water washable resin (general question)
Hello,
Too early to know if it would work on the SL1, but I assume there are people here with some experience with SLA printers so I wanted to ask.
Have you tried water washable resins?
Do they help to mitigate the general post-processing mess normally associated with e.g. washing SLA prints?
Are there quality differences between prints with water washable resins or other resins (in detail, in lifetime, ...)?
Thanks,
Jörg
Re: water washable resin (general question)
I use PhotoCentric3D UV resins. Those can be washed with soap water, reliably leaving a non-sticky surface. There are other resins around with better warping properties or transparency, and exposure times are rather long as well. You can print 2x faster with Wanhao resin. Also the Photocentric clear resin is really quite the opposite of colorless. On the good side there is almost no smell (at least when using active carbon filters).
Overall you have to find the right combination of properties and price, just like in FDM.
I still use IPA to clean printer parts, just because it dries fast. Overall I find workup not too bad, just keep a small plastic bucket with IPA or soap water around for reuse. I put parts in and shake for 20 sec, then remove them with long pliers, then UV for 20min or more depending on the part thickness. Then wash off with water in the sink.
When at some point your cleaning fluid is saturated with resin you can just cure it with UV and filter it once.