New Castable Wax 40 for Jewelry folks?

#1

A friend just told me that this has been introduced, so I’ll start the thread.

UPDATE I totally missed the announcement, but @Tex posted a link to the webinar in the thread, which I would recommend highly. It’s a great place to start. It answered a lot of my questions that I haven’t been able to find on the site, like whether we can continue to use the R&R investments or Satincast that we still have. The webinar also covered a lot of information about printing and casting issues with resins in general. Very informative. Well done, Formlabs. https://3d.formlabs.com/recording-new-jewelry-material-jan-2020/?utm_campaign=webinar-cw40-jan-2020&utm_medium=email&utm_source=direct

@Formlabs, there are links that are misdirecting on the Castable Wax 40 page…see my post below. Any links I clicked go back to the Castable Wax 40 page. Information about Casting and links for the investment just reload the same page.

(previous message posted) Has anyone used this and have pointers? I just ordered a cartridge and the LT tank it requires for my Form 2. I have had inconsistent results with Castable Wax (purple). I switched to Open Mode with Bluecast and had great results. But I really like the all-in-one solution of the cartridges and tanks, which is why I bought Formlabs over four years ago.

I have enthusiastically purchased some new Castable Wax 40 to try.

Looking forward to a new solution. I love the fact it was developed with Rio Grande…they rock, and I trust their expertise. I found this information on their site: https://www.riogrande.com/product/formlabs-cw40-castable-resin/701481

Formlabs developed CW40 in collaboration with Rio Grande and GIA in response to user feedback.

#2

You can see some interesting pricing information for this resin at this link.

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#4

They upped the price a bit, it’s now $249,-:
https://www.riogrande.com/product/formlabs-cw40-castable-resin/701481

#5

I tried watching the webinar yesterday but the zoom meeting said expired? I have been through the original blue and then the purple all promising great results so I am super skeptical this will actually work correctly… casting was the only reason I bought my machine and it’s been a horrible experience I’m praying this will finally deliver what they promised the form machine could do!

#6

I watched the webinar when it was live. It sounded promising but I am skeptical as well until i receive the resin and tank V2.1 for the form 3. I have had poor experience with the purple castable wax as well. I have had great casting results using Bluecast X10 with R&R Plasticast with an 8 hour burnout schedule.

According to the webinar, they said the optima investment and Plasticast are both acceptable investments powders.

I am curious to see if this new Castable Wax 40 is compareable to Bluecast X10 and if a similar burnout schedule can apply.

#7

I wanted to ask you, did you print Bluecast X10 on Form 3, or on another printer?

#8

I am printing Bluecast X10 on the form 3 using the castable wax setting

#9

Thanks for the answer! I also try to print the Bluecast X10 on Form 3, but mixing the SLA resin with the LCD resin, since I didn’t like the pure SLA resin a little, it gives the impression that the laser is a little short of power in this mode.

#10

Acording to Bluecast, if you try using the Black Resin setting, it helps with adhesion to the buildplate, I am assuming that this is because the Black resin requires more light to cure each layer due to light absorbtion of the black pigment.

This might help your issue with laser power if you are mixing resins. I haven’t tried this because I like the easy break away supports the Castable Wax setting has for jewelry.

#11

Thanks for the tip, I was wondering which resin needed a more powerful laser.

#12

For Bluecast X10 they recommend to use the Grey V4 setting on the Form 3.

I believe they have a primer available if you have adhesion problems.

#13

I am aware of the primer as I also use an LCD printer, and without the primer, the printouts do not stick to the platform. I got the impression that the printouts from Bluecast X10 resin for SLA turned out to be a little soft, but after mixing SLA resin and LCD, I got the result I needed. The only thing I would like to get rid of the lines on smooth surfaces, but it seems that this is not realistic yet. I was only able to get a decent result with High Temp Resin, but these printouts cannot be used for casting.

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#14

I took delivery of my Castable Wax 40 today with an LT tank for my Form 2. I may print something tomorrow.

I had used the original BlueCast and it was great. I have BlueCast X10 but have not tried it yet.

I think Rio made a mistake in the pricing when it first went up…they’ve corrected to be the same as Formlabs.

#17

Hi Kat try watching the webinar video - i do recall them putting up some info on the burnout schedule at 22.30 in the vid. :slight_smile:
https://3d.formlabs.com/recording-new-jewelry-material-jan-2020/?utm_campaign=webinar-cw40-jan-2020&utm_medium=email&utm_source=direct

#19

Please let me know what you think of the new castable wax 40. Thanks.

#20

Hey Everyone!

I’ll be running another quick session+ Q&A about CW40 later this week(Thursday at 2pm EST) with our internal Jewelry Industry Expert. The Zoom registration link should be available a little later today and when it is I’ll be sure to post it here ASAP!

It’s a totally free session and we’ll be happy to take some questions(as well as show off some of the post-processing steps for this material.

#21

I was wondering what prompted you to mix the SLA and LCD Blucast resins? other than SLA vs LCD, do these have any obvious differences from eachother in terms of print quality, post processing, dimensional accuracy, castability, shrinkage etc?

#22

Hey all! If anyone would like to get their questions answered and to see some tips and tricks for using this material, check out our upcoming session here!

#23

The SLA resin requires more energy to cure (I didn’t like the result with the pure SLA resin a bit) than the LCD resin, so I mixed them. As a result, the printouts are stiffer and the supported side has a slightly better surface.

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#25

Based on my understanding and experience.

The old LCD screen has a much weaker UV light penetration rate ( only 3% of the UV light will go through the LCD screen and finally touch the resin), so the LCD resin has been tuned very easy to be cured with a limited amount of UV light. Also, the color of the resin decides of the UV exposure time. For example, clear resin requires less exposure time since the UV light can shoot through easily compared to heavily dyed color. If you over exposure a resin, you will lose details. That’s why black and gray color works really well to catch fine details.

The LCD and Formlabs SLA both are 405nm UV resin. When I use UV light to cure the resin, the LCD resin gets cured instantly compared to a much slower curing speed of Formlabs SLA resin. My guess is the Formlabs SLA laser has a higher power rate compared to the LCD UV light (after the UV light goes through the LCD screen)

If you mix them together, I guess you can twist the exposure rate by changing the ratio of the mix so you may get piece less cured or over cured in order to achieve better printing quality.