(@) refuse to use the resin
($) intentionally overcharge to discourage use,
(*) willing, but do not follow burnout instructions resulting in bad models
Out of state: Zero Porosity casting charges roughly double the price of silver per gram than average. They have superior service but the turnaround time coupled with the fact that pieces come out more than 2x as expensive, renders this option relatively useless for my needs as a company. Took them 3 days for someone to get back to me with costs and were not willing to budge on price to come anywhere near my current caster at $2 per DWT of silver.
Best Cast in NJ seems like my next best bet. Have not tried them, but I spoke to them and they seemed very confident that they could cast it. and additionally, that it would be done well, and at a reasonable cost. They seem to work with 3d printers too so I trust this may be the case.
If anyone else has any leads, please for the love of whoever you believe in, help me out! The plastic prints are great but I really needed this for jewelry and I am running out of reasons to justify the printer.
The one certain way to get good casts is to print and make a silicone mould and use a wax pattern from that silicon mould. I am a caster in the UK otherwise I would help.
It is often the same in the UK with Casters refusing to cast with resin not just Formlabs but most resins. The reason is that Casting is a bulk business and you can’t just stop and change your burn-out cycle for one job. But it might be possible if you got a group of Formlabs jewellers together and sent enough work through to fill a kiln. Then it would make economic sense to use the correct burn-out.
there are casters in Philade4lphia who will do it. Some pieces cast great some poorly. depends on how well they are cured. no guarantee on a thick solid school ring. but most jewelry no problem
Is it more work for them?
Is it the castable resins in general not just Fomlabs?
Romanoff is coming out with a dlp printer that uses resin and they are based out of NY, wonder if those same casting houses will reject their parts since Romanoff is a big supplier to many of those guys.
We haven’t cast jewelry, but we have experience casting engineering parts.
FWIW, $4 per DWT doesn’t sound unreasonable to me. I mean, what is that, like $10 for a set of earrings? Does that include the silver?
We might be able to do better, but it would require a minimum order (unlike the other casting houses we don’t have other orders to pair it with). Honestly less than $200 for a run isn’t worth the responsibility. Of course there are factors too: investment, electricity, wear and tear on equipment and consumables (like crucibles).
Yes but some casters have their own printers, and some printers have been in common use in the trade for more than 10 years. I would be interested whether the burnout cycles for FL resin differed substantially from that needed for resin from other manufacturers, such as Solidscape, Envisiontec, 3Dsystems or Stratasys.
When I first looked into castable resin I thought it would be a simple burnout like wax but it isn’t. Maybe the difficulty with resin burnout is too difficult or tricky for most those shops to bother with?
I believe eventually with more and more castible resin parts hitting the market they will have to start accepting these parts.
Yes it is substantially different. when heated wax softens, pours out and the residue burns away. So the plaster does not need to be special or to cope with high expansion. That means its easy to use and easy to mix and cheap.
Resin when heated, first expands, then it combusts giving off some pretty unpleasant and acid fumes in the process. The plaster has to withstand both the expansion and the cocktail of chemicals given off during combustion.
That means the Plaster has to be stronger, it has to be mixed accurately to maintain the strength and it costs more.
My own honest view is that Castable V2 still needs work on its formulation. I cast other peoples resins as well as my own and some of them burn out better than Formlabs castable resin. - On the other hand the machines that other people are using seem to breakdown frequently and be less easy to use than the Form 2. I know some resins actually contain wax and these seem a good compromise.
What I am hoping for is a Formlabs castable V3 which is as good as the Form 2 at performance