On April 17, 2024, Formlabs announced Form 4, our next-generation resin 3D printer that redefines the industry standard for speed, accuracy, reliability, and material versatility. Form 4 and its biocompatible version, Form 4B are built upon years of groundbreaking hardware, software, and materials science innovations to deliver unmatched speed, accuracy, and reliability.
Form 4/B redefines the standards of 3D printing — but you don’t have to take our word for it. In this review roundup, we’ll take a look at what 3D printing experts are saying about Form 4.
Product Demo: Form 4
See how Form 4 can enable new levels of productivity and innovation through its unmatched speed, accuracy, and reliability.
TechRadar
“An outstanding resin 3D printer that delivers high-end production quality prints in a compact form.”
Alastair Jennings, TechRadar
Alastair Jennings wrote a glowing review of Form 4 for TechRadar. He starts by looking at the entire ecosystem, saying “The vast selection of specialist materials and a high-quality ecosystem that includes wash and cure machines as well as a finishing station make this one of the most complete and user-friendly options on the market.” He also points out the ease of use and flexibility offered by the extensive materials library before breaking down the features.
“The Form 4 impresses with some of the speediest, most accurate, and detailed prints we've seen from any 3D printer yet.”
Alastair Jennings, TechRadar
Jennings details unboxing the Form 4, noting similarities to Form 3+ in terms of look, size, and ease of setup. Moving to testing prints, he found that larger pre-supported models could fail by falling from supports. However, he says that while this issue occurs with many high-speed printers, the advanced sensors of the Form 4 helped to mitigate this issue, and switching to PreForm-generated supports achieved a 100% print success rate.
Jennings pitted Form 4 against the Creality K1C, finding that Form 4 reduces time when running small production runs. Printing nine 3DBenchy models took one hour and 12 minutes on Form 4, while printing the same task on the Creality K1C drastically increased to 15 hours and 47 minutes with supports. Plus, the prints from Form 4 were higher-quality, with better details and easier support removal.
“Print quality and reliability are outstanding, and the overall user experience represents a significant step forward, making this a viable solution for businesses wanting to prototype, model or manufacture on-site.”
Alastair Jennings, TechRadar
For post-processing, it was noted that “The Wash and Cure machines, while optional, are nearly essential for achieving the best results and are among the best in their class.”
Ultimately, Jennings says that “the enhanced user experience and additional features make the Form 4 a worthwhile upgrade from the Form 3+” and “For those looking for one of the most reliable, high-quality, and least messy resin 3D printers on the market, the Form 4 has little competition at this price point.”
Scoring Chart From TechRadar
Value | Exceptional quality at a competitive price point. | 4.5 |
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Design | Sleek, user-friendly design with an efficient resin system. | 4.5 |
Features | Packed with innovative features for advanced printing. | 5 |
Performance | Outperforms competitors in speed and precision. | 5 |
Total | An outstanding 3D Printer that sets industry standards. | 5 |
“Form 4 stands out in two particular areas: its accuracy, quality, and reliability for intricate details and complex objects [...] offering unmatched ease of consistency. Throughout testing, 8 liters of resin—clear, grey, and black—were used without a single issue, a stark contrast to some of the best, cheaper printers that often encounter failures.”
Alastair Jennings, TechRadar
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3DPrint.com
We shared a Form 4, Form Wash, Form Cure, and General Purpose Resins with Jay Rincher at 3DPrint.com to see what he thought. As someone new to resin 3D printing, he was a little nervous at first, but “found that the workflow is so simple and the slicer so intuitive, I doubt that there is anyone who couldn’t be trained to use one of these machines in about an hour.”
Rincher walks through the entire process of unboxing, setting up, printing, and post-processing. Unboxing and setup proved to be easy, with clear prompts from the printer touchscreen, but he ran into issues sourcing isopropyl alcohol for the Form Wash, which can hold up to 15 liters for the washing of large parts.
While Rincher found PreForm to be intuitive, the biggest issue was with cups on his models, which he could not automatically vent via PreForm’s features. This aside, he says, “the printing process itself is painless. There really is no real learning curve to using this machine. It is as plug-and-play as they come and on-boarding employees unfamiliar with resin printing would be fairly simple.”
“I’ve often heard resin printing described as smelly, messy and hazardous. I’m sure that probably remains the case for the experience with many lower-end devices, but I found the complete opposite with the Form 4. The printing experience was largely smooth, effortless, and consistent."
Jay Rincher, 3DPrint.com
Rincher’s test prints included models, earrings, a fidget toy with working threads, and dental models. He found that components printed in multiples were identical and that the threads on the fidget toy worked in all the materials he tried.
“Any business looking to add high-speed SLA printing to its capabilities would be well advised to see if this machine fits their needs.”
Jay Rincher, 3DPrint.com
Tested
We sent a Form 4 and resins to Adam Savage’s Tested team. In a 48-minute video, Norm Chan gives an extensive look at Form 4, including:
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How 3D printing works on resin printers, including different curing systems
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The masked stereolithography (MSLA) technology of Form 4
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Setting up Form 4
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Comparing Form 4 to Form 3+
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A conversation with Formlabs Technical Program Manager Cole Durbin
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A conversation with Formlabs Co-founder and CEO Max Lobovsky
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Experience printing hobby models on Form 4
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Review of Form 4
Chan breaks down SLA vs. MSLA technology before walking through the entire Form 4 setup process, explaining how each component works, and how it compares to Form 3+, as he sets up the printer. Chan’s experience with Form 3+ is evident, and will provide insights to existing Form 3+ users interested in the updates to the Form 4 technology and consumables.
“The advantages of the Formlabs ecosystem are still here. Things I love [about Form 4]: Quick to print, quick to monitor, reliability, and rock solid quality of their really nice resins.”
Norm Chan, Tested
Chan’s video goes beyond a traditional review, including footage of his visit to Formlabs HQ to dive into the technology of Form 4 with Technical Program Manager Cole Durbin. In an interview with Formlabs co-founder and CEO Max Lobovsky, the two discuss developing products in response to user feedback, including software and materials.
After performing test prints, Chan dives into his experience and printer performance, saying, “First and foremost it’s about speed… The Form 4 is actually about three times faster… using grey resin to test at 100 microns.” Calling out the finer details on printed models, he notes incremental improvement seen via a macro lens and dimensional accuracy for parts that fit.
While Chan is mostly focused on printing hobbyist parts, he says, “What I've learned over the years working with resin prints and working with 3D printing in general, iteration time, workflow time, the rate at which you can cycle a print really matters. And if you’re prototyping, if you're designing, you want to have a balance between how much time you have to spend in your modeling software and how much time you’re spending printing and iterating.”
Ultimately, he says about Form 4, “It’s definitely not a printer made for printing tiny miniatures all day, It’s a printer made for printing engineering parts, your ceramic parts, your silicone parts, all the fancy and exotic materials that you can get in this ecosystem.”
To dive into the details and hear the conversations, watch Chan’s entire Tested review of Form 4.
bunnie : studios Teardown
“I’m always impressed by the thoroughness of the Formlabs engineering team. I learn a lot from every teardown, and it’s a pleasure to see the new twists they put on old motifs.”
Andrew Shane Huang, bunnie : studios
We sent two Form 4 printers to Andrew Shane Huang, a researcher who holds a PhD in electrical engineering from MIT, and creator of the blog bunnie : studios. Huang says, “I jumped on the chance to do a teardown of the printer; I’m grateful that I was able to do the same for the Form 1, Form 2, and Form 3 generations. In addition to learning a lot from the process of tearing down a single printer, I am also gaining a unique perspective on how a successful hardware startup matures into an established player in a cut-throat industry.”
In the extensive post, Huang starts by giving background on the SLA 3D printer market before moving onto explaining the evolution of Formlabs’ light processing engines with clear diagrams. On the light processing technology of Form 4, Huang says, “I’m definitely no expert in 3D printing technology – my primary exposure is through doing these teardowns – but from a first-principles perspective I can see many facial challenges around using LCDs as a light modulator for UV, such as reliability, uniformity, and build volume.”
“An hour and change to run the below test print is in net faster than my workflow can keep up with. At this speed, the sum of time I spend on 3D model prep plus print clean and finishing is more than the time it takes to run the print, so for a shop like mine where I’m both the engineer and the operator, it’s faster than I can keep up with.”
Andrew Shane Huang, bunnie : studios
Huang then takes readers through unboxing, setup, and the outwardly-visible features of Form 4 before diving inside. Huang says that, ”Formlabs is walking the walk by using their own printers to fabricate parts for their shipping products.” This includes, “the set of allen keys that come with the printer, hidden inside a nifty 3D printed holder” and a service plug. Huang adds, “Another minor detail I really enjoyed on the LCD panel is the 3D-printed retaining clip for the HDMI cable. I think this was probably made out of nylon on one of Formlabs’ own SLS printers.”
Then, the breakdown commences, with Huang diving into the printer, extensively detailing the hardware inside, including the LCD, light source assembly, drive electronics, and related components. Huang’s review includes both detailed photos and diagrams explaining how components work. For those looking for a technological deep dive other than one from Formlabs, Huang delivers.
Huang ends with a few other features of note, saying, “I appreciated the new foam seal on the bottom of the case lid. [...] I have noticed that there is less smell from the printer as it’s running. For a small urban office like mine, the odor of the resin is a nuisance, so this quality of life improvement is appreciated.”
“For me, the dramatically faster print time of the Form 4 and reduced resin odor go a long way towards reducing the barrier to running a 3D print. I look forward to using the Form 4 more.”
Andrew Shane Huang, bunnie : studios
Review Form 4 Yourself
We are pleased by the thorough testing and comprehensive reviews of Form 4, of which these are just the beginning. If these reviews have piqued your interest, explore the Form 4 to learn more. To evaluate print quality for yourself, request a free sample part in the material of your choice.
Do you have any questions or would you like to discuss how Form 4 can help you meet your business goals? Our experts are here to help.