The resin dry out over time, making debris. If not used regularly, this happens.
Suggestion:
Make the printer run the mixer once every (day, week, whatever necessary) if it hasn’t been used that day/week/…
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Hi vargan,
Thank you for reaching out! I have passed your idea along to the responsible team, but we would also like to understand a bit more about the cause of your debris issue, as resin does not dry out per se. Could you tell us more about the scenarios in which you experience debris in your resin tank?
Best,
Sophia
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Hi!
Background:
We’ve had a Form 3 for some years, the latter years using Tough 1500 resin. No problems with the resin as such, some debris-after-print problems
This year, we bought a Form 4, together with some carts of Tough 1500 resin.
May 5. was the last print before summer, it had just run two prints altogether
When coming back from summer holiday, I wanted to pint a part. This was aug. 5th, so the printer had not been used for 3 months.
The printer reported debris in tank already at startup/mixing.
On inspection, we found that the resin seemed to have produced fallout, much like wines do. (It is a bottom layer of thick resin, stuck to the tank film.)
The bottom fallout is sticky and attaches to the scrape when removed.
As we use our printer just in periods, this is a major setback for us. And because of this problem, we already have had to order a new tank.
Environment:
The printer is situated in a small, ventilated room with no windows, door to adjacent room always closed.
Temperature around 20 degC
Lights are off when the room is not in use.
If you need any more info, feel free to contact me again
Med vennlig hilsen/Best regards
Svein Vargan • Supportingeniør/Support Engineer
E: svein@foss-as.no T: +47 92 08 90 75 W: www.fossfiberoptikk.no / www.fossfibreoptics.com
Foss AS Fiberoptisk Systemsalg, P.O. Box 3614, N-3007 DRAMMEN, Norway - VAT. NO. 936010229MVA
Thank you for the detailed explanation! Issues like the one you’re describing can indeed happen, especially with filled resins, but it is not a very common occurrence. We have still taken note of your suggestion to introduce regular mixer movements on idle printers.
As an immediate way to address this, we recommend using a plastic scraper to gently (!) mix the resin in the tank in order to rehomogenize it before printing, if the tank was unused for a longer period. Additionally, the cartridge needs to be shaken - this would also be the case if there were additional mixer movements for the tank.
We hope this helps!
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I would like to echo vargan’s request. Of course, certain resins are more prone to this than others, but in our lab we’ve noticed that solids precipitate out of the resin and begin to cake on the bottom of a tray if a printer goes unused for a few weeks, particularly with Tough1500 and Fast resins. And if the resin is opaque and still partially mixed, it’s easy to not notice, and the standard start-up mix at the beginning of a print isn’t always enough to fully remove that layer and reintegrate the solids, manual remixing is required. Some kind of periodic automatic stir when loaded and idle would help to ensure proper mixture, and thus material properties, without this potential for separation and nonuniformity of resin. I could see this causing some extra wear, but perhaps the frequency could depend on loaded resin, or be something settable in a menu, but especially with certain resins that separate pretty readily, this would be a great feature. Thanks.
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Can I add that simply having a setting to mix the resin without starting a print would be useful as well. We are trying to tint a resin and having to manually mix it by hand is less than a fun way to spend one’s afternoon. Having all this worked into a “auto mix” setting, i.e. mix for X minutes every Y hours (which would help with the issue raised above), or mix for X minutes now…
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