Welcome to the first of many tips & tricks on 3d printing. In this first episode I would like to give you a basic summary of how I go about resin 3d printing at my home studio, ok well let’s say it’s one half of the car garage. 😉
Over the past weekend I 3d printed a part for one of my long running personal projects, a scaled live steam model locomotive. I’ve been designing this important part for a while now and it was time to see the design in its physical form. I’ve been 3d printing for 10 years now and I still find it so amazing that within a matter of hours you can go from seeing a part on a computer screen to be holding that part in your hands.
The Part.
This week’s part has some internal passageways, bolt threads (Yes to can 3d print bolt threads) and other clearance bolt holes. For this print it’s more a design check and not the final part for use.
Getting The Part Ready For Resin 3d Printing.
All 3d printing starts with a file, normally a mesh file format like a Standard Tessellation Language (STL) or a OBJ. Without going into too much detail, a stl file, which is the most common type for 3d printing will display the part in a series of triangles that are joined together. The smaller the triangles are in size the smoother a curved surface is. The downside? A larger file size.
The part file is now imported in a software program called a slicer. The role of this software is to covert the model into a language that a printer can read to complete the printing job. There are many freeware and paid software including Chitubox, Lychee and Anycubic Photon Workshop just to name a few.
Using my current favourite software Lychee, I imported the part and orientated it on the build plate and added the supports to the part for printing. It’s interesting shape part to print owing to its mixture of circular and flat features. Choosing the orientation on the build plate was carefully selected to ensure a successful and clean print. Orientating the part on the build plate is a whole topic for another day so I won’t go too much into now.
With the part now all supported on the build plate it’s time to consider the final printing setting for this job. There are so many settings to go through so again this is a topic for another day, but this is my checklist I start to run through to try and get the right results first print around.
1. What’s the part been used for
2. How detailed is the part
3. Resin selection, I’m I using a resin straight out of the bottle or using a blend. It’s very common now days to mix two different types of resin together to get your own perfect resin for your part.
4. What printer is been used
5. Layer thickness 0.05mm or 0.03mm.
6. I then consider other settings like exposure time, lift speeds and light delays and other more advanced settings.
Once all the settings are done the model is exported ready for 3d printing. For this part the detail is at a medium level so I could have chosen a 3d printing resin like Phrozen Aqua 8k Gray or Monocure3d Proto Shark Grey. I went with Phrozen Hyperfine Graphite as I wanted to test how it printed with internal passages and some of the smaller holes. Doing my own 3d printing like this further builds my knowledge and understanding on how a 3d printing resin will print in different situations. Gaining this experience gives myself the confidence to recommend the right products to you.
As I was printing with my Anycubic M5 S I quickly added the file into Anycubic Photon Workshop and ensured the correct settings are selected and save the file from there onto a USB for the printer. Below is a screenshot of the settings I used. After I had printed part I noticed I could increase the anti-aliasing from 2 to 4. This would have smothered out the flatter surfaces to help remove the layer lines.
Resin 3d Printing Post-Production.
After a 6.5 hour print finished, we now start the postproduction process. Leaving the part still on the build plate I place it in a wash station like the Phrozen wash and cure. I give the part about a 8 minute wash in Monocure3d Resinaway. I personally prefer Resinaway rather than using IPA.
After the wash is completed, I give it a quick blow of compressed air. This is a pretty important step for highly detailed models as this will remove any left over uncured resin that might be stuck in the detailed areas of the model.
I now place the part still on the build plate into the cure station for 10 minutes. This starts the final process for the part. Any uncured resin starts to be cured, this process I also find helps making support removal easier. Speaking of which once the 10 minutes is completed, I now take the model off the build plate and remove the supports with my hands or side cutters. The Phrozen Saber Ultrasonic cutter is also a great tool for support material removal allowing to cut away the supports without any chance of damaging the part.
With all the support material removed I like to give the part a wash in warm soapy water. This helps remove the left over Resinaway or IPA residue. I give the part a final rinse in clean water and place the part back into the cure station for 30 minutes to complete the final process.
The End Result.
The end result of my printed part was great, while some settings could be adjusted slightly to improve the surface finish to remove some of the layer lines to the eye, they are hardly visible. The next step will be to covert my part ready for a casting pattern that will be 3d printed in a wax like resin and sent to a foundry to be cast in white bronze.
While there is more of process to resin 3d printing over filament 3d printing the end results are well worth yet when it comes to a lot of parts. I hope you found this brief run down on some of the processes on how I 3d print interesting. Please drop a comment below if you have a 3d printing topic you would like me to discuss.
Happy 3d printing
