So I do have a support ticket into Formlabs because I feel like I am burning through my PDMS trays like they are paper (4 trays in less than a month) and wasting a lot of material with failed prints… but this one has popped up on me at least twice I have sent this print to our printer…
and the result is this from the printer
Not only did the print fail but it has decided to add extra material into the center that i did not have in the initial print from Preform… so its extra material and has a mind of its own… but obivously it is still a failed print with a burned tray in the end… but has anyone else seen this issue of the machine printing areas that were not shown or needed… seems like a pretty big bug in the software that could be costly for the end user. Curious if it is just me or not
Tom
I might consider just printing 2 at a time and I’d print those at 0.1mm (not sure what resolution you have used). Is the extra material internal supports or just junk - check you supports dialogue and see if internal supports is ticked.
Resolution was at 0.1 as are just about all of my prints but yes I have internal supports check as well as added supports into the part manually
Support will probably tell you to clean the mirrors. Something is scattering the laser which is causing it cure a larger area than it should. This is why you get the large connected base feature. It would also explain the lack of successful parts and running through PDMS quickly.
Also, have you strained your resin in the tray lately? It looks like your supports are failing which is not common and could be due to some residual material left on the PDMS or chunks of cured resin floating in tank that block the laser.
It was brand new resin and tray as well as build platform… so no filtering was required usually from what I have done once I have a failed print if there are any “floaters” if there is not much resin left i will just dump the whole thing and check the empty tray for any burning or hazing if there is none I carefully clean out any other leftovers and ensure that the tray is clean before dumping more resin into the tray. I was using clear resin which gave me about a 25% failure rating I just recently switched to grey on my final tray (awaiting a shipment of new trays).
I am also sure that I am going to have to clean the mirrors sad though considering that the machine has only been in our building for about 45 days total.
Also in regards to the supports lately on some prints, not all, i have noticed that the supports are not very stiff they are pretty flexible, enough so that i could bend them completely over with out snapping them.
Cleaning the main mirror has become a weekly thing for me. Or at least checking it very closely for dust. It is part of running the printer. 45 days is quite a long time without a problem. Mine made it only 2 weeks. If you can bend the supports all they way over it’s possible they are not fully curing which supports the laser scattering thought. Wait for the mirror cleaning instructions from FL support and hold on to them because you will be cleaning them again. It is the nature of this type of printing that requires very clean conditions and somewhat meticulous maintenance and pre-print procedures.
Figured as much thanks for the info i have heard that they need cleaning frequently but didnt realize it was that much guess i should invest in the cleaning pads for the mirrors then while i am at it.
You can also look at internal supports in the model by using the layer slider on the right side of the screen. Sometimes if you have the “internal supports” checkbox on there will be internal supports added that you can’t easily see without viewing section views of the model.
I do have internal supports within that part that I needed to add because the “auto generate” did not create them. I have also built parts similar to these with no issues… what is curious to me still is that the center portion printed as if there was digitally, the software would have had to create a path for the laser to follow and cure over several layers as the center section was as thick as the rest of the base of the model.
Layer 1
Layer 230
Layer 330
To me this is clearly a software bug or issue with the transfer to the printer if it is auto creating a path that has not been laid out. This is a problem that I am sure cleaning of the mirrors would not fix, but hopefully it will help keep my print failures to a minimum.