Updated on February 12, 2018
Switching to a new resin might be a hassle. Therefore, we provide this guide to 3D printing for beginners with AmeraLabs resins that will aid you in taking those first steps and getting perfect prints right away.
Preparation
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Shake the bottle well before printing to make sure material is well mixed. |
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If there are air bubbles in a resin gently mix it with soft silicon tool or wait a little bit for bubbles to dissolve. |
Although pigment/dye will not settle for very long periods, good shake of the bottle is mandatory to be sure that material is well mixed and homogenous. Read more about this here: Why is it so important to shake the resin bottle? If you see air bubbles in the resin after filling your VAT, just mix them gently with soft silicon tool or leave it for a while for bubbles to go away.
3D Printing
Exposures can vary based on your light source and power of LED. This is UV resin, not daylight. So, if you have LCD/LED based printer, we would suggest starting conservatively with higher exposure settings. If you see good performance, you can gradually shorten exposures. We tried our fast resin with common LED/LCD printers and compiled a list of 3D printing settings for beginners here: 3D Printing Settings for AmeraLabs Resins
You may also need to increase exposures if your light source is too weak. Therefore, experiment a little bit and we are sure you will find that sweet spot. Our LED materials should not be used with PDMS based resin trays, because it is too reactive and can damage your PDMS silicon layer.
Post-curing
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Clean the printed part with isopropyl alcohol (IPA) very well. |
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Post-cure part in UV chamber or place it in front of the Sun for around 30 minutes. |
Post-curing is very important. It is key factor to obtain strong and hard surface. Before post curing, you should clean the part with isopropyl alcohol (IPA) very well: swirl it around in the alcohol to rinse off extra resin and let it stay in the alcohol for 5-15 min, swirl it around at the end as well. Use soft brush if needed. Do not keep part in IPA for more than 20 min, because it will start absorbing alcohol and that will result in permanent damage to part and loss of properties. Read more about this here: Can cleaning SLA prints with IPA cause cracks on my models? Let it dry. After cleaning, post-cure part in UV chamber or in front of the Sun immediately. Recommended post-curing duration is ~30 minutes. However, if you wish fully cured part with extremely hard surface, we recommend to post-cure for 1-2 hours.
Ready to start printing?
Now you know the basic steps for printing with AmeraLabs materials. Check out other articles to learn more about calibrating your 3D printer:
- The Complete Resin 3D Printing Settings Guide for Beginners
- Key things to know before calibrating resin 3D printer
- Impressive calibration part for resin 3D printers together with the guide on how to understand its features
- 10 reasons why you get unexpected horizontal lines on your 3D printed parts
- Attachment Layer in SLA 3D printing: what you need to know
- How to design parts for SLA 3D Printing
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