top of page
Kobus du Toit

Parts cracking


Many of the parts started cracking. We are reprinting some of them now. All parts where washed in methylated spirits. Seems it is the wrong thing to use. Do not use methylated spirits to clean parts printed with a DLP printer.

We tested using Jif kitchen cleaner. It is made to remove grease in the kitchen and it seems to be able to remove the excess resin from the parts. The Jif cleaned parts also cracked.

Next we tested placing parts in bicarbonate of soda for a bit and even rubbing it on the parts. I then placed the parts in a 6L sonic bath for 30 minutes at 30 degrees C. The results looked good at the time as none of the parts cracked that we cleaned this way. Later however, we noticed that white marks appeared on the prints and that they were still sticky from the resin so we don't recommend this option. We have been told someone printing very fine items uses demineralised water and 3% Sonixlab TEK33 to clean their parts and that is working for them. We haven't been able to find TEK33 in Australia. Hopefully the bicarbonate of soda will not cause cracks in the plastic.

April 2, 2018 update: Fast forward to now - when we are printing with Fun To Do resin, we clean the prints with paper towels and place them in a shallow plastic container within a UV box to cure. We find this method gets rid of the stickiness that resin 3D prints sometimes have. Curing it in water as opposed to curing it as it is in a UV curing box makes a big difference - the prints cure MUCH faster.

When we print with any other resins, we clean the prints by rubbing them with paper towels too but we then also soak the prints in alcohol for 10 minutes before also leaving them to cure in water within a plastic container under UV light. Curing prints in water inside a metal bowl placed in the sun also works fast.


990 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All
bottom of page