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Im being gifted a Form3 printer. My previous experience is basically designing a box for telescope lenses and printing toys. I have an el-cheapo filament printer (PLA? I think). It has good enough resolution for 32mm terrain and bits and utilitarian stuff.

As a contingent of this being given to me, I have to print "cool stuff". He knows im a wargamer and is a big history buff. I would like to bolster my 15mm Napoleonic collection or perhaps start a 15mm ACW, WW2 or cold war collection(s). Can you guys make recommendations on:

1.) Sources for learning about my new (to me) Form 3.

2.) Suggestions on where to start with designing (i have solid works)

3.) A site or sites to source stuff that i will need, although i dont yet know what stuff that might be.

4.) Source(s) for files for the above historical minis.

Ive gotten several great insights from searching the forum already. So thanks for hosting the thread.

1) youtube has loads of videos about safety kit and slicing parameters that are important.

2) I don't do design as such, but I use Meshmixer and 3D Builder as my go-to digital kit bash tools. For example, weapon swap to turn a fantasy lioness lady into a sci-fi version


3) What kind of stuff? For printing consumables, I go to Amazon (gloves, filters, IPA, resin). For models I mostly browse MyMiniFactory and Thingiverse. If I have a particular need, then a google image search is usually quite fruitful. Thre are search aggregators for STL files like Yeggi and STLFinder that are quite useful. Cults3D is quite a good site as well.

4)
Napoleonic https://napoleonicstlfiles.com/en/10-stl-files
https://www.myminifactory.com/search/?query=napoleonic

WW2 and Cold War
Thingiverse has loads of free options
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4388227
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3553160
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2476519

There have been several kickstarters recently with cold was stuff as well, e.g.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bm3d/british-army-of-the-rhine-baor-3d-stl-printable-vehicles?ref=discovery&term=british%20army%20on%20the%20rhine

They are closed now, but you might be bale to find the vendor online and buy the STL models separately.

We have a Form 2 here at work. It used proprietary resin tanks/vats that you will likely have to get from the manufacturer (FormLabs). They have chips in them, and if they aren't present, the machine won't function. I've never looked into any workarounds for it but it's something to keep in mind

Thank you all!

LordAriakan wrote:
We have a Form 2 here at work. It used proprietary resin tanks/vats that you will likely have to get from the manufacturer (FormLabs). They have chips in them, and if they aren't present, the machine won't function. I've never looked into any workarounds for it but it's something to keep in mind

The cartridges have a button on the back that is pressed to dispense. I've looked into using them for non form printers. As for the chip I'm not 100% I know it stores the Id (so you can't refill) and counts how many times it's dispensed. I'm sure it can be fooled you'd just have to spend some time with it.

Congrats on such a generous gift!

For sites with paid and free 3d models, my goto ones are thingiverse, Cults3d, and myminifactory. The former is completely free whereas the latter two are a mix leaning more towards paid (especially MMF).