and came up with the following design which can be laser cut into the dsired quantities. Its using 5mm Acrylic for the frames and bottom and 3mm acrylic for the active bottom area.rd party PDMS silicone such as: SOLARIS/1 Glasklares Silikon + Primer which is available all over the world. I then began to design my own VAT based on the original and came up with the following design which can be laser cut into the dsired quantities. Its using 5mm Acrylic for the frames and bottom and 3mm acrylic for the active bottom area.
Maybe you guys have some insides and ideas on that:-)
Good idea, Julian.
SOLARIS/1 Glasklares Silikon + Prime seems to be much cheaper than Slygard 184. Does it has similar optimical property and bond strength to Acrylic? You also need to attach FEP film to avoid heat induced damage.
hi there thanks for the feedback. I am currently testing it with different laser power settings. I try to choose the minimum possible power to still get good adhesion and no over exposure. The package of silicone will last for approximately 10 recoatings (35g of each component). The Peopoly People of the MOAI printer are really fond of this coating to and already did a lot of testing on it. It will last for around 1-2 liters of resin depending on the resin of course.
I am using it without FEP as I dont have one here that is glueable. Maybe you have a supplier or idea where to get the sticky FEP from. It is said that it will increase life time extremly.
Hello 3Dfacture:-) I am still on track for the replacement VAT but currently facing the issue on finding the right FEP film that can be glued onto the pdms layer. Can you provide any source for the fep film? Maybe it might even be worth looking at a FEP only VAT to be compatible with weaver.
Please be so kind to assist me in this matter.
I used Qsil 216 when I recoated the Draken I vats and had good adhesion to both acrylic and glass.
The use of FEP is highly recommended to protect the PDMS from hazing due to failed prints, but if you don't mind replacing the PDMS more often, just printing on PDMS usually results in lower adhesion forces when your power/duration process is well known and working properly. Too much adhesion of a print to the PDMS will tear it, resulting in resin being cured directly to the acrylic ruining it.
I already had good results with printing on PDMS right on. It turned cloudy right after a single small print. But I just read in a different thread that recommended exposure time is around 3-5µs. I used 28µs to start wirh and ended up with 15-20µs. Maybe that is the reason why PDMS turns cloudy so wuickly.