Printing Portal Hub FAQ

Which resin should you 3d print with?

Standard Resins

  • Clear: Transparency, polishes to near optical clarity, great for internal channels and working with light.
  • White: Neutral and matte tone, slight translucency when thin. Works well for sanding, and provides a great base color for painting prints.
  • Grey: Neutral and matte tone, great for showing off surface finish and for printing small, accurate features, photographs easily.
  • Black: Highly pigmented, our most opaque, high detail resin. Matte surfaces, great for printing small, intricate features.



What are the colour related to standard resin?

  • Clear: Transparency, polishes to near optical clarity, great for internal channels and working with light.
  • White: Neutral and matte tone, slight translucency when thin. Works well for sanding, and provides a great base color for painting prints.
  • Grey: Neutral and matte tone, great for showing off surface finish and for printing small, accurate features, photographs easily.
  • Black: Highly pigmented, our most opaque, high detail resin. Matte surfaces, great for printing small, intricate features.



What about tough resin?

Tough Resin simulates the feel and many of the important mechanical properties of ABS plastic. ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene) is a very common thermoplastic that provides a good balance of strength and flexibility. Tough Resin creates strong engineering prototypes and has been developed to withstand high stress and strain. Consider using this material for works-like prototypes and assemblies, including designs with snap fit joints and living hinges. For further finishing, Tough resin can also be machined once printed. Tough Resin can be printed at 50 and 100 micron layer heights. Toughness refers to a material’s ability to absorb energy before fracturing. When a tough material yields, it will undergo some deformation rather than just shattering. In other words, tough materials have a little more “give” than brittle ones. Toughness is also defined as the area under a stress-strain curve. Tough materials generally have a good balance of strength (the amount of stress a material can withstand) and ductility (the elongation or percentage strain). Because of this, the area under a tough material’s stress-strain curve is much larger than that of a very strong material with low elongation. This has a direct correlation to the amount of energy each material can absorb before failure. Tough Resin has lower stiffness than the Standard Resins while withstanding more elongation. Recommended for

  • High-stress components
  • Snap-fit functions and living hinges
  • Machining
  • Cyclic loading
  • Works-like/feels like ABS prototyping
  • Geometrically accurate prototyping under load
Not recommended for
  • Very fine features or thin walls
  • Rigid or stiff prints
  • High-temperature applications



Can you provide flexible resin?

Yes we can. Flexible Resin is an elastomer that allows for bendable/compressible parts. (A Flexible watch band printed in its final shape). Recommended for

  • Cushioning and dampening
  • Functional prototypes
  • Ergonomic prototyping: handles, grips
  • Simulating soft-touch materials
  • Adding soft overmolds to multi-material assemblies
  • Packaging
  • Stamps
Not recommended for
  • Simulating very high elongation materials (rubber band)
  • Very fine features or thin walls



What are the 3D printing materials you can provide?

  • Standard Resin – Clear, White, Black & Grey. Good for displaying high detail
  • Castable – Castable Resin used for direct investment casting
  • Durable – Use to prototype models that will eventually be made from polypropylene
  • Flexible – Simulates an 80A durometer rubber
  • High Temp – Has an HDT of 289 °C @ 0.45 MPa. Good for thermoforming, vulcanization, and electronics encapsulation
  • Tough – Simulates ABS plastic. Choose for applications that will undergo high stress and strain