Today, Formlabs is proud to announce two new hardware products that will help usher in a new era for industrial 3D printing: the Form 3, the latest in our line of professional printers for the desktop, is available to order now, and the Form 3L, the first affordable large format resin 3D printer, is available for pre-order. Both new printers are powered by Low Force Stereolithography (LFS)™, which offers incredible print quality, lighter supports, and a platform for more advanced materials and applications. Formlabs 3D printers have become the go-to solution for a wide range of industries because of consistent performance and unparalleled ease of use, and the Form 3 and Form 3L continue this trend. New software features like the ability to send print jobs remotely and manage a shared print queue open up new ways to work across teams and locations. We’ve focused on nonstop uptime for high volume printing with the addition of advanced sensing and alerts and user-replaceable components. Finally, the LFS process seamlessly scales to a build volume five times larger than our desktop 3D printers with Form 3L. Buy the Form 3 Pre-Order the Form 3L We’re excited to continue expanding access to powerful industrial technology—and to take part quality and printer reliability to unprecedented levels for a fabrication engine that can grow with your business. Read on to learn more about how LFS 3D printing works and why we re-engineered the stereolithography print process.

Webinar Introducing the Form 3: Product Demo Watch our product demo for a deep dive into the technology behind Low Force Stereolithography (LFS). Learn how the Form 3 can fit into your workflows from a Formlabs expert. Watch the Webinar Now

From Accessible to Universal Formlabs entered the industry seven years ago with the first powerful, affordable desktop stereolithography (SLA) 3D printer. Since then, we have shipped more than 50,000 printers, with more than 40 million parts printed in the field. Using Form 2 3D printers as its production engine, Gillette’s Razor Maker™ gives consumers the power to create and order customized 3D printed razor handles. The Form 2 made in-house fabrication of industrial-quality parts accessible by reducing the costs of hardware, materials, and labor to put stereolithography in the hands of more businesses than ever before. With one of the largest materials science teams in the industry, Formlabs offers an advanced library of more than 20 materials serving specialized needs across industries—and allowing businesses like Gillette to produce end-use, functional parts, at an affordable price to end consumers. Today, Formlabs users are leading the way in how to grow 3D printing from one machine to 24/7 digital factory, from prototyping tool to indispensable driver of business. The Form 3 and Form 3L take this even further, with easy support removal, improved accuracy and reliability, faster printer maintenance, and new opportunities for large part printing and future materials. Formlabs has set the stage to bring industrial-quality 3D printing from accessible to truly universal by creating an in-house fabrication platform reliable and versatile enough to build a business around. “For a very long time, 3D printing has depended on the designer understanding the nuances of how the printer is going to work and how the printer responds to actually get good parts out of it. As the printers get better, the need to make those tweaks goes down and everything becomes smoother and easier. The Form 3 cuts down on the number of things that you have to know, in order to get good parts. That's good product design." —Nick Payton, Mechanical Engineer, RightHand Robotics An Introduction to Low Force Stereolithography (LFS) The first Formlabs 3D printers offered a much smaller and more affordable setup than existing industrial SLA machines. The inverted SLA process behind the Form 2 reduces footprint and cost, but exerts significant forces on the part during printing. The printer accounts for this with heavy calibration, but heightened peel forces introduce limitations around materials and build volume, and parts require sturdy support structures to print successfully. With the introduction of Low Force Stereolithography (LFS), Formlabs has completely re-engineered our approach to resin-based 3D printing to drastically reduce the forces exerted on parts during the print process. The lower forces of the LFS print process enable the Form 3 to deliver consistently incredible part accuracy and surface quality. LFS 3D printing uses a flexible tank and linear illumination to deliver incredible surface quality and print accuracy. Lower print forces allow for light-touch support structures that tear away with ease. Additionally, this process opens up a wide range of possibilities for future development of advanced, production-ready materials. "The improvements to the light-touch supports that break away are game-changing. There is no way to describe the first time you take a part and pull at it and it just seamlessly pops completely free. It takes the stress out of building and cleaning parts and lets us keep our focus on design and creation." —Justen England, Managing Director, Delve Inside the Form 3 and Form 3L is a completely redesigned optics engine, the Light Processing Unit (LPU), which contains a system of lenses and mirrors to deliver accurate, repeatable prints. The Light Processing Unit (LPU) contains a system of lenses and mirrors to deliver accurate, repeatable prints. The Form 3 contains one LPU, while the Form 3L contains two. Within the LPU, a galvanometer positions the high-density laser beam in the Y direction, passes it through a spatial filter, and directs it to a fold mirror and parabolic mirror to consistently deliver the beam perpendicular to the build plane. Explore the Form 3 Order Now “One of the most exciting things about the Form 3 is where the low force print process brings us in terms of print quality and finishing. We’re excited about how we can push the limits of particularly really tiny features. I am amazed at the small details that show up in models. It's really impressive.” “The smaller support touchpoints are a big help, we save a lot of time removing the part from the base. The modular optics unit is exciting, being able to have those on hand and quickly swap it helps us maintain constant uptime, which is a big benefit for us.” —Sean Buxton, Senior Mechanical Engineer, Ximedica

Request a Sample Part Curious to see the quality firsthand? Pick an application and we'll ship a sample part printed on the Form 3 to your office. Request a Free Sample Part