Order of post-processing

Sorry, although I’ve had my Form3 since 2019, I have to ask a possibly very stupid question here. What is the order of post-processing after printing? 1 formwash, 2 formcure, 3 remove support material (this is how I do it!) or 1 formwash, 2 remove support material, 3 formcure? or I just saw it in a video, but it wasn’t a Form3 it was an Anycubic!

the guy first dried it with a kind of hot air hair dryer or hair dryer and then removed the support structure, then washed the part and then under the UV lamp. That got me confused! What order do you do?

This print had to be done that way because the print plus supports was too big to fit into the wash basket. The Form Wash will hold a build plate allowing you to wash the print before removing it from the platform.

Hi @charger_01,

Thanks for reaching out about this! Not a stupid question by any means. As a general rule of thumb, we recommend washing (and then drying), post-curing, then lastly removing supports. You can optionally choose to remove supports after washing before post-curing, as they may be softer and easier to remove. However, leaving the supports attached during the post-cure can help anchor your parts in place, mitigating against any warping. For more background on this, please refer to SLA basic finishing steps as well as the Removing supports section of the same article.

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It really depends on the print. For something that’s fairly solid, I remove the supports before curing because the touchpoints tend to be easier to clean up after curing. But for prints that have a more delicate structure, I keep them on the supports to limit how much the print might warp during curing.

My experience is that sometimes the support structure is so dense in some places that the liquid resin is not properly washed out even after two washes. So it would make sense to at least partially remove the support structure. However, it may be necessary to leave the support structure on the model so that the model does not warp during UV curing, because the temperature is 70 degrees, especially for models made of Tough2000. With standard resin, it can also be advisable to cut the support structure in the soft state at filigree, thin-walled areas, since the standard resin becomes very brittle after curing and in some places breaks in the wrong place when it is removed. A water-soluble support structure, such as that used in FDM printers, would be best, but is it technically unlikely to be feasible? (google translater, language could be translated in a strange, stupid way in some places)

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