2026-10-15
Formlabs has launched the Form Studio 1, a $699 (roughly £550) desktop SLA resin printer aimed squarely at makers and small workshops. The notable twist, spotted by Jeff Geerling in his teardown, is that Formlabs has dropped the Raspberry Pi Compute Module that powered their previous printers in favour of a custom board.
Why homelabbers should care
If you've ever 3D-printed custom rack ears, drive caddies, or sensor housings for your homelab, an SLA printer at this price point is genuinely interesting. Resin prints offer far better dimensional accuracy and surface finish than FDM — handy when you need parts that actually slot together on the first try.
The Pi angle matters too. Formlabs moving away from the CM4 is another data point in a trend: companies that relied on Pi compute modules during the shortage era are now designing bespoke silicon or switching to cheaper ARM SoCs. For anyone running Pi-based infrastructure, it's a reminder that the ecosystem's "enterprise" cachet has limits — vendors will move on when the economics shift.
Caveats
At $699 this is the cheapest Formlabs printer ever, but it's still far from the cheapest resin printer you can buy — plenty of capable machines from Elegoo and Anycubic sit under £300. You're paying for Formlabs' software, resin ecosystem, and build reliability. Also, resin printing involves messy post-processing (washing, curing) and ventilation requirements that FDM doesn't. If you only print the odd bracket once a quarter, it's hard to justify.
The printer isn't widely available in the UK yet either, so factor in shipping and potential import duty on top of that sticker price.
What to do
If you're already resin-curious, read Jeff's full write-up for the technical deep-dive. For those printing enclosures or custom mounts, a reliable SLA printer paired with a set of Formlabs Form Studio 1 calipers and your CAD tool of choice is a serious upgrade. And if you're shuttling design files to and from your lab workstation, a fast portable drive like our M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure – USB-C 10Gbps with Magnetic Closure keeps things moving.