LOL… Actually it’s silicone.
I mean a liquid that’s very dense, such as oil, that would consistently maintain a level liquid barrier between itself and the resin. It would “float” the resin on top of it, to prevent the laser from fusing the resin to the silicone window.
I’m not sure what you’re referring to?
What do you mean by translate feature?
heh, basically all of this is a re-hash from a few years back. Search for Rain-X or rainx. Also, @billiejean Zak is making tanks still. He was on vacation. I just got one. And, the bottom is glass instead of acrylic - both still have to have a PDMS layer.
The reason for the glass tray is that it’s more durable and it doesn’t get damaged by the IPA
Hi!
Zak here, developer of the glass resin trays in question. I just wanted to clarify a couple of things that billiejean brought up.
Yes, as Christopher mentioned I’m actively making and distributing Z-Vats for the Form1+. I’m also still actively working towards a release for the 2. As anyone watching that thread knows, it’s taken far longer than I expected. The reason- too many projects in my life, too little time. The glass base is not a hinderance, in fact it’s very much the opposite. Just ask the many glass Z-Vats users out there. For instance, the glass has superior optical transmission qualities than the acrylic (so we can tell), and it’s able to be easily cleaned with IPA in the event of fingerprints/ resin contact/ PDMS re-coating procedure.
You mention “But I have a feeling the resin was not releasing from the glass properly”. This is not an issue, because the resin is not actually ever in contact with the glass. Just like the OEM acrylic trays, the glass has a layer of PDMS above it. This is what’s in contact with the resin. So the technology is really the same as the OEM trays, it’s just a different base material. And buying a “true optical clear flat piece of glass” is not prohibitively expensive as you mention. Most industrial flat glass is by far true and flat enough, and if you buy the right kind the clarity is excellent for a 405nm laser passing through.
I see that you posted on the “glass resin tray” thread a while back and I did not respond. My apologies for this, I do my best to be aware of posts there but some slip by. I’ll reply to that soon. However, I am extremely attentive to my emails. If you sent me one and didn’t hear from me it may not have went through. Try me again or message me on this forum.
And lastly, to the point of this entire thread- the search for an improvement to the print tray release system is a Formlabs holy grail many have tried to tackle. I’ve seen many threads on this and other forums, and spoken to many in private experimenting with new methods. There are other systems as you guys discuss, but so far they all have their drawbacks. Despite the pains of it clouding over time, the PDMS seems to be the best option at this point. Regarding the Rain-X hack - a while back I messaged every single person I could find who claimed they had tried it out to ask about their experience. The results were totally inconclusive. Some swore it helped, some swore it did nothing, and some said it may have even made things worse. So I’ve been of the opinion that it’s not a silver bullet cure for the clouding, and may even just have a placebo effect.
I’m about to gather some high-production users to run a blind test trying out the various PDMS formulations on the market, to find the best and most inexpensive one. So at least if we are using PDMS we can do it as efficiently as possible.
Thanks for reading my rant!
Zak
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Zak,
Sorry about that, I didn’t realize you were still coating the glass with the Silly-cone layer, That makes much more sense.
Will keep following as I am Interested in one of your glass trays for the F2 when you start producing them… Pouring the sil Guard is no issue I am just lazy so that’s why I was looking around for the adhesive sheets. as I think they would more dimensionally accurate then pouring, But I haven’t dug into a tray yet as they all have resin in them right now so I can’t see if they were poured or not. (The capillary edge)
I still don’t understand why a glass base without PDMS won’t work? Can someone with testing experience enlighten me?
Thought experiment time:
Imagine gluing a sheet of glass to a sheet of aluminum. Now try to peel those layers apart from one edge. Imagine the force it will take to do that, and the behavior of it (if, and) when it ‘lets go’.
Now imagine if you have 3mm of a soft stretchy material stuck to the glass, then that composite is glued the to the sheet of aluminum. When you try to peel those apart what happens that’s different than just the glass and aluminum? If you looked sideways at the sheets while trying to pull them apart from one end, you’d see the leading edge of the peel stretching out the soft material vertically, with the glass angling down, yet the aluminum would stay level. As the stretchy material elongates, it’s grip via the glue to the aluminum weakens and releases in a wave-like manner across the sheet parallel to the edge being peeled. This ‘unsticking’ line moves perpendicular to, and away from the edge being pulled apart, until it has progressed across the entire sheet.
What scenario takes less energy and is more controllable during the peel event?
What scenario is less likely to leave glue stuck to the glass side of the aluminum/glass planes?
Put another way, you buy an item in the store. For some inexplicable and incredible annoying reason, they’ve decided to put a huge, gaudy sticker right in the middle of it. If you try to peel it off quickly, you tear the sticker, leaving the glue and some back part of the sticker hopelessly stuck to the object. If instead, you peel it off very smoothly and slowly, you have a much better chance of getting it off in one piece.
Here’s a thought…
What if the glass were quickly conductively heated before the peel? My experience with this resin is that heat makes it soft and gooey. A quick burst of heat would only really impact the layer on the glass. Wouldn’t that ease the peel (but put some thermal load on the glass)?
Or, do this with one of Zak’s awesome tanks:
I just pulled out an OEM tank that had probably 4 liters through it to try this new tank yesterday. All of that was various mixes of resins I’ve been experimenting with. 50/50 clear/tough, 33/33/33 clear/tough/flexible, 50/25/25 clear/tough/vorex-black, 50/50 (50/50 clear/tough)/FLblack, etc. Above is just after installing the cleaned up heating element. The amazing thing was, the OEM tank had zero clouding at all. None. Not one visible trace of damage to the PDMS. I print @ 43C or ~110F.
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While your analogy of
is interesting, what would that actually require and be like?
First, the build tank would have to be filled to the height of the build volume (or at least as tall as the current part).
Second, how would the lasers get to areas with hardened material in the way? To get around that, the build would have to start in the center of the object, and essentially spiral outward from there, but what would hold the built center in place?
Third, how would you get around entrapping resin in the model without a lot of carefully placed weep holes?
Sounds all cool and science-fictiony, but really, just not possible. EDIT: anything’s possible. Maybe just not very reasonably practical.
I mean, I guess you could merge FDM and SLA and have a microscopic (edit: resin) dispensing nozzle that would continuously add to a bubble (or hang it) while the lasers circle and follow the nozzle around a platform.
Sounds complicated but really neat actually.
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Sheesh, the world is full of nay-sayers. You really don’t even know how much damage you do when you shoot ideas down.
How is it any different from adding all the material at the bottom? It’s not. Except it’s better because you wouldn’t be limited to the plane of the bottom, so you don’t have to worry about horizontal surfaces. Currently, adding only from the bottom plane, you can’t build a horizontal surface without supports, but if you could swing the lasers over to the side, or have a second set of lasers, you can easily do it. What is so impractical?
First, filling. Why? You are wrong. The part could grow like it currently does from a shallow tray.
Second, blocking. ??? The same way they do now. You are only adding the option of deposition from the side. The Form is already doing it from the bottom only. You are clearly grasping at straws just to shoot the idea down.
Third, drains. What? Why? Just finish up at the bottom like it does now.
The only real issue, which you didn’t bring up, is if there is such a 2-frequency resin, or chemical that will harden only if both frequencies hit it at the same time. But if that exists, this would be fairly easy after some coding of the build strategy.
You’re absolutely right - the best things have always been created by those who don’t believe in impossible.
My hat is off to you in apology.
-C
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That’s what the more expensive printers do like Polyjet. They have a printer head that places a dot of resin and has a UV light to cure it, it also has another nozzle for a wax support material.
Man, this is what I get for not researching stuff. I feel like I have a great idea, just to figure out someone else has already done it!
And I think the patent on that tech recently expired so maybe we’ll start seeing affordable printers that use that soon.
Edit at the top regarding my 2 axis resin tank idea.
I am really curious what material Full Spectrum Laser is using in their SuperVat. They boldly claim:
“Instead of using a PDMS/silicone release layer, FSL3D has developed a special material that does not cloud/fog even after several hundred thousand print cycles. In addition, due to lower release forces, SuperVAT™ makes large prints with heavy infill more reliable.”