Build Your Own SLA/SLS

Hi Dr. Woo,

here is my youtube clip using funtodo standard blend with an acer P1500.

the optimal curing times are really dependend on for example the distance to the vat bottom. the closer the faster.

cheers,
hp_

The B9(c) forums will likely be of much help also, the LittleRP is very similar in requirements to the B9(c) Creator in the 50micron xy setting.

How are you getting on with the FTD resin?

I've got a bottle of industrial red (with a couple of extra pots of pigment); so far I'm not getting any good results - I suspect light bleed is an issue. Finer detail is lost at 1s layer exposure time, but at 800ms it doesn't have the strength in 2x1mm sections to pull from the PDMS. I'll pester FTD directly as well, but I wondered if there was any LittleRP-specific experience.

I haven't heard anything yet, from the b9 forums it seems like FTD might be sitckier / less pdms friendly than other resins which wouldn't be a great sign.
You can try lowering the projector brightness to 25% and doubling the cure time to see if a slower cure helps.

I was looking to order some of this to have a play around with. Still might do. Sounds interesting stuff!

Current recommendation from Danny @ FTD is add more pigment, so I'll mix some in and do another test. I think this one comes out part-cured and is reliant upon the post-cure process to finish, rather than e.g. SF which seems pretty well cured once exposed.

Progress.

I'm currently using 14 drops of pigment (supplied by Danny) per 30ml of resin; I've reduced the power on the projector from 50 to 25 and switched to 35u layers. Currently using 1900ms per layer (2400ms base); no antialiasing. Post-cure was 10 mins in the ultrasonic @ 35C (with a jewellery cleaner), 1 hour under UV and then oven-baked @60C for about 45mins.

Not a great micrograph, depth of field is pretty bad with this USB scope but it's not exactly an expensive one (if I really need a decent micrograph then the Nikon scope is what I use, but this is good for grab shots).



The beads for the stones are 0.5mm. There's some odd ripples that aren't stair-steps on the underside of the ring and TBH the edges of the rails are not as crisp as the same model from a Projet 1200, but it's probably good enough for casting purposes.

Why are you oven-baking them @ 60°C? AFAIK the FTD resins don't have a cationic component. Or are you doing that to get rid of the moisture in the part?

It looks like you're overcuring your part just a bit... If you drop your exposure time, you should see less of the uneven layers.