Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “First Look: FormArt 2 Desktop Vacuum Former”.
Welcome back to make workshop, where we check out tools, toys and tech built for makers. Today, we’re going to be looking at some desktop vacuum forming this is the formart ii. It’S a desktop vacuum former. Now, if you’ve never used a vacuum former before what this thing can do is melt plastic use a vacuum to suck that plastic around an object, and that gives you a kind of a copy of that object. So, for example, you can do things like make product, packaging and molds. Before i get too far into this video, i need to do all the disclaimers. This is not a sponsored video. They did send this unit for me to look at, but we’re not going to keep it, and this is a kickstarter which carries its whole, its own set of concerns. There aren’t protections in kickstarter for you to get a product if you pay for it. So do your own research and make your own decision as far as you know, whether or not you feel it’s worth the risk to support them.
The bed size on this is about 300 millimeters wide by 500, millimeters long, which is actually pretty sizable for a desktop vacuum. Former one of the features that i thought was actually pretty neat is that you can change the size of the vacuum forming table to accommodate different materials that you can purchase. You can purchase materials from them directly and it uses a handy little qr code down in the bottom at a camera here to automatically set all the temperature and timing and stuff to get the best results out of that material.
That’S super useful but, like i don’t want to be locked into a vendor’s materials, and so the first thing i checked was that you could set your own timing and temperatures and stuff, and you absolutely can you can set it up for whatever material you have on Hand, you don’t have to use their material, some more features that it has. Is this interface down here, which is actually quite nice? It gives you some basic options that determine like how long it’s going to keep heating the material and how long it’s going to keep vacuuming it to get more or less resolution out of it, and you can go and adjust things like. You know the the temperature that it’s going to heat up to up here, how long it’s going to wait. So if you happen to have specific results, you’re going after or specific materials you’re using, you can really get into and dial it in. I, like the interface here i like this big fat, knob, that’s nice and easy to use and something i thought was kind of funny is it’s got. You know comparative to other equipment. It’S got this massive speaker here and i kind of wondered why this speaker was so huge. I’M warning you now turn your sound down.
I’M going to turn this off and back on and you’ll hear how loud it can be during operation. Here we go turn your sound down, [ Applause ], so so that might sound off-putting at first. But if you think about the fact that, even with your diy vacuum, former you’re going to be running a vacuum, one of the loudest pieces of equipment we have in our homes it’s about on par and it’s nice that it’s all built in and i don’t have To attach a vacuum to it, so the system has, of course a vacuum built in. It also has a blower.
It can reverse it so that when you put your your molten plastic down and it forms to the shape, it can then blow air back into it. To help try to release the mold, it is very ruggedly constructed. I noticed the instruction manual has assembly instructions, but mine came fully assembled, so i’m guessing either. Mine is a pre-production unit or the instructions were built just in case.
They also sold it in ship and kit form so that they could save on shipping for having a smaller box. Mine came fully assembled, though, so i didn’t have to worry about it, though. The assembly did look fairly easy people use vacuum formers for a number of different things, the three most common things that i probably see are food molds. So i personally, i like to make chocolates in different shapes and sizes and a vacuum.
Former is a really quick and easy way to do that. You just 3d print your original shape that you want take a vacuum form of it, and now you have a mold that you can use for chocolate, nice and easy uh. The second one would be packaging, so if you had a product that you wanted to create a package, you know that clear kind of shape around it. That would be easy as well, if you’re actually producing stuff, that you need like curved or shaped clear parts for like model airplanes, rc, uh vehicles and stuff, where you have like the canopies and things like that.
Those are common uses for vacuum formers. There are many other uses. Of course i don’t want to try to pretend like that’s all there is to it now. The formart ii is on kickstarter.
I believe the campaign is still going. When i publish this video, you can find a link to that down below the pricing starts at about 1800.. Hey, you are, you subscribed to make magazine yet if you like this kind of video of projects and stuff to build, you are gon na love. Make magazine it comes out quarterly and it is packed full of tips and tricks, full projects that you can recreate and feature pieces explaining how makers are changing the world for the better? You can find information on how to subscribe in a multitude of ways, digital or get the actual print edition in your mailbox, at the link, above the link below in the description now back to the video, with the price tag that they have on this thing, which Is for a lot of people, a pretty big amount of money? You start to question whether or not um. This makes sense over, for example, like a diy version that you can make fairly inexp inexpensively, and that’s really, i think, as is often the case, going to come down to time, saving the amount of time that you would spend kind of you know working around some Of the features that this has might be worth it. If, if for example, you know you don’t have a budget you’re, not really selling a product, you just want to goof around, it could make sense to maybe save the money, whereas if you are operating a business and selling a product doing things like having this auto Identify sheets do all the warm up and stuff on a timed system where you can go, do other things.
Have the auto like blow back to help release it? Those things can all really help save time. So then it becomes, you know is the is the time you’re saving worth the extra cost up front on the equipment, and you know i. I can’t speak for every business out there, but if i were operating a business selling things, i would see that as a kind of small expense in order to save a bunch of time. You know over the use of the tool uh, so i can see it totally making sense, for you know small businesses and things like that. Thank you so much for watching today. I hope you enjoyed it uh be sure to give us a thumbs up.
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