Formlabs Printers

Pluraprint connects to Formlabs Form 3 / Form 3+ and Form 4 printers through PreFormServer or the Formlabs Dashboard: Pluraprint doesn’t talk to the printer directly. Instead, your agent sends jobs to PreFormServer/Dashboard, which manages the printer itself.

Before you start#

You’ll need:

• A running PreFormServer (or access to Formlabs Dashboard) that’s reachable from your site’s agent
• An API key for that server

If your organization doesn’t already run PreFormServer, ask whoever manages your Formlabs printers. It’s typically installed on a computer near the printer(s).

Finding your connection details#

PreFormServer / Dashboard host#

This is the web address of your PreFormServer or Dashboard instance, including the protocol and port if applicable, for example https://preformserver.local:44388. Ask your PreFormServer/Dashboard administrator for this address if you don’t manage it yourself.

API key#

1. Sign in to PreFormServer or Formlabs Dashboard as an administrator.
2. Open its Admin area and find API Keys.
3. Generate a new key, or copy an existing one set aside for Pluraprint.

Adding the printer in Pluraprint#

Follow Adding a Printer and choose Form 3 or Form 4 from the Production group. Then fill in:

Field	Value
PreFormServer / Dashboard Host	The address from above
API Key	The key from above

Select Add Printer. Pluraprint will check the connection: if successful, the printer’s status updates from Offline to Idle.

What each model supports#

Form 3/3+ and Form 4 are SLA (resin) printers, so they work a little differently from FDM printers like Bambu Lab’s:

• One material slot, corresponding to the loaded resin cartridge/tank.
• No automatic material switching and no pause/resume.
• Form 4 series only: camera snapshots (see below). Form 3/3+ printers have no camera.
• Print jobs are sent to PreFormServer/Dashboard, which queues and runs them on the physical printer.

Once connected, head to Materials to tell Pluraprint which resin is loaded.

How printer status is reported#

Because Pluraprint doesn’t talk to the printer directly, a Formlabs printer’s status, Printing, Paused, Done: comes from the Formlabs Dashboard, not from the machine on your bench.

The Dashboard trails the printer slightly, usually by up to about a minute. So when a print starts, expect a short delay before the printer flips to Printing in Pluraprint. That delay is normal and needs no action.

Pluraprint accounts for the lag when deciding that a print has ended:

• A job is only marked Done once the Dashboard reports that that specific print run finished, was aborted, or errored.
• Immediately after dispatch, while the Dashboard has yet to show the run, the printer holds its current status instead of appearing to have finished early.
• If the Dashboard is unreachable or stops listing the printer, Pluraprint keeps the last known status and eventually shows the printer as Offline. It never treats a lost connection as a completed print.

A print that shows as Printing for slightly longer than the printer itself says is therefore expected; Pluraprint waits for confirmation rather than guessing.

Camera snapshots (Form 4 series)#

Form 4, Form 4B, Form 4L, and Form 4BL have a built-in camera, and Pluraprint can show its pictures alongside every other printer: the latest image on the printer’s detail page and in card / camera view, plus a timeline of past images. Form 3/3+ printers have no camera, so no snapshot section appears for them.

Snapshots are captured the same way as for any other printer:

• Periodically, roughly every 10 minutes while the printer is online. Ones taken during a print are attached to that job, so a finished job keeps a visual record of how it ran.
• On completion, once a print finishes.

Periodic snapshots are kept for 7 days; a job’s completion snapshot is kept with the job.

Two things are specific to Formlabs, and are worth knowing before you go looking for a missing picture:

• The image comes through the Formlabs Dashboard, not from the printer on your bench. It is requested from the printer on demand, so it can take several seconds to arrive: a snapshot is a recent still, not a live feed.
• If the Dashboard is unreachable, or the printer declines the request (it is offline, busy starting up, or mid-error), that capture is simply skipped. The previous snapshot stays on the page and the next attempt runs on schedule; nothing about the print is affected.

How materials work for Formlabs jobs#

When you upload a Formlabs .form file, Pluraprint reads the resin and target printer model directly from the file. The operator never chooses the material. It’s fixed by the file:

• Every .form file carries exactly one resin, baked in when it was prepared in PreForm.
• On the print setup / approval page the material is shown read-only (“Fixed by the print file”). You can’t change its type, brand, or color.
• You still complete the rest of approval as normal: naming the job, assigning an owner, and satisfying any required approvals.

Mapping resins to your materials#

So that resin jobs route to the right printer, Pluraprint maps each Formlabs resin to one of your configured material variants: the same admin-curated mapping used for filament.

When a .form job needs a resin that isn’t mapped yet, it appears automatically in the Material Mapping page’s Needs Mapping queue (and the job’s approval page shows “Not configured: ask an admin to map this material”). An administrator opens Material Mapping, finds the resin under Needs Mapping (it shows the resin name and its Formlabs code), clicks Map to variant, and selects the variant you stock. You can also pre-create a mapping at any time with Add mapping.

Once mapped:

• The approval page shows your real material variant.
• The job is dispatched only to a printer of the required model that has that resin loaded (set on the printer’s Materials page): the same matching-material-and-model check that FDM jobs get.

Each code is mapped once and applies to every printer and job that uses it.

Troubleshooting#

• Connection fails: confirm the PreFormServer/Dashboard address is reachable from the computer running your site’s agent (the same network, with no firewall blocking it).
• “Unauthorized” or similar errors: the API key may be incorrect, expired, or revoked. Generate a new one in PreFormServer/Dashboard and update the printer’s connection details in Pluraprint.
• Server just restarted: PreFormServer can take a few minutes to fully start up after a reboot before it will respond to Pluraprint.

If you’re still stuck, contact your Pluraprint support team with the printer model, site name, and any error shown on the printer’s detail page.