Gloriously smart! LOL
(not my image – seen on FB)
Genius!
FormLabs will be getting worried about this innovation.
Light weight, portable, space saving and bold colourful design.
My curing chamber may be more sturdy, but the wood glue and tin foil construction was not as elegant as your design.
By the way, does anyone know of a 405nm UV laser pen that can be reliably sourced for doing spot repairs? All the ones I’ve seen are low power, or come from a supplier that has bad reviews.
Cheers,
Ian.
What kind of wattage are you looking for? There’s a bunch of reliable laser suppliers on e-bay. I see a 10mW unit for $11. 180mW units go for about $26. Units that come with regulated power supplies are a tad more expensive, in the $50 range.
My impression buying from these companies is they are usually selling components of bigger items they manufacture. I bought a 95W multi-diode array at 455nm. I imagine for most purposes that would be overkill – could easily set the prints on fire if you don’t carefully regulate the power supply. The 95W multi-diode array is the kind of thing used in tattoo removal machines, or powerful projectors.
I just had a look at the Form Cure. It’s 6A at 24V, so around 144W. Lasers in the 1W-5W range are typically used for engraving. The Form cure probably draws all that power for its heater, rather than its laser. So I’d try one of the lasers below. Be sure to wear some serious eye protection when using the laser. Very easy to give yourself vision loss through careless use.
Not an official recommendation, but if you’re going to try using a 405nm laser pointer for handheld spot repairs, the cheap ones that claim to be 5-10mW from eBay may be decent, and relatively safer than trying to use a more powerful laser. You should also try to get some eye protection that effectively blocks 405nm.
The Form 2 and Form 3 use lasers on the order of 120mW, but they’re trying to cure a whole layer of resin as fast as they can. If you’re just trying to cure a spot, you can probably afford to wait a second or two, if necessary, to make sure the resin gets enough exposure.
Thanks for the feedback, rybu and ike.
I remember reading an article that more powerful UV lasers were necessary to cure spot repairs for some resins, although I could not find that post.
I think I’ll try the eBay option and be sure to get some appropriate eye protection, oh wait, I have an adjustable welding mask! The power of a TIG arc is like a mini sun, the rays from that can apparently damage unprotected skin so I think I should be ok with that :c)
Cheers,
Ian.
Check out my post here:
If you have the money, the 405nm Loctite one is unbeatable. I tried a bunch of lower cost ones and was always disappointed. Be sure to get eye protection.
I bought some “black light” lights from Banggood a couple of years ago. They were advertised as for mood lighting, like at the back of a bar. Aluminum tubes about 3" long. They produce a decent-sized fairly bright spot. They claimed to be 405nm, though I have to way to verify, they do work for spot curing and the big spot size makes that chore easier.
But now there are tons of UV LED choices and they’re almost all 405nm. Do a google search for “UV Flashlight” and make your choice from the bazillions of choices. I wouldn’t go with a laser-pointer. The spot size is small, so unless what you’re gluing is small, you expend a lot of effort just trying to get the spot where you need it to be…
