Does anyone know where I can find the water absorption rate for the New Tough ver3 and the new high temp resins?
Tanks,
Mike Auer
Scout Design & MFG
High Temp Data Sheet states a water absorption of .21%
ToughV3 does not list a spec.
FYI Data sheets are hiding in plain sight in the “Data” tab on the material info pages. Looks like there is also a nice Comparison of the engineering materials that I have missed until now.
Maybe a FL team member will chime in on the Tough spec for you.
We don’t have data for water absorption of Tough V3 but each of our materials are relatively similar in terms of solvent compatibility. You can expect approximately the same absorption as that of High Temp and it will have at most ‘good’ compatibility with absorption well under 1%.
Thanks Frew, that’s what I was looking for.
Mike Auer
Hi there,
I believe this question suits this forum theme, so please comment on this:
This part was printed with tough (v2) resin and spent some time in water after treatment in IPA and UV 365nm oven.
Was wondering if it is normal? What do you think?
Yep, that is pretty normal for V2.
We haven’t tested the water absorption of Tough V2 but for thinner sections, especially if they’ve been soaked in IPA, this level of flexibility is normal. UV curing will help to stiffen the part and the new V3 formulation of Tough has a much higher Young’s Modulus (correlates with stiffness) than V2. The water uptake of V3 which will be published soon is around 1.6%. V2 does seem to absorb more solvent than V3 so you can expect the water absorption of V2 to be greater than 1.6%.
I have the same problems like in the video above with a part printed in tough v4. The problem is that the part has 4 snap fit arms that dosn’t work anymore after spending some hours in water. I did UV treatment with an UV lamp but without temperature. Will curing with UV and 60°C improve the stability?
Tough v4 certainly shouldn’t behave like the part in the video above as it’s quite a bit more stiff than Tough v2. Is it possible that the part is being left in IPA for too long? Oversoaking a part in IPA will make it more flexible and I came in to realize that I’d left a White v4 part in IPA over the 4 day weekend. Fortunately, it made the supports much easier to remove but it’s not something I’d recommend… Water won’t interact with resin to increase part flexibility unless it’s especially hot.
I did the IPA washing like recommenced (10 min + 10 min), but I will try a part with less washing time. The problem is we are a water meter company and most of the parts I print will have contact to water. Maybe the standard material is the better choice for water use…
The HDT of Tough Resin is relatively low at 40.4C @ 0.45MPa so is it possible that heat is softening the parts? Standard Resins will be less prone to flexibility and has a higher HDT. If you’re consistently exposing these to moderately high temperatures, High Temperature Resin will be the best option and that’s among our stiffest materials.
The part has only been exposed to water temperatures below 25°C. So I don’t think it was the temperature. We have ordered the Form Cure UV chamber. Do you think using Form Cure will improve the water stability?
If the temperatures are below 25C, I wouldn’t expect thermal stability to be the issue here. Parts won’t noticeably soften from water exposure alone and can remain submerged for extended periods of time without adverse effects. Using Form Cure will increase the stiffness of your parts and might help to combat some of the warping you’re seeing.