Third part using tough V2 resin. Let it run three hours of a five hour print. Glance in and see that nothing is there, no cured resin floating around … nothing. Resin looks a little foamy. lots of little air bubbles in it.
Whats going on? What do I do now?
Which Form printer?
Did the first 2 prints successfully print? If yes, how do they look? Did you massage the PDMS layer to aerate it as well as remove any stuck bits (large and small)?
I would start with canceling the build. Remove the build platform and vat. Run the print with neither. Verify you can see the laser drawing your part. Then verify there isn’t anything stuck to the PDMS layer.
Why do you have so many little bubbles in the resin? How much did you shake up the resin before starting the print?
Pics of everything will help.
I would also open a support ticket.
Form 2. firmware up to date. Brand new resin tank and resin. First two prints were successful. I have printed a ton of stuff using clear resin, no problems. End of last clear resin container, I was getting bad prints. It was cured material in the tank. It was a first use tank also. Broke out the tough resin, two good simple prints. Then nada… I did see the laser trying to do its thing. If the laser was going, shouldn’t it have cured stuff in the tank?
I didn’t shake up the resin tank. i.e., no idea why the little bubbles.
Running another small print right now, if same thing happens, I’ll open a ticket.
Yep, You should have something in there to fish out. It may be pretty well stuck to the PDMS layer though after 3 hours of it “baking”.
The little bubbles may be from the wiper. I don’t have a Form 2 so I have no idea how much the wiper agitates the resin.
I would blame your new tank for the failure to adhere. I’ve got one that just is not the same as my others- nothing sticks to the platform and the pmds layer is thicker on one side judging by the rare parts that do stick.
Swap to any of my other tank/resin combinations and 100% success.
Formlabs suggested fine tuning when I use that tank but I’m of the opinion the tanks should not have such variation in quality.
So I pulled the platform and there was a thin layer of resin attached to it. Cleaned every speck of anything off of it and running another print. This one much smaller. So, not sure moving the Y-axis would do anything? It also seems like it is taking much longer than before to cycle between the laser doing its thing, raising, the wiper going across, then back into the resin.
If there was only a thin layer on the build platform, that can only because there is a thick layer on the bottom of the resin tank. If the resin isn’t curing to the build platform that’s because it’s curing to the bottom of the tank instead.
if you didn’t clean the resin tank your new print will probably fail.
Randy, I pulled the tank, nothing in it that I could see. I know what the cured stuff on the bottom looks like, my last clear tank had some cured resin on it. Drained it, cleaned it, its spic and span … running another test print now.
Here’s the small amount of cured resin that was on the platform, it didn’t feel totally cured. scraped off very easily.
That’s it after a 3 hour print? Something doesn’t make sense.
Looks like either the resin is bad or your laser is bad. There ought to be a ton of cured resin in the tank given your description of the print failure. The only explanation I can think of is that the resin won’t cure or the laser isn’t hot enough to cure it…
if you have some clear left clean or use an alternate tank and start to print anything. See if you can see the laser working and if a print works. If so then the resin might be bad.
Also double check the settings, maybe something defaulted and is at the wrong exposure.
Tough is translucent. I can easily see when the laser is firing during a print. Even when the laser is painting the very first layer.
Unfortunately, seeing the laser doesn’t mean it’s operating at the correct power level.
Trying alternate resin, however, would help answer the question.
