Jan 6, 2015 | By Alec

Formlabs, the Massachusetts-based giant of high-quality 3D printing, has just released two exciting new software updates that will greatly enhance the functionality and efficiency of their unfailingly impressive signature Form 1+ 3D printer. While their SLA-based 3D printer was already a highly impressive piece of machinery capable of producing high quality objects, this new round of updates will doubtlessly place Formlabs in an excellent position for another year of market competitiveness.

As Formlabs’ co-founder Maxim Lobovsky explained, their latest updates are don’t fix gaps in their original set-up, but simply enhance the user experience. ‘At Formlabs, we’re obsessed with providing the best user experience possible, and we’re always experimenting with new ways to make our products better. Hardware is only half the story in 3D printing, and we’re proud to innovate just as profoundly in software.’

As they detailed in their press release, this upgrade consists of two software updates that will radically improve the performance of your Form 1+ printer: Draft Mode and Smart Supports. The former consists of a new printing resolution, that will allow your printer to work up to twice as fast, while the latter is essentially a clever algorithm that reduces the amount of resin used for support structures by up to 60%. Not only does this mean your supplies will last much longer, it also further reduces print times.

But the Draft Mode’s printing resolution does more than decrease print times, as it also presents you the option of 3D printing ‘thicker, 200-micron layers, without sacrificing surface quality. The precise, high-speed optical mechanics at the heart of the Form 1+ mean that head-to-head, it dramatically outperforms leading FDM machines at the same resolution.’ This excellent update is available for the latest version of PreForm software, and can be applied to all Form 1+ 3D Printers working with Clear Resin material.

Smart Support, meanwhile, is all about efficiency. Especially impressive is that the reduced print times and materials doesn’t affect the strength of the supports; instead, we are promised they will be even more robust than before. As Andrey Mishchenko, Formlabs’ Software Engineer explained, ‘We looked a lot at trussed bridges and trees to understand more elegant and efficient ways to offer greater support with fewer contact points. There’s a lot of math and engineering in those little structures.’

Would you like to install these upgrades? Simply head over to Formlabs to download them.

To showcase these software updates, Formlabs Engineer Adam Lebovitz has constructed a very impressive and actually functional speaker in the company’s Flexible Resin printing material. All of it, excepting the obvious wires, magnets and enclosure, have been made with their signature Form 1+. It has been prototyped in Draft Mode and has been printed using their new Smart Supports.

If you’d like to recreate this very cool speaker at home, simply follow Adam’s tutorial on Formlabs. And if you happen to visit the International CES 2015 in Las Vegas (which opened its doors today), you can even check it out in real life. Otherwise, the following clip will have to do:


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