Anyone Gotten Into The SLA Resin World?

[morrisey0]

Just curious if anyone here has gotten into the resin world. It has always been in the back of my mind, but TBH, the post work has always kept me away. The "brittle" resin thing has also been a turn off, but I think the technology of the materials is starting to come around, and I think it will only get better in the future. The beauty of the final product is what keeps me thinking about it though, and I can think of multiple projects that I am more concerned about fashion over form.

I am hopefully picking up a stupid deal on a new printer this weekend, and already have some accessory equipment (washing + curing station) on the way, so I am hoping within the next few days I will making messes at least. I am going to set aside some space in the garage for the set up, to avoid the smell factor. I will need to work around the fact that I don't heat the garage, but I think a simple vat heater will take care of that.

Just wondering if anyone here has some tips. I will, of course, post on my progress into it.

[Frankentruck]

I think Silvertriple got into resin printing last year.

[Dadio]

Silvertripple knows more than me but I do have one , temperature is important as most resins thicken when cold and you want them thin and runny , there are a tun of flexible resins now so the parts don't have to be brittle .
I mostly use mine for detailed scale parts that are non structural ,FDM printing is still better for structural parts but if you want to make things like scale dashboards or custom headlights with clear lenses etc then that's where they shine .
A box of gloves and a gallon of IPA are must have items .

[morrisey0]

The typical "I don't know what I am doing yet, but I have gathered things" pic. Attending some youtubeniversity classes now. I have the set up in a super leaky 1980 detached garage, so not worried about fumes for the most part. The thermal slab will be an issue during cold months, but I have a ThermalVatBand installed so I think that will be okay. It is located too close to where I cut / grind / weld, so I think I am just going to literally throw a tarp over it all while doing these activities. The local WallyWorld has 91% IPA for $4/qt, so just going that route. It may be too nice this weekend to get into it too deep, but hopefully will be experimenting soon.

[RogueIV]

One thing of note is Part orientation is not what you'd expect and parts shouldn't be flat to the build plate as it often caused the print to fail.

[morrisey0]

I collected a few more things today, and finally got the machine on and such. I went to test an exposure test, and the machine wouldn't zero at all, so updated firmare and reset the machine. It went through the motions, and first print (printer parameters), nothing stuck to build plate, and then second print (slicer parameters), it seemed to have stuck at the beginning, then popped off and shifted over, and then kept on .............. so it technically did print something, but a definite fail. Then I had to clean up and move on to other things. Yea, clean up, wow!!

EDIT: I am also working with a tough resin, so I am probably trying to walk before crawling. I am going to see if I can get some standard stuff here quickly.

[silvertriple]

i just get into this thread (it seems I was highly busy on the Marui Hunter topic).

Yes, I do have a resin printer. It's basically not the most easy to deal with. Compared to this FDM printing is really simple. Dadio is right when he is mentionning temperature as a key thing.

Few insight:
- resine fluidity and printability is highly temperature dependant. The better is to work at a homogeneous temperature (around 25°C when you start the print as resins are generally designed for this target temperature). There is two ways to add heating : heating the chamber with a air heater (but that may require you to heat the resin to the target temperature before putting the resin in the VAT), or Thermal VAT add one (it's a resistor that you glue on the side of the VAT to heat it).
- orientation is difficult : while on a FDM printer you would print directly on the bed, it's generally not the case (except very few specific cases) on Resin printers due to elephant foot effect on the first layers, and you generally don't print big surfaces parallel to the printing plan because it comes with additional issues (the resin tend to stagnate there and that doesn't really help to have a proper surface)
- you also have what we call suction cup effect. Anytime when you get resin prisonner in the part while printing, it may causes deformations
- post processing : plan for 2, not just one recipient for the IPA cleaning. You need a first bath which is getting very quickly very dirty, and a clean one. Generally curing station do have one reciptient, and it is good to get a second one, or use another curing station or an ultrasonic cleaner for the first bath.
- plan for a small glass transparent recipient for the UV curing : some resins are reacting with the air during the UV curing. To avoid this, some resin manufacturer highlight it is better to put the part in a jar of water during the first half of the UV curing.
- many resin manufacturer are providing detailed tested parameters for their resin. If they don't you will have to find out by yourself. If they provide, it is at defined conditions and then I'll revert back to the importance of the first point of this list
- functionnal parts are a nightmare : resin shrinks during the cure, and the shrinkage is geometryand resin type dependant. If you get a part rightly dimensioned in CAD, that doesn't means it will be right once printed. And if you get it right printed, that doesn't mean it will be right with another resin (let alone the fact that different resin requires different slicing conditions).

Ultimately, at the end, resin is difficult compared to FDM, and while FDM learning curve is hard, it's even harder on resin side...
Good luck in you rjourney !

[RogueIV]

I collected a few more things today, and finally got the machine on and such. I went to test an exposure test, and the machine wouldn't zero at all, so updated firmare and reset the machine. It went through the motions, and first print (printer parameters), nothing stuck to build plate, and then second print (slicer parameters), it seemed to have stuck at the beginning, then popped off and shifted over, and then kept on .............. so it technically did print something, but a definite fail. Then I had to clean up and move on to other things. Yea, clean up, wow!!

EDIT: I am also working with a tough resin, so I am probably trying to walk before crawling. I am going to see if I can get some standard stuff here quickly.

Make sure you take any protective wrap off of the build plate. I didn't do this at first and it did cause problems

[silvertriple]

I collected a few more things today, and finally got the machine on and such. I went to test an exposure test, and the machine wouldn't zero at all, so updated firmare and reset the machine. It went through the motions, and first print (printer parameters), nothing stuck to build plate, and then second print (slicer parameters), it seemed to have stuck at the beginning, then popped off and shifted over, and then kept on .............. so it technically did print something, but a definite fail. Then I had to clean up and move on to other things. Yea, clean up, wow!!

EDIT: I am also working with a tough resin, so I am probably trying to walk before crawling. I am going to see if I can get some standard stuff here quickly.

If nothing stuck to the build plate, all polymerized resin is probably sitting on the FEP... Whatever is the cause of a fail print, you need to remove the polimerized resin from the fep before starting another print.... Plastic spatula, and nitrile gloves are your friends... And even when a printis succesful, I always use the spatula (not metal one, soft plastic one) to sense the fep and make sure nothing is stuck on it...

[morrisey0]

I 100% need to do something about the temperature situation before I go much further. Even with this mild time of year when we get into the mid 60s (~18*C) late in the day, the thermal mass of the garage slab and mass of the metal printer are all much colder. I have a ThermalVatBand, but so far, not all that impressed and only seeing a few degrees deltaT, but I am not creating the environment that I need and I don't want to be solely dependent on the Band. I don't think summer is going to be an issue once the slab heats up, but probably 8 months of the year are going to be a problem if I want to use the garage.

I am currently looking through FBMP for some sort of suitable "cabinet" if you will. A mini fridge, a smoker, warmer, etc. Just something that I can fit the printer in, and create a warm environment with just a small heat source. I can come up with a couple of ideas that will work great, but I also need to find something that is dirt cheap as I don't want to dive too deep into this yet. I have some 3/4" insulation panels left over from another project, so may just build something myself if I can't find anything.

[silvertriple]

I 100% need to do something about the temperature situation before I go much further. Even with this mild time of year when we get into the mid 60s (~18*C) late in the day, the thermal mass of the garage slab and mass of the metal printer are all much colder. I have a ThermalVatBand, but so far, not all that impressed and only seeing a few degrees deltaT, but I am not creating the environment that I need and I don't want to be solely dependent on the Band. I don't think summer is going to be an issue once the slab heats up, but probably 8 months of the year are going to be a problem if I want to use the garage.

I am currently looking through FBMP for some sort of suitable "cabinet" if you will. A mini fridge, a smoker, warmer, etc. Just something that I can fit the printer in, and create a warm environment with just a small heat source. I can come up with a couple of ideas that will work great, but I also need to find something that is dirt cheap as I don't want to dive too deep into this yet. I have some 3/4" insulation panels left over from another project, so may just build something myself if I can't find anything.

Just heat the chamber in addition to the thermal VAT band. Once you start a print, the resin heats up anyway, the only thing is to be able to start the print with the resin at 25°C. What I do generally during the winter time is heat the resin bottle on my Ender 5+ bed set at 30°C for an hour and I start to heat the chamber at the the same time (I have a small heater in the printer chamber) at 25°C. One hour later, I make sure the content is of the bottle is properly mixed by shaking it before feeding the VAT. One the resin in in the VAT, I'm using the spatula again to make sure everything is mixed up in there, and then close the chamber and hit print. The room where the printer are is very often with the window open, and temps may go as low as 15°C during the night, and all the print issues I had are not related to temperature, and I have no thermal VAT band...

Mixing the resin just before hitting print is also important... Don't forget it. I remember having seen some modified starting sequence to make sure that the bed would mix the resin by going up and down before the print, but I do not apply this as I do use my spatula for this...