Printer "seriously" damaged after my second test print!

[reify]

Happy it was just some resin on the quartz and I'll update the manual to list the resins that require the filter to be removed.

[rkundla]

It would be good to know when a resin is considered fast enough (or what range of exposure in general) for the UV filter to be put back on, a chart perhaps?

The resin maker's website will give you the best indicator if it is a fast or slow curing resin. They know the chemistry of their resin and know how much activator and UV Inhibitor they have in it to initiate curing. I'd look at the profiles that exist for printers already to get a general feel.

All resins are exothermic when they cure as part of the chemistry. If you hit the FTD black with a lot of light energy and it bonded to the film and warped it, attempts to peel could tear the film or create a pinhole leak. The remainder of the printing process will push resin through the film onto the quartz. Glad to hear you were able to get the quartz cleaned off!

[Deadsculpt]

Yeah i have contacted ftd, not too much help from them really, and looked for settings of other machines like draken and titan 1 to get a better idea..as soon as i get new replacement films i will test it more.. for now i can only say that the deep black has a deep love for the film and likes sticking to it

[rkundla]

It's hard to believe that there is a chemical that sticks to these teflon-based films, but some of these resins are really aggressive when they cure.

Now I will start thinking of tar whenever someone talks about FTD Black.

[Deadsculpt]

I have done more tests and unlike the event i reported in this thread, where a hole caused resin to drip on the quartz, i have had, almost every single time, the film stick to the quartz without any resin filtering through (yet).

The melting and peeling happens from underneath the film, even at the very fast exposure times required by the deep black and even with the projector brightness reduced to 30.
Since there is no resin in between the film and the quartz, I am starting to think (almost convinced) that the resin has nothing to do with the issues i am having, it seems the film sticks and glues to the quartz regardless of the liquid on top of it. I would like to try and run a few fake print jobs with no resin inside the vat once i get brand new films, and could use the presets in contour for this, from the shortest to the longest exposure time.
Maybe i had bad films, don't know what to think really, but the resin doesn't seem to be the one to blame anymore.

[reify]

Just the light alone won't cause the film to melt, must be the heat from the resin curing. The film doesn't melt until almost 300 degrees C. I can put my hand in front of the light and not feel it....

[mongerdesigns]

No, light doesn't melt the strong film designed to withstand to hundreds of degrees of heat. That's impossible. Most likely a hole was punctured because there was a small cured piece of resin left in the tank and got pressed into the film and then resin got squeezed out and fused to the film. Or like we said the ftd resin cures way too fast and generates a lot of heat.

[Deadsculpt]

I will try to better document this sort of event when/if it happens again with pictures and maybe a video.
There is no hole in my current film, it's the film that is peeling in the area in contact with the quartz and no resin is between the film and the quartz.
That said, it will break very soon for sure since its thickness has been reduced.
The resin generating huge amount of heat as you guys said seems an interesting theory, but up to 300 °C ?
Even lowering the brightness of the projector to 30 didn't help, might try and go even lower.

What really is driving me insane is that Lars in this forum, to whom i talked yesterday, having an identical setup to mine, including brand new Infocus projector and therefore new lamp, is not having any issues at all with the FTD black and uses it constantly (with uv filter removed). This is also why i am still very reluctant to blame the FTD deep black as the only cause of the problem.

On a side note, i have a question:
To stir the resin in the bottle i bought an aluminum stick, i chose it over wood since it doesn't absorb and it is easier to clean with a tissue once the stirring is complete. To my knowledge aluminum should be perfectly compatible with this kind of resin, any possibility that some external factor, a contaminant, could cause this weird behavior?

Thanks

[Sebastien_Lani]

I tested many resins...

I could not believe you could heat enought to at least reach 50 or 60°... I'm working on a R&D center in science and engineering. Photoactive iniator inside resin shall be destroyed at a temperature higher than 120-150°C.
The only solution I see is the FTD cured element had stick to the film and during peeling it had created a hole on which the resin went through.


Regarding your last message, what do you mean by "That said, it will break very soon for sure since its thickness has been reduced."

For stirring the resign, I'm just shaking the resin (bottle) or using a soft teflon cooking spatule. (maybe it is not the right word)


Good lucks for your next printing. Sometimes buying more expensive resin could be easier and faster and at the end not really more expensive...

[jeweltool]

Look at any cleaning products used.