3D printing failed when using Form1+ with tough resin

[nothinman]

Most likely:

- crap in your resin - if these aren’t air bubbles, you need to get rid of these. filter through paper paint strainer, mesh >280 (on ebay for peanuts)

- cloudy tank (but you say no)

- dirty galvo mirrors

- dirty main mirror, or the one under galvos. a little dust makes no difference, but if there’s resin on it, it will make a huge difference.

[n23d]

Never used the tough resin before but sounds like you may have a bad batch. If the part prints great with your other

resins then doesnt with the tough resin then it is the resin. When it fails do you end up with chuncks stuck to the tank?

If so you might try one last trick I have heard works for others. Clean the tank coat it with rainx (brand name for a car

window treatment that causes water to bead and run off) then add resin and print. They say it makes tank last longer

and reduces peel forces so more reliable printing. Don’t know never tried it myself.

[CharlotteJ]

Hi Winson,

I’d try to print the model without support (it’s flat on one side, isn’t it?).

In my opinion there is not too much wrong with your machine, since the support comes out nice Have you tried changing the point size of the support? It looks like your support cannot hold the model well, maybe because your point size is relatively small?

Goodluck!

Charlotte

[nothinman]

It isn’t that Charlotte, he has plenty of supports, and the cross section of the object is small. It’s laser not curing it due to dirt.

[CharlotteJ]

I’m not suggesting that there is not enough support, but that the contact point of the supports are too small to hold the model. Could you share a screenshot of your support settings?

[mikeeclipse1]

Dirty mirrors or galvos - dragon skin on supports in your image is a tell tale sign.

Tough resin:

1: Sand build plate with 80 grit… get her nice and rough and clean.

2: Fine tuning - experiment with different heights, I find +3 work good with tough resin. ( -9 if I’m using ZVat trays… that’s for another discussion)

3: Settle for nice and thick supports

I used to be like some of you guys “What’s wrong with my print” … Now… if I have a problem, the printer is disassembled, galvos are cleaned, primary and secondary mirrors are cleaned, resin is filtered… DONE! 99 times out of 100, this solves the problem. This is assuming you have oriented the parts correctly, support material is correct, tank isn’t too cloudy, etc…

There are a ton of little things that can make or break a print on the form 1+ but it all starts with a clean printer

[Winson]

Yes ,I agree with you. But we don’t have the instruction from formlabs and even don’t know the structure of the printer, not dare to disassemble it or we will have no warrantee, so that is the problem.

Maybe you could give me more information about the printer then I could check it myself.

Anyway, thanks for your advice.

[Winson]

Hi Charlotte,

the density of the support is 1.0, and the contact point is 0.7, that’s the default settings, I haven’t change it. the only thing I have changed is the height of Z-axis, I changed it from 0.2 to 0.

I don’t know if this is the problem. Anyway, I don’t want to try any prints without the instruction from Formlabs as the tank is very expensive, if I still fail for a few times, Then I will need to change the tank again but as you know I just used this tank for a few times, it’s new.

[Winson]

Hi, good news for me. But I wonder if I could clean the inside of the tank with the rainx as I want to change the resin but don’t want to buy an extra tank, the tank is expensive in my country, So did you hear someone used it to clean the inside?

[Winson]

okay, I am contacting with formlabs now, I will update you with the latest news.

[Winson]

I have checked it tomorrow, but all of the items you listed could not work with this problem.

[Winson]

I am trying to email you for twice, but got post-mail back. it looks like that I can’t send email to you. But I got yours.

[metaobjects]

I’ve recently started using a resurfaceable glass tank (z-vat) so have switched resins often. You don’t need to fully clean the tank each time you do it, using the scraper to carefully scrape the resin out is generally enough as I’ve not had trouble with the tiny bit of resin left mixing. I have experimented with cleaning the original tanks and it made them perform worse. I’ve had formlabs tanks fail well before they’re hit 2l resin which is why I got the glass tanks.

[Winson]

Hello, which kind of tank are you using now? or you just remove the silicone and add the glass in it? maybe I can do it too, I have already get two resin tank wasted, I can modify them.

[Mmc2012]

That’s strange… You tried just replying to my email too?

[metaobjects]

We’re using z-vat 3rd party vats which have silicon coated glass bottoms, but the plastic vats are recoatable too, have a look at the DruckWege ReCoat kits

[Winson]

Thanks for the information, I will check it right now.

[metaobjects]

That is a worn-out tank right there I’m afraid. Did you print the model in the same position several times? Looks like the area corresponding to the support points has suffered burn-in. You need to try to avoid printing over the same position as much as possible, and in general the tough resin seems harder on the tanks than other resins in our experience, which is why we got the recoatable z-vat glass tanks

[cyprien]

Contact supportATformlabsDOTcom for quick and accurate answer from Formlabs support team

[n23d]

I had the silicone layer in a tank that I had used for a short time delaminate from the tank. It allowed resin to seep between the silicone layer and the tank. I could not get anything to build at all. The cured resin beneath the silicone absorbed enough of the laser energy to prevent curing. The tank looked clean and smooth just nothing would build. Had to replace the tank. My guess is the same thing would happen if the resin got on the outside of the tank. Just wiping it off might not be enough to restore transmittance. If you clean it with alcohol just be sure to use virgin alcohol right from the bottle not contaminated with resin from the rinse tank.