Nicolas Tranchant, founder of the French jewelry company Bijouterie Vivalatina, shares his experience of 3D printing with FunToDo resin on the Projet 1200 printer. He will tell you how to get around the 3DSystems software restriction on the use of alternative consumables.
As many of you may know, the 1200 Projet from 3D Systems is a fairly accurate machine, completely closed by the manufacturer for self-improvement and the use of third-party resins. The cartridges have a chip that limits the owner’s ability to use other printing resins than 3DSystems proprietary resin.
Nicolas Tranchant
Founder of Bijouterie Vivalatina
I chose the ProJet 1200 because of its ability to print models with high detail and close to ideal geometry. As a jeweler, I am most interested in castable resins (Castable), which I can use to cast silver, gold and other metals.
In practice, it turned out that working with 3DSystems proprietary burnout polymer is not so easy, due to many problems. First, the proprietary green polymer does not burn out well, leaving a mass of ash. Secondly, during the burning, the fumes released are very toxic, so that the eyes begin to water and there is an unpleasant sensation in the lungs.
By the way, the 3dsystems cast resin (FTX Cast) is so brittle that I barely managed to remove the supports from the models without breaking the parts into small pieces. As a result, after struggling with expensive proprietary material, I decided to try out FunToDo resin resins on my ProJet 1200.
Burn-out resin FunToDo Castable Blend
This red resin is about 20 times cheaper, much less toxic to work with, and best of all, prints great on the ProJet 1200 printer.
One of the key aspects of choosing a third party resin for printing on your device, and especially for the 1200 projet, is the effectiveness of the photoinitiators contained in the resin. I ran into a lot of problems with other non-original resins on my projet 1200. However, the FunToDo Castable burnout resin prints so well that it’s a pleasure to send a model to print. There are no difficulties when removing supports and surface treatment, because after printing, FunToDo resin is hard, but not brittle. Even if the part falls to the floor, nothing will happen, it remains intact.
Select print options on the ProJet 1200 that greatly affect print quality and print speed.
I’ve been using the Gold settings in the Fun To Do Castable resin software settings for a few months, but after I found out that the printer prints FunToDo resin just as well on the Gray settings.
What’s the difference, you ask? On the Gray settings, I can print a model in 1 hour and 28 minutes, while on the Gold settings, the same model will print for 2 hours and 35 minutes.
White resin FunToDo Snow White
The Snow White resin is harder than castable resin and is also resistant to higher temperatures, so it is excellent for making silicone molds for jewelry casting.
On my Project 1200, I printed with Snow White resin on Green settings and everything was fine. I’m assuming you can print on the Gray settings as well. You can use small supports and end up with a perfect geometry part.
Printed model with the addition of red pigment in Snow White resin used to make a silicone mold.
Continuing to experiment with FunToDo resin, I added a red coloring pigment to the white resin.
After printing the model, I made a silicone mold using hot vulcanization. The resin perfectly withstood high temperatures, the geometry did not change.
The Snow White resin is strong enough after printing, so you don’t have to worry about damaging the part. After the final curing in the UV curring box, the model becomes even stronger, so it became interesting for me to print some functional detail. I recently printed a door hinge. Printed in one detail with settings for maximum speed. The loop printed well and is strong. The mechanics are working.
Resin FTD Snow White prints remarkably at 1200 project, even with the addition of pigment. Burn-out resin Castable did its job just as well!
Conclusion
FunToDo resin prints remarkably well on a 3D Systems Projet1200 printer.
The ability to use a third-party resin, as well as the freedom to choose print options, depends on the software you are using. I used proprietary software GeomagicPrint-1.2