dunk it in a bath of rubbing alcohol and swish it around to finish off the curing and remove any excess resin. This is actually the smelliest part – the isopropyl alcohol fumes are stronger than the smell of the resin. For this step of the process, Formlabs provides a Finish Kit.

After your model soaks for a couple of minutes, you dry it and pick the support spires off. I went about this very gingerly at first because I didn't want to break the arm off the robot I just waited six hours for. Later, I realized that the cured resin is very strong, and as long as your object is thicker than two or three millimeters, you can apply more elbow grease without worry. Unfortunately, I came to this realization only after I damaged the thinnest part of my own model, the 2mm-thick antennae loop on the robot's head.

The resulting figure displays an impressive level of detail and accuracy. The corners are sharp and precise, and the finest details are perfectly represented. This is obviously a machine that can handle incredibly minute work. I expected it to perform well at the highest resolution, so for my second print, I set up the same model and ran it again, this time at the lowest resolution of 0.1mm per layer. This print completed in close to two hours. And astonishingly, I could barely see any differences between the high-resolution and the low-resolution print. Now, I chose a very simple model. But whenever I gave both the high-res and the low-res prints to other WIRED staffers and asked them to tell me which was which, nobody could answer with any certainty.

So you can print fast and still get amazing results. This is great news if you're doing anything other than the most finely detailed jobs with the Form 1. Granted, the target audience for a stereolithography machine is the hardware designer or the small hardware startup, both of whom will demand the highest accuracy from their prints. And the Form 1 can deliver. But for the rest of us, those who want to print simpler objects, build toys and small, utilitarian objects – which, realistically, is a not-small part of the Form 1 potential user base – it's a fascinating tool and an essential addition to any 3D printing enthusiast's workbench.

WIRED Prints tiny models with incredible detail – check out what early adopters are already printing. Much higher resolution than extruded plastic printers. Software is dead easy to use with good online documentation, and it can accept .STL files from most CAD tools. Produces excellent results even at lower resolutions. It's beautiful, and not too smelly.

TIRED Expensive – not only for the printer itself, but also the resin. No Linux support for the time being. Smaller online community of users, but that will improve as the manufacturing gets up to speed.