Well i have had the printer for over a week now, but only got my resin yesterday. Formlabs has been great with communication thus far.
As i look through most “first prints” i notice they all posted after finishing, painting and/or some other magic.
There are amazing works of art, but i wanted to see more of the process, not able to find many of those pictures but now that i have some of my own, i thought i better share.
My very first print was of the Seattle Space Needle, i wanted to do a cool building but EVERYONE does an Eiffel Tower so i found a local landmark to print.
Printed @ 0.1mm and scaled down to be nice and small for a desktop toy.
IF you are as excited about the printer as we are…dont print in black for your first print, you can not see anything, start with clear, it is much more fun.
The print was perfect, (my supports and positioning of the parts was…my first ever. You can see the thin rail around the top is wavy and broke in a place or two.
Next up was a few parts for a client,
This is what my black print looked like right after the 2nd alcohol bath and some hot water
And after a little sanding and some mineral oil:
Overall i am very pleased with the printer, 14+ hours printing with 47 more hours scheduled already.
Great to see that you are happy with the printer! Very cool to see that you have become comfortable with the printer so quickly.
I am actually printing the same Space Needle right now in black for someone at the office! Cool to see one completed. I did not make it any smaller, so it is taking a few prints .
Enjoy and please let us know if you have any questions. Our support team is always ready for any questions.
Great looking prints, angling is key. Be careful not to soak the parts in IPA too long or they tend to get very brittle. I use a natural hair chip brush in the 2nd bath to lightly remove the resin so the part isn’t slippery then give a good squirt with fresh IPA into that 2nd bath container then dry it with an air compressor.
I have a shift controller for a racing wheel I have been using some time now and it seems to be holding up really well. Parts I let soak for the 2 min and 10 in 2nd bath were very fragile, I had one shatter from dropping at a low distance.
You can see I had my first print fail. The little raft in the center of the above picture was suppose to be a 3rd little bumper (like to 2 just above it.) however for some reason it did not attach to the build platform like the others.
Flexible parts (acting as bumpers) for an assembly. I did not pay attention to the top vs bottom on these so you can see the marks form the supports. I guess i should pay attention to this in the future
Nice prints.
Between prints I drain and strain my resin, remix and pour back in. This helps catch any cured resin that might be floating around as well as gives you a chance to really mix the resin up to keep a nice consistent color since the blockers (pigments) tend to settle even during the course of the print.
How do you like the flexible resin? Haven’t tried that yet here.
@KenCitron What do you use to strain the resin, and how much do estimate you lose as you are transferring between containers?
I have not really “used” the flexible parts at all yet…they do feel great, The O-ring that i printed is working for the testing thus far. I am trying to think of a functional part that i could print.
Tuesday was my first failed print, and what a horrible feeling. Here is the part and how it was in Form software.
Print time was 8 hours 19 minutes, so i started in the morning and everything was going as good as ever. With holidays and family i left the office, but as always i left an IP camera on the printer so i could spy on it. 5:42PM is when my stomach felt the pain of a bad print.
I left the family to head back to the office and beat my head against the wall…WHY did this fail???
Resin was clean, mirror is spotless, tank bottom is nice and clear.
I did find this bit stuck to the bottom of the tank:
Since this is not a part that will not be subjected to real-world loads, i decided we can clean up the part and just re-print the 1/2 that did not print, then we can get creative and attache the 2 parts together…
Made the cut just below the bolt holes, now we just need to re-print the other half and try to salvage this part.
I use a fine plastic gravy strainer and an blank pint sized metal paint can that the strainer fits in just about perfect. I don’t lose any resin really.
I saw on MakerJuice’s site they have a nice fine metal funnel with strainer built in that should fit the standard bottles.
Looks like i will be making my own funnel/strainer all in one unit.
In the past i have used aluminum screen material for sifting, i think that would be perfect for this application also. http://www.homedepot.com/p/Phifer-48-in-x-100-ft-Gray-Pet-Screen-3004107/100614705 (sorry im too lazy to search a more reasonable roll size right now. but i know HomeDepot has a “single window” kit for a few bucks)
Likely because it wasn’t hollow and has a huge cross-section.
Also, the side where it failed seems to be opposite of the peel-hinge, which further increases chances of failure.
Some objects you can print without supports. Just don’t generate them. This Marrvin thinge is able to print without supports by standing upright. Depending on your model you either do or don’t generate supports to save resin ;).
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