Peachy Printer Resin Filler to help make resin last longer

[mike_biddell]

It's not entirely about density.... but over a very long period more dense particles will separate out, but for the duration of a print, they may remain in suspension. I've just realised that we could make 'prints' with any cheap resin of your choice and any filler of your choice. All you do, is buy the rubbery resin and print a mould. You could add 0.5mm to your design all round and knock out an open base design, then external to the printer, tip in any resin and filler of your choice. You cant do that with an extrusion printer. We should get the beta testers to try printing moulds. This would greatly extend Peachy's uses. The CAD software could have some code such as "print mould" which does all the necessary clearances for mould production. For small production runs, moulds would be amazing and there are very cheap catalytic resins out there.

If the mould idea is viable, wouldn't mind trying some of this :- http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/7701011-1-...item2a348e18cf

[3Dmonkey]

wow cant believe this thread got got so popular.

Anyway I found the answer you guys are looking for.

I contacted Makerjuice.I received an email back and they told me that you can use all sorts of fillers

he said the Fillers will make the viscosity of the resin a bit higher
he said some examples you can use glass microfibers, ceramic nanospheres


on my own search I found a type of resin filler called Microbaloons which are almost the same as Ceramic Microspheres.

this is a video of somebody adding resin filler to there resin this type seems to be a very light weight.
To me it seems to be allot of trial and error to figure out which is best to mix in to get the best results.

[mike_biddell]

Did makerjuice say resin with fillers would float? And if so, are there any which dont float?

[Compro01]

Did makerjuice say resin with fillers would float? And if so, are there any which dont float?

Depends on the density of the filler and how much salt you put in the water.

Assuming table salt, salt-saturated water at room temperature has a density of about 1.35kg/litre, so the resin-filler compound needs to be lighter than that.

[mike_biddell]

Depends on the density of the filler and how much salt you put in the water.

Assuming table salt, salt-saturated water at room temperature has a density of about 1.35kg/litre, so the resin-filler compound needs to be lighter than that.

So we dont really know until we try it? I would have thought maker juice could have provided a list.

[rylangrayston]

This is very interesting, I had never really thought about using filler in the way that most of this conversations assumes we do( by mixing it in with the liquid resin before printing)
which is an interesting idea that i havent explored, or spoken to Josh about.

Much like mike_biddell suggested, I have been printing molds ( or shells ) ... but not out of rubber.
here is what I do every time i want a solid object.

1 print only the shell of the object
2 fill the object with resin ( note if the object is from a manifold file it will already be completely full of liquid resin inside the printed shell, the peachy has no problem printing water tight objects)
3. place the object in the sun or in a uv cure box.. vola you have a solid object! and the best part is how fast you can print it because you only really took the time to print the shell!

Printing a shell is sort of like printing a mold that you never peal off.

Now for the filler, instead of just filling the shell with resin its easy to fill it with resin and a filler.
Great fillers have the flowing properties

1 strong long granules
2 transmit uv light (to aid the light in geting deep in to the print)
3 extremely cheap!
4 mimic the rigidity or flexibility of the resin.

So far my favorite filler is par boiled rice! it fits the above criteria very well for the hard resin and displaces alot of the resin that i would normally have had to use in my print!
I am looking forward to trying ground glass and glass beads(sand blasting grits), I think using this method you can reduce something like 75 percent of the resing required in a solid print
and possibly make the print stronger to. Time and testing will tell.


Wishing I could share all the pics i have of testing this but allas I don't have that hard drive with me now, perhaps Ill post them here another day.