Reify3D Forum

Just a quick tip for reusing alcohol rinse. I noticed with the resins I print with (including the solus proto resin) that after leaving the alcohol bath sit for a few days the majority of the resin settles to the bottom. If you take a large turkey baster (or large syringe would work) you can take out most of the alcohol and leave the resin undisturbed. This alcohol isn't 100% clean but it's pretty dang good to reuse as a rinse. Keep a couple of baths on hand that you can rotate out while one sits (or leave over the weekend). You can dump the remaining small amount of alcohol/resin onto a paper towel and let it dry out. Before the rinse I also get the first bit of resin off with a wash bottle of ipa, this keeps the bath a bit cleaner. Just rinse off onto a paper towel or into a bucket to collect to save the alcohol using above method. I do the same for alcohol I use during ultrasonic cleaning. Another quick tip, keep your ipa bath covered with a paper towel (or better yet in a closed container) to keep it from evaporating.
wash bottle:
https://www.amazon.com/ACM-Economy-Bott ... ash+bottle
Turkey baster:
https://www.amazon.com/BNYD-Turkey-Bast ... ster&psc=1

I notice the same and have been using a 3 container system. #1 is for the first "dirtiest" rinse and then it goes to #2 which is a somewhat cleaner one. Then I have the supports removed and dipped in container #2 again then it's off to container #3 and it's ready for curing. When the alcohol gets dirty in #3 it goes in #2 after a quick filter using a coffee paper filter (3x thick). The cycle continues on and on.. you get the idea. I've been using the same 1QT bottle for 6 months now and it's 1/3 still full. I feel most of the alcohol loss is due to me spilling it.

I used the coffee filter method before as well but noticed I still had color in the alcohol. Letting it sit for a couple of days and settle and then sucking it off the top seems to get it a lot cleaner for me.

What I recommend is similar to that.

1. 1 container with dirty alcohol.
2. 1 container with cleaner alcohol.
3. 1 container with fresh alcohol.

Once the dirty one becomes too saturated with resin, I put it in the sun to evaporate and discard the residue that's left after it has cured well in the sun. (check your local laws regarding disposal of harmful chemicals)
At that point I move the alcohol from container 2 to 1 and 3 to 2 and pour new alcohol from the bottle into the "fresh" container.

Instead of setting out your dirty one to evaporate have you tried closing it up and letting all of that resin settle out? That's what I was getting at. I've had some really dirty alcohol that after it sat for the weekend could be used as the "fresh" alcohol. I'm also using 99.5% lab grade stuff so I'm trying to save what I can.

Lab grade is overkill and expensive! Both 70% and 91% seem to work find for my cleaning needs. I do use an ultrasonic with the alcohol which helps improve the cleaning action of the isopropyl alcohol.

Not all resins will settle since may use dyes or other chemicals that stay suspended in the liquid. That is why I use the same method as Emil - first and second stage cleaning bottles.

rkundla wrote:Lab grade is overkill and expensive! Both 70% and 91% seem to work find for my cleaning needs. I do use an ultrasonic with the alcohol which helps improve the cleaning action of the isopropyl alcohol.

Not all resins will settle since may use dyes or other chemicals that stay suspended in the liquid. That is why I use the same method as Emil - first and second stage cleaning bottles.

That's the perk of working in a lab I guess, that's all we stock/use.
Dyes will settle for the most part. Yes, you won't get 100% fresh, but you can also avoid setting out a large amount to evaporate. I should have clarified that I usually use the squirt bottle of unused alcohol for a quick final rinse if I need to, which is all collected in the main wash.