Hey everyone,
I’ve had my Form1+ for about 8 months now and have had very good luck thus far. Encountered all the typical trouble, but overall I’ve managed to get good prints for the time I’ve had it. Recently I began printing small plates that have dot patterns very similar to braille for the research lab I work in. The dots are small dome shapes that should be .43mm high and 1.5mm wide. My first print with black resin in a new resin tray printed near perfect. Dome shape and size were 99% correct and overall it was one of the best prints I’ve had. The first few dot charts I printed in grey resin also turned out very well, but ever since those first few good prints, I’m consistently getting larger and slightly deformed braille dots. The plates that the dots are on top of print just fine. I’ve tried two separate resin trays with grey and black resin, as well as doing a calibration test for the X and Y offsets.
Any ideas what may be going wrong here? I’ve considered the angle of the print causing the cured resin on the dots to “slide” or shift slightly, possibly causing the elongated dots…but then again I’ve had the dots print well previously in both black and grey resin.
Possibly the resin in the tray is getting old and tray is getting cloudy? I’ve cleaned out any resin bits, but I haven’t attempted completely changing the resin the tray. Last time I tried completely rinsing the tray with IPA and that did not end too well for the plastic sides on the tray. Is there any easier way to rinse out old resin and replace with new?
Some extra info and pictures.
Dots are printed on the plate oriented at a 15 degree incline. We found this to be the best angle to reduce chance of bubbles forming, while maintaining the highest possible resolution from the printer.
I ran a calibration test and changed the X/Y offsets accordingly, and the printer has the z offset to -0.7mm as well. I don’t have photos of the spot test, but the laser looks good.
First black chart is the successful one, followed by the two most recent prints. The cylinders in the middle of the dots on the last two pictures are for calibration purposes. They are supposed to be perfect cylinders with the exact height and radius of the dots, but those too come out slightly deformed.
