I have been looking for instructions for completely cleaning a resin tank for storage. Inside and out. I have seen the instructions for cleaning the underneath, but nothing on the inside of the tank apart from scraping.
Is there any cleaner for removing resin from the tank surrounds?
How about cleaning the top surface inside the tank, anything to make it squeaky clean?
What I do and it seems to work fine (at least no clouding and no damages on the tank) is to pour the resin through a filter and wash the interior of the tank using dish washer soap using gloves. I do several washings until I don’t feel it sticky. Then leave it dry upside down covered with a paper towel. After that I return the resin to the tank and that’s perfect.
Let me add that I have a very very low fail rate on my prints. I do this every month because my office is quite dusty.
I can’t speak for the effects of dishwasher soap, but here in the office we do the following:
Use the scraper to scrape out as much resin as possible.
Use the squirt bottle to squirt IPA into the tank while holding the tank upside down so the IPA can drip out. You don’t want the liquid pooling in the resin tank as it could seep under the silicone, destroying the tank. You can use the scraper to wipe the silicone.
Place the resin tank upside down on a paper towel to let the IPA drip out and dry.
Hope this helps!
EDIT 10/18/18: Please DO NOT use IPA to clean resin tanks. Gentle scraping with a moist(with water) paper towel is the most that should be done to clean a tank. If you’re still having trouble after that, please contact our support team.
Just to clarify Jory, how ok is it to mix two types of standard resin? Say I emptied out a tank of grey and used another resin like black iin it but not entirely cleaned the tank from the previous grey resin, so traces of grey mix with the black.
Having small amounts of mixed resin won’t likely be a problem
As for cleaning–I’ve found it’s much much easier to use a cheap syringe type thing to suck out the resin from the tray to put into the bottle rather than trying to pour it out from the corner, that way you don’t make a mess on the outside of the tray. You just tilt it a bit and use the scraper to get it all over to the corner, and then after that you wipe down the inside, there shouldn’t be much left after that. IPA will clean the bottom the best, but it’s not good for the acrylic tray.
Edward - Jason and Zachary’s comments are good. Small amounts of alternate materials should not really effect your prints. If you have large amounts of alternate material…the curing of your parts could possibly be effected.