Does the part have any holes? With most of the third party resins I’ve tested there are small or even closed holes that go along with the large outer dimensions. This makes these resins impossible to use for a lot of what I do.
Thanks for testing!
Did you allow it to cure and rest? The original formula shrinks quite a bit after 24hrs.
Dimensions are still not that good, little bit disappointing because I have had a conversation with Sally from photocentric and she told me that the new formula is pretty good.
For whoever is interested: I got a message yesterday that the new formula is now for sale on the website.
For now I guess I still have to modify their resin manually.
It has had a couple of days sitting around before I measured and it was post cured in a UV box, as I say, for my purposes those tolerances are not an issue.
If you use open FL there are settings for the perimeter power (currently way above the fill power x 1.5 or so). If you turn these down it may correct some of the size issues and the filled holes we’re seeing.
I can share a spreadsheet that can more easily track the values and generate a copy/paste tab to create the new INI file if anyone’s interested.
In a perfect world the third party resin manufacturers would dial it back a bit more so that the 02 resin settings work. The old 01 clear, grey, black settings aren’t available on the Form 2. The overly sensitive resins just don’t work well on the 2 without hacking things.
That’s the fun fact… According to photocentric, they had beta testers with the new formula to make a laser UV resin that works on the form 2. They got positive feedback from these testers, but as JasonSpiller is already saying: most don’t care about dimensions as they only use the resin for figurines. So in the end, the resin might still be sub-optimal for the Form 2.
I already informed photocentric how we improved the resin to make it correct dimension and appearance wise for the Form 2 so hopefully they will use that info.
Anyone got any update from Photocentric?
Yes, talked to them and they say they have the new formula in the store now. According to them it’s really good but the measurements from Jason say otherwise.
I’m running out of resin soon so I will have to order a new batch anyways.
Running out too… I think I will abandon clear and white when they finish and only have grey and/or black.
I think it’s only fair to say that any resin, by any manufacturer can cure at a slightly different size to the original dimension, particularly when printed in thin cross sections. For the price (1/3 of the formlabs grey price, in the UK at least) and the incredibly low +/- dimensional value differential (by my standards at least) I’m more than happy to use photocentric over formlabs resin, plus when you know the rate of shrinkage you can factor that in when you set the scale of your print. Unless you need micrometer accurate prints (and I honestly don’t know anyone who does, certainly not using a desktop machine) I really cant see where the issue is.
I’ve just tested the clear flexible by photocentric, an O-ring for a brake fluid cap (no idea how it will wear against break fluid!) it’s a nice resin, more a see through white than clear when cured, nice and flexible, but as good as zero compression. on a 3mm cross section readings vary from 3.24mm to 3.35mm. My main issue with it was cureing, I just couldn’t get rif of the tackiness, eventually after 8 hours in a water bath under UV light the tackiness was gone.
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Nice! Do you have experience with the formlabs flexible resin as well? Not much compression is possible either with that size of an o-ring. Curing is always a challenge, even with formlabs resins.
I went through all photocentric bottles so I just ordered a few bottles grey, black, beige hard and firm. Looking forward to testing the new formula! I hope the ‘touch’ is better. The resin I have now feels soft but brittle to the touch.
But still, 0.24 to 0.35mm bigger is too much for me. I’ll probably add some pigment myself to compensate. I have quite a lot of customers making functional parts(buttons and knobs with tight fits) and with the formlabs resins, I manage to make them(in 3D printing sense) with very accurate dimensions.
No experience with formlabs flexible in afraid. I pretty much just use the photocentric hard gray these days.
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Hey,
how works Open FL for the Formlabs printer ? I own a Form 1(non plus) and would like use other resin manufacturer.
Can anyone explain the steps ? 
I think Fun To Do resins is a good option and a good price…we have to start looking around new resins now Formlabs stop form 1+ manufacturing…
Also considering that now the F1+ is out of production and we all still love our F1+ (I do), Formlabs should be releasing some more info about laser settings for OpenFL. Not necessarily full profiles but sort of guidelines and tips to test new materials. In particular most compatible resins work with Grey settings, so a tip for those would be just so appreciated! Even simply to have a starting point from which to fine tune. I guess nobody likes the idea of wasting trays to find the right settings.
The Fun To Do resins over cure and cloud the PDMS quickly for me.
You can add a little West Coat 105 epoxy resin to the mix to stop the over cure but the material becomes very flexible if you use too much. (working on how much to use now)
For the resins, the only issue I see is that Formlabs discontinues the old resins and doesn’t necessarily update the Form 1+ profiles to match new ones. I think they should keep the standard (clear, white, grey, black, flex) resins up to date. This allows you to just but cartridges (and sell the empties to the Form 2 guys).
I shared some INI files to try along with a spreadsheet that creates INI files with @DavidRosenfeld a while back. Still waiting for some feedback.
I’ll see if the system will let me upload the files here.
Change the PDF extension to INI for the 50 micron profile and to a xlsx for the spreadsheet.
FormlabsCalculator.pdf (37.9 KB)
Clear 02 50micron.pdf (6.4 KB)
Edit: The profiles in the spreadsheet were estimated by me and have not been proven out with prints. I’m running a Form 2 now and haven’t been able to test print.
Same for photocentric. Adding 12 drops of black pigment to 1 tank of black resin makes it stop over curing and dimensions are very good. But the material becomes weak(soft and brittle at the same time and has a very soft touch).
@FredB, yeah, Sorry, no feedback yet. My printer has been vacationing at the Seaport in Boston soaking up some cold and sun while being repaired / replaced (I am confused right now on what FL actually did…). Hopefully it got some nice nights out on the town…
No worries, hopefully some people can try out the curves that I made in the spreadsheet and see how it goes.
I’m kind of interested in seeing what a part printed at 15 microns looks like. That’s about 1/5th of a human hair and my guess is the machine slop will have more effect on the print quality than layer height at that point.
I did some more prints with Fun To Do resin last night and did get it working. Adding just a little West 105 epoxy resin makes a huge difference (2% by volume is a change). Too much makes the printed material very soft and still rather brittle.
Also, I think we haven’t been mixing the material up enough. The pigments settle really bad if you leave them in a tank (also hard on the acrylic by the way). I think some of the pigments may be settling on the bottom of the bottle and not getting mixed in properly. This would cause some of the over exposure we’ve been running into. So, shake well and empty the tray after you’re done printing for the day.
The Fun To Do material is brittle. OK for test prints and probably more art oriented parts or small molds. Anything else and you’ll want better material. (I wish Made Solid would come back from the dead).