Photon - Going from Green to Grey Resin, What should I know?

[narrowminded]

Getting ready to run my first gray resin prints.  I will probably use .05mm thickness. 

Anything new to add since 18 seconds normal time and 115 second base time?

[Mark W]

Exciting!  Do you feel your plate level and zero are solid?  If not, you may want to redo them.  If you've had perfect prints in green, you may be ok. 

Start off with something simple and fill the vat the bare minimum.  That way if something does go wrong, you have an easier cleanup. 

[narrowminded]

Exciting!  Do you feel your plate level and zero are solid?  If not, you may want to redo them.  If you've had perfect prints in green, you may be ok. 

Start off with something simple and fill the vat the bare minimum.  That way if something does go wrong, you have an easier cleanup.

I feel that the zero is probably OK but now would be a good time to check it while it's cleaned up.  I haven't touched the zero since the first setup and I haven't lost any bases.  I also had the advantage of others experience with loose screws and such so had that all checked before to start. 

Has anything changed in the curing times since a few weeks ago?  Is that 18 second normal time and 115 second base time still holding true?

[Mark W]

Yep, been using those exact settings every day since.

[narrowminded]

Yep, been using those exact settings every day since.

Thanks, Mark.   I'm such a copycat.

[narrowminded]

Ran the gray making pins with a 1/3 smaller grip ring.  100% printed fine.  The others were big to my eye even though they were about 4 3/4" through holes, a nice grip size.  These smaller ones look really good and are about as small as I can go while keeping them manageable for assembly. 

BTW, assembly is done with two toothpicks.  One through the eye of the pin and the other holding the car down/ stable.  There are tapered leads on the pin end as well as the hole in the chassis so with the opti-visor it actually goes together and comes apart pretty easily.  Bent wires and tweezers are near impossible to manage without launching two or three into oblivion for every one you get installed but this actually works pretty good.  I'll have to do a video some day.  I'm happy. 

[narrowminded]

Ran Anycubic black resin with the same settings as gray.  Came out fine.   Those settings are 115 seconds bottom, 8 layers, and then 18 seconds normal.  Edit add: ...and .05 layer thickness.

Also of note, I ran some mine portal pieces flat on the build plate with no supports or anything but the back of the part.  When I did this I reduced the bottom layers to four.  I've done this before but didn't reduce the bottom layers from eight and due to the extra long cure time it bulges slightly right at the plate for those few layers.  You might describe the appearance as that of a mold line on a resin casting.   The point in reducing the bottom layers to four was to lessen the bulge thickness.  Not a biggie either way as either sands off readily.

[narrowminded]

@Mark W Another detail that I know you've been interested in is viscosity of different resins.  This Anycubic black is definitely lower viscosity than the gray and if my memory is good, lower viscosity than the green, too.  It's pretty thin in comparison, evident to the naked eye.   It may have improved dimensions but if at all, this far, .001" or less.  It's not enough to declare anything for sure at this point (four runs) and that's if the claim's even true.  I'm still amazed at the tolerances this process meets.