Hey all,
I’ve recently purchased some tough resin and have successfully printed some test pieces. I would love to get everyone’s opinion on the best practice for printing, post curing, and finishing.
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I only saw one piece and it looks okay.
Did you face any problems/difficulties when printing with Tough resin?
No problems or difficulties really, just interested in how other users have found working with tough resin. Often there are quite helpful tips and tricks gained only through many projects, I’m just interested to see if people have found some.
The standard clean/cure process seems to work best for me. I wear thick nitrile gloves, always use supports, dunk the parts in the bath and shake for ~30 seconds, let soak for 5-10 minutes, rub the part under the alcohol with my gloved hand to remove the resin stuck from the oxygen layer, then repeat in second tank and cure.
Doing that seems to be the best way I’ve found so far. Tough is actually my most successful printing resin according to dashboard, so I find it somewhat nice.
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Definitely needs rinsing for longer than normal resins (white/clear/grey). Allow longer for parts to dry. Then cure.
If long and thin parts, then best to leave supports on during curing, then remove, otherwise curing can “distort” the part.
Tough is definitely tough. Very pleased with it.
I also like the colour, oh and remove a part of the supports prior to curing and then see the colour change after curing.
If still a little sticky, rinse with washing up liquid and a little water.
That’s interesting, i noticed on one of our prints it remained tacky even after half an hour in a uv oven.
If you are having tacky parts I have found it is necessary to use fresh solvent. Any contamination from previous rinses with resin can result in the tacky parts. It can also be from using a resin tank beyond its’ life. I have found tough resin to be the hardest on the resin tanks. My last tank with tough got cloudy long before 1L of resin through it.
Wow less than 1L is pretty crazy. That could have been it for us, our tanks of IPA have been used for plenty of prints, well over 2L’s worth.
Seconding the need for clean solvent for Tough Resin especially. Our recommendation for part cleaning is to soak in one bucket for 10 minutes and then transfer to another for 10 minutes. The first bucket typically saturates more quickly and removes the bulk of the resin while the second bucket has cleaner IPA and removes the rest. This is especially important with Tough and Durable resins.
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