Casting jewellery

hello,

do you cast resin of formlabs?

I Use a Form 2 to print but I also have Roland Mills and They are very very accurate so while I can’t comment on the accuracy of the Roland 3D printer because I don’t own one. If they are build as well as the Mills and I believe they are, then I think that the accuracy will be superb. The build quality of the Milling machine is amazing and it stays in register for 5 years or more at a time before needing adjustment. As I said realistically 25 Microns is fine for most jewellery jobs and 50 Microns is often OK. I would be happy if the resolution remained the same as the Form 2 is now, but the resin just burnt out better.

The Carbon M1’s $10,000 installation fee, $12,000 USD accessory pack and $40,000 a year rental charge makes the system completely uneconomic for all but the biggest jewellery manufacturer and thats whats so great about the Form 2 its affordable tech. For that I am willing to sacrifice some resolution. If i could afford a Carbon M1 I would buy a yacht with the money instead and retire!

I am still working the kinks out, but I do.

I was only commenting in reply to the comment that all 3D printers leave striations. I am not arguing that 25 microns isn’t adequate for most things - but I could argue that 1 microns at 10 times the speed wouldn’t suck. :wink:

I agree that the pricing is in a different league than the Form. But I think it is interesting is all that is stopping us from doing the same is a few grams Cytop Film (or Teflon AF2400) stretched to form a semi-permeable membrane for the vat window and firmware that supports continuous printing.

Someone has made one here for their DLP printer. He states the tooth models were printed in 5 minutes with it!

P.S. the semi-permeable membrane also eliminates all the issues related to peeling forces. So ultimately more delicate prints would come out - and every time.

I get a 404 error for the link

this is about post-curing and casting :wink:
I am happy with your happiness and knowledge about microns.
This is interesting but can you open new topic?
or pls share some values about casting jewellery with castable resin of formlabs’ or any other.

I agree thats interesting but you say that all that is stopping us is a few grams of Cytop film - who owns the Patent? for CLIP printing? if its not patented and the technology is in the public domain then I think Formlabs should be looking into it. Those people with a Form 1 can use the open firmware to reprogram. us Form2 folks are stuck until Formlabs looks at CLIP technology for the Form 2. If it is patented then thats a much bigger problem

Hi, have some questions to people who cast:

when you cast resin, does every time the result satisfy you?
Is it repeatable positive?
are you satisfy with it?

I am asking because i didn’t have a chance to provide a piece of resin to a person/company who/which burnes out and cast
according to the recommended schedule.

and i would like to try to send to test it to some persons.

what is your feeling?
can you work with that material (castable resin) for fine jewellery? easily?

thanks for answers

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I am using the recommended casting schedule and I sometimes get reasonably good results but its not reliable and sometimes I get poor results. Its certainly not easy to work with castable resin V2 its very difficult as it would seem that even the water temperature when mixing the plaster is critical. everything has to be just right whereas wax burnout is much more tolerant of the mould burnout and plaster mixing parameters.

I feel V1 was better in terms of burn-out. I had better results with it early on which i am struggling to repeat with V2

Sorry about that - it should be fixed now.

The subject of striations came up and I was just saying that there is technology that not only practically eliminates them, jewelry sized prints can be done in a few minutes instead of hours, and more delicate builds are possible. I don’t see how that doesn’t relate to the subject of this thread “Casting Jewelry”.

I think it is patented, but that wouldn’t stop people from implementing the technology at home if they wanted. Even if it is patented, FL should be in talks about licensing the patent, or developing their own implementation that isn’t covered by patent(s).

I work with engineering parts not jewelry so I won’t comment in fear of being off topic. :confounded:

@3DTOPO
all right
do you think striations can be eliminated in FORM1+ and FORM2 by now?
somehow I agree with @Hillzzz because most of prints hava stripes on surface.
Even small but they exist.

I visited the website with prints of 1 microns, and they are impressed. However they don’t have castable material.

oh not this way
I thought that it was just at the beginning and not so important in this topic.

Yesterday i printed some things in 25 microns and noticed that prints are not so accurate.

I think it is interesting but this is next long story.
that’s all
Sorry didn’t wanted to touch you.
feel free to post anything you want :wink:
I hope you can share valuable knowledge here

@3DTOPO
are you satisfied with using castable resin?

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If print is post-cured very good, so is this a guarantee for good casting result?

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I wish it fully burnt out at lower temperatures like PLA and wax.

Curing is only one important aspect. There are many more: the investment itself, proper investment casting, proper gating, adequate venting, adequate hydrostatic pressure, the burnout process, directional solidification (proper placement and sizing of risers and chillers), achieving laminar flow, the temperature of the mold when cast, the temperature of the metal when cast, degassing molten metal, and adequate vacuum if needed to name the main considerations.

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@3DTOPO
thanks for wide explanation.
I think when I decide to purchase a proffesional casting line - than I hire experienced person to do that and pay for his time and effort.
It is better to pay than totally creating something from the beginning.
learning casting - It is more complictaed than I thought.
To do “all in one” : design, print, casting, finishing and dia setting + final polishing it is too much by now .
Creating good design and setting takes some time.
Will use good outsource casting place by now for sure.

Yesterday I received next castings from another casting company (just for try) in silver 925
again without recommended burnout schedule.
Results are pretty good. I think it is just OK. Pics are after sanding
post-cured with my No6 (pictures of these 2 rings post-cured are in previous posts)
there is just one whole in 6-prong ring - for my luck is it in the place when the sprue can be located.
or could be just welded. Decided for place for sprue in rubber mold






what do you think?

thanks for your attention

maybe i repeat cating of mens ring

I’d love a sample of a model cured in your box. I am experiencing similar surface finish problems and would love to see if a more acute cure process would help to solve them. Please shoot me an email polly@thejewelersdaughter.com.