I’ve been testing the use of ALW’s resin and find it very much fits my needs.
Kevin suggested a 3 beige to 1 black mix to duplicate the FL Grey V3. That wasn’t quite the results I wanted. So, I mixed up 4 parts beige to 2 parts black and got excellent results for my needs.
Color and density are good… Very fine detail is no problem to print and I mean very small detail.
Best to remove the supports while the resin is still semi-soft. Cut the supports at the build support platform then cut any of the inter support links so that all the supports are individual. Just bend the supports and they will snap off cleanly. There may be a few you have to be extra careful off if they are attached to fine detail points.
One other thing, I find that without the heater in the tray the tray doesn’t fog nearly as quick and I’m on my fourth liter of this resin and still going strong with almost 100% success rate.
I’ll be switching to this resin mix totally in the future. Cost is the factor as is the quality. I can now produce products I couldn’t do before as the price to sell would have been just too high.
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Post some prints if you can.
Here’s some 87:1 scale roof top cupolas with flagpole.
Also a 87:1 Bakery Display Cabinet with separate shelves that have goodies on them. This is so the modeler can paint the details easier than if it was already assembled. This is an early photo. I’ve since improve on it and added a third shelf.
Almost complete kit design. The bakery sign is a 3D print as is all the detail items on the roof. rest is laser cut.
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Here’s a better shot of these detail pieces. I have a penny in this to give a concept of size.
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4 liters of the mixed resin in one standard tank? no degradation from fogging? No heat? so you are printing in open mode?
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Yes, I print Open Mode. The Preform setting is for Grey V3 at 0.1mm layers. I used .05mm layers before but find I’m getting just as good a finish with the course setting. Again, the ratio of ALW’s resin is 2 parts Beige to 1 part Black. I said 4:2 earlier but it’s the same. I mix 1 liter of Beige to a 1/2 liter of Black. Very happy with the results and I’m running about 16 hours a day one job after the other as I do production work. You can see the various scale detail pieces on my website at www.rustystumps.com Anything is Grey is 3D printed. Most all that are in brown are cast resin but some I haven’t had a chance to change the photo yet.
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Details look pretty good for .1mm.
That vent pipe is hollow. Detailing in the brick chimney and the bakery items on the shelves is excellent.
Once I get the chance there will be detail items on the shelves of those cabinets with the blank shelves in them right now. We will supply small bags of white metal or cast resin castings until the supply runs out. I’ve moved from white metal spin casting and silicone mold casting to totally using the Form 2 for production.
So you no longer do any metal casting on the parts? Not sure if you knew but you could have done spin casting with resin using the Smooth-On Task 2.
I still use my Contenti 12" spin caster but for pewter items like keychains, belt buckles and tons of golf ball markers but been using my Form1+ more for product prototyping. The pewter market is brutal to compete and prices all over the place so it isn’t a good idea to stock up on supplies.
I am well aware of this. I used Smooth-on for my silicon molds. Not worth the mess and I sold off the Contenti 12" a year ago. I’ll be doing no more than 20% of my silicone resin molding going forward. I’m 75 years old and don’t need three ways to accomplish the same task. My items are very small and I get far better results with the Form 2. I’m doing things with it much easier than it would be to create the molds for the spin caster. Those I also made from silicone as the parts weren’t distorted by pressure. Thus my round drums where round not oval. But, time to move on to better methods.
Good point especially the type of parts your making they would be tricky to create a molds for.
As for distortions it can be very touchy on settings and require a higher durometer rubber which would limit your undercuts on the parts your making.
I think your bigger expense now on your costs would be the tanks themselves.
If you are saying the resin tanks, no. I’m using the ALW’s resin and I’ve been using the same tank time after time. I’ve gone through 4 liters of resin and the tank has no fogging. Running perfect. Some items I’m printing are only 1/32" high with high detail. Issue isn’t the printing of such small items but that they are so delicate on trying to remove the supports. If I had the extra $$$ I’d buy a second Form 2.
Wow, I get about 1 tank mer liter with the clear 02 and have to work around the fogged areas. Most of my items are fairly thin < .125".
Using Open Mode doesn’t run the tank heater and I think that’s the cause of the fogging. Funny as the laser and mechanism generates enough heat as far as I’m concerned. I’m more than please with the Apply Works Lab resin results and the price is also excellent.
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I think as long as the AWL resin is at room temp you don’t need a heater because it has a lower viscosity.
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Hey Walter,
How do you process the aftermarket resin? ie- do you fill old FM cartridges, or do you just handfill the tanks?
Doesn’t do any good to fill the FM cartridges as they seem to also have a date stamp. I have two recent cartridges that the machine won’t accept claiming they are too old.
So, I just pour the resin in to the resin tray. Not a big issue and easy to do. Just need to make sure you don’t fill the tray too high. I find about mid point on the “down arrow” works about right. The 100 ml limit is a pain as I run jobs over-night so I watch to make sure they don’t exceed that 100 ml limit.
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There was a reset tool made for this. The date is for your reference. The actual amount of resin that has been through it was supposed to be the lockout factor. The only benefits of using the FL cartridge would be to gain wiper and auto-fill. The heater isn’t required for ALW resins and the benefit of auto vs. open mode is no pause lines in the print you get from having to pause and fill.
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HUGE pain in the ass if you have to constantly monitor and handfill the tank…we routinely run prints of approximately 15-200ml of resin…gotta find a workaround for this…
