Form2 or B9creator

[chris595959]

FORM2 or B9CREATOR

Which of these two machines would you choose and why ?

I want to print scale cockpits so detail and quality important

Your views please

[curious aardvark]

hmm, tricky. The form has more support and a much larger user base and is over a $1000 cheaper It also has a larger build volume.
The b9 has a finer laser and prints twice as fast (they claim ;-)

On balance I'd probably go for the form 2. It's just got better overall specs.

[awerby]

The B9 Creator uses a white light projector, not a laser. I've owned one for a while, and it's generally reliable, making highly detailed prints in a resin that burns out fairly cleanly for lost-wax casting. But the build volume is pretty small, so that might be a limiting factor for you. I've also owned the Form1, and upgraded it to the Form1+. When it works, it works pretty well, but often the prints fail in the middle of a print for no apparent reason, or start sticking to the rubber in the vat and pulling themselves apart. The sweeper arm in the new Form2 (copied from the one in the B9 creator) seems to be an attempt to remedy that by providing more oxygen to the PDMS, which helps it release.

I wanted to upgrade my Form1+ to a Form2, but they wouldn't do that. The Form2 has just come out, so there's not much feedback on how well it works yet. But it still has some of the same basic design flaws as the Form1, with a tippy vat of sticky resin perched just above an open hole with all the sensitive and unprotected optical and electronic parts below. I sent my machine back for repairs just recently, and was told that because some resin had dripped down into the hole, I'd voided my warranty and would be charged $400 to replace the main PC board. I said fine, just send me back the board that's being replaced. I just heard back from them - nope; no can do - they wanted to be able to refurbish that board and reuse it themselves. Maybe it will show up in your new machine...

[dklassen]

This is another interesting one I've been looking at.

http://www.kudo3d.com/

[dunginhawk]

should probably be looking at this one too... ability to upgrade to a VERY big build area, or keep it small and tight.

Big plus to DLP printers is the XY resolution is multiples better than SLA. I have a form1+ clone and the XY isnt that great. The DLP systems have insane detail in both directions and on the Z as well.

I own a muve3d but im just new to it, so i dont have it tuned fully yet, but the quality is insane.

http://www.muve3d.net/press/

[Brumbaer]

You didn't mention the scale. Which will influence the build space needed.
If you can fit your models in the B9 build space, I would choose it because of minimum feature size. If it doesn't fit, you might not need the resolution anyway.
Speedwise the B9 gets more faster in relation to the Form the "fuller" a slice is, because the exposure time for a slice is independent of how "full" it is.

Sample of a tower interior in 1/300 scale printed on a B9

An Euro cent is a bit smaller than an US dime.

More images of the interior on
http://brumbaer.de/index.php/3d-printing/29-airport