So, have you ever printed something that takes a loooong time? I mean 20+ hours?

What do you do with those?

I think these fires that we hear about are more the exception than the norm.  You're probably more likely to have a fire start from a spark in the fireplace, or some candles around the room, or even Christmas tree lights, than a 3D printer.

To each their own, but if i needed to print something that took that long, there are 2 of us here... take shifts, lol

or break the piece down into smaller bits that don't take as long.

or, I could print it on the 8.10 - it runs MUCH faster than the SD4s do, LOL
SD4 = 40mm/s average
8.10 = 120mm/s - or more

at this point, I have not ever needed to run one that long, however. Longest print so far was 8 hours.

What do you do with those?

I think these fires that we hear about are more the exception than the norm.  You're probably more likely to have a fire start from a spark in the fireplace, or some candles around the room, or even Christmas tree lights, than a 3D printer.

Mine are in the house, in the "Hobby room", and yes, that is a factor in my decision to not leave them alone. A fire here could be seriously devastating - 120yr old house, out in the boonies, local FD is a volunteer force (would take longer for them to get here) - yeah, we could easily lose everything.

I cringe every time i see someone posting that they leave their printer running all night in the house while they sleep, or during the day while they are gone - it just scares me.

I would love to have a separate shop for the printers and such, but that is kind of expensive... building costs, electrical work, HVAC work. etc...

As Carl mentioned, besides the resin itself, there are a few other consumable.  The resin tank/vat has a PDMS layer at the bottom that over time gets foggy and eventually prevents the laser from properly curing the resin, leading to failures. 

The life of the vat depends on a few variables, such as the resin used and layer height.  Some resins like tough, dental and castable have a very high exposure rate, which is very rough on the PDMS layer. 

Additionally, each time an area is exposed with the laser, it takes away a little life from the PDMS, so an object being printed at 0.025mm (finest resolution), will take 4 times as much life off the PDMS as the same object being printed at the lowest resolution, 0.1mm, simply because it has 4 times as many layers.

In general, by varying the location of the object being printed, so as not too 'burn a hole" in one spot, you can extend the life of the vat. 

I was able to get about 2+ liters of resin through one vat before I replaced it, and that's quite a bit more than 20 prints. 

Also, using 3rd party resins on the Form 1+ is iffy at best.  I've tried a couple of resins from MakerJuice, as well as some generic stuff from eBay, but they were more trouble than it was worth.  Too many failures or unusable, distorted parts.  Simply put, there's no substitute for the real Deal (FormLabs resin).  It's expensive, but it works.

Some folks on the FormLabs forums are attempting to put together some kind of list of 3rd party resins, and associated settings, but in general, the 3rd party resins that work, are either available in Europe only, so the shipping costs would be prohibitive, or they already cost as much as FormLabs resins, so what's the point.

Carl
I see you have 2 SLA printers. Do you get better results out of them than the FFF printer
what is the difference in cost to operate (supply's) per print.
Thanks
Dale.

It is a bit more costly as the print vat on the Form 1 is a consumable and is done after about 20 prints. Then the FEP sheet in the bottom of the vat of the D7 is also a consumable but last about 3 times that of the Form 1. The resin is about $60 USD per liter/quart. Depending on the print size, and solidity the yield is about the same as a roll of filament. As for quality the D6 can do .035 layers and the Form 1 and do .025 layers. The finished product is as near as you can get to injection molded quality and still be printed. The draw back and I might be wrong as i have yet to try all the various resins but they seem to be more brittle than the FDM printed stuff. They do make tough resin and flexible resin that like I said I have yet to try.

Also depends on the location of the unit. Mine is in place where there is little chance of fire spreading to anything else. In a factory or shop setting the space around the unit would be even greater.