Meet the second high-resolution, laser-drawn resin 3D printer from Formlabs

Hey, it's Justin from CNET. This is a first look at the Formlabs Form 2 3D printer. This is the second version of a printer that was initially conceived and funded from a Kickstarter campaign back in 2012. The company was founded by a couple engineers and designers from MIT. [UNKNOWN], who raised $2.8 million to build the first form one, but today, thanks in large part to the feedback from the Kickstarter community, and of course years of research and development, Formlabs is back with the Form 2. And this one is very different from most of the 3-D printers you see on the market today. Now those models operate kind of like 2-D printers but instead excrete molten hot thermoplastics from an actual print head. The Form 2, however, continues [UNKNOWN] labs Stereolithographic model. Stereolithography was actually the first 3D-printing technique to be invented, and it uses a Blu-Ray laser that actually traces part of the model image onto the surface of a bed of liquid resin. The orange cover blocks ultraviolet lights coming in that then hardens the sliver, and the process starts again as the completed object is slowly lifted out of the resin bath layer by layer. As complicated as that sounds, I checked out an early look at the model at a briefing last month with the Formlabs team. And it's actually a very simple process for the consumer. You just unpack the printer, install the removable print tray. and insert one of the new resin cartridges directly into the machine like you would any ink cartridge on a two-D printer. The new model even has a touch screen display for managing print jobs and a wi-fi connection that will automatically send progress updates to mobile devices in case you wanna step away from the printer for a while Or if you're planning to share it amongst several users. So, why stereo lithography? Well, one thing is that these printers can add a level of detail that standard fused filament printers can't, and that's whether you're printing something big or something super tiny, like a ring. The ultra high resolution also does a good job at hiding the individual layers of plastic from plain sight. You can barely even see the lattice pattern formed by the plastic layers, which really makes it seem like the objects were cut from one solid piece of plastic. You can buy the for too right now for $3500 dollars which includes a 3D editing software, resin, and a finish kit for post processing. You can read more details about the upgraded form two in the full first take but that's gonna do it for me. You just took a first look at the Form Labs Form two 3D printer, thanks for watching [SOUND].