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[R - E1] Plastic film (and resin removal)

A project log for Liquid Laminate Lithography 3D Printer [gd0105]

The best of resin with the best of filament; is such a 3D printer possible?

kelvinakelvinA 04/26/2022 at 19:160 Comments

Ok so I'm doing some quick research and, apparently, PET can be used for the film. This is after I started searching for FEP film. The standard size for the FEP looks to be 0.3 x 1m, which is pretty wide. Perhaps with a laminate paper guillotine, it'll be possible to split it into 2 or even 3 rolls depending on the size of the LCD screen. These guys actually combine both polymers into a multi-layer film. In the video, the FEP looks pretty stretchy, which might cause issues with keeping it taught with rollers.

Due to the phenomenon seen in this video where light from the LCD will scatter, I can only imagine that a thinner film equates to a sharper image. On the same note, this is probably one of the industries where a lower viewing angle LCD would be preferred.

But yeah, looking at this part of this video, you don't need any extra viscious resin to get resin that sticks well enough to the film to be suspended over air. It also looks like the plastic scraper already does a good job in removing the resin from the film. Speaking of that video, it seems that FEP issues contribute to printer downtime. As long as the film isn't compromised in a way that would stretch it out, the printer should be able to just move to a consecutive area on the film and continue. I doubt it would be automatic, but perhaps after X amount of layers printed in one area, it moves to the next.

[27/04/2022] Yes it looks like PET film film will work beautifully.

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