Resin disappointment

[MojoBob]

I've been having so little success with my resin printer lately (Elegoo Mars Pro) and the eSun white water-washable resin I could get that I almost never use it any more. Certainly, if the model I'm printing needs any sort of dimensional stability at all, I'll print it by preference on my ancient Ender 3 FDM machine and just accept the layer lines. I can virtually guarantee that any components I print in that resin will come out shrunken, distorted and/or warped, not to mention that there's a better than even chance that some time in the following days it will blow out with some kind of internal curing failure.

 

I'm pretty sure that the fault lies with this resin specifically, not with the printer (old though it is). I've had much better, more reliable results in the past with other of eSun's WW resins. I suspect that this white one is too opaque to UV, so it's creating exposure problems during printing and curing problems afterwards. However, that's really just speculation, and part of the problem may well be that I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to adjusting my printing parameters.

 

Anyway, I think I might just have to bite the bullet and dump the rest of this bottle, which hurts my poor, shrunken, wallet and soul.

[Glitterwolf]

1 hour ago, MojoBob said:

I've been having so little success with my resin printer lately (Elegoo Mars Pro) and the eSun white water-washable resin I could get that I almost never use it any more. Certainly, if the model I'm printing needs any sort of dimensional stability at all, I'll print it by preference on my ancient Ender 3 FDM machine and just accept the layer lines. I can virtually guarantee that any components I print in that resin will come out shrunken, distorted and/or warped, not to mention that there's a better than even chance that some time in the following days it will blow out with some kind of internal curing failure.

 

I'm pretty sure that the fault lies with this resin specifically, not with the printer (old though it is). I've had much better, more reliable results in the past with other of eSun's WW resins. I suspect that this white one is too opaque to UV, so it's creating exposure problems during printing and curing problems afterwards. However, that's really just speculation, and part of the problem may well be that I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to adjusting my printing parameters.

 

Anyway, I think I might just have to bite the bullet and dump the rest of this bottle, which hurts my poor, shrunken, wallet and soul.

 

Different Resin might mean different settings.

 

Maybe you can find the settings for your machine with this resin and try again?

 

[mikem91]

I've recently started using Anycubic Water Wash resin.  I've been pretty happy with it so far.  Less volatile, less stink, much easier cleanup.  I did need to tweak my settings when i switch from regular Anycubic resin.  I did need to tweak my exposure settings.  I'm running near max for the base layers, and a little over 50% on the subsequent layers.  I've not run into shrinkage, warping, or distortion. 

 

Warping and distortion may be from too few supports, not enough UV exposure time, or a couple of other issues.  Posting a pic of a problem mini after rinsing may help diagnosis.

 

MakerTrainer has some good community resin settings that are probably a great place to start.

https://makertrainer.com/wiki/ESUN_resin_settings_matrix

 

Googling the resin's proper name is bound to pull up even more community or reddit pages with "real people" experience.

 

The bottle itself should be labelled with the manufacturer's recommended exposure settings.

 

 

[Illithar]

On 5/13/2023 at 2:04 PM, MojoBob said:

not to mention that there's a better than even chance that some time in the following days it will blow out with some kind of internal curing failure.

Are you hollowing the print? If so are you flushing it out post print? A lot of things I print these days are hollow and you need to be sure to leave holes for drainage and cleaning, as well as to prevent suction cups during printing.

 

If you are not hollowing this sounds more like an issue with the file itself, perhaps a void or resin trap somewhere. 

 

Also, how old is the bottle you have? Resin does have a shelf life, usually about a year I believe. If it is expired it can create all sorts of issues.

[MojoBob]

2 hours ago, Illithar said:

Are you hollowing the print? If so are you flushing it out post print? A lot of things I print these days are hollow and you need to be sure to leave holes for drainage and cleaning, as well as to prevent suction cups during printing.

 

If you are not hollowing this sounds more like an issue with the file itself, perhaps a void or resin trap somewhere. 

 

Also, how old is the bottle you have? Resin does have a shelf life, usually about a year I believe. If it is expired it can create all sorts of issues.

 

I almost always hollow my prints, unless they're very small, and I always flush them out when washing. Now I have an ultrasonic bath as well. The ultrasonics have certainly helped with resin blow-out, as it reaches into places my squirty-sploosh bottle couldn't, but it doesn't help at all with the warping and deformations I've been getting.

 

The resin is about four months old.

[Ratmaster2000]

I have completely walked away from water washable. It's still resin, and you don't want that going down the drain, and (in the case of Elegoo) the wash and cure instructions on my mercury SPECIFICALLY say NOT to use it with water washable, so whats the point? I want to be successful and not spend a lot of time tooling around. Mostly now I use Elegoo's clear resins when they are on sale on amazon or get their V2 resin in bulk straight from Elegoo (the lead time is down to 30 days now!).