Printing Portal Hub FAQ

Question 1

Which resin should you 3d print with?

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.

Answer

Standard Resins

Question 2

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.

Answer

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

Answer

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

Question 3

What about tough resin?

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

Question 4

Can you provide flexible resin?

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

Question 5

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