Hi. I have application where I want to mould around a printed part & then dissolve it away much like PLA or HIPS on FDM machines. I cant expose the moulded part to temperatures higher than 200 deg c but it will tolerate any solvent & some acids. I know there are no resins from formlabs that can be dissolved but I was wondering if there were any other resins available that would dissolve in a solvent or other?
Regards
Dusty
Hi, http://bucktownpolymers.com/rcpolymers00.html has a resin that can be dissolved in water. Haven’t used any of their products, just stumbled across this link in another topic here and thought that would interest you.
Hi Dusty
I also need to do something similar. Have you found anything that works?
Best
Jaco
I know of some people who print parts in Tough resin, and then cast silicone molds around them, and soak the whole thing in acetone for a while, which weakens the resin enough to gently crumble it out of the mold. This could work for parts with larger features where you don’t need to completely liquify the positive and can get away with extracting crumbly bits of jelly-like resin until your mold is clean.
I bought some of this a few years ago and I do not recommend Bucktown Rinse Out Resin for any printer that uses acrylic. It is very aggressive against plastic and will craze and eat away at it if left for long. There is a reason why is comes in an aluminum bottle. Its fumes are also quite noxious so you need to have very good ventilation.
There is no pigment and it uses dye to try to control the curing process. When I finally got it to print, it was very sticky and not very strong. Exposing it to hot water tank temperature (140°F) water did not cause it to dissolve, It only got soft. I never tried with boiling water because it ate away at my vat (was actually dissolving the acrylic) and I didn’t want to do any more damage to it.