Anyone know if the changes in pre-form helped with tough resin adhesion?
Hi Joshua_Herskovic, The new version fix 90% of the problem with the adhesion, the other 10% could be fixed if you move the part and reorient its weak support points. I canāt upload pictures of before-after progress because itās a private design.
Sorry about my Englishā¦
It is not my first language.
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That new resin from Australia is very tough epoxy. It is reasonably priced even when you include shipping!
www.monocure3d.com.au
We have also tried the tough resin. I get same issues with the base not staying on the build platform.
I increased the base, but it did not help.
Clear, black and white works fine.
Hi folks,
Back in August I chimed in regarding solutions Iāve applied in my quest for reliable printing on the Form1+. @Seagull was also working on the same concepts for reliable printing.
Iāve tried to inject a little humor, if weāre not having funā¦whatās the point?
At that time I had not used the tough resin, too busy happily printing with the standard resins.
Recently, I received an order to print in tough resin, of course itās a rush order. Oh crap, have not had the time to mess with the tough resin. The model to be printed was 154 x 43 x 10mm, oh great, not only have I not mastered printing with the tough resin, the first print with the tough resin will challenge the size constraints of the platform. I oriented the model close to the platform, an attempt to mitigate introducing too many tough resin printability unknowns, especially lengthy supports.
Ok, howās my platform looking for flatness. Yikes, itās been a long time since the last tramming of the platform. Upon further inspection, one vertical side where the body attaches to the aluminum plate was slightly bowed, looked like the body had slipped off the internal gasket. Off comes the alum plate and sure enough the gasket was not where it should be. The last gasket alignment took some time to position correctly so the platform body juuuuuust bites the edge of the gasket. Oh geez, I donāt have the patience right nowā¦out comes the gasketā¦Iāll run without the gasket. I then started re-assembly of the the platform.
A combination of not being prepared to accept a print job requiring tough resin, my hand-drill was completely charged (a powerful drill) and a rush print job on top of other rushed orders produced a bit of a high stress level. Not a good time to be messing around with platform alignments. I started to re-fasten the alum plate, one bolt done, two bolts doneā¦around the fourth I heard a cracking sound, what the? ā¦sure enough the plastic around the bolt head cracked. I was not paying enough attention to the torque settings on the hand-drill, it was set to the maximum, not the preferred minimum setting. Nice, Iām hooped. With only 4 bolts installed I checked the flatness of the alum plateā¦oh geez, this canāt be good, I need to back off those bolts. What I thought I was hearing was the ratcheting of the lowest torque setting, the familiar and very similar sound was actually the stripping of the sockets on all four bolts. Excellent, this just keeps getting worse, wellā¦at that moment things seemed a little hopeless. Time to make a coffee and ponderā¦and oh yeahā¦order a new platform.
With a new platform a few days away, and the possibility of crafting emails to alert my clients of the impending delaysā¦I was not going to let these recent events tarnish my reputation.
I completed fastening the aluminum plate. Grabbed my trusty Nicholson āMagicut 12ā file" and proceeded with the only solution left to tram the plate to the z axis. For those of you who have used a file to tram, (not a common method btw) will appreciate the task at hand, fortunately I have the proper tools for the procedure. A few hours laterā¦I figured I was close enough to flatā¦attempted the printā¦the middle support base area detached from the platform. Another hour or so of careful filingā¦attempted the printā¦success! I then printed 15 small models at strategic areas of the platformā¦all 15 printed perfectly. I then printed another loadā¦perfect prints. Iām now on my 11th print job with tough resin, beautiful, perfect prints.
Edit: Please do not perform a flat file material removal tram of the aluminum plate of the build platform without first checking if your printer warranty will be affected by the procedures used in this comment/reply. Also, you must be a seasoned wielder of flat files and precision tramming(as performed on a milling machine). The proper tools in addition to a flat file are also a prerequisite. Filing metals and plastics might seem like a trivial procedure, quite the contrary when the goal is a precise outcome.
I cancelled my order for a new platform, Iām now designing a complete platform replacement for my Form1+.
cheers and good journeys,
Brent
Technology Salad
I used the tough resin to print 4 parts for a client. He will be ocean testing them in powerful shore break waves. The parts assemble to form a special special fastener for his swim fin design. Oh, the first 4 prints on my Form1+ came out good, just a little sanding some support nibs off. The original build platform from my Form1, not 1+, is still in use and was used for these prints and a new resin tank from FL, because my other tanks made by Zak are filled with other resins at the moment.
I found that completely cleaning any type of resin off the build platform with IPA is not a good idea as it seems the IPA (however a small amount) mixed back into the resin tank on several failed print runs and also there seems to be issues with a diluted resin residue on the build platform that disallows parts from adhering properly. I have for the past 8 months just wiped off the resin with a blue surgical cloth overtime after clearing the previous print run off of the build platform. I suppose paper towels would work too, but a buddy of mine had a bunch of surgical towels to give me, so just saving a buck or too,
I just printed a few prints with the tough resin for the first time at .1 mm on my Form 1+ and they came out great. I too have the original build platform from my Form 1 (not Form 1+). I find I can clean the build platform completely with IPA, just so long as I āprimeā it again by dipping it in whatever resin I am about to print in and then running the spatula over the surface to knock off most of the excess resin back into the vat (so it still has a thin layer on the platform when I mount it). This seems to prevent most of the non-stick issues I have had. I also find that editing the support contacts and making the first few contacts (closest to the build platform) as thick as possible, stabilizes the whole print for much less failure rate.
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With all of your input and especially your patience, today, we released PreForm 1.9.2, with updated material settings for Tough Resin. The changed settings resolve adherence troubles observed on some printers, specifically and exclusively when printing with Tough Resin. Download the latest version of PreForm to print with the updated print settings.
We recommend starting with a fresh resin tank and clean resin for the best results. Printing with Tough, a resin tank may become cloudy more quickly (between 1 and 1.5 liters) than with other resins, which generally cloud closer to 2 liters, depending on the print. If you continue to have any questions, as always, our support team is standing by to assist.
Can you go into a little bit more detail about what was tweaked in the material profile?
Thanks for asking, Christopher. The settings were updated specifically to improve printsā adhesion to the build platform. You still have the same options to select between 50 and 100 micron layer heights, with all of the same custom support and orientation options, in PreForm. Nothing should change for anyone printing with Tough, except for the results are far more reliable on printers that previously had trouble. Tough should be much āeasierā to print with moving forward.
Hi Steven, thanks for replying. I guess what I was really after was the technical explanation of what was changed, e.g. laser dwell time was increased for first five layers, or laser power was increased. Other things like how does the change effect print time, if at all. What exactly did the change actually solve and how, specifically, and technically, did it solve it. Having this knowledge available to users will help them make better decisions and ultimately, better prints and better reports when prints go awry.
I havenāt had any issues with Tough, though tough prints were typically easier to remove from the build platform. Whatever you changed worked well, yesterdayās tough print was adhered harder than any other print I have had.
How will the change negatively impact tank life?
The simple explanation is that we made changes to promote adhesion. The specific laser settings are encrypted through PreForm, and these variables and values are not something that users can access or adjust. Iām afraid I donāt have more details to share; but if prints ever go awry, please get in touch.
Glad to hear that the previous issues didnāt affect you, Brandon. Feel free to tweak the build platform height in Fine Tuning if you want to play with adherence, but if the adherence is manageable, you may be better off leaving the default values. Regarding tank life, in general, it is normal for tanks using Tough Resin to require replacement a bit sooner than other materials, due to clouding having a more significant effect on print quality, but this is not a result of the recent changes. For Tough Resin, we recommend paying close attention to the print quality and clarity of the tank around 1 - 1.5 L.
Thanks for the response. I will leave initial platform height alone, I much prefer breaking a sweat during print removal to failed prints. =]
Iām assuming that these settings were the same ones I was able to use in a beta format during my discussions with customer support. If so then I highly recommend that people upgrade and use them. I went from no adhesion to being able to print without issue.
Interestingly I found that the tough resin needs to have the platform sitting higher out of the tank. With my regular resins I would just have the platform sitting as close into the tank as possible to ensure prints stuck. Been doing this since I first got my printer and havenāt had sticking issues since doing so. With the tough resin this seems to cause issues and bringing it out higher seems to help in the process.
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Hi Folks,
So back in October I mentioned I will be designing a custom platform to replace the many mods I have applied in my quest to print reliably and accurately with all resins.
I have fabricated my first Form1/Form1+ build platform prototype. My plan was to engineer a build platform allowing for plug-and-use without all the maintenance required in the pursuit of reliable happy printing.
The first models printed on the maiden voyage were simply gorgeous. I was very happy to have nailed-it with the first prototype. During the design phase I decided to also tackle the many annoyances Iāve experienced since my Kickstarter Form1 arrived in August 2013.
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First up, cleaning the entire build platform with IPAā¦ I can now plop the entire build platform into a vat of IPA without worry of distorting or damaging the this custom build platform. Build platform is milled from 6061 T6 aluminum.
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Load up the resin tank for larger print jobs, have not measured how much I can preload the resin tray yet, but easily 300+ milliliters.
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No more headaches with resins or IPA leaking into the hollow within the standard build platform. There is no hollow, gasket or plastic to worry about on this custom build platform. All aluminum build platform.
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A precision fit onto the mounting adapter on the z tower. No more fidgeting to test for a sloppy platform to z-tower mount connection.
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Precise hardware height adjustments within the build platform at .100mm and .050mm increments to 1mm and beyond. Tilt the platform in any direction if thatās what I need. Greater z-offset configuration using hardware on this custom platform and/or the Preform software.
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Design, print and attach any type of handle which fits within the cover of the Form1/Form1+. Or, I can attach the standard Form1/Form1+ handle to this custom build platform.
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Platform is tilt-able to increase resin run-off from printed models and the build face into the resin tray.
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This **custom build platform is flat within .0004" (.010mm ) across the entire build face, and parallel to the z-axis platform mount.
Hmmm ā¦there must be more, Iāll have to come back when they come to mind.
Thanks again @Seagull , for all the in-depth experiments and documentation which confirmed my suspicions, your early work really pushed me to halt the many modifications I had already implemented in a stock build platform, and proceed with fabricating this custom build platform prototypeā¦kudos!
Iām now in the process of cleaning-up the prototype. It is currently at the stage of being usable with the above features, and my next task is to fine-tune the ease-of-use. If there is enough interest in this custom build platform I will expedite the prototype clean-up. At this time, this custom build platform has eliminated all the uncertainty attached when using a standard build platform. Finally, Iām able to print with confidence and no longer have to monitor the print process with one finger hovering over the cancel button.
cheers and good journeys,
Brent
Can we get some pictures?
Hi @Gary_Cairns , if there is enough interest I will expedite the prototype cleanup and post pics.
MIL spec - SWEET! 