@arthurr43, I’m anxious to see the results!
Interestingly, I think some of the problems I had that I thought was investment breakdown seems to be residual ash. I’m not 100% sure about that, but when I added extra sprues for better airflow, and burned out at 1450°F for 2-3 hours, most of the roughness seemed to disappear. My last casting session produced pretty flawless casts. I might have been chasing the wrong rabbit down a hole!
More testing and I’ll know for sure!
I also think that the ash is creating some issues. The ring came out pretty good but there are some issues with the top where there is a lot of detail. Do you find better results woth the plasticast vs the satincast? have only done 1 flask with plasticast so far. Here is the ring. YOu casn see some breakdown on the side near the cross and on the top along the edge
Hi Arthur,
This looks as extra metal from pic, meaning investment failure and broken parts can be the cause of this missing parts:
If problem is ash, you can verify after cast before acid, you will find black spots and after acid holes.
If problem is investment small particle fallen, those spots are white.
Also you can do this test, after burnout and before pouring metal, hold and scroll the flask on a mirror with cone facing to mirror in order to collect and analyze particle (if they are present).
If ash particles, increase buornout tine and/or burnout time (we regulary burnout Plasticast at 800/850 Celsius, it withstands without problems), if problem is investment (white inclusions) please check the whole workflow (water/powder ratio, tapered water, digital scale, mixing accuracy, vaccum power, flask settling times…)
Will try a flask with plasticast next week and and see if i still have these issues. I was able to fill the holes with the laser. I have cast this same pattern in only wax with very minor issues. Have not had the problem with the extra metal before. Anything other suggestions to try?
My suggestion is to debug rhe whole workflow using wax patterns and when everything is tuned, start with resin.
Critical points to monitor are:
As from pictures vacuuming during investment looks ok, no bubbles on metal, metal also looks ok, so my suggestion is to focus on investment preparation and oven temperature.
Low investment performance is mostly due to inadequate stirring and/or incorrect oven temperature. Please share your mixing way/tools and times and check oven temperature.
Hi, I went to the site for the first time. I thank you with advice.
www.bluecast.it
Looks like investment degradation. If you are not using a bit of boric acid in your mix with satincast your investment will begin to degrade at about 1350. You are running it up to 1450.
I only had the investment up to 1250. Same temp I use with wax with no issues. Trying plasticast this weekend
art
Hi @arthurr43,
I’ve also been experimenting with the blue cast resin, and have had the same issues as yourself. However, I’m now getting good casts, so just wanted to share my findings. But, before I do, I should add that the customer support I’ve had from the blue cast guys has been excellent.
The fast burnout does not work for me. At all. I’m using omega+, and it doesn’t like going over 732 degrees C. I was getting exactly the same results as yourself. So, I took the following steps.
-Have lots of little evenly spaced sprues rather than fewer big ones. This helps oxygen flow during burnout.
-Water/Investment ratio 38/100 rather than 40/100
-Leave flasks to dry for 3-4 hours
-Put in oven cone down at 143 degrees C. Hold for 3-4 hours. Ramp up to 732 at 200 p/h. Hold for 3 hours. Flip cone upward. Lower to casting temp, allow to settle, then pour.
It’s a long burnout, yes, but I’m getting wax-like results, which I never had with the formlabs castable.
@Charles_McManus… Will try that this weekend with plasticast. Will let you know the results.
thanks!
art
Small feedback from Austria!
Got the resin last week and started to experiment. First of all - their support is as good as it can get! We really talked for hours and even when you dont know much about casting, they help you in every step!
In my case i know a bit of casting but i strictly made what they told me. honestly i also was quite satisfied with the formlabs resin, but the long burnout curve made me wanna try this resin!
The prints came out perfect. I wanted to compare grey V2 settings VS castable V2 settings. The Castable V2 prints came out awesome but the grey V2 settings made the prints fall off my platform, even when i went 0,1 and 0,2 mm down and up. Seems like there are indeed in every printer different power calibrations to the laser. But for now i am happy with the castable V2 settings. No problems so far!
I know there are some strange patterns on the rings on some areas, but these are from the PTFE spray i used. It got white and foamy and i thought it is ok like that, but it seems it issnt. Maybe my PTFE is wrong (i use the one from caramba) or i had to much on the prints. I will try other castings with WAXIT i allways use or even without any spraying, to make comparisons! Of course ill report back and any hints here are welcome 
Here a litte overview about how these were casted:
1: Printed with castable V2 settings with 0.05mm and no adjustemnt to the Z axis.
2: washed each jewelry part 3 times in each tank so all together 6 times. after each washing i dryed them with compressed air. I made it this way, cause i wanted to make sure no “small flakes” get in the fine details
3: let them dry for about 60 minutes on the table and did NO UV curing
4: sprue (hope thats the right word) them on the tree like you see in the pictures.
5: covered with PTFE spray but as allready sayed i will experiment with this step and report back here!
6: let the flask rest for 30 minutes again
7: mixed plasticast WITHOUT bandust in a 38:100 ratio, cause i have a vacuum casting Machine. I have also investment with bandust but have not tried so far. I can not imagine that there is a huge difference. My scale and also my oven are calibrated btw. They said its important to make the mixxing right and everything correct.
8: Started the oven and heated directly up to 850°C while the flask dryed. I let it dry for 2 hours, thats when the oven also was at 850. I removed the “skin” of the flask holes and of the cap of the flask, so the air can better suck through the investment, while i cast and “washed” the flask clean. I allways do that, also to make sure it will be tight on the machine when i cast! First 20 minutes semi horizontal with the tube pointing slightly down to let the resin and wax and steam get out and afterwards 1 hour at straight up position, with tube pointing up.
9: Cooldown at 650 and let it stay there for 30 minutes. In the meantime the furnance heated up and melt the 14 karat yellow gold. Don´t get the 650 as a good to go for all castings. It needs a bit of knowledge. Different metals and alloys use different flask and cast temperatures. Also it depends if you have massive or thin castings. My personal rule is: Allways cast the metal as cold as possible but the flask can be a bit higher temp!
10: Put the flask in the casting machine, start the vacuum, fire with a huge flame on the flask and cast the liquid gold THROUGH the flame in the flask! Let the flame on the tube for another 30 sec up to a min. Then wait until the metal is not red anymore.
11: depending on the alloy you have you can put the flask in some water or wait after its cooled down. I personally never shock whitegold afer casting. Only gold and silver!
Hope that helped a bit!
Dont forget the shots are makro shots. They look in this level of detail much worse then they look in real haha! I made 2 test polishings and there is no porosity or anything. Just like wax. Perfect.
I totally love this resin! Formlabs guys -you should hire them asap and pay them a looooooooot of money
Maybe ill post back here, when i polished the rings. Lets see how much time i have!
Have a nice weekend everybody! Feel free to contact me here or on facebook, when you have questions!
I tried to use the blue cast resin today and ad 2 failures. First attempt I used a new resin tank / tray and the cleaned tank from a grey formulas 2 resin. The prints did not adhere to the platform and it made a mess of the resin. Second try I cleaned all the clumps resin from the tray and added new, using the open platform on the printer settings, which disables the wiper and heater. I tried again and the prints would not adhere to the platform? What do you suggest? When the printer is in open mode there is no way to set the temperature? And the instructions they gave me don’t say how to heat it up? I am a small dental lab and have had many issues with the formulas 2 castable resin cracking the investment rings.
How to fix platform adhesion issues with BlueCast and other resin…
also with original
How do you make your supports? Been having great success with printing on form 1+ with bluecast but could improve especially with detailed pieces. Mostly printing rings and settings. I use matrix or rhino to create jewellery models.
Hi Jeneva.
we use belsupport: free plugin for rhino.
Ciao
Brilliant, Thank yoiu
I too love this resin! Best formulation i have used in over two years. I too had issues with it sticking to the build plate. Sanding the surface did nothing. You need to heat the build plate or print in 80-82 degrees Fahrenheit.
Well…sticking to the platform is i think something that the formlabs guys could resolve. It should not be that hard, t create a profile vor Bluecast! Where the laser uses more power the first 20 layers or something like that!
It could be a step in the right direction from formlabs, cause obviously the bluecast guys made a better job with teir resin!
If formlabs is as “opensource” as they allways say they are, this should be a no brainer!
But thats just my 2 cents!
Have a nice evening everybody!
