Formlabs Has a 3D Printer for Normies

Fourteen boxes are piled in front of my desk, stacked around me like a cardboard fort. Inside one is a Form Studio 1, the new, affordable, consumer-focused 3D printer Formlabs just announced.

我的办公桌前堆着十四个箱子，像一座纸板堡垒一样围着我。其中一个箱子里装着 Formlabs 刚刚发布的新款经济型消费级 3D 打印机——Form Studio 1。

David Lakatos, chief product officer at the 3D printer manufacturer, assured me that the Form Studio 1 has a very economical size. “It doesn’t take a lot of space,” Lakatos said. “If you have a desk, then I think you should be good to go.” I have a desk. It’s covered in boxes sent by his company.

这家 3D 打印机制造商的首席产品官 David Lakatos 向我保证，Form Studio 1 的尺寸非常节省空间。“它不占地方，”Lakatos 说，“如果你有一张桌子，我想这就足够了。”我确实有一张桌子，但上面堆满了他们公司寄来的箱子。

Formlabs is one of the biggest 3D printer producers, with nearly 200,000 printers in service. The company’s customers are primarily professional businesses, like assembly shops or dentists, able to shell out $2,500 or more for a printer. (Its last affordable printer was $2,300.)

Formlabs 是最大的 3D 打印机生产商之一，在役打印机近 20 万台。该公司的客户主要是专业企业，例如装配车间或牙医诊所，他们有能力支付 2500 美元或更多的费用购买打印机。（其上一款“经济型”打印机售价为 2300 美元。）

But the Form Studio 1 is Formlabs’ first consumer-oriented device. It prints with SLA (stereolithography) resins—a common 3D printing material that hardens into solid plastic when exposed to ultraviolet light—and can use Formlabs-branded products or third-party resins. It costs $699 and is now on sale; individual resin bottles start at $29.

但 Form Studio 1 是 Formlabs 首款面向消费者的设备。它使用 SLA（光固化）树脂进行打印——这是一种常见的 3D 打印材料，在紫外线照射下会硬化成固体塑料——既可以使用 Formlabs 品牌的树脂，也可以使用第三方树脂。它的售价为 699 美元，现已上市；单瓶树脂起售价为 29 美元。

The Studio 1 takes up roughly the same space as a minifridge. You’ll also likely need a wash and cure unit, sold separately for $199 with a similar footprint (it removes uncured liquid resin from the surface of models). Then you’ll need room for all the tools and resin cartridges. Getting all that stuff can pile up. Or at least it did when Formlabs sent more than a dozen boxes to the WIRED office for testing. Your pileage may vary.

Studio 1 占用的空间大约相当于一台迷你冰箱。你可能还需要一台单独出售的清洗固化机（售价 199 美元，占地面积相似），用于去除模型表面未固化的液态树脂。此外，你还需要空间来存放各种工具和树脂盒。这些东西堆起来会占用不少地方，至少当 Formlabs 给《连线》办公室寄来十几箱测试设备时确实如此。你的情况可能会有所不同。

The front touchscreen lets you troubleshoot and ready prints. When the printer starts, it’s relatively quiet and odor-free. 3D printing with resin can be stinky, but Formlabs-branded Alpha resins are UL GreenGuard-certified—the same standard used to ensure baby products aren’t harmful from skin contact or off-gassing—when used with a Formlabs VOC Extractor. Lakatos says the idea is that the Studio 1 can be used anywhere without the room being overwhelmed by resin stank.

前置触摸屏可用于故障排除和准备打印。打印机启动时相对安静且没有异味。树脂 3D 打印通常会有难闻的气味，但 Formlabs 品牌的 Alpha 树脂在配合 Formlabs VOC 抽风机使用时，获得了 UL GreenGuard 认证——这是确保婴儿产品不会因皮肤接触或气体挥发而产生危害的标准。Lakatos 表示，其设计理念是让 Studio 1 可以在任何地方使用，而不会让房间里充满树脂的臭味。

“We know that some people are going to put it in their bedrooms,” Lakatos says. “I don’t sleep with my printers, but you could if you really wanted to.”

“我们知道有些人会把它放在卧室里，”Lakatos 说，“我不会和打印机一起睡觉，但如果你真的想，你也可以这样做。”

After going through the stack of boxes, I set up the Form Studio 1 and the Form Studio Wash+Cure. They’re stylish, with translucent orange cases that conjure old-school iMac aesthetics. The printing process itself is supposedly quick. Lakatos says you can print a casing for a Raspberry Pi setup in around eight minutes.

在处理完那一堆箱子后，我安装了 Form Studio 1 和 Form Studio Wash+Cure。它们外观时尚，半透明的橙色外壳让人联想到老式 iMac 的美学风格。打印过程本身据称很快。Lakatos 说，打印一个树莓派外壳大约只需要八分钟。

I’ve only printed a couple of things so far, but have had a good experience with the orders. (Full review coming soon.) I printed a clear cover for the toolbox that comes with the Studio 1. It took about 17 minutes and came out clean and intact. The process was relatively quiet. The resin smell was there, but really only when lifting the hood after the process was done. I’m excited to use it more and see what kind of very detailed unholy abominations I can make.

到目前为止，我只打印了几样东西，但体验不错。（完整评测即将发布。）我为 Studio 1 自带的工具箱打印了一个透明盖子。整个过程大约花了 17 分钟，成品干净且完整。打印过程相对安静。虽然有树脂味，但只有在打印完成后掀开盖子时才能闻到。我很期待更多地使用它，看看我能做出什么样的精细且离谱的“邪恶产物”。

The SLA printing enables very detailed constructions. In Formlabs’ internal testing, the company says it has had a roughly 2 percent failure rate for its prints. If that holds in the real world, it’ll be a big jump over competitors. That’s if you use its own resins, though.

SLA 打印技术能够实现非常精细的结构。Formlabs 表示，在内部测试中，其打印失败率约为 2%。如果这一数据在现实使用中也能保持，那将比竞争对手有显著提升。当然，前提是你得使用他们自家的树脂。

“You can use any material,” Lakatos says. “If you want to use the toxic resin on Amazon, you can do it. We don’t recommend it, but you can do it.”

“你可以使用任何材料，”Lakatos 说，“如果你想用亚马逊上那些有毒的树脂，你也可以用。我们不推荐这样做，但你确实可以。”

Formlabs also has an app called Form Mobile that can control prints or send designs to the Form Studio 1. The overall printer experience feels surprisingly straightforward.

Formlabs 还有一款名为 Form Mobile 的应用程序，可以控制打印或将设计发送到 Form Studio 1。整体的打印体验感觉出奇地简单直接。

“It’s great if you want to mess around with some stuff,” Lakatos says. “For serious, beautiful things and projects that really require better material properties, beautiful resolution, stuff like that—it’s hard to compete with it.”

“如果你只是想随便玩玩，它非常棒，”Lakatos 说，“但对于那些需要更好材料性能、精美分辨率等要求的严肃项目和精美作品来说，它几乎是无可匹敌的。”