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Does anybody think it is possible to reuse the salt water after printing with the Peachy Printer ???
I mean I understand the salt water would definitely need refreshing after a while but anybody think it would be possible for the saltwater to be re used three or four times before being tossed out ???
It would be a pain to dump all the salt water out and make new batch of salt water and put it back into the reservoir tank every time.
I would expect that the water would be reusable for quite a long time. As far as I've heard, the resin isn't water soluble at all, so there wouldn't be any sort of build up or such.
that is good news to hear that it is reusable beyond one use.
I think what the peachy printer needs as a addon is a small hand pump of some sort to move used salt water back into the top reservoir. Then that pump removes the need for a third container.
I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be reusable. I don't think it absorbs any resin or other chemicals during the process, so there is no reason why it won't still be the same salt water that you initially put in. Perhaps after several weeks of use it would need to be changed due to evaporation, etc.
My initial thoughts were that I could use a syringe after a print to suck up leftover resin and put it back in the resin container. When I get close to the resin/water boundary layer, use the syringe to suck up resin and some water and place into a small temporary container. It will separate over time and I can extract a little more resin out of that. Also, take the bottom printing container with salt water in it, and swap it with the top container.
There will be evaporation over time and that will increase the specific gravity of the water because the salt doesn't evaporate. To restore the specific gravity, just add pure water to marked fill lines. And after a print, place lids over containers to minimize evaporation.
I did a bit of research and there is allot of really cheap hand operated Siphon pumps like his one on Amazon this specific one costs $6.45
and on Ebay I found even cheaper chinese knockoff pumps for a few dollars.
But yes I can see it being a challenge to separate the Resin from the salt water once people want to store it when they are not using it.
http://www.amazon.com/IIT-17544-Siph...line+hand+pump
Nice, this might be exactly what we need.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 3Dmonkey
Like Spelljammer, I'm more interested in reusing the uncured resin than the salt water. After all, I live across the street from the Pacific Ocean. I would filter the water I collect to minimize any possible contamination but if the resin isn't water soluble I don't think it should be much of a problem; certainly worth a try.
Has anyone tried to recover extra resin for reuse? Does it cure on exposure to air as well as UV light?