Here is a stretched 1cm block with a series of simple hole features. There is a round and a square hole for each size. The person testing is allowed to support and orient it any way they feel will give them the best results. When post-processing feel free to squirt nice and hard with the IPA squeeze bottle to clean them out. But no drill bits or other manufacturing please. Please post your results here.
You will find that in most cases the Form 1+ can better resolve negative features using a thicker layer height (e.g. 100 microns over 25). This phenomenon is a consequence of the curing properties of the resin in conjunction with a gaussian light source.
Iâve successfully printed 700um round holes through a 1mm wall (not 300, I know), and they were dead on. I have also made 400um deep 1.5mm circular indents that were quite crisp as well.
I have your model, and will print it @ 100um, as I cannot actually make any print work at better resolutions.
You mean about the resolution? I think itâs fairly normal that sub-100um is pretty dicey with the Form1+. To be fair though, I have actually printed one thing good once @ 50um, but the diff between the same part @100um was not worth double the time. Iâve never had a 25um print work, but again to be fair, I stopped tryingâŠ
They were more than just texture, they were pockets to inset and adhese 1/16"x1/32" neodymium disk magnets into, and they worked well for that. There was an extremely minute radius at the bottom edge of the pocket, but the adhesive in the bottom came up to the tangent point so it was not an issue.
It isnât acceptable, itâs kinda false advertising, but I need the machine, and I cannot send it back and wait for another that history shows is unlikely to be better. Yes, it should work @ 50 and 25, but at the end of the day I have work to do, and I can actually get it done @100 - even if itâs not as pretty as it should be.
@ChristopherBarr â contact our support team, and theyâll take a look at whatâs going on. Sounds like you know that and are taking a break â but weâll be there for you if you want to take a deeper dive at any point.
Printing at 25 microns can be more challenging than printing at 50 or 100 microns, and works best with small parts â but if your printer is failing, please contact our support team.
Here is a test print of the Min Feature Test. Printed at 100 micron in black v 2. Auto orient. My laser spot is not very good, flair and ârabbit earsâ. Will try higher resolution when I get a little more time.
Wow! I never had a printer that could print like that. I can actually see the 300 micron dimple. Itâs not a fully formed hole, but at least it can be located. And the 600 are nice. I would put your min feature size between 300 and 600. Now I wonder what others will look like.
Hole resolution looks good, but the surface near them does not look that good. Wonder how tight the holes would be if the tiny holes were last out of the vat?
Also, while looking at your laser spot something occured to me like a poof! (or epoofiny, for the full technical term), which was triggered by you saying
I guess seeing both âflairâ and ârabbit earsâ together in a short, sweet sentence clicked for me.
What if what weâre seeing in these âspot shotsâ is somehow really just a function of persistence of vision? My intuitive understanding of how a galvo operates is that there are two competing and opposing electrical forces on the galvo for it to target a coordinate, and maintain directionalty (e.g. supply and restrict current). Is it possible that the signals to both sides to do that are ocillating, or vibrating such that the actual dot is simply spending most of itâs time on itâs target location, but the frequency is jiggling the beam outside that ideal for a frequency-related timeframe?
If anything close to that were true, it seems like a test would be to add some mass to the gavo mirrors to see if the spot changes. Could it be weird if the frequecy of it all was close to the resonant frequency of the mirrors, like an unintended feedback loop? (or hopefully not quite like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mclp9QmCGs)
I printed two of these with some other parts I was running today.
Printer Info: I used a Form1+ Iâve had the machine for about a month and a half so far, and Iâve performed no calibration on it. I havenât inspected my laser, so I have no idea if itâs exhibiting flare, bunny ears, ect.
Set Up: Settings were .1mm with black reference. For reference this has been my most successful resin/ resolution combination, though I havenât actually tried very many so far. The resin tank used has had somewhere in the area of 1.1-1.2 liters worth of use so far. The first test piece was located right in the center of the platform and was oriented flat relative to the tank with supports. The second test piece was located right on the edge of the platform and was oriented using the automatic preform settings.
Other info: Ambient temperature was ~67 Degrees F. I left the parts hanging for ~4.5 Hours after the print completed as the parts were printing while I was at work.
Results: .9mm-1.5mm holes printed properly on both parts. The .6mm holes are clearly visible, but are fully obstructed very close to the surface. There are tiny dimples at the .mm hole location which appear to be the correct shape, There doesnât appear to be much difference in the holes based on their location and orientation.
@ChristopherBarr If it was anything caused by vibration of galvos (when they should be standing still) youâd get a lissajous curve, not something looking like our spots. And, like JoshK says, the flare has been very clearly isolated to the laser optics.
BTW, this isnât really the âminimum featureâ test. Printing âpimplesâ of varying sizes would be a âminimum featureâ test, this is the âminimum negative featureâ test.
Youâll find youâre typically capable of printing smaller holes than âpimplesâ, although it depends on the profile of the beam.
Think of it this way - a pencil can draw a dot no bigger than itâs point, but you can make tiny circles that get progressively smaller and smaller than that, encircling an empty dot of paper that can teoretically be infinitely smaller than the pencil point.
The ânegativeâ feature is limited by the pencilâs leakyness (beam profile) and your hand-eye coordination (galvo resolution). Whereas the actual feature size is limited by the pencil sharpness (beam focus).
Have now printed the same .form file at 50 micron, part on the right. No big difference in detail. The various surface imperfections are in the same location on both prints so I guess this is from dust in the optical pathway. Ambient temperature 25° C. Printer is an F1 upgraded to F1+.
