Flooded Printer

Ok, we were suffering from triple digit heat, so I brought my printer into the house thinking it was just too hot in my workshop. Of course I did this after filing a brand new tray with resin. I then set it up on my desktop and proceeded to level the printer by shimming thin plates under the feet.

I started to print and 5 hours in “BOOM!” power failure. After SCE restored power I cleaned off the tray and began to print again. This time the print was horrendous! I had bad supports, flakes everywhere, stuck resin to the tray, everything was just bad. I cleaned the platform and tray and tried another small part and it came out equally as bad. This time I cleaned the build platform and tray and I then looked inside the printer – it was flooded with resin! Luckily resin did not hit the mirror, but I can see resin between the printer’s base plate and black structure all the way to the back. I’m afraid it also got on a few circuit boards.

I guess that when I moved and leveled the printer I spilled a lot of resin into the base. I am such an idiot!

So I opened a ticket and told formlabs what I did. Now. I can’t just ship this the way it is, resin will go everywhere. So, do I go through the daunting task of opening the base and mopping up the resin? What else can I do besides walk this thing upright back to formlabs? What a stupid mess this is!

I’m really sorry to hear that, Ralph! That’s a bummer. I’d definitely follow the guidelines that the support team sets you-up with — if you haven’t heard from them, you will soon. They’re awesome, but it can take a moment to catch up from the weekend.

At any rate, I wouldn’t go about taking off the back-panel or anything — at least not on your own. As long as your mirrors are clean and there isn’t resin gunking up the moving parts, you’d be surprised at the spills I’ve seen machines recover from. Best of luck recovering!

Well I pivoted the printer on its rear left foot and left it at that angle overnight. I was able to get nearly all the resin out. I then carefully took a pair of forceps with a folded PEC pad dipped in IPA and swabbed all areas I could get at while cautiously avoiding the mirrors. I do have a laser issue that we think was caused by the power outage so I have to send it in nevertheless. I am currently in a holding pattern waiting for a call tag. Hopefully I can get this out right away and back up and running.