I’m getting ready to build parts using elastic resin, which I’ve not used before.
If anyone’s used this resin I’m asking if there’s any tips you can share… if there’s anything that would be helpful.
Thanks very much.
If you haven’t seen this article yet: https://support.formlabs.com/s/article/Using-Elastic-Resin?language=en_US that should help get you started. I’ve got a fair amount of experience printing with Elastic Resin, but I’m not sure what tips or advice might apply to you without knowing more about what kind of parts you’re planning to print.
One general tip I could add, that varies from our official post-Curing recommendation of 20 minutes at 60 C in a Form Cure, is that I usually prefer to submerge Elastic parts in hot water in a clear jar or bowl and post-cure them for shorter amounts of time. The benefit of this is mostly decreased surface tackiness. Playing around with post-curing time and conditions may affect the softness and tear strength of the material.
thanks for the follow up, Ike. I did see that article.
Can you be a bit more specific about placing the parts is jar of hot water. Do you do that rather than post curing in the Form Cure? Do you do the water thing and then put them in the Form Cure. Maybe a little bit more direction doing the water thing would be helpful.
The part I’m printing are basically composed of a round shape with thru hole in the middle and 3 arms protruding out from the round shape at 120 degrees from one another, circling around the round shape… if you drew a circle around the outer arms, it would be about 2 inches in diameter. They are not big parts.
Thanks very much.
Oh, oops! Yes, I put them in the Form Cure while they are submerged under water in a clear jar or bowl. This improves curing the surface of the part by reducing the amount of oxygen that gets to it while it’s exposed to the UV curing light - oxygen inhibits the reaction. I use water, but for other resins and/or applications, I’ve heard of people using mineral oil, or glycerin, and there’s even a company marketing an oxygen barrier gel one could apply.
The water thing is really just a finishing step, not something that’s going to make or break your print.
For small parts like you describe, printing shouldn’t be too much of a challenge. If you have a flat surface perpendicular to your through hole, I would suggest at least trying to print the part “On Build Platform - With Supports”. You’ll get some compression at that bottom surface of your part, but then you won’t need any support touch points in the through hole, and fewer supports for the rest of the part too. If that’s not a good option for some reason, printing at an angle is still perfectly reasonable, and you might look at turning off Internal supports. Elastic does tend to need more support than other resins, but circular or closed-loop cross-sections where there’s not too much of an overhang between layers can be self supporting, so if you’re comfortable manually editing supports to remove them from vertical walls or inside the through hole of the part, there’s a good chance it won’t negatively affect the printability.
Good luck!