Good afternoon,
We started printing some R&D parts with the high temperature material on our Forms 2 and was wondering if anyone has had experience with it. We are going to be sending the parts to get coated with a high reflective coating that withstands about 200C; the cost of live testing is not to bad so we have done 6 parts for quick testing but figured ill get more info here as well.
We followed the cure steps of about 6 minutes in IPA (due to size) and then let them dry completely before placing them into our curing oven with mainly 405 UV and 55-64C temp starting for about 60 minutes but did most parts for about 110 minutes just to be safe. We also printed at 50 not 100um resolution to help surface finish and hopefully already cure the material more then printing at just 100um.
When the parts print they are almost perfectly clear translucent but after curing they turn orangey similar to the sample part we have from Forms.
Is this the best way to no if the parts have been cured fully? If they change from clear to orange? Other then blowing hot air on it is there another way to know?
Shrinkage of the high temp material seems to be little bit more then that of the regular black that we have been printing with. We scale about 0.5% for black and printed size that is almost perfect as per design.
Any thoughts and experiences with the high temperature material would be greatly appreciated. Also the high temp is much more brittle.
Change in color is one of the best ways to determine whether a material has been fully post-cured. Our Castable and DentalSG materials both have changes in color as well. If you’ve followed the recommended curing specifications, you should be good to go. From the pictures, it looks like your parts are fully cured.
You might try post-curing on supports to see if that minimizes shinkage. Parts will swell slightly in IPA but should return to original dimensions after being post-cured. Keeping the supports on will help to minimize any shrinkage due to warping. Orienting parts at 45 degrees in both the x and y axis also helps to evenly distribute forces that may cause warping.
Is that a blowtorch head that is in your pictures?
It is the Formlabs model they send out if you as for a sample part and yes, it is a blow torch head. Somewhere there is a video of them actually using it. It is pretty cool.
Here’s the video @DavidRosenfeld is referencing!. For short term exposure, the printed blow torch head held up well but the flame does exceed the HDT of the material and will degrade it over time.