Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working on some ways to build drum head flex vats that are large enough to work on the Titan 1 and also have desirable exposure characteristics. Other users have made these before, but I wanted to find some way that it could be done without machining and without a lot of different hardware.
For the first half of this year, the Photocentric3D daylight polymer printer has been pretty big in the 3D printing news, not only because of their use of visible light curing resins, but also because of the simplicity of their vat. Just a frame of acrylic and double stick tape.
I decided to design a simple FDM printable vat along the same vein, that you could print yourself with a large enough printer, or have made for you on 3D Hubs or one of the pricier printing shops:
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/86d3b8569bc5df8d445445a4
After some experimentation, 0.001″ or 0.002″ FEP seems like the best material, and I like the performance of 3M 4932 VHB tape (http://www.amazon.com/TapeCase-Width-Length-Converted-Tape/dp/B007Y7FHTQ).
I made a couple of videos, showing how to make the vat, how it functions, and how it compares to other vats. In some regards, it’s a bit simpler to use, settings wise, because you have no control over the lift distance. You always need around 2 or 3mm, depending on the tensioning of the vat. All of your separation control is in lift speed, which you need to keep low to prevent tear your parts apart or detaching them from the build plate. But this also represents a loss of flexibility compared to the PSP vat, which you might need for challenging prints. Overall, I’d say that while the PSP can print anything that the flex vat can, the inverse is not the case. There are probably things that the PSP can print that the flex vat cannot. However, especially for items that require a hard vat, it may be less daunting to recover from vat-destroying failures by replacing the flex vat film compared to laying down all-new silicone in the case of the PSP.
Anyway, here are the videos, and if anyone makes one, please share your experiences.