New here, as I just invested in the form 3, absolutely in love with the machine so far. I’ve been attempting to print some polyhedral dice with the Clear V4 resin and run into a bit of a problem.
My dice on the support side seem to have a goopy textured finish. Rashing I think might be the term. I’ve tried reducing the amount of supports to the bare minimum to improve the flow of the resin, but I find it’s still getting caught in the numbers and leaving a bumpy texture on the faces adjacent to the print bed.
I also tried the beta settings for the Clear V4 which improved the finish slightly, but I’m still seeing less clarity in the numbers compared to the other side of the dice.
I’m hoping there’s a setting I’ve missed, but I don’t want to keep testing blindly. It seems like excess resin left in the surface is being cured by the laser. I’ve tried raising the distance from the raft but it has a 1cm limit. Hopefully someone with a bit more experience than me can point me in the right direction.
Are you using compressed air immediately after the wash?
Is your IPA clean?
Are you curing with supports attached?
I recently inadvertently left a part in IPA overnight (Tough 1500). No gooey residue! This was a fairly simple part and the soak did not affect the part much at all. I was surprised. Certainly don’t recommend anything like that but it points to a wide variance in what happens in the wash.
I trim straight after the IPA bath and the messiness is already there. The prints haven’t been exposed to any UV at this point so I’m pretty sure it’s something happening during the print or a setting I’m missing. I’m pretty sure the part is orientated correctly. Just gotta keep poking around I guess.
@rbeddoe’s suggestions are good ones. But with a shape like that it’s going to be particularly difficult to achieve a clean surface on all faces. It looks like you’re already using a sensible orientation (one of the vertices facing down), and have played with support density (have you found there’s less goop if you reduce support density? What happens if you go the opposite direction and pack in more supports, perhaps with smaller touchpoints?). Height above base is another knob worth adjusting.
If nothing else works, you could try a completely custom supporting structure (e.g. model in thin, sacrificial fins that stick out from the downward-facing edges and break off after the print).
If you think it’s a resin flow issue, a double-shield as shown here is also something I’d definitely give a try:
You’re going to want to manually position the dice. Aim them so the apex of a corner is pointed straight down, and then only place supports along the edge between each down-facing facet. How do I know? My nephew just asked me for some D&D dice a few weeks ago and I printed these. First attempt I let Preform position the dice and the results were sub-optimal. Redid as per above and the results were substantially better. All faces printed “clean”.
