IPA lifespan with FormWash

I probably have more important things I should be worrying about, as I’ve got the machine but have yet to get my first resin, and perform my first print! A more important thing for what I need to do, is work out if I can model a living hinge out of tough 1500 : as if I can it’s worth buying the resin, for the job I have to do…

@greymatter Thanks for sharing that. I’ve noticed bigger bits settle down to the bottom of the tank and get stirred up during a wash; if I’m lazy about replacing the alcohol then toward the end of its lifetime my parts come out with some of that debris stuck to them. It’s not a huge issue as I give the parts a final hand-rinse with the squeeze bottle, but I’m wondering if you at least noticed any improvement there? If you were going all the way down to 2.5 microns (!) I expect that would even catch the little white dots Rigid leaves behind (those can leave an ugly coating on subsequent Black prints - exemplifying why Formlabs recommends a separate tank).

Like you, I recognize filtering won’t do anything for dissolved resin, although I can sympathize with your disappointment that it didn’t noticeably reduce clouding at all. Good to know.

No problem. The limit of resolution of naked eyeballs is around 100 microns about the average diameter of hair on your head.

So decanting your cleaning tanks through a very coarse filter should help to catch anything visible. Look at water filters for ponds etc. I have seen 100 micron filter socks! or better. The smaller particulates will get through and leave a haze on your work. That is why I have multiple rinse phases.

We have a rule that we do not mix our resins in the wash. We have stand alone cleaning processes for each resin (read as different “jam jars” for each resin) and we place these in the ultrasonic cleaner filled with water with a dash of fairy liquid.

I have not seen any tough 1500 living hinges been discussed. You could look at: https://www.3dhubs.com/knowledge-base/how-design-living-hinges-3d-printing/
even though it is not for TOUGH 1500 it does have some good pointers. Would suggest some/ many experimental runs and build up your own knowledge base.
TOUGH 1500 is not a bad PP simulant and it is less rubbery than the old TOUGH in green state. Its print thickness only goes down to 50 microns. Would have liked 25 microns so I do not have to do any finishing.

I used this resin as a PP simulant to design and make snap fits. I just printed an array of different designs and tested green and fully cured. Green state is great when fresh but it does get more brittle over time due to ambient uv exposure.

I thing think the first thing you need to determine is the minimum hinge thickness you can print reliably then work back from there.

Good luck

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