Experimenting with Resin printing (MSLA) for detailed parts
- Thread starter jhitesma
- Start date
I'm not sure why this print has such obvious layers. I think it's mostly due to how I photographed it and the mix of resins used in making it. Plus with the big smooth surfaces there's nothing to hide them. The propeller printed in the same resin actually has noticeable lines as well - but since it was printed at an angle they aren't as apparent. But if I hold it in a way that maximixes the reflections like I did with this one then they become much more obvious.
So I think a big part of it is just part position, geometry, and how the photo is taken.
And yeah...it was expensive before it started. But...with the curing station the two prints I've done with it so far have resulted in less paper towel waste and it should be better at preserving the alcohol. It's definitely still a more expensive process than FDM and not as well suited for functional parts. But for a scale modeler it could still be a great tool with it's ability to do fine detail. For the rest of us...FDM is far more useful...but I have to admit being able to get parts like my knobs is really addictive.
It does appear that the glossiness of the grey part last night was due to the resin and not the washing. Here's the black part:
That's after washing but before curing.
In the cure:
And after the cure:
Again - I'm lighting this to emphasize the flaws. And the camera makes them look worse. Here's the part installed:
But in person it looks natural and the streaks and minor flaws aren't really noticeable.
Oh - and side note. No - MSLA printing is not considered food safe. Even though the plastic is no longer toxic once cured it's still not tested by the FDA for food safety. As my micrographs show there are still lots of little ridges and rough areas where bacteria can lodge. And there is a risk of things migrating out of the cured plastic. But...for this application I'm not overly concerned since there's minimal contact for a minimal amount of time.
I wouldn't print and use a cup or a plate or an eating utensil for example. There are FDM filaments that are FDA cleared - but they're rare and expensive.
For SLA the best option for food safety is apparently ceramic resins which can be fired in a kiln after printing and then glazed. But it looks like those are about $350 a liter and require a kiln (which I would like to add to my list of available tools but really can't justify!)
So I think a big part of it is just part position, geometry, and how the photo is taken.
And yeah...it was expensive before it started. But...with the curing station the two prints I've done with it so far have resulted in less paper towel waste and it should be better at preserving the alcohol. It's definitely still a more expensive process than FDM and not as well suited for functional parts. But for a scale modeler it could still be a great tool with it's ability to do fine detail. For the rest of us...FDM is far more useful...but I have to admit being able to get parts like my knobs is really addictive.
It does appear that the glossiness of the grey part last night was due to the resin and not the washing. Here's the black part:
That's after washing but before curing.
In the cure:
And after the cure:
Again - I'm lighting this to emphasize the flaws. And the camera makes them look worse. Here's the part installed:
But in person it looks natural and the streaks and minor flaws aren't really noticeable.
Oh - and side note. No - MSLA printing is not considered food safe. Even though the plastic is no longer toxic once cured it's still not tested by the FDA for food safety. As my micrographs show there are still lots of little ridges and rough areas where bacteria can lodge. And there is a risk of things migrating out of the cured plastic. But...for this application I'm not overly concerned since there's minimal contact for a minimal amount of time.
I wouldn't print and use a cup or a plate or an eating utensil for example. There are FDM filaments that are FDA cleared - but they're rare and expensive.
For SLA the best option for food safety is apparently ceramic resins which can be fired in a kiln after printing and then glazed. But it looks like those are about $350 a liter and require a kiln (which I would like to add to my list of available tools but really can't justify!)
I probably use the Phrozen more - but just because it's a little quicker and I've been experimenting with different resins in it while the Elegoo has been semi-dedicated to printing in black resin since I have the black dialed in so well on it. The phrozens FEP is also in slightly better shape since I didn't make as many beginner mistakes with it - so that's a big part of why I'm doing more tests on it (and probably part of why my print quality is suffering a bit as my FEP films get more scratched and worn out.)
But - I've also noticed that the elegoo IS better at giving fine detail and the parts from it are a little nicer overall (though it's hard to notice or quantify) and I don't have any 100% perfect comparisons mostly just because of what a messy pain it is to switch resins. So I haven't done the same tests in the same resin on both printers very often.
I still have a hard time recommending one over the other. They both have good and bad things about them. But it does seem the Phrozen "just works" a bit more often than the Elegoo even though the Elegoo is a mechanically nicer machine and which seems to give slightly finer detail.
Here's one unfair comparison of print quality since it's done in two different resins. This is the "ameralabs city" test print: https://ameralabs.com/blog/downloads/town-calibration-part/ that link gives a bunch of detail on things to look for in the print.
The grey version was printed on the Sonic mini in Siraya Fast resin, the black was on the mars pro with anycubic standard black.
Note - these are TINY. That's a standard legal pad they're sitting on for size. You can see how the black version has more of the little hairs on the lower left section, and looking at the top of the building on the right you can see (and feel) the little bumps on top of the building on the black version but not on the grey. The "space needle" on the black also printed correctly - but has since broken off because of how fine of a detail it is...the grey version the top of it didn't actually print.
Here's another angle of the grey version:
And another angle of the black:
Now - part of the difference may just be the resin itself - black tends to show fine detail better. And part of it may be how well the exposure is dialed in (though the black is just a fairly rough guess while the grey I did several exposure tests before printing so it's actually more dialed in on that.)
But...the mars does also have a slightly higher resolution LCD than the sonic - so the extra detail on the mars print could be due to that.
I really still need to do more back to back comparison prints in the same resin. Just...right now I've mostly been taking advantage of having two printers to avoid switching resins and having multiple options availalbe.
But...I'm on the last drops of my black resin...so I may load both up with the Siraya fast grey this weekend and do more rigorous tests...especially now that I have the wash/cure station to help make the washing/curing more consistent as well.
And I need to decide if I want to order more of the anycubic black...or try a different brand of black. I've actually been really happy with the anycubic black but there are so many options I'm tempted to try another.....
Understood, and sorry to solicit your opinion, but I have seen soo many complaints about the mars (along with the other SLA printers). For me it's hard to have faith in the reviews, as I know nothing about the people writing them. After watching tom about a year ago, I was ready to buy the mars, and then hit the bad reviews. (Of course I also saw Tom rip apart , the V1 Engineering MPCNC about the same time, which made me wonder if his reviews were neutral or of value). I have a prusa FDM, and after seeing some bad and good things with their FDM, wanted to consider their SLA, (even ordered their SLA test prints just to see the quality). I've come to realize over half of the reviews that I read, stand a good chance of being written by people that don't know how much time and effort it takes to get something dialed in. Or are not written by people with the same level of understanding that I have, or don't have. Changing something as simple as color, or brand, or even from a different batch can effect the print, on a machine. At least with FDM printers, so I'm not surprised that the same thing could happen with SLA. I feel too many people think it's just plug and print. I also feel the price range of a machine, should be considered with the print quailty. aka if I spend $10,000 on a professional FDM printer, I don't expect to have the same issues I'm going to have with a "hobby grade" price range.
Of course as you've already pointed out, the price is what was holding me back with the Prusa SLA. Along with the safety precautions involved with SLA. But what put Prusa in the plus column for me, was the washing and curing machine. Now you've re-sparked my interest in SLA, especially with the mars washing and curing machine. Not to put added pressure on you, but you have become my benchmark for SLA printers with respect to my decision making. Probably unfair for me to post that in a forum. But after seeing your comments, through the past 1.5 years here on the FT forum and who you interact with, I have learned or observed your level of understanding, and the level of testing you do, and feel it matches or exceeds my own. To the point, that I never understood why the thin film was used, if it's always breaking on people, and yet your explanation of how a SLA printer works, made sense. aka it needs to release the print as it's raised. Can't release due to a vacuum, if it's something more rigid. I don't feel anyone quite placed emphasis on this before in my research. I didn't realize until you talked about it, that resin was hardening and joining the build to the film, and therefore had to release from the film somehow. I'm not going to even suggest what\how I thought it worked, as now it seems so stupid.
Love all your write ups, pictures and thoughts about the prints. Please keep up the great posts.
Steve
Of course as you've already pointed out, the price is what was holding me back with the Prusa SLA. Along with the safety precautions involved with SLA. But what put Prusa in the plus column for me, was the washing and curing machine. Now you've re-sparked my interest in SLA, especially with the mars washing and curing machine. Not to put added pressure on you, but you have become my benchmark for SLA printers with respect to my decision making. Probably unfair for me to post that in a forum. But after seeing your comments, through the past 1.5 years here on the FT forum and who you interact with, I have learned or observed your level of understanding, and the level of testing you do, and feel it matches or exceeds my own. To the point, that I never understood why the thin film was used, if it's always breaking on people, and yet your explanation of how a SLA printer works, made sense. aka it needs to release the print as it's raised. Can't release due to a vacuum, if it's something more rigid. I don't feel anyone quite placed emphasis on this before in my research. I didn't realize until you talked about it, that resin was hardening and joining the build to the film, and therefore had to release from the film somehow. I'm not going to even suggest what\how I thought it worked, as now it seems so stupid.
Love all your write ups, pictures and thoughts about the prints. Please keep up the great posts.
Steve
PsyBorg
Wake up! Time to fly!
I am thinking on larger flat parts that minimum wet sanding on them with 1500- 2000 grit emery paper would polish it right up and look as good or better then injection molded.
I messed around with a sd card case my friend printed on an ender 3 and it looks insanely shiny and smooth. Cant seem to find the pics I took to show the progress though.. Maybe Ill dig it out of my flight bag and grab another later.
I messed around with a sd card case my friend printed on an ender 3 and it looks insanely shiny and smooth. Cant seem to find the pics I took to show the progress though.. Maybe Ill dig it out of my flight bag and grab another later.
Glad to hear my posts are helpful for you Steve, that's why I make them (Well, that and because I refer back them them to refresh my own memory on things sometimes!)
I'm no expert - but I do try to be honest and share my success and failures so others can learn from them as I do! Plus sitting down and composing my thoughts in a post sometimes helps me achieve new insight. And there's always value in other people raising questions I hadn't thought of.
I was really tempted by the prusa SLA when it came out...but I just didn't see anything about it other than the wash/cure machine that was revolutionary or measurably better than the other options. And given the price and my low expectations for SLA functional parts I decided to save my money. I'm glad I did now because having two cheap machines is proving to be way nicer than one expensive machine that doesn't seem to have any real benefit. And the prusa wash/cure seems to be the most expensive but least useful with it's non sealing wash container.
I need to get back to working on my laser...the radio project that spurred me to buy the SLA for making knobs needs a case/panel and 3D printing isn't going to cut it for that since it's too big to fit on my printer. I need to laser cut some sheets of acrylic. I could get a bigger printer...but I'd rather fix the tools I have than buy more...and I REALLY don't have room for a bigger printer (or any other justification for it.) And I'd much prefer the look of laser cut black acrylic over a 3D printed case for this radio.
But I'm also about to start working on my midibox sequencer again and reprinting the buttons in SLA so there will be some more updates in this thread to come
Psyborg - yes, wet sanding with finer grit would probably work great on these smoother parts. I mean just wet sanding with 400 grit and giving a light coat of poly looks amazing. (but my poly isn't food safe so wouldn't be a good option for the coffee chute.) Unfortunately I have a really hard time finding higher grit paper around here. I sometimes find 800 and one time found some 1200 but that's been it so far. I could probably order some on-line but haven't bothered to look
I did try using some toothpaste as a polish after the 400 wet sanding...but it didn't make a noticeable difference. I suspect a buffing wheel with some compound could do a bit of work as well. But that's all stuff I'd rather do outside and that means waiting a few more months until the weather starts to cool down!
I'm no expert - but I do try to be honest and share my success and failures so others can learn from them as I do! Plus sitting down and composing my thoughts in a post sometimes helps me achieve new insight. And there's always value in other people raising questions I hadn't thought of.
I was really tempted by the prusa SLA when it came out...but I just didn't see anything about it other than the wash/cure machine that was revolutionary or measurably better than the other options. And given the price and my low expectations for SLA functional parts I decided to save my money. I'm glad I did now because having two cheap machines is proving to be way nicer than one expensive machine that doesn't seem to have any real benefit. And the prusa wash/cure seems to be the most expensive but least useful with it's non sealing wash container.
I need to get back to working on my laser...the radio project that spurred me to buy the SLA for making knobs needs a case/panel and 3D printing isn't going to cut it for that since it's too big to fit on my printer. I need to laser cut some sheets of acrylic. I could get a bigger printer...but I'd rather fix the tools I have than buy more...and I REALLY don't have room for a bigger printer (or any other justification for it.) And I'd much prefer the look of laser cut black acrylic over a 3D printed case for this radio.
But I'm also about to start working on my midibox sequencer again and reprinting the buttons in SLA so there will be some more updates in this thread to come
Psyborg - yes, wet sanding with finer grit would probably work great on these smoother parts. I mean just wet sanding with 400 grit and giving a light coat of poly looks amazing. (but my poly isn't food safe so wouldn't be a good option for the coffee chute.) Unfortunately I have a really hard time finding higher grit paper around here. I sometimes find 800 and one time found some 1200 but that's been it so far. I could probably order some on-line but haven't bothered to look
I did try using some toothpaste as a polish after the 400 wet sanding...but it didn't make a noticeable difference. I suspect a buffing wheel with some compound could do a bit of work as well. But that's all stuff I'd rather do outside and that means waiting a few more months until the weather starts to cool down!
PsyBorg
Wake up! Time to fly!
I would not be sure how a "compound" would react as some have petroleum distillates in their manufacture. I wonder what a low pressure bead blaster would do.. If it would dull it out or polish it. Then again for smaller items what would something similar to a rock tumbler do with an alcohol based cleaner with polishing grit added do.
Funny you mention tooth paste. Back in the 90's I had a white '79 Camaro I had bought that was harshly sun beaten. I tried a buffing wheel and rubbing compound and all that did was fade the sun damaged areas to a yellowish haze. I laughed when an old school body and paint man told me to go buy two tubes of Colgate original white tooth paste and hand rub the car with that. The car came out AMAZINGLY white and shiny and smelled good for a long time hehe. Man that took FOREVER to do though.
Funny you mention tooth paste. Back in the 90's I had a white '79 Camaro I had bought that was harshly sun beaten. I tried a buffing wheel and rubbing compound and all that did was fade the sun damaged areas to a yellowish haze. I laughed when an old school body and paint man told me to go buy two tubes of Colgate original white tooth paste and hand rub the car with that. The car came out AMAZINGLY white and shiny and smelled good for a long time hehe. Man that took FOREVER to do though.
My experiments continue.
I've been working on building a modular synthesizer...which includes a LOT of knobs. At $0.50-$1.50 each knobs can add up quick. One module I built has 23 knobs alone. I've built 12 modules and have 5 more in the works with even more planned...so saving money on knobs can really help.
The white modules are 100% DIY. I designed and 3d printed the panels on my Mk3 with the MMU to do the labeling. The circuits on them are all built on stripboard either from published designs or which I just found schematics for and created my own stripboard layouts. The black panels are modules that people have created PCB's for and I've bought their panels/PCB's to speed construction.
5 of those are just panels that don't have modules built yet (one looks almost finished just to the left of the mixer.)
Anyway .. the point is I'm trying to print my own knobs. You'll notice the grey knobs and one blue knob - those are SLA printed.
It's tricky though. Some of the potentiometers are smooth shafts and some are knurled. Either smooth or knurled I can't just print knobs in normal resin and have them work. They're too still and brittle and either break getting pushed on or are too loose.
So I tried printing some in Siraya tenacious flexible resin.
(I also tried dying this one red after printing...that almost kind of sort of worked but the color wasn't what was expected.)
The problem is....again they're either too tight or too loose. And on this one I broke one of the soft flexible bits inside. Plus they just don't feel right in the fingers when printed in flexible material.
So...I noticed one of the commercially made knobs that came with some of my potentiometers used a 2 part approach. It's a plastic insert with a metal body over it. So why not try the same idea. I designed a knob with an inner flexible core designed to grip the shaft, and a hard outer housing that feels/looks right and compresses the inner core to make sure it stays tight even on smooth shafts:
This works REALLY well, the inner part is a center section that's very slightly undersized for the shafts surrounded by 8 legs connecting to the outer shell which is sized to have an OD the same as the ID of the outer case:
The outer case can be anything I want. So I can print a bunch of the inner cores and then put them in various knob shapes/sizes/designs to fit my whims/needs. This first design is just modeled after the commercial knob that gave me the idea to try a 2 part approach:
Printing the inserts is easy - they don't have to look perfect and I can print them with the open side down. In 100% tenacious they come out great.
Printing the outer bodies...that's trickier. They have to look and feel "just right". And if I print them with the open side down the marker on the top gets obscured and the top just never looks good. If I print them other other way a lot fail because of the suction when printing a hollow tube. So I had to add a small hole to them to allow them to vent while printing:
With that little hole they mostly print well....occasionally one will still fail but for the most part they come out usably.
But...I don't want grey. And I'm almost out of black resin but have too many other resins to justify buying more right now.
What if I could make my own colors of resin?
Hmmm.. Apparently you can use epoxy dyes on resins. I did a search on amazon and found some UV transparent epoxy dyes and ordered a set:
Of course...the blue color I was most interested in had to be the one to leak in the package during shipping. Oh well. Can still experiment!
I found a blog post that talked about dying resin and suggested starting with white base resin and adding 20% siraya tenacious to help compensate for the way the dye affects the exposure. So I mixed up 80ml of white resin with 20ml of tenacious then added 15 drops of "sky blue". That got me a light blue color but I still wanted it darker...so I added 3 drops of the leaky blue. Still lighter than I was hoping for...but decided to give it a try:
For comparison that rook was printed in the white resin I used as a base. And the lion is printed in Phrozen aqua blue. My knobs...weren't exactly a success...but taught me a lot so I don't consider them a failure either.
One odd thing is that the color seemed to shift as they printed with the open end that was against the build plate being more grey and the top being more blue:
It's less obvious in the photo than it is in person. I think this may just be because of how thin the caps are at the bottom though.
You'll also notice a lot of damage on these. None of them completely failed when printing...but a lot of them broke at various points and had some layer adhesion issues.
So for the next try I increased exposure, slowed the lift speed, and added another 12 drops of the darker blue:
The 8 in front are from this second batch. Still a few small issues with a couple of them but overall much better results. And the blue is getting closer to what I want. The elephants foot on the first layer is really bad now though so I need to ease off on that exposure a bit. I think another second or two on the normal layers and 3-4 seconds less on the first layers should be about right. Might slow down the lift speed a tiny bit more too.
The back row is the original set of dyed prints...so you can see my color is getting better. I don't want to add too much dye too fast and cause problems so I'm creeping up on how much to use. Will probably add another 15 drops of the dark blue and see where that gets me next.
I've been working on building a modular synthesizer...which includes a LOT of knobs. At $0.50-$1.50 each knobs can add up quick. One module I built has 23 knobs alone. I've built 12 modules and have 5 more in the works with even more planned...so saving money on knobs can really help.
The white modules are 100% DIY. I designed and 3d printed the panels on my Mk3 with the MMU to do the labeling. The circuits on them are all built on stripboard either from published designs or which I just found schematics for and created my own stripboard layouts. The black panels are modules that people have created PCB's for and I've bought their panels/PCB's to speed construction.
5 of those are just panels that don't have modules built yet (one looks almost finished just to the left of the mixer.)
Anyway .. the point is I'm trying to print my own knobs. You'll notice the grey knobs and one blue knob - those are SLA printed.
It's tricky though. Some of the potentiometers are smooth shafts and some are knurled. Either smooth or knurled I can't just print knobs in normal resin and have them work. They're too still and brittle and either break getting pushed on or are too loose.
So I tried printing some in Siraya tenacious flexible resin.
(I also tried dying this one red after printing...that almost kind of sort of worked but the color wasn't what was expected.)
The problem is....again they're either too tight or too loose. And on this one I broke one of the soft flexible bits inside. Plus they just don't feel right in the fingers when printed in flexible material.
So...I noticed one of the commercially made knobs that came with some of my potentiometers used a 2 part approach. It's a plastic insert with a metal body over it. So why not try the same idea. I designed a knob with an inner flexible core designed to grip the shaft, and a hard outer housing that feels/looks right and compresses the inner core to make sure it stays tight even on smooth shafts:
This works REALLY well, the inner part is a center section that's very slightly undersized for the shafts surrounded by 8 legs connecting to the outer shell which is sized to have an OD the same as the ID of the outer case:
The outer case can be anything I want. So I can print a bunch of the inner cores and then put them in various knob shapes/sizes/designs to fit my whims/needs. This first design is just modeled after the commercial knob that gave me the idea to try a 2 part approach:
Printing the inserts is easy - they don't have to look perfect and I can print them with the open side down. In 100% tenacious they come out great.
Printing the outer bodies...that's trickier. They have to look and feel "just right". And if I print them with the open side down the marker on the top gets obscured and the top just never looks good. If I print them other other way a lot fail because of the suction when printing a hollow tube. So I had to add a small hole to them to allow them to vent while printing:
With that little hole they mostly print well....occasionally one will still fail but for the most part they come out usably.
But...I don't want grey. And I'm almost out of black resin but have too many other resins to justify buying more right now.
What if I could make my own colors of resin?
Hmmm.. Apparently you can use epoxy dyes on resins. I did a search on amazon and found some UV transparent epoxy dyes and ordered a set:
Of course...the blue color I was most interested in had to be the one to leak in the package during shipping. Oh well. Can still experiment!
I found a blog post that talked about dying resin and suggested starting with white base resin and adding 20% siraya tenacious to help compensate for the way the dye affects the exposure. So I mixed up 80ml of white resin with 20ml of tenacious then added 15 drops of "sky blue". That got me a light blue color but I still wanted it darker...so I added 3 drops of the leaky blue. Still lighter than I was hoping for...but decided to give it a try:
For comparison that rook was printed in the white resin I used as a base. And the lion is printed in Phrozen aqua blue. My knobs...weren't exactly a success...but taught me a lot so I don't consider them a failure either.
One odd thing is that the color seemed to shift as they printed with the open end that was against the build plate being more grey and the top being more blue:
It's less obvious in the photo than it is in person. I think this may just be because of how thin the caps are at the bottom though.
You'll also notice a lot of damage on these. None of them completely failed when printing...but a lot of them broke at various points and had some layer adhesion issues.
So for the next try I increased exposure, slowed the lift speed, and added another 12 drops of the darker blue:
The 8 in front are from this second batch. Still a few small issues with a couple of them but overall much better results. And the blue is getting closer to what I want. The elephants foot on the first layer is really bad now though so I need to ease off on that exposure a bit. I think another second or two on the normal layers and 3-4 seconds less on the first layers should be about right. Might slow down the lift speed a tiny bit more too.
The back row is the original set of dyed prints...so you can see my color is getting better. I don't want to add too much dye too fast and cause problems so I'm creeping up on how much to use. Will probably add another 15 drops of the dark blue and see where that gets me next.
The color doesn't actually change much when it cures. So it's not so much testing the color. It's testing how the color affects the exposure/curing process.
These pigments are supposed to be UV transparent - but even regular resins from the same manufacturer can react very differently just based on their color. And some pigments even though marked as UV transparent will still block enough to have an effect - or cause interfere in other ways and cause layer adhesion issues.
So I'm more concerned about how adding more pigment affects the exposure/print quality than the exact color right now.
I did another test run yesterday with yet another 15 drops of pigment. So i'm now up to 45 drops of dark blue and 15 drops of sky blue:
The color continues to darken...but it feels like I'm starting to see diminishing returns from adding additional pigment. Maybe not though...in the photo the progression looks fairly consistent.
I do wonder if the initial sky blue is preventing me from getting quite the dark blue I'm after. Or if maybe the white base pigment is going to limit how dark I can get. Or maybe these translucent pigments just won't get as dark as I had been hoping and I need non-translucent but still UV transparent pigments....
Though I could probably live with the current color - it seems to go fairly well with my case and blue LED's (See the top knob on the delay module for the latest color) :
The biggest issue with this color is that I ordered a white lacquer stick to fill in the indicators expecting to have a darker blue. Now thinking I may have to order black instead.
And looks like I found the limit for color. Added another 20 drops of dark blue and ran another set with slightly longer layer exposures and slightly slower initial lift and slightly shorter initial exposure to try and minimize the elephant footing:
Still getting some elephant foot...but it's minimal enough it wouldn't be a big deal to sand off now. And didn't have ANY deformed bases so looks like the exposure/lift settings are finally pretty optimal. I could try to eliminate more elephant foot...but I'm worried that there's so little contact area on these if I do so they won't stay attached.
But look at that color shift. Suddenly it got more grey than blue with the additional pigment. Not sure what caused that at all. These were post processed the same as all the others. The tops don't look as off...and the white lacquer stick looks good on them:
And they are pretty close to the color of the case I'm trying to match:
The big issue now is I'm almost out of this first batch of colored resin...and getting the same color again will be almost impossible since I added more dye after each print so the amount of resin I was adding it to changed. I know this was 15 drops of sky blue and 65 drops of dark blue total...but adding that same amount to 100ml of fresh resin won't give me the same results. But...I kind of plan on trying without the sky blue anyway.
I also know that I can get about 50 caps out of 100ml of resin (maybe a bit more - I'm not totally out yet, just not sure if I can pull off 2 more batches or only one...or maybe even 3.) So that gives me a good figure to go by when I'm ready to do a huge production batch and print enough knobs for everything I want a knob for to figure out how much resin to make up all at once.
Still getting some elephant foot...but it's minimal enough it wouldn't be a big deal to sand off now. And didn't have ANY deformed bases so looks like the exposure/lift settings are finally pretty optimal. I could try to eliminate more elephant foot...but I'm worried that there's so little contact area on these if I do so they won't stay attached.
But look at that color shift. Suddenly it got more grey than blue with the additional pigment. Not sure what caused that at all. These were post processed the same as all the others. The tops don't look as off...and the white lacquer stick looks good on them:
And they are pretty close to the color of the case I'm trying to match:
The big issue now is I'm almost out of this first batch of colored resin...and getting the same color again will be almost impossible since I added more dye after each print so the amount of resin I was adding it to changed. I know this was 15 drops of sky blue and 65 drops of dark blue total...but adding that same amount to 100ml of fresh resin won't give me the same results. But...I kind of plan on trying without the sky blue anyway.
I also know that I can get about 50 caps out of 100ml of resin (maybe a bit more - I'm not totally out yet, just not sure if I can pull off 2 more batches or only one...or maybe even 3.) So that gives me a good figure to go by when I'm ready to do a huge production batch and print enough knobs for everything I want a knob for to figure out how much resin to make up all at once.
This has been an amazing chronicle and I have been wanting SLA tech in my shop for the detailed models I do. I have some detailed cockpit panels that I think will turn out much better in SLA.
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3456633
I think that for things like detailed wheel hubs and things that would typically see more vibration I'll stay with my ABS prints but I see pilot figurines being the real reason to go this way. I really appreciate your efforts but more especially the detailed write-ups.
Joshua
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3456633
I think that for things like detailed wheel hubs and things that would typically see more vibration I'll stay with my ABS prints but I see pilot figurines being the real reason to go this way. I really appreciate your efforts but more especially the detailed write-ups.
Joshua
Your youtube build of the audio patch box that uses all these knobs got me thinking about the 4 channel light sequencer I built for my buddies band back in the early 90's. I still have the mosfet power drivers with a 100' cable, but the logic panel is nowhere to be found. May have to revive it using a Raspberry pi.
Cheers!
LitterBug
Cheers!
LitterBug
Glad to hear you're finding it useful. Your detailed scale builds are definitely something I had in mind that would benefit from SLA over FDM.
If you'd like I could print off a few of those panels in SLA for you to try. Just send me a message with details about which ones and I'd be happy to do it. We may have to discuss which surfaces are non-visible so they could potentially be marred by supports...but it looks like some fun parts to try.
The Siraya tenacious resin may be even better for things like wheel hubs than ABS. Think of it as analogous to castable urethane. When printed solid it's not very flexible...but it would handle vibration and shock forces VERY well. It wouldn't do great with constant rubbing though as the surface does tend to wear easily. But like my knobs - using a two part approach and doing something like a brass insert for a wheel hub could work very well. Those little knob inserts I printed I can squish in a vice and they won't break...they'll deform...and take an hour or so to pop-back to shape but they won't break from impact/squish. It's pretty amazing stuff.
It's a fun project...and keeps getting more fun. Next few days it should finally become musical since I'll be adding an interface to let the sequencer I build 2 years ago control it. The module I added over the weekend helps too by dividing clock signals down so I instead of just one clock I now have multiple divisions of it (think 1/4 notes, 1/8 notes, 1/16th notes...)
I may take you up on that for my winter build. I'd be interested to see how the pars hold up and react to the sun/glue, etc. The project is already utilizing some "interesting" techniques, including 3D printed aluminum.
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