Hi everyone, newbie to 3d printing here.
I know this question comes up a lot but all the threads are closed and the question i have hasn’t really been answered.
I’m looking to get an accurate guage (or at least a formula thats more accurate than what the software provides) on how much resin a print actually takes.
I just got a form 2 and I started printing my project. According to preform all the pieces would total 883.9 ml. (well within 1 liter) I’ve been fortunate to have no print failures however the resin cartridge ran out a lot sooner…
It ran out before the final piece that was estimated at 284.53 ml. I understand the printer doesn’t account for the resign in the tank which is 250ml but if my math’s correct It ran out after 599.35 ml… even with 250 ml in the tank it should be clear to print at least a majority of the final piece… I checked the valve and its fine, and the cartilage indeed feels empty.
I’m hoping to be able to sell some of my prints, but I’d like to be able to provide a more accurate estimate before it actually prints.
Does any one have a formula that’s a little more accurate than preform? Currently I’m looking at multiplying the estimate preform gives me by 1.67…
Has anyone else have there cartilage run out sooner than expected?
In my experience the Preform estimate is dead on. Its the actual Volume of the Model plus supports.
What may be off is that the tank holds a Lot of resin. And you need a minimum amount of resin in the tank to print reliably.
As such- I think you will find that with your first liter of a given resin, you have to figure around a third of that cartridge is reserve in the tank and not going to be printable. However, your SECOND cartridge will have the tank already filled, and so you will get a full 1 liter of print volume out of the second cartridge.
When You have to buy a new tank- your pour the resin from the old tank, into the new tank, so that tank starts out pre-filled as well.
The only resin not really accounted for is the amount of uncured resin that might cling to the platform when you take the finished print out… its a small amount but its about the same for every print run.
Some resin will be lost due to sticking to whatever it touches, so some resin will remain in the cartridge, a lot will be on the outside of the print that needs to be rinsed off, and some will remain in the tray. It would be very difficult to figure out how much that would end up being.
I print dental arches directly on the platform. I use a digital kitchen scale https://www.walmart.com/ip/Mainstays-Stainless-Steel-Digital-Kitchen-Scale/49883591 to measure how much resin is remaining in a cartridge when I know it is nearing depletion. I figure the empty cartridge is 350 grams. Each dental arch averages 20 grams. So if I want to print 6 arches, I make sure the near-empty cartridge weighs at least 470 grams.
