alt Hacker NewsFormlabs uses a proprietary resin cartridge... it's the paper printers situation all over again, the printers themselves are not that expensive but the disposable ink costs an arm and a leg.
Don't go with Formlabs, support any of the open-platform alternatives.
And also, be aware that these printers require some serious development work (you need solvent to wash away uncured resin (if you ask me, this basically necessitates a chemical hood... Formlabs will happily upsell the "Form Wash" for this for another 699). If uncured resin falls on your floor (which has happened to me a little too many times), boy is it a horror cleaning it up even if you have industrial grade solvents; FDM printers are easier and their "ink" is much, much less expensive by comparison.
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This printer at least comes with the "Open Material Mode (included)" that lets you print with 3rd party resins. I'm sure the workflow won't be quite as nice as with the Formlabs native resin. That is unless you can somehow refill the old jugs or buy empty ones. Before long I imagine 3rd party compatible containers will show up.
What are the open-platform alternatives? I was under the impression that the majority of printers used the CHITUBOX hardware platform internally, which was now locked to the CHITUBOX slicer. Has this changed? That would be wonderful news.
I don't think that Formlabs locks you into their wash and cure stations. Some of their printers lock you into their resin, but it looks like the Form Studio 1 discussed above and the Form 3, 3L, 4, and 4L let you use resin of your choice, although the Studio 1 does require you to buy a special $80 tray.
Do you have any specific recomendations?
If you’ve ever used resin printers, you know the cartridges are a good thing because the liquid inside is basically carcinogenic if it comes in contact with your skin, so a lot of people just don’t do resin printing for exactly that reason and this gets around that.
It says it includes "Open Material Mode" which let's you "...print with any 405 nm photopolymer resin or 1064 nm powder on Formlabs 3D printers..."