Hi all,
Had a really exciting opportunity to substitute a CR part (chloroprene rubber) with a Flexible V2 part (via a Form 3) in some functional testing. The test was basically severe CCT (cyclic corrosion testing) with the part under minimal loading (was around a shaft that may have expanded during CCT). I had read here that there were some embrittlement concerns with Flexible V2, but that was acknowledged/tolerated since the die molded parts would take an extra 6 weeks.
Anyhow, the part survived the majority of testing, but then split along almost a perfect plane; I don’t know exactly which direction other than it was a plane normal to the XY plane (so not along a layer line). I’ll post a picture here if I get permission (there’s some confidentiality to worry about), but I was curious; have there been any examples of “layer separation” in the X or Y directions? Just a hypothesis, but is there an opportunity for reduced properties between the X “steps” made by the Form 3?
Either way, we were able to meet our customer’s needs on short notice, and the part survived almost long enough for the molded parts to be ready (they’re arriving next week!).