RE: Resin Leaks between tank and frame
I'm glad to hear my solution is helping others.
I have been talking to prusa support for 3 months now about this issue and even told them about my fix a month ago btw. I love this company and usually their support is awesome, in this case they kinda failed though.
RE: Resin Leaks between tank and frame
My 4th print finished over night and when I checked the bottom of the tank resin has now clearly worked its way between the lip and FEP. This is, of course, not unexpected given the situation. So now it is down to trusting the rubber band until the o-rings come in and I get a tank set up and tested with that approach. I won't deny that I'm nervous at this point, but I have some amount of hope that I won't find a leak in the mean time.
RE: Resin Leaks between tank and frame
A few more random thoughts:
Does the bottom of the tank get warm at all? It occurs to me part of the creep could be exacerbated by thermal effects - since if two surfaces slide across each other during differential expansion, I could see that making it even easier for the resin to wick. Capillary action is a fascinating beast...
Hopfully the rubber band is pliant enough not to have issues.
Something to be wary of is o-rings will fail to seal if they are over-compressed; there's a whole document on guidelines for proper o-ring channels in machined parts/mating surfaces; In this case I think it should be fine as the FEP should have some give (not two solid surfaces) but it's worth being wary of that overcompression and deformation may lead to failure too.
RE: Resin Leaks between tank and frame
One thing I noticed with resin leaks is that it depends on the resin I use and the room temperature. This could explain why some people struggle with it and others dont. A resin with higher viscosity in a cooler room will obviously leak less likely than vice versa.
RE: Resin Leaks between tank and frame
I haven't used another resin so I can't speak to relative viscosity, but mine (Elegoo water washable gray) reminds me of the consistency of thick chocolate milk.
With the lights off, the printer running, CW1 on but idle, and a HEPA air purifier running the room I have the printer in (4x8?) will be about 4 degrees warmer than the rest of my basement by the time a 5+ hour print is done. In the 2 weeks I hadn't been printing it was staying within a degree of the rest of the basement.
RE: Resin Leaks between tank and frame
I don't think it is unreasonable to expect a reliable seal on the tank especially with the mess and damage that resin can do, let us stick with this until it is resolved.
RE: Resin Leaks between tank and frame
I sent all my feedback into support and linked to this thread. They said they would forward all the information to the developers. That's about it. So who knows what the result will be at the end. I'm not going to hold my breath at this point.
Probably the only way to know if something actual comes of this is to hear from the Man himself on social media or something.
RE: Resin Leaks between tank and frame
I think I am promoting a collaborative rather than adversarial approach as I hope the SL1 will be a useful and improving tool over time.
RE: Resin Leaks between tank and frame
Well crap😒
Got 5 successful back to back prints before I found this. So even though it held water for 60 hours, about the same amount of time again saw the resin leak.
My o-rings did not come today as expected, so it looks like I'm gonna be down again for awhile😔
RE: Resin Leaks between tank and frame
Well I'm flummoxed. There was definitely resin on the screen and on the bottom of the FEP. There was also no resin on on the LCD itself to suggest a spill or something. When I removed the ring, however, there was no sign of resin on the ring or under the FEP past the rubber band. I ran a bit of paper all over the ring and in what we are expecting to be the dry area and it came back clean.
There was a fair amount of resin past the lip and stopped at the rubber band though. Had the rubber band not been there I expect I would have had a much larger mess.
As there no sign of a "spill" and no sign of a leak I'm at a loss for where the resin came from. Residual resin trapped between the frame and LCD from a previous leak, but why wait until the 5th print to show up?
I do use a mount to hold the platform at angle for awhile so resin can drip back to the tank. I have triple checked that when in that position the platform is wholly over the tank so it can't drip outside. I do wonder, however, if possibly a drip got outside while moving the platform from one position to the other, but there was no sign on the back of the tank...
RE: Resin Leaks between tank and frame
@gnat
Resin in the screw holes finally working it's way out?
RE: Resin Leaks between tank and frame
@ryan-c29
Dunno, but I doubt it. I cleaned the tanks really well including the screw holes. There was also no sign of resin on top (with the tank flipped over) of the ring which is why I thought it was another leak like previous water and resin leaks.
Hopefully just a fluke occurrence. I'll make sure to wash out the screw holes again and will be extra vigilant when moving the platform from now on.
RE: Resin Leaks between tank and frame
@gnat
Condensation from fumes? (grasping here hehe)
RE: Resin Leaks between tank and frame
I think I've figured it out and a perfectly good FEP and rubber band gave their lives for nothing 🙁
When I cleaned the LCD last night I just cleaned it and the top surface of the frame. I just ran a paper towel on the backside of the lip the tank nestles against and it came back ever so slightly not white. So even though I found no resin on the outside of the tank or top of the frame what I believe happened is that there was a drop that fell while I was moving the platform to it's angled position. With the help of the tank being parked in the tilted position after a print I think it was then able to run down the frame and onto the LCD. So at least for the time being I think I will forego the angled drip stage for now to take that variable out of the equation.
My o-rings just showed up and I've already rebuilt tank #2 with an o-ring and it's testing with water now. Hopefully I'll be back to printing again soon.
RE: Resin Leaks between tank and frame
Day 7 of 24x7 resin in the tank...still printing strong, still bone dry.
RE: Resin Leaks between tank and frame
@xulkal
No fair on the name change. I was all "who da f... is this all of a sudden?" 😆
I gave the o-ring 36 hours with water and it held up as expected. It's now on print 3 with no indication of issues. I haven't been doing the angle drip (which means my wash water got super dirty super fast and the second print ended up with shiny spots after curing...) so it's just off the printer with no chance for a rogue drip.
RE: Resin Leaks between tank and frame
wtf, when did my name get changed? I don't remember doing that lol
RE: Resin Leaks between tank and frame
O-ring definitely seems to be doing well. Got through my backlog (which was more than I had successfully printed prior to the rubber band and o-ring solutions) and everything still looks good.
Tried some eSun flexible and that was a disaster except that the o-ring kept it in the tank like it was supposed to.
Thanks @xulkal and @piranhamousemods.
RE: Resin Leaks between tank and frame
What size and type of O-ring material did you get? A McMaster-Carr part number would be great.
RE: Resin Leaks between tank and frame
@mikeh-3
https://www.mcmaster.com/1302N101/
100 mm ID, 1 mm wide (102 mm OD)