Hi Monger
Did you ever try the muve teflon coating? I have just ordered some.
Hey Jason,
Haven’t tried it. But I read that the teflon may not be ideal for a peel mechanism type printer. Let us know how it goes for you.
If machine does auto leveling, then why the silicone has to be a certain thickness?
Also why it has to be in liquid shape as it can be soft transparent kind of mat.
And my last concerns are: if soft silicone has to be thereto make sure plastic is attached to the build platfom, not the resin tank. Can the resin tank be made out of solid material, but polished and build platform may have some holes and rough finish? I am going to patent these ideas, so when I make my own machine Form1 is out of business.
@ Jason Spiller: Did you get any success working with the MUVE teflon coating?
As Formlabs is still shipping spare parts from the USA for Europe, I need to find a reliable solution for this foggy VAT!
great thread. So does this really work on the form1s?
I am curious as well. I’ve had my first really bad print where I could barely get the failed resin off the bottom of the tank. This particular tank has been used for quite a few prints and so I’m assuming the stickiness is an indication of its age & its need for replacement or ‘retreatment’.
If folks have had success with the Slygard formulate, I’m inclined to give it a try (otherwise, this particular tank is garbage anyway - no?)
thanks for the help!
Jeff
Yes it works - I’ve resurfaced tanks 3 or 4 times using Sylgard 184 so far when the PDMS gets cloudy. It’s easy enough - removing the old PDMS is as easy as stabbing and peeling with a fork. Maybe slide a razor down the sides first. The only tricky part is getting the new PDMS to set level; either you need a dead level surface to put the tank on and leave it covered for 24 hours, or you put it in an oven at 50C for 3/4 hours and level the tank afterwards as per https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB9OeCxT04U
I get things sticking to the silicone ALL the time. I don’t understand how you are supposed to unstick stray parts withou touching the silicon layer. I dont understand why the instructions show that it is safe to use the metal scraper on layer, but not your fingers. seems weird to me.
Just ordered my Form!+ a couple weeks ago. Right now I am costing the parts out with build tray and bottle of resin as one unit. Though it adds a good amount to the cost it seems the only safe way rather than waste material.
What might be good is to be able to return a used tray to have it refurbished. Not sure how possible that is but seems less wasteful than just tossing the trays in the rubbish.
Personally I would be a little leery about doing the coating myself since it seems so critical. How would you remove the remaining material? How do you coat the surface again since its in a tray. Just a sheet you could use a coating rod. As some sort of tape you would have to deal with bubbles, as a liquid sprayed it would be really difficult to control the thickness over the surface.
I am surprised that you can’t zero the Form1 out, to me that should be fairly easy to do even if you use a thickness gauge or dial depth indicator. There are electrical contact devices also out that are commonly used in CNC mills to zero out cutters on stock. These simply clip on and are easily removed after calibration. Software wise it should be really easy for them to have zero adjustable.
Im going to give this a go as I have a large pile of spent tanks now. I do resin and silicone casting so have a dead level surface set up and a vacuum degasing chamber, so can hot box it for quick setting. Problem is, Im in the UK and Sylguard isn’t available here, so I would need to get some imported. Does anyone know of a suitable alternative in the UK? I did search but drew a blank.
I bought some from eBay, it was imported from the US though. I’m hoping to fix up 6 tanks next week after I build a level platform to hold the tanks.
@LeeFields
You could try this. It works for me. And you need no vacuum:
http://www.acc-silicones.com/content/products/encapsulation-coating/qsil216.ashx
I also bought it from ebay imported from US - ebay seller mlsolar.
The main issue in the UK is that all the supply companies are trade and deal in bulk only. I’ve seen something at Bentley Chemicals that may do the trick but I’ll need to order some to try.
@LeeFields - you have something against using ebay as mentioned? from memory took less than 2 weeks to arrive from states.
2 Likes
Bought mine from mlsolar also but direct from their website was cheaper than ebay.
http://shop.mlsolar.com/Sylguard-SG1K.htm
I don’t about for other countries though.
I let mine sit covered for 4 or 5 days on a perfect level spot on my bench and have had great results every time.
It’s much softer than formlabs so it tears easier but it doesnt get laser burn anywhere near as much.
I have no problem ordering from the US Ebay at all. Its just that I use my machine professionally and will go through a decent amount (a tank-2 tanks a week) the postage is quite high coming from the US and UK customs stick a huge amount of tax on as well. So basically were looking more than double if it gets stopped and invoiced by HMRC.
@LeeFields - That’s a lot of tanks - how many prints are you getting before PDMS clouding per tank? I think I was was getting at least a dozen for larger prints and more for smaller ones.
What resins are you using? I suspect even the Formlabs resins cloud the PDMS at different rates for different colours - the white seemed much worse than grey or clear.
Looking on the dow corning website they list two UK distributors and one only seems to sell 250gms without a listed price, the other http://www.univarsc.com/plist/Dow-Corning--Sylgard--184-Kit/184S1.1 sells 2 kg for about £220 including VAT and delivery - which is a bit more expensive than US version I think.
Quick googling on the QSil216 mentioned by Klaus shows it’s priced similarly - although 5kg packs seem a little bit cheaper - still £400 though; http://uk.farnell.com/acc-silicones/qsil-216-5-5kg/optical-clr-silicone-encaps/dp/1667371
How many tanks can that re-coat?
Many thanks Kevin. I’m starting to form some statistics based on layer numbers from all of this. Pretty much printing 24/7 at the moment. Things are starting to shift as I read more about massaging the PMS, model orientation and everything else Ive been reading on these forums. So far I’ve found that, with at least one failure, I as getting about 5K layers before failure in a specific region. Thats on my new Form1+, my original lasted 2 weeks before it failed completely. Im adding up the layers of each print before I announce the tank deadened not with wasting resin on a big print. I’ll use that tank for smaller stuff I can drop around the fogged areas. One thing I have absolutely noticed is that if you have a failed print on a long object and goes un checked, fogging is a certainty. Ive had brand new tanks killed over night.