Low resolution success == High resolution success?

I was wondering if successfully printing a part at 100 microns will guarantee that a 25 micron print of the same part will also be successful. What I am hoping to accomplish is to quickly print out my model at 100 microns until I am happy with the supports and final product. Once I have the 100 micron model established, will that guarantee that my print at 25 microns won’t fail?

The exact opposite is true. A 25 micron part will have to endure 4 times the peel steps which leaves 4 times the opportunity for failure. It won’t for sure fail but there is a greater chance with higher resolutions. Is there any reason the part has to be 25 microns? Most things come out fine at a little lower resolution unless they have really small features that require the higher resolution.

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Stick to 50 microns. It’s incredibly smooth for anything that you need.

I print jewelry at 25 microns sometimes and I always wonder why I did it, because you can barely tell the difference between that and the 50 micron setting, except that it took twice as long to print.

For large objects, you should stick to 100 and 50.

I’m trying to print at a higher resolution because the part in question is a lens for a pair of sunglasses. Using the clear resin and high resolution I was hoping to achieve near optical level clarity.

You would be better off printing at 50 or even 100 microns then. There would be fewer layer lines to remove after the part is done. Optical clarity comes with post processing and there is almost no way to make it look perfectly clear right off the printer. Even at 100 microns though, it is close after a coat of clear paint to prevent yellowing…

In case you haven’t seen it yet, check out our blog post where one of our engineers printed a lens. His lens was printed with a 50 micron layer height and was post-processed heavily to get the final clarity. Even at 25 microns, you’ll need to do a lot of finish work to get a clear surface.

Thank for the advice. Looks like I need to focus more on how I’ll do the post processing than on the resolution.

Hi Max,

May I ask if you succeed in printing optical quality lens? I saw the blog post by Craig Broady but was wondering if anyone else managed to replicate that. I would like to know how good is the optical quality of the printed lens.