Coloured engineering Resins

Hi all, i’ve had my form 3 for a couple of months now & pretty pleased in general, but … and there always is one!
Formlabs obviously recognise the obvious need for many types resins, they also recognise that people want the ability to create colours they want, hence the colour kit, so why stop there?

in my case after creating a two part bracket/component in draft resin that my customer loved. He requested it in black which is a very standard colour in my line of work (Electronics Metal Working) I have Black V4 in the standard resin which looks great but is way too brittle/fragile for the job. Not a problem, FormLabs has many types of resins too choose from, i bought the durable resin (and a new tray) which worked as promised and delivered a good result though i wouldn’t recommend the colour and cant see too many customers asking for or accepting that look for a product. Again not a problem because Formlabs does a colour kit because they understand people want and need colours for the items they produce … right?

Bugger, apparently the colour kit is for creating colours in standard resin. I can’t understand this thought process, if Formlabs customers need to create an income from these machines the need for colour options is mandatory not optional. Formlabs bought Spectra, their longtime supplier of resins so why the one pronged approach to biocompatible resins only? I imagine more engineering types own these machines than dentists do? once they get the focus to the many restrictions for engineering the faster the growth will be.

I could be wrong and seeing it from an industrial point of view, but maybe i am right in my assumptions, wouldn’t a simple survey give some quick answers and if a good response is achieved then more surveys to focus on what the customer needs from there product

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God, the last time I used undoctored, unpigmented Durable, Elastic, or 80A was early 2019. I currently have 5-8 different colors of Durable all mixed up that I use for various things it would be so, so nice to have things come premixed or with guaranteed compatible pigments and mix recipes.

Yes it really surprises me that colour is not considered part of the function, and yet there is a colour kit for standard resin, which seems like a double standard? ok, i think that was a Dad joke

I could probably print 2 or 3 times more with a Tough1500 in black.
Bummer that I have no time or knowledge to “invent” this.

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Likewise, especially for things like electronics enclosures, a tough1500 in black would be a godsend.

I’m tempted to just risk the $400 in a ruined tank/wasted cartridge to just use epoxy dyes and mix my own.

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Best result i got was a mix of their Black Pigment at 35ML to a full litre cartridge, it was a nicer darker grey but nowhere near black. If i added more i got weird random fails & poor adhesion in small random areas, it became too much of a problem so i had to stop it, if you do it shake the resin before every print becomes even more important. I would estimate i killed 2 trays and a ltr of resin just constantly filtering the floaters out of the resin.

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