▲Formlab Korea CEO Lee Kyung-jun


Speed, reliability, and economy↑ compared to previous work , targeting 30% growth this year
Expanding use in medical, manufacturing, drones, etc., targeting small-quantity, multi-variety market

As 3D printing technology spreads across a variety of industries, including healthcare, manufacturing, and robotics, Formlabs has unveiled the Form 4, which reduces average part production time to around two hours and ensures reliability and economy.

Formlabs, a company in the 3D printing materials and hardware field, held a press conference in Jamsil on the 13th to introduce and demonstrate its new 4th generation desktop 3D printer product, the Form 4.

“Formlabs’ new 3D printer Form 4, with improved performance, reliability, and economy, has sold three to four times faster than the previous Form 3+ in the two weeks since its launch,” said Lee Kyung-jun, CEO of Formlabs Korea. “We are targeting a growth rate of approximately 30% this year compared to last year.”

Also, "the most important thing in the 3D printing industry is to reduce the unit cost per part, including equipment, labor, and materials. Formlabs, which has customers who produce a variety of small quantities of around 1,000 products, said it has secured price competitiveness by securing technological capabilities, implementing automation, and reducing costs when purchasing large quantities of materials.

Especially with low-cost products being supplied from China, Korea is considered a difficult market to secure competitiveness in the 3D printer market. CEO Lee said, "In Korea, there are not many cases of using 3D printers as final parts, but the unit price cannot help but be affected by China."

To this end, Formlabs is armed with high-quality 3D printing technology. “Customers who value time, security, and reliability are fully considering domestic production,” said the CEO.

The new Formlabs product, the Form 4, announced this time, has significantly improved performance compared to its predecessor. Depending on the material, it can print products at least 2 times and up to 5 times faster than the existing Form 3+, enabling repeated prototype production or batch production using mSLA (stereolithography) technology. The Form 4’s vertical print speed is up to 100 mm per hour, which allows most products to be produced in less than 2 hours, and small products in a few minutes.

For example, when producing 11 dental products, while it previously took 40-50 minutes to print, Form 4 prints them in just 9 minutes, saving up to 3-4 times the time. Even when performing repetitive tasks, output can be monitored every two hours via the camera in the equipment, enabling early detection of defects and shortening of production time.

“Injection molding can’t be completely replaced by 3D printing, but for small quantities or customized products, we’ve seen that 3D printers are competitive with injection molding at speeds of about 20 minutes and at one-third the price,” said CPO David Lakatos. “In particular, 3D printers have the advantage of making it easier to apply design changes to the molding design or when modifications are needed in manufacturing.”

▲New product 3D printer Form 4 and demonstration product

Formlabs also addressed power consumption and heat issues. CPO David Lakatos said the Form 4, which can be connected via a single cable without the need for a separate power supply, has similar power consumption to the Form 3+ and is superior to other injection machines. The 3D printer also starts with a preheat and has a built-in fan to cool it down during printing.

It is reliable and economical. It is equipped with a long-lasting material tank (over 75,000 layers) and a light processing unit (over 1 million layers), and the print volume is 30% larger. It is explained that the throughput is 3.5 times higher, and the cost per part can be reduced by up to 40% compared to the Form 3+. The price of Form 4 equipment is set at 4.8 million won to 7.8 million won per unit.

Formlabs is also working on materials development with its own dedicated subsidiary. New resins have been added to the materials library, leveraging the Form 4 ecosystem to enable printing 2-5x faster than the Form 3. The materials library has been validated to support more than 17 different performance materials, with new materials being added regularly.

Accordingly, while the cost of existing domestic general-purpose materials was set at around 230,000 won, the new equipment costs only around 130,000 won with the same capacity, which is a 40% price reduction compared to the existing one. In addition, Formlabs provides free software for 3D printing, ‘PreForm’, and 3D printer management tool, ‘Fleet Control’.

CPO David Lakatos added, “It is very meaningful to be able to introduce the SLA printer Form 4 in Korea, which was launched with the know-how gained from producing more than 130,000 printers and more than 300 million parts.”

Meanwhile, Formlabs, founded in 2011, supplies SLA and SLS 3D printers, post-processing solutions, and auto manufacturing solutions. Formlabs’ equipment is widely used by large companies such as Intel, Siemens, Google, and LG Electronics, as well as domestic public institutions, universities, financial institutions, drone manufacturers, and auto parts companies.