Formlabs Form 2 Teardown: Winner, Name That Ware February 2016 Name That Ware, April 2016

Formlabs Form 2 Teardown « bunnie's blog https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?
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« Winner, Name that Ware February 2016

Name that Ware, April 2016 »
Formlabs Form 2 Teardown

I don’t do many teardowns on this blog, as several other websites already do an excellent job of that, but
when I was given the chance to take apart a Formlabs Form 2, I was more than happy to oblige. About three
yeargalvos ago, I had posted a teardown of a Form 1, which I received as a Kickstarter backer reward. Today,
I’m looking at a Form 2 engineering prototype. Now that the Form 2 is in full production, the prototypes are
basically spare parts, so I’m going to unleash my inner child and tear this thing apart with no concern about
putting it back together again.
For regular readers of this blog, this teardown takes the place of March 2016’s Name that Ware — this time,
I’m the one playing Name that Ware and y’all get to follow along as I adventure through the printer. Next
month I’ll resume regular Name that Ware content.
First Impressions
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Formlabs Form 2 Teardown « bunnie's blog https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4641
I gave the Form 2 a whirl before tearing it into an irreparable pile of spare parts. In short, I’m impressed; the
Form 2 is a major upgrade from the Form 1. It’s an interesting contrast to Makerbot. The guts of the
Makerbot Replicator 2 are basically the same architecture as previous models, inheriting all the limitations of
its previous incarnation.
The Form 2 is a quantum leap forward. The product smells of experienced, seasoned engineers; a throwback
to the golden days of Massachusetts Route 128 when DEC, Sun, Polaroid and Wang Laboratories cranked out
quality American-designed gear. Formlabs wasn’t afraid to completely rethink, re-architect, and re-engineer
the system to build a better product, making bold improvements to core technology. As a result, the most
significant commonality between the Form 1 and the Form 2 is the iconic industrial design: an orange acrylic
box sitting atop an aluminum base with rounded corners and a fancy edge-lit power button.
Before we slip off the cover, here’s a brief summary of the upgrades that I picked up on while doing the
teardown:
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The CPU is upgraded from a single 72MHz ST Micro STM32F103 Cortex-M3 to a 600 MHz TI Sitara
AM3354 Cortex A8, with two co-processors: a STM32F030 as a signal interface processor, and a
STM32F373 as a real-time DSP on the galvo driver board.
This massive upgrade in CPU power leapfrogs the UI from a single push button plus monochrome OLED on
the Form 1, to a full-color 4.3” capacitive touch screen on the Form 2.
The upgraded CPU also enables the printer to have built-in wifi & ethernet, in addition to USB. Formlabs
thoughtfully combines this new TCP/IP capability with a Bonjour client. Now, computers can automatically
discover and enumerate Form 2’s on the local network, making setup a snap.
The UI also makes better use of the 4 GB of on-board FLASH by adding the ability to “replay” jobs that were
previously uploaded, making the printer more suitable for low volume production.
The galvanometers are full custom, soup-to-nuts. We’ll dig into this more later, but presumably this means
better accuracy, better print jobs, and a proprietary advantage that makes it much harder for cloners to copy
the Form 2.
The optics pathway is fully shrouded, eliminating dust buildup problems. A beautiful and much easier to
clean AR-coated glass surface protects the internal optics; internal shrouds also limit the opportunity for dust
to settle on critical surfaces.
The resin tray now features a heater with closed-loop control, for more consistent printing performance in
cold New England garages in the dead of winter.
The resin tray is now auto-filling from an easy to install cartridge, enabling print jobs that require more resin
than could fit in a single tank while making resin top-ups convenient and spill-free.
The peel motion is now principally lateral, instead of vertical.
The resin tank now features a stirrer. On the Form 1, light scattering would create thickened pools of partially
cured resin near the active print region. Presumably the stirrer helps homogenize the resin; I also remember
someone once mentioning the importance of oxygen to the surface chemistry of the resin tank.
There are novel internal photosensor elements that hint at some sort of calibration/skew correction
mechanism
There’s a tilt sensor and manual mechanical leveling mechanism. A level tank prevents the resin from
pooling to one side.
There are sensors that can detect the presence of the resin tank and the level of the resin. With all these new
sensors, the only way a user can bork a print is to forget to install the build platform
Speaking of tank detection, the printer now remembers what color resin was used on a given tank, so you
don’t accidentally spoil a clear resin tank with black resin
The power supply is now fully embedded; goodbye PSU failures and weird ground loop issues. It’s a subtle
detail, but it’s the sort of “grown-up” thing that younger companies avoid doing because it complicates safety
certification and requires compliance to elevated internal wiring and plastic flame retardance standards.
I’m also guessing there are a number of upgrades that are less obvious from a visual inspection, such as
improvements to the laser itself, or optimizations to the printing algorithm.
These improvements indicate a significant manpower investment on the part of Formlabs, and an incredible
value add to the core product, as many of the items I note above would take several man-months to bring to
production-ready status.
Test Print
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As hinted from the upgrade list, the UI has been massively improved. The touchscreen-based UI features
tech-noir themed iconography and animations that would find itself at home in a movie set. This refreshing
attention to detail sets the Form 2’s UI apart from the utilitarian “designed-by-programmers-for-geeks” UI
typical of most digital fabrication tools.
A UI that would seem at home on a Hollywood set. Life imitating art imitating life.
Unfortunately, the test print didn’t go smoothly. Apparently the engineering prototype had a small design
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problem which caused the resin tray’s identification contacts to intermittently short against the metal case
during a peel operation. This would cause the bus shared between the ID chips on the resin tank and the filler
cartridge to fail. As a result, the printer paused twice on account of a bogus “missing resin cartridge” error.
Thankfully, the problem would eventually fix itself, and the print would automatically resume.
Test print from the Form 2. The red arrow indicates the location of a hairline artifact from the print pausing
for a half hour due to issues with resin cartridge presence detection.
The test print came out quite nicely, despite the long pauses in printing. There’s only a slight, hairline artifact
where the printer had stopped, so that’s good – if the printer actually does run out of resin, the printer can in
fact pause without a major impact on print quality.
Significantly, this problem is fixed in my production unit – with this unit, I’ve had no problems with prints
pausing due to the resin cartridge ID issue. It looks like they tweaked the design of the sheet metal around the
ID contacts, giving it a bit more clearance and effectively solving the problem. It goes to show how much
time and resources are required to vet a product as complex as a 3D printer – with so many sensors, moving
parts, and different submodules that have to fit together perfectly throughout a service life involving a million
cycles of movement, it takes a lot of discipline to chase down every last detail. So far, my production Form 2
is living up to expectations.
Removing the Outer Shell
I love that the Form 2, like the Form 1, uses exclusively hex and torx drive fasteners. No crappy philips or
slotted screws here! They also make extensive use of socket cap style, which is a perennial favorite of mine.
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Removing the outer shell and taking a look around, we continue to see evidence of thoughtful engineering.
The cable assemblies are all labeled and color-coded; there’s comprehensive detail on chassis grounding; the
EMI countermeasures are largely designed-in, as opposed to band-aided at the last minute; and the
mechanical engineering got kicked up a notch.
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I appreciated the inclusion of an optical limit switch on the peel drive. The previous generation’s peel
mechanism relied on a mechanical clutch with a bit of overdrive, which meant every peel cycle ended with a
loud clicking sound. Now, it runs much more quietly, thanks to the feedback of the limit switch.
Backside of the Form 2 LCD + touchscreen assembly.
The touchpanel and display are mounted on the outer shell. The display is a DLC0430EZG 480×272 pixel
TFT LCD employing a 24-bit RGB interface. I was a bit surprised at the use of a 30-pin ribbon cable to
transmit video data between the electronics mainboard and the display assembly, as unshielded ribbon cables
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are notorious for unintentional RF emissions that complicate the certification process. However, a closer
examination of the electronics around the ribbon cable reveal the inclusion of a CMOS-to-LVDS serdes IC on
either side of the cable. Although this increases the BOM, the use of differential signaling greatly reduces the
emissions footprint of the ribbon cable while improving signal integrity over an extended length of wire.
Significantly, the capacitive touchpanel’s glass seems to be a full custom job, as indicated by the fitted shape
with hole for mounting the power button. The controller IC for the touchpanel is a Tango C44 by PIXCIR, a
fabless semiconductor company based out of Suzhou, China. It’s heartening to see that the market for
capacitve touchpanels has commoditized to the point where a custom panel makes sense for a relatively low
volume product. I remember trying to source captouch solutions back in 2008, just a couple years after the
iPhone’s debut popularized capacitive multi-touch sensors. It was hard to get any vendor to return your call if
you didn’t have seven figures in your annual volume estimate, and the quoted NRE for custom glass was
likewise prohibitive.
Before leaving the touchpanel and display subsection, I have to note with a slight chuckle the two reference
designators (R22 and U4) that are larger than the rest. It’s a purely cosmetic mistake which I recognize
because I’ve done it myself several times. From the look of the board, I’m guessing it was designed using
Altium. Automatic ECOs in Altium introduce new parts with a goofy huge default designator size, and it’s
easy to miss the difference. After all, you spend most of your time editing the PCB with the silkscreen layer
turned off.
The Electronics
As an electronics geek, my attention was first drawn to the electronics mainboard and the galvanometer
driver board. The two are co-mounted on the right hand side of the printer, with a single 2×8 0.1” header
spanning the gap between the boards. The mounting seems to be designed for easy swapping of the
galvanometer board.
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I have a great appreciation for Formlabs’ choice of using a Variscite SOM (system-on-module). I can speak
from first-hand experience, having designed the Novena laptop, that it’s a pain in the ass to integrate a high
speed CPU, DDR3 memory, and power management into a single board with complex mixed-signal circuitry.
Dropping down a couple BGA’s and routing the DDR3 fly-by topology while managing impedance and
length matching is just the beginning of a long series of headaches. You then get to look forward to power
sequencing, hardware validation, software drivers, factory testing, yield management and a hundred extra
parts in your supply chain. Furthermore, many of the parts involved in the CPU design benefit from
economies of scale much larger than can be achieved from this one product alone.
Thus while it may seem attractive from a BOM standpoint to eliminate the middleman and integrate
everything into a single PCB, from a system standpoint the effort may not amortize until the current version
of the product has sold a few thousand units. By using a SOM, Formlabs reduces specialized engineering
staff, saves months on the product schedule, and gains the option to upgrade their CPU without having to
worry about amortization.
Furthermore, the pitch of the CPU and DDR3 BGAs are optimized for compact designs and assume a 6 or
8-layer PCB with 3 or 4-mil design rules. If you think about it, only the 2 square inches around the CPU and
DRAM require these design rules. If the entire design is just a couple square inches, it’s no big deal to fab the
entire board using premium design rules. However, the Form 2’s main electronics board is about 30 square
inches. Only 2 square inches of this would require the high-spec design rules, meaning they would effectively
be fabricating 28 square inches of stepper motor drivers using an 8-layer PCB with 3-mil design rules. The
cost to fabricate such a large area of PCB adds up quickly, and by reducing the technology requirement of the
larger PCB they probably make up decent ground on the cost overhead of the SOM.
Significantly, Formlabs was very selective about what they bought from Variscite: the SOM contained neither
Wifi nor FLASH memory, even though the SOM itself had provisions for both. These two modules can be
integrated onto the mainboard without driving up technology requirements, so Formlabs opted to self-source
these components. In essence, they kept Variscite’s mark-up limited to a bare minimum set of components.
The maturity to pick and choose cost battles is a hallmark of an engineering team with experience working in
a startup environment. Engineers out of large, successful companies are used to working with virtually
limitless development budgets and massive purchasing leverage, and typically show less discretion when
allocating effort to cost reduction.
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Mainboard assembly with SOM removed; back side of SOM is photoshopped into the image for reference.
I also like that Formlabs chose to use eMMC FLASH, instead of an SD card, for data storage. It’s probably a
little more expensive, but the supply chain for eMMC is a bit more reliable than commodity SD memory. As
eMMC is soldered onto the board, J3 was added to program the memory chip after assembly. It looks like the
same wires going to the SOM are routed to J3, so the mainboard is probably programmed before the SOM is
inserted.
Formlabs also integrates the stepper motor drivers into the mainboard, instead of using DIP modules like the
Makerbot did until at least the Replicator’s Mighty Board Rev E. I think the argument I heard for the DIP
modules was serviceability; however, I have to imagine the DIP modules are problematic for thermal
management. PCBs are pretty good heatsinks, particularly those with embedded ground planes. Carving up
the PCB into tiny modules appreciably increases the thermal resistance between the stepper motor driver and
the air around it, which might actually drive up the failure rate. The layout of the stepper motor drivers on the
Formlabs mainboard show ample provisions for heat to escape the chips into the PCB through multiple vias
and large copper fills.
Mainboard assembly with annotations according to the discussion in this post.
Overall, the mainboard was thoughtfully designed and laid out; the engineering team (or engineer) was
thinking at a system-level. They managed to escape the “second system effect” by restrained prioritization of
engineering effort; just because they raised a pile of money didn’t mean they had to go re-engineer all the
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things. I also like that the entire layout is single-sided, which simplifies assembly, inspection and testing.
I learned a lot from reading this board. I’ve often said that reading PCBs is better than reading a textbook for
learning electronics design, which is part of the reason I do a monthly Name that Ware. For example, I don’t
have extensive experience in designing motor controllers, so next time I need to design a stepper motor
driver, I’m probably going to have a look at this PCB for ideas and inspiration – a trivial visual inspection
will inform me on what parts they used, the power architecture, trace widths, via counts, noise isolation
measures and so forth. Even if the hardware isn’t Open, there’s still a lot that can be learned just by looking at
the final design.
Now, I turn my attention to the galvanometer driver board. This is a truly exciting development! The previous
generation used a fully analog driver architecture which I believe is based on an off-the-shelf galvanometer
driver. A quick look around this PCB reveals that they’ve abandoned closing the loop in the analog domain,
and stuck a microcontroller in the signal processing path. The signal processing is done by a STM32F373 – a
72 MHz, Cortex-M4 with FPU, HW division, and DSP extensions. Further enhancing its role as a signal
processing element, the MCU integrates a triplet of 16-bit sigma-delta ADCs and 12-bit DACs. The board
also has a smattering of neat-looking support components, such as a MCP42010 digital potentiometer, a fairly
handsome OPA4376 precision rail-to-rail op amp, and a beefy LM1876 20W audio amplifier, presumably
used to drive the galvanometer voice coils.
The power for the audio amplifier is derived from a pair of switching regulators, a TPS54336A handling the
positive rail, and an LTC3704 handling the negative rail. There’s a small ECO wire on the LTC3704 which
turns off burst mode operation; probably a good idea, as burst mode would greatly increase the noise on the
negative rail, and in this application standby efficiency isn’t a paramount concern. I’m actually a little
surprised they’re able to get the performance they need using switching regulators, but with a 20W load that
may have been the only practical option. I guess the switching regulator’s frequency is also much higher than
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the bandwidth of the galvos, so maybe in practice the switching noise is irrelevant. There is evidence of a
couple of tiny SOT-23 LDOs scattered around the PCB to clean up the supplies going to sensitive analog
front-end circuitry, and there’s also this curious combination of a FQD7N10L NFET plus MPC6L02 dual op-
amp. It looks like they intended the NFET to generate some heat, given the exposed solder slug on the back
side, which makes me think this could be a discrete pass-FET LDO of some type. There’s one catch: the
MCP6L02 can only operate at up to 6V, and power inside the Form 2 is distributed at 24V. There’s probably
something clever going on here that I’m not gathering from a casual inspection of the PCBs; perhaps later I’ll
break out some oscope probes to see what’s going on.
Overall, this ground-up redesign of the galvanometer driver should give Formlabs a strong technological
foundation to implement tricks in the digital domain, which sets it apart from clones that still rely upon off-
the-shelf fully analog galvanometer driver solutions.
Before leaving our analysis of the electronics, let’s not forget the main power supply. It’s a Meanwell
EPS-65-24-C. The power supply itself isn’t such a big deal, but the choice to include it within the chassis is
interesting. Many, if not most, consumer electronic devices prefer to use external power bricks because it
greatly simplifies certification. Devices that use voltages below 60V fall into the “easy” category for UL and
CE certification. By pulling the power supply into the chassis, they are running line voltages up to 240V
inside, which means they have to jump through IEC 60950-1 safety testing. It ups the ante on a number of
things, including the internal wiring standards and the flame retardance of any plastics used in the assembly.
I’m not sure why they decided to pull the power supply into the chassis; they aren’t using any fancy point-of-
load voltage feedback to cancel out IR drops on the cable. My best guess is they felt it would either be a
better customer experience to not have to deal with an external power brick, or perhaps they were bitten in
the previous generation by flaky power bricks or ground loop/noise issues that sometimes plague devices that
use external AC power supplies.
The Mechanical Platform
It turns out that my first instinct to rip out the electronics was probably the wrong order for taking apart the
Form 2. A closer inspection of the base reveals a set of rounded rectangles that delineate the screws
belonging to each physical subsystem within the device. This handy guide makes assembly (and repair) much
easier.
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The central set of screws hold down the mechanical platform. Removing those causes the whole motor and
optics assembly to pop off cleanly, giving unfettered access to all the electronics.
I’m oddly excited about the base of the Form 2. It looks like just a humble piece of injection molded plastic.
But this is an injection molded piece of plastic designed to withstand the apocalypse. Extensive ribbing
makes the base extremely rigid, and resistant to warpage. The base is also molded using glass-filled polymer
– the same tough stuff used to make Pelican cases and automotive engine parts. I’ve had the hots for glass-
filled polymers recently, and have been itching for an excuse to use it in one of my designs. Glass-filled
polymer isn’t for happy-meal toys or shiny gadgets, it’s tough stuff for demanding applications, and it has an
innately rugged texture. I’m guessing they went for a bomb-proof base because anything less rigid would
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lead to problems keeping the resin tank level. Either that, or someone in Formlabs has the same fetish I have
for glass filled polymers.
Once removed from the base, the central mechanical chassis stands upright on its own. Inside this assembly is
the Z-axis leadscrew for the build platform, resin level sensor, resin heater, peel motor, resin stirrer, and the
optics engine.
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Here’s a close-up of the Z-stepper motor + leadscrew, resin level & temperature sensor, and resin valve
actuator. The resin valve actuator is a Vigor Precision BO-7 DC motor with gearbox, used to drive a swinging
arm loaded with a spring to provide the returning force. The arm pushes on the integral resin cartridge valve,
which looks uncannily like the bite valve from a Camelback.
The resin tank valve is complimented by the resin tank’s air vent, which also looks uncannily like the top of a
shampoo bottle.
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My guess is Formlabs is either buying these items directly from the existing makers of Camelback and
shampoo products, in which case First Sale Doctrine means any patent claims that may exist on these has
been exhausted, or they have licensed the respective IP to make their own version of each.
The resin level and temperature sensor assembly is also worth a closer look. It’s a PCB that’s mounted
directly behind the resin tank, and in front of the Z-motor leadscrew.
Backside of the PCB mounted directly behind the resin tank.
It looks like resin level is measured using a TI FDC1004 capacitive liquid level sensor. I would have thought
that capacitive sensing would be too fussy for accurate liquid level sensing, but after reading the datasheet for
the FDC1004 I’m a little less skeptical. However, I imagine the sensor is extremely sensitive to all kinds of
contamination, the least of which is resin splattered or dripped onto the sensor PCB.
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Detail of the sensor PCB highlighting the non-contact thermopile temperature sensor.
The resin temperature sense mechanism is also quite interesting. You’ll note a little silvery square, shrouded
in plastic, mounted on the PCB behind the resin tank. First of all, the plastic shroud on my unit is clearly a 3D
printed piece done by another Formlabs printer. You can see the nubs from the support structure and striation
artifacts from the buildup process. I love that they’re dogfooding and using their own products to prototype
and test; it’s a bad sign if the engineering team doesn’t believe in their own product enough to use it
themselves.
Unscrewing the 3D printed shroud reveals a curious flip-chip CSP device, which I’m guessing is a TI
TMP006 or TMP007 MEMS therompile. Although there are no part numbers on the chip, a quick read
through the datasheet reveals a reference layout that is a dead ringer for the pattern on the PCB around the
chip. Thermopiles can do non-contact remote temperature sensing, and it looks like this product has an
accuracy of about +/-1 C between 0-60C. This explains the mystery of how they’re able to report the resin
temperature on the UI without any sort of probe dipping into the resin tank.
But then how do they heat it? Look under the resin tank mount, and we find another PCB.
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When I first saw this board, I thought its only purpose was to hold the leafspring contacts for the ID chip that
helps track individual resin tanks and what color resin was used in them. Flip the PCB over, and you’ll see a
curious pinkish tape covering the reverse surface.
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The pinkish tape is actually a thermal gap sealer, and peeling the tape back reveals that the PCB itself has a
serpentine trace throughout, which means they are using the resistivity of the copper trace on the PCB itself
as a heating mechanism for the resin.
Again, I wouldn’t have guessed this is something that would work as well as it does, but there you have it.
It’s a low-cost mechanism for controlling the temperature of the resin during printing. Probably the PCB
material is the most expensive component, even more than the thermopile IR sensor, and all that’s needed to
drive the heating element is a beefy BUK9277 NFET.
I’ve been to the Formlabs offices in Boston, and it does get rather chilly and dry there in the winter, so it
makes sense they would consider cold temperature as a variable that could cause printing problems on the
Form 2.
Cold weather isn’t a problem here in Singapore; however, persistent 90% humidity conditions is an issue. If I
didn’t use my Form 1 for several weeks, the first print would always come out badly; usually I’d have to toss
the resin in the tank and pour a fresh batch for the print to come out. I managed to solve this problem by
placing a large pack of desiccant next to the resin tank, as well as using the shipping lid to try to seal out
moisture. However, I’m guessing they have very few users in the tropics, so humidity-related print problems
are probably going to be a unique edge case I’ll have to solve on my own for some time to come.
The Optics Pathway
Finally, the optics – I’m saving the best for last. The optics pathway is the beating heart of the Form 2.
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The last thing uncured resin sees before it turns into plastic.
The first thing I noticed about the optics is the inclusion of a protective glass panel underneath the resin tank.
In the Form 1, if the build platform happened to drip resin while the tank was removed, or if the room was
dusty, you had the unenviable task of reaching into the printer to clean the mirror. The glass panel simplifies
the cleaning operation while protecting sensitive optics from dust and dirt.
I love that the protective glass has an AR coating. You can tell there’s an AR coating from the greenish tint of
the reflections off the surface of the glass. AR coatings are sexy; if I had a singles profile, you’d see “the
green glint of AR-coated glasses” under turn-ons. Of course, the coating is there for functional reasons – any
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loss of effective laser power due to reflections off of the protective glass would reduce printing efficiency.
The contamination-control measures don’t just stop at a protective glass cover. Formlabs also provisioned a
plastic shroud around the entire optics assembly.
Bottom view of the mechanical platform showing the protective shrouds hiding the optics.
Immediately underneath the protective glass sheet is a U-shaped PCB which I can only assume is used for
some kind of calibration. The PCB features five phtoodetectors; one mounted in “plain sight” of the laser, and
four mounted in the far corners on the reverse side of the PCB, with the detectors facing into the PCB, such
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that the PCB is obscuring the photodetectors. A single, small pinhole located in the center of each detector
allows light to fall onto the obscured photodetectors. However, the size of the pinhole and the dimensional
tolerance of the PCB is probably too large for this to be an absolute calibration for the printer. My guess is
this is probably used as more of a coarse diagnostic to confirm laser power and range of motion of the
galvanometers.
Popping off the shroud reveals the galvanometer and laser assembly. The galvanometers sport a prominent
Formlabs logo. They are a Formlabs original design, and not simply a relabeling of an off the shelf solution.
This is a really smart move, especially in the face of increasing pressure from copycats. Focusing resources
into building a proprietary galvo is a trifecta for Formlabs: they get distinguished print quality, reduced cost,
and a barrier to competition all in one package. Contrast this to Formlabs’ decision to use a SOM for the
CPU; if Formlabs can build their own galvo & driver board, they certainly had the technical capability to
integrate a CPU into the mainboard. But in terms of priorities, improving the galvo is a much better payout.
Readers unfamiliar with galvanometers may want to review a Name that Ware I did of a typical galvanometer
a while back. In a nutshell, a typical galvanometer consists of a pair of voice coils rotating a permanent
magnet affixed to a shaft. The shaft’s angle is measured by an optical feedback system, where a single light
source shines onto a paddle affixed to the galvo’s shaft. The paddle alternately occludes light hitting a pair of
photodetectors positioned behind the paddle relative to the light source.
Now, here’s the entire Form 2 galvo assembly laid out in pieces.
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Close-up view of the photoemitter and detector arrangement.
Significantly, the Form 2 galvo has not two, but four photodetectors, surrounding a single central light source.
Instead of a paddle, a notch is cut into the shaft; the notch modulates the light intensity reaching the
photodiodes surrounding the central light source according to the angle of the shaft.
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The notched shaft above sits directly above the photoemitter when the PCB is mated to the galvo body.
This is quite different from the simple galvanometer I had taken apart previously. I don’t know enough about
galvos to recognize if this is a novel technique, or what exactly is the improvement they hoped to get by
using four photodiodes instead of two. With two photodiodes, you get to subtract out the common mode of
the emitter and you’re left with the error signal representing the angle of the shaft: two variables solving for
two unknowns. With four photodiodes, they can solve for a couple more unknowns – but what are they?
Maybe they are looking to correct for alignment errors of the light source & photodetectors relative to the
shaft, wobble due to imperfections in the bearings, or perhaps they’re trying to avoid a dead-spot in the
response of the photodiodes as the shaft approaches the extremes of rotation. Or perhaps the explanation is as
simple as removing the light-occluding paddle reduces the mass of the shaft assembly, allowing it to rotate
faster, and four photodetectors was required to produce an accurate reading out of a notch instead of the
paddle. When I reached out to Formlabs to ask about this, someone in the know responded that the new
design is an improvement on three issues: more signal leading to an improved SNR, reduced impact of off-
axis shaft motion, and reduced thermal drift due to better symmetry.
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This is the shaft plus bearings once it’s pulled out of the body of the galvo. The gray region in the middle is
the permanent magnet, and it’s very strong.
And this is staring back into the galvo with the shaft removed. You can see the edges of the voice coils. I
couldn’t remove them from the housing, as they seem to be fixed in place with some kind of epoxy.
Epilogue
And there you have it – the Form 2, from taking off its outer metal case down to the guts of its
galvanometers. It was a lot of fun tearing down the Form2, and I learned a lot while doing it. I hope you also
enjoyed reading this post, and perhaps gleaned a couple useful bits of knowledge along the way.
25 of 30 11/2/2019, 5:16 PM
If you think Formlabs is doing cool stuff and solving interesting problems, good news: they’re hiring! They
have new positions for a Software Lead and an Electrical Systems Lead. Follow the links for a detailed
description and application form.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 23rd, 2016 at 1:58 am and is filed under Hacking, name that ware, Ponderings. You
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24 Responses to “Formlabs Form 2 Teardown”
1. PidGin128 says:
March 23, 2016 at 4:45 pm
Didn’t realize the length of the post before becoming hooked. Almost felt a bit of a voyeur for reading
such a detailed loveletter.
It was an interesting surprise to see the printed shroud on the thermal sensor. did you encounter any
other similar examples of something that could be achieved using their product?
what was the object you printed with the failure? can I assume it’s something of a testprint / showcase
object?
thanks for the enjoyable teardown.
bunnie says:
March 23, 2016 at 5:20 pm
The test print shown in the post is Formlab’s default test object, a stylized version of their
butterfly logo as a lapel pin (surrounded by sacrificial support structures), but shrunk down a bit
for speedier printing. It’s automatically loaded the first time you run a new installation of their
printing software.
Not sure what you’re asking in your other question — plenty of Form-printed stuff has been
finding applications in the world, check out their website I guess if you want more examples of it
being used by real people. I mostly use it for making industrial design mock-ups and short run
test fixtures, but sometimes I also print things like ornamental pencil holders for the fun of it.
2. krivx says:
March 23, 2016 at 9:16 pm
Should TI54336A be TPS54336a, made by TI? As quoted that part doesn’t seem to exist.
bunnie says:
March 27, 2016 at 3:53 am
Yes, that’s a typo. I’ve fixed it, thanks for the note.
krivx says:
March 30, 2016 at 9:41 pm
26 of 30 11/2/2019, 5:16 PM
Thanks for the article :)
3. Daniel Bilar says:

March 23, 2016 at 10:14 pm
Thanks Bunnie for this report. It was long but I could not stop reading – captivating details!
I wish law situation were more pleasant and you could write a modern game console successor to
hacking the xbox (2001)- would be fascinating
4. Joris Peels says:

March 24, 2016 at 1:13 am
Lovely teardown, thank you so much for this!
5. Bunnie haung strips down a form 2 | Roaddog Labs Ltd says:

March 26, 2016 at 9:19 am
[…] Maker icon Bunnie Haung does a teardown of an engineering prototype of the Formlabs Form 2.
[…]
6. Extremely Thorough Formlabs Form 2 Teardown by Bunnie | Hackaday says:

March 26, 2016 at 7:01 pm
[…] Huang] recently had the opportunity to do a thorough teardown of the new Formlabs Form 2
printer. It’s a long read, so just head over there and immerse yourself in every detail. If you want […]
7. Extremely Thorough Formlabs Form 2 Teardown by Bunnie | wisdomparliament says:

March 26, 2016 at 7:03 pm
8. Extremely Thorough Formlabs Form 2 Teardown By Bunnie | Geek Casual says:

March 26, 2016 at 8:27 pm
9. Jerome Kelty says:

March 26, 2016 at 11:20 pm
Awesome teardown/writeup. Just received a Form2 at my work and it was really cool to see the guts of
it. Made me want to do a teardown of our laser welder- I’ve taken that beast apart multiple times for
repairs and some of the design choices on it were interesting to say the least.
I too have an interest in fiber reinforced plastics. Played around a fair bit with PEEK reinforced
thermoplastics 20 years ago- super cool stuff.
10. Bunnie:Studios Formlabs Form 2 Teardown #3DThursday #3DPrinting « Adafruit Industries –

Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers! says:
27 of 30 11/2/2019, 5:16 PM
March 31, 2016 at 3:00 pm
[…] tear down from Bunnie:Studios via […]
11. Christopher Barry says:

March 31, 2016 at 10:12 pm
Thanks Bunnie. Great detailed info well written. As a F1+ owner (on my third printer) whose taken all
of them apart many times, I can appreciate the improvements they’ve done on the F2. Still going to
wait a bit until the wrinkles smooth out though… And as a hacker whose implemented immersed in-
tank resin heating on my F1+, I can definitely attest to the increase in quality of the output when
printing at ~40C resin temp. I’m using a probe, but the thermopile looks very cool… Thanks again!
Adam kley says:

May 10, 2016 at 6:04 am
Thanks for article and
Hi Christopher Barry!
can you please drop me a msg at adam.kley@gmail.com
Im very interested how you made that temp mod to your f1+ :)
/a
12. Marc says:

July 24, 2016 at 12:48 am
Hello Bunnie,
I’m certainly a Bunny… Because I can’t find a way to remove the resin tank of my formlabs2. It seems
to be stucked or securely maintained by a hidden mechanism. Nothing in formlabs forum on this topic.
Nothing in their support pages. I’m definitely missing something. Do I have to force anything, or to run
an option, or to disengage the resin bottle ?. Mystery remains, and formlabs support should reply by
tuesday! Sad weekend !
13. Kevin Vaughan says:

August 12, 2016 at 10:45 am
Glad I ran across your article. Being very familiar with the Form 2 printer, I had no idea what to truly
expect under the hood. Very interesting stuff. I will certainly share this with our technical team. Nicely
done, thanks.
14. Ben says:

September 7, 2016 at 2:32 am
Nice teardown,
the galvomirrors looking very heavy compared with form 1+. Did they glued them in? I changed one
28 of 30 11/2/2019, 5:16 PM
mirror of the galvo because of damage through the laser.
https://plus.google.com/photos/photo/110469677106936966311/6300452501297129522?icm=false
My expirience with the bearings in z-axis is that the grease cured after 1 year and decelerate. After
finicky cleaning the machine runs good.
15. Athina L says:

October 10, 2016 at 5:25 am
Great analysis of what’s inside a Form2Printer. It’a always useful to understand what’s inside a so
complex equipment. Also vary useful for maintenance procedures like dust cleaning…
16. James says:

October 12, 2016 at 10:58 pm
I would love to see a cut view of the build platform. ;)
17. ephraim says:

December 29, 2016 at 11:40 am
Hi,
I am wondering if someone would be interested in a method to read the
1K 1-wire EEPROM on the resin Cartridge.
Best regards
Ben B says:
March 17, 2017 at 8:17 am
Absolutely yes.
18. shq says:

January 19, 2017 at 7:45 am
Sexytime. Thank you for the good read. I like their choices, I wish the galvos/optics were hermetically
sealed though. The dust will still get in.
Marcin
19. Ben B says:

March 17, 2017 at 8:19 am
Thanks for the great write up.
I came across this when I was trying to figure out why my Form2 wouldn’t detect 3rd party resin
(Makerjuice) in an OEM cartridge. Seeing that it’s capacitive, I’m guessing it’s because Makerjuice is
much thinner than the OEM resin.
29 of 30 11/2/2019, 5:16 PM
Do you know anything about the ID chips and the readers on the tank and cartridge?
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Formlabs Form 2 Teardown « bunnie's blog https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?

« Winner, Name that Ware February 2016

Formlabs Form 2 Teardown

Removing the Outer Shell

Backside of the Form 2 LCD + touchscreen assembly.

Mainboard assembly with annotations according to the discussion in this post.

The Mechanical Platform

Backside of the PCB mounted directly behind the resin tank.

The Optics Pathway

Close-up view of the photoemitter and detector arrangement.

24 Responses to “Formlabs Form 2 Teardown”

thanks for the enjoyable teardown.

Thanks for the article :)

3. Daniel Bilar says:

4. Joris Peels says:

Lovely teardown, thank you so much for this!

5. Bunnie haung strips down a form 2 | Roaddog Labs Ltd says:

6. Extremely Thorough Formlabs Form 2 Teardown by Bunnie | Hackaday says:

7. Extremely Thorough Formlabs Form 2 Teardown by Bunnie | wisdomparliament says:

8. Extremely Thorough Formlabs Form 2 Teardown By Bunnie | Geek Casual says:

9. Jerome Kelty says:

10. Bunnie:Studios Formlabs Form 2 Teardown #3DThursday #3DPrinting « Adafruit Industries –

March 31, 2016 at 3:00 pm

[…] tear down from Bunnie:Studios via […]

11. Christopher Barry says:

Adam kley says:

Thanks for article and

12. Marc says:

13. Kevin Vaughan says:

14. Ben says:

mirror of the galvo because of damage through the laser.

15. Athina L says:

16. James says:

I would love to see a cut view of the build platform. ;)

17. ephraim says:

18. shq says:

19. Ben B says:

Thanks for the great write up.

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