Hi There,
Do you think, that this bottle, even if it is red at the top, would be printed fine without internal supports? I don’t want to get into trouble when trying to remove them through narrow neck.
Formlabs Form 3L on clear
section view:
section view:
Should be fine. You might get some more visible layer lines near the top though as this looks pretty thin and will inevitably deflect more when peeling.
If you tilted this a bit and still only had supports on one external face, it would probably come out a bit better.
Let us know how it turns out!
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That’s great! 3.5mm thick is beefy, that’s more than I thought it might be 
How do you bypass the “Models Need More Support” warning and proceed to print?
Just ignored that message and sent it anyway. Looking at the wall thickness and the fact that the bottle is hanging from the base, it went fine. I think Preform is overcautious sometimes…
You just ignore it and click print. The warnings and just warnings, and like @Kicked said, is usually over cautious.
From my experience the warnings are way to conservative on the 3L (and even on the F3). I’ve printed many parts that Preform complained was unprintable with great success…you just need to step through each layer to make sure your layers and supports make sense.
You should look at using Durable for something like this print. The clear resin is going to break like glass if you try to deform it, or drop it on to a hard surface. Durable, especially in thicknesses less than 2mm, has properties very much like milk jug plastic.
It really depends what op is trying to achieve. There are definitely situations where printing this in clear is better and vice versa (eg. Looks like prototype that you’ll clear coat to get optical transparency).
Also, printing in softer resins like Durable can exacerbate layer lines caused by any deflection during peel. This part in particular might come out worse with durable because of that.
True. It was just a suggestion. If the print is for display purposes only, it’s not worth considering. But printed in Durable, it won’t break in to a million pieces when you drop it, and it’ll be squishy pretty much like a real blow-molded plastic bottle would be. 
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The main purpose for this model is to show our customer how his new product will look like and to be able to setup their filling and labeling lines correctly. Therefore, strong and clear model is the best. Because bottle has minimum supports, I had to consider making it thicker, hence 3.5mm wall thickness. This makes the bottle feel like a brick. Quality of the print and functionality, like being able to test closure on it are crucial.
If it comes to PET bottles, there is no way of printing a bottle even with even close parameters to the one made during blowing process. This is why PET is so successful. It’s molecular structure changes during the process of heating up and blowing it.
I was thinking about using Durable for different purposes. Where I will need to print closure actually. This element will require more flexibility and thinner walls.
Thanks for good comments
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Cool stuff, I use to work for Mold shop designing blow molds so its fun to see this, nice job!
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Prototype finishing tip: If you want to finish the bottle to actually be crystal clear, you can pour clear coat paint inside the bottle, tape off the opening, and then rotate the clear coat around to coat the entire inside. Then just clear coat the outside and it should be as close to optically clear as you can get.
Great part/build btw.
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awesome tip, can you share which clear coat paint you used?
thanks
I think if you heat up some clear FL resin (say, in a heated on a fdm printer for example) and do what he suggested, drain the excess and cure you should be getting the same results. The idea is to get the viscosity to resemble water rather than goo so it reaches the whole insides leaving no gaps anywhere untouched by it.
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I’m not sure what product we used back in my model shop days, but it was a catalyzed clear. Here is a link to a company I have used for soft touch clear applications on consumer products (overmold simulation). They have a gloss clear that I think would work.
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