I interviewed many high volume resin customers from companies of various sizes and industries, with a specific interest in our Form Auto users. The consensus was clear: the number one factor preventing further investment into the Formlabs ecosystem was the limitations of the existing 1 liter cartridge. When printing at production scales, 1 liter of resin simply runs out too quickly. This requires frequent attention by a technician to replace the cartridge multiple times a day, a separate storage system to track those cartridges, and leads to huge amounts of plastic waste when disposing of empty cartridges. These customers wanted a solution that did not require replacing their existing printer fleets, and could be easily integrated into their existing workspaces.

The internal goals for the project were to minimize cost, risk, and team headcount. To this end, my design uses no injection molding, instead leveraging Formlabs' own Fuse 1+ fleet to make all production plastic parts. The main body is made up of two simple pieces of powder coated sheet metal which can be produced with fast turnaround, and all internal parts are borrowed from other Formlabs products, requiring very little additional integration effort. I also designed assembly to be as fast as possible, requiring just four fasteners and one allen key. The result is a product that can be produced on-demand, takes up no warehouse space, and allows for mid-cycle updates and optimizations without wasting inventory.

It was important to me that the Resin Pumping System be as accessible as possible, which meant supporting as many current and future products as possible with one architecture. This inspired the use of the existing cartridge slot, universal to all Formlabs printers, ensuring that all Form 3, Form 3L, Form Auto, Form 4, and Form 4L customers can upgrade to the system and take advantage of the improved workflow without replacing their existing machines.