Hi Folks,
Long time SLA printer, but short time Formlabs owner. I’ve noticed with the form 4 mixing every layer, there is quite a bit of “foam” that gets created and the resin in the tank is still settling when the UV light activates.
Generally, with the cheaper hobby printers, you’d want to give the resin an appropriate resting period before the UV activates.
While I have not noticed any issues with prints, I was wondering if this bubbly foam can have an impact as well as not letting the resin fully settle - has anyone noticed anything like this? I’m using Tough 1500 v2 and was just curious if this could have any impact on things - ie, the resin gets TOO foamy.
Obviously, this is not a hobby printer, so my assumption is this has all been thought out and I’ve not noticed any failed prints, but it makes my brain itch.
The foaminess is caused by the speed of the mixer wipe causing the resin to overturn at the edges trapping air. I have never attributed a print failure to the “foaminess” on solid or elastomeric materials. The only place it may show up is in clarity issues in clear resins (clear, Elastic, Flexible etc) if that is a key output for you. You’ll see microbubbles trapped inside the part. You can reduce the wipe speed and wall approach speed in the print settings editor to address this as needed (If I recall correctly 25-50% of the default value does vastly improve the result).
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Aha! Okay, thank you for that tip! I’ll look around in the settings some more - I hadn’t seen that option.
Hi @DasPrintHaus ,
@barreax2 already offered great insight, I just wanted to confirm from Formlabs’ side that the foaminess should indeed not cause any issues, but if it’s disturbing, you can modify the wipe speed in the Print Settings Editor in PreForm, as suggested previously.
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Much appreciated. I have been able to change the wipe speed and a few other parameters to fit my needs! Thanks again!