Re: Flexvat V5, the best of both worlds.
Posted: Wed Apr 05, 2017 1:00 pm
I am pretty much done with testing the vat and things look really good. The vents in the acrylic support plate plus the slight thickness of the tape along the edge of the vents successfully maintain a very thin film of air between the acrylic and the FEP film and make the peel characteristics of the vat almost as good as that of a drumhead vat under many conditions. The thin layer of air keeps the FEP film from sticking to the acrylic plate and the vents allow the FEP film to bulge upwards when needed to aid peeling.
The first eiffel tower in the photo was printed using the v5 vat with .1mm layers and .063mm x and y resolution, the second tower was printed with 0.05 layers and .0.63 xy resolution, they are both 100mm tall (the .063 xy resolution is a compromise resolution on my test rig since I am also testing other vats, if I have time this week I will run some tests at .025mm xyz resolution and post the results.). The surface finish of the parts I have printed has been very good and I have had no print failures when using 2 build plate attachment layers exposed for 30 second each. The outer handrail at the first platform of the .1 layer thickness eiffel tower did pull away but I don't consider that much a failure since the bars holding up the railing were hair thin 0.07mm diameter rods (about 1 dlp pixel in size) and they did in fact print, the inner hand rail printed ok.
The photo of the disassembled vat show the main components: top plate/vatwall, base plate with molded in threaded inserts (no more spinning threaded inserts), acrylic FEP support plate with tape and vents, snap in retainer for mounting the support plate, printed mounting thumb nuts (or screws depending on the printer). Not shown are misc bolts, gaskets and FEP film (the gaskets and FEP film are the same as those used on the drumhead vat). The vat can be mounted to the LittleRP, LittleRP2 using 2 or 4 mounting points or custom printers.
I should have the v5 vat kit available at flexvat.com next week sometime, the kit will come with the components described above, any needed mounting hardware, 4 laser cut FEP windows, 4 laser cut gaskets, a spare acrylic FEP support plate and spare snap in retainer. I have not determined the cost for the kit yet but it will be comparable to the v4 vat.
0.1mm z, .063mm xy, printed straight
.05mm z, .063xy, printed angled 6 degrees
HTL
The first eiffel tower in the photo was printed using the v5 vat with .1mm layers and .063mm x and y resolution, the second tower was printed with 0.05 layers and .0.63 xy resolution, they are both 100mm tall (the .063 xy resolution is a compromise resolution on my test rig since I am also testing other vats, if I have time this week I will run some tests at .025mm xyz resolution and post the results.). The surface finish of the parts I have printed has been very good and I have had no print failures when using 2 build plate attachment layers exposed for 30 second each. The outer handrail at the first platform of the .1 layer thickness eiffel tower did pull away but I don't consider that much a failure since the bars holding up the railing were hair thin 0.07mm diameter rods (about 1 dlp pixel in size) and they did in fact print, the inner hand rail printed ok.
The photo of the disassembled vat show the main components: top plate/vatwall, base plate with molded in threaded inserts (no more spinning threaded inserts), acrylic FEP support plate with tape and vents, snap in retainer for mounting the support plate, printed mounting thumb nuts (or screws depending on the printer). Not shown are misc bolts, gaskets and FEP film (the gaskets and FEP film are the same as those used on the drumhead vat). The vat can be mounted to the LittleRP, LittleRP2 using 2 or 4 mounting points or custom printers.
I should have the v5 vat kit available at flexvat.com next week sometime, the kit will come with the components described above, any needed mounting hardware, 4 laser cut FEP windows, 4 laser cut gaskets, a spare acrylic FEP support plate and spare snap in retainer. I have not determined the cost for the kit yet but it will be comparable to the v4 vat.
0.1mm z, .063mm xy, printed straight
.05mm z, .063xy, printed angled 6 degrees
HTL