Acetone Finishing on PLA

[TKTrooper 0]

This is the PLA from colorfabb that i have and acetone is not working mine. I have had this sat in acetone for over a week now and its not touched it.

I don't why or if im doing something wrong, I noticed one of your posts says that the acetone has to be 100% pure so i will check the bottle of what i have.

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[cloakfiend 995]

Just for the record.....same filament.

[gr5 2,173]

@Franny500 - does it need to *look* like egg crate? Can it be brown? If it only needs to *look* like that then try wood filled pla. Several companies make this filament.

If you want it to *feel* like egg carton then I recommend you 3dprint permeable molds and then use actual paper pulp to make your finished part. This is pretty easy to do I suspect. People have posted about it:

http://www.javelin-tech.com/3d-printer/making-molded-pulp-packages-in-low-quantities/

and Cura makes it easy to print lots of holes in your print for the water to drain out - for example you can set the infill percent to control "hole size" and turn off top/bottom layers.

[Franny500 9]

Thanks to all for the replies, think the customer is going down the mould route, so we'll see from here.

[thobe 11]

Hey Cloakfiend,

first of all, thank you for this thread. Been following it since the first posts.

Your method is my absolute go to for finishing my prints.

But because of lack of time I couldn't do much experimenting on my own except of trying different filling methods for bigger layer lines and cracks.

(Mr. Dissolved Putty is fantastic for this. It will flow into the cracks, when carefully applied with a toothpick or a fine brush. It dries smoothly and can be easily sanded off.)

I understand that you don't want to tell all of your secrets. But maybe you can give me an hint if it is worth experimenting with ethyl acetate in combination with acetone. (maybe a mixture?)

I have a bottle of it standing around here but didn't have the time to try it yet.

I remember you mentioned using it and your latest prints show awesome surface quality.

It's a shame I don't live in the UK and couldn't visit your workshop.

Keep up the good work!

[cloakfiend 995]

ethyl acetate will crack your prints far more than acetone in my opinion, i had way more long prints ruined using it. theres no point in mixng it with acetone as acetone is more crack friendly and ive solved removing he white effect that acetone creates i think ;)The super shiny look is also an addition, but they are not simple techniques and take some playing with, especially with intersecting geometry and objects with cavities.

Dont worry i didnt end up doing the talk, it was mislabelled and i cancelled it. its such a niche thing i had trouble advertising it getting suffcient numbers of attendees as i was charging a small fee for the space.

filaments also vary slightly so its always best to test acetone on a small print of a new roll of filament, and prnt slightly hotter as i tend to print as cool as i can but this leads to weaker layers that tend to split. eitherway as you said a bit of puttyhere and there sometimes saves the cracks but if they are in a detailed area you are pretty much doomed.

the only filament that didnt ever crack with acetone was the original ultimaker PLA but they dont make it anymore. such a shame......

Edited August 9, 2016 by Guest

[thobe 11]

Thanks for the info!

I guess i'll leave the bottle of ethyl acetate on the shelf then.

Getting rid of the whitening seems nice, but is not that important to me, since I paint my models anyways.

Here is a print I just post processed yesterday. Quite happy with the result and I think i found a nice compromise between time consumption and quality:

[cloakfiend 995]

Nice print!, im glad its working well for you. I did a little twist anim, Ill post it tomorrow once i've put it together. very experimental, was just messing with smoothing animated PLA with metal paint stuff which kinda doesn't work due to inconsistent coats and metal specularity....

making the bases so thin was a mistake, and I took a few off too early and they cooled wrong because the bed had not cooled yet. I kept the acetone on them to a minimum. too speed up the cooling i take it off and put it on my granite worktop in my kitchen, usually cools in a few minutes. each model was printed seperately due to stupidly high poly count issues, and cura said no way after i tried two at once. Besides i try to avoid retractions if i can, whenever I can, so one by one worked for me even though it meant I was stuck in the house for 24hrs straight.

All that for 18 frames! lol.

Edited August 11, 2016 by Guest

[gr5 2,173]

18 frames! Might as well make it an animated gif then! I can't wait to see it.

[cloakfiend 995]

Ok here goes... could have just done a gif, but wheres the fun in that! lol,I'll do one later, I actually find doing a video easier and more entertaining.

 

Edited August 12, 2016 by Guest

[peetersm 124]

Ok here goes... could have just done a gif, but wheres the fun in that! lol,I'll do one later, I actually find doing a video easier and more entertaining.

 

Love this. you put them on a turn table, are you considering spinning with a strobe light so the twisting would look like it was happening in real life?

[neotko 1,417]

 

Ok here goes... could have just done a gif, but wheres the fun in that! lol,I'll do one later, I actually find doing a video easier and more entertaining.

 

Love this. you put them on a turn table, are you considering spinning with a strobe light so the twisting would look like it was happening in real life?

 

That would rock. And you could even print a version that doesn't even need the strobe light for the zoetrope

Like this:

 

[cloakfiend 995]

I like that one, musty give it a go one day!, i have no electric and wiring experience.

[cloakfiend 995]

OK... finally, heres the way I do things now mostly, I rarely dip now. Dipping may give slightly better results, but this method is much faster, safer, and is ok for quick jobs. a good even 45ish second soak is probably better, but this method warps less and is less prone to cracking if youre carefull. also if you have large models you dont need to worry about having a container full of chemicals to dip it in. if you need it smoother, then keep applying more ethyl or acetone to emulate the soak.

 

[SandervG 1,521]

Hi @Cloakfiend, thank you for the video! The model/print is SUPER!

I can't believe I hear you say a couple of times it is not amazing

I wanted to suggest to also update your first post in case people don't want to read all 16 pages but I see it is already on there. Thanks for sharing how you do things.

I definitely want to give this a try, and I would be curious to find out if people use this technique what their experiences are, and what their prints end up looking like.

How long did the entire process take, since there are a few fast-forwards in this 8min video?

[geert_2 557]

I used to say that 3D-printing was not accurate enough to create smooth dolls like barby dolls or so. But obviously I need to revise that statement.

Then a question: instead of using a brush, have you ever tried using a spray bottle? The sort of bottle with a hand pump, and adjustable spray nozzle, which people also use to spray plants? If the spray could be adjusted fine enough in a fine mist, without big drops and pooling, then you wouldn't need to touch the model while spraying. So you have less risk of getting marks on the model. Or would that have other side-effects?

[Edel 5]

Ok i did thos Test today with aceton too.

the small robot with layer 0,06 as you told us!

1. orignal Part

2. 15 sec bath

3. 30 sec bath

4. 60 sec bath

After the aceton bath i cleaned it in a water bath....

But why get the part 2 and 4 so white and part 3 not?

Its Colorfabb silver PLA PHA

[cloakfiend 995]

personally id stay away from the metallic filaments and i've found the transparent ones very good . the whole whitening thing is air related, I've still not figured it out to either get it or avoid it completey, but use ethyl acetate if you want to avoid it to an extent. its much harder to avoid it with acetone, but if your painting it then who cares!

ive never done a water bath? as its not letting the acetone/ethyl acetate sink in. dont do any extra steps i havent. but most of all above anything else is that you need to make sure youre printer is running smoothly!

if you have any issues with layer lines then they will still be visible after the dip. i always get the same quality results no matter what color filament from colorfabb i use.

ive got another video (with the heads that i also did but did not post that has me comparing ethly and acetone side by side) ill post that up soon, but as usual i ended up talking too kuch and need to edit it right down.

if ultimaker reverted back to their original recipe this would be much easier as it didnt crack, and smoothed way better, but colorfabb is all thats left.

this method is for the purists out their who want the very best surface quality with minimal effort. however some sanding and stuff is required as after all, you are wanting the best you can achieve as cheaply as possible.

its also very easy to do. just make sure you try to clean up the print as much as you can before you slap on the chems!

@SandervG thanks, its ok quality, lol. i have very high standards, and know my printer can do better ;)anything less than the best, and i'm disappointed, lol. im not easily pleased. im still debating going back to the original nozzle for some reason, i really like it. thinking about a 1.75mm kit too, but im already printing far cooler than i want so might lay off.

p.s. these chemicals (ethyl and acetone) evaporate naturally so there is no need in any water baths in my opinion. in fact you want to let it sink in until it evaporates rather than instantly cleaning it after the dip which defeats the whole point.

there is a lot to explain, but not many people will sit through hours of me explaining all the reasons i do things they way i do. i still believe printing off the roll produces superior results, period.

Edited October 15, 2016 by Guest

[SandervG 1,521]

Thank you for the detailed explanation! Not being easily pleased I guess is what got you to this level in surface quality. But being realistic should also show you that that print looks pretty awesome

If you ever want to change to 1.75mm I believe GR5 sells a kit to do so.

But if you didn't feel great about installing an olsson block for another 0.4mm nozzle, maybe going to 1.75mm is quite a big step? It is far less rigid than 2.85mm filament and with the bowden tube it is a whole new adjusting what is needed.

[neotko 1,417]

Thank you for the detailed explanation! Not being easily pleased I guess is what got you to this level in surface quality. But being realistic should also show you that that print looks pretty awesome

If you ever want to change to 1.75mm I believe GR5 sells a kit to do so.

But if you didn't feel great about installing an olsson block for another 0.4mm nozzle, maybe going to 1.75mm is quite a big step? It is far less rigid than 2.85mm filament and with the bowden tube it is a whole new adjusting what is needed.

 

A bit of [offtopic] but related to the answer.

UM2/UM2+ conversion to 1.75 is fantastic in my experience, I'm quite 'nuts' about having perfect top layers, not just good or okish but perfect with repetition on every single print.

The problem of moving to 1.75mm is that there's a huge lack of information of how to fully mod a UM2/UM2+ so it works as good as it should. Mainly because posts like Adafruit when they say that you can just 'plug' 1.75mm filament and print with it on a um2. That's far from the truth, you can, but it will never be able to push as much filament at the precision that I think @cloakfiend and I need. You can just 'print' and cover top layers with more top layers until it suddenly fills or you can do precise extrusion and get perfect top layers with perfectly calibrated extrusion, and for that there's many elements in play like extrusion, speed, pressure on the bowden, etc.

Also the main issue I see from the 3dsolex 'kits' is that they are not a kit, there's no instructions about what's really needed to mod it and there's no supplies related to it, and is FAR from a plug and play. For example the best 'cheapest' way to transform the UM2 feeder is using a MK7, and the best of the best is using a Bondtech DIY kit (1/3 cheaper than the full extruder).

I won't extend more on this subject here because isn't related, but if you want @sandervg I can make a 1.75 tutorial showing how I did it on my um2 hotends, I don't have a UM2 but the gaps to fill are purely firmware and photos of how to screw here and there.

Also about filament being less rigid, since I installed my FatIRobertI feeder I never got any more problems, not even a dent on the filament and I can use flexible filaments much faster than what I seen others do, and with a good degree of retractions.

[/offtopic]

[cloakfiend 995]

As my printer has taken some beating over the past year, looking to keep it in as good order as i can, i want to replace all the bearings as i have damaged one a while ago, and also revert the nozzle back to the standard block it was shipped with. I may in the meantime see if the new ruby nozzle is out and give it a go. But my experience with the last one was that the increase in temp to produce better surface results had an overall detrimental effect on the model detail. I spent about a week testing the one i was sent, but never got round to posting results to mr olssen himself so if your reading sorry about that! I ended up just removing it as I couldn't get good results from it as with the generic OB ones.

Considering that acetoning and ethyl both need near perfect surface alignment I doubt I will risk a 1.75 mm nozzle change, as it poses no benefit to my style of printing, I don't need speed as much as layer detail. Im used to the 2.85 mm filament now on my UM2 and know that if i break anything then i can easily and cheaply replace it. I might just buy a few new um2 nozzles just to sit on as well as new bearings and other parts that may deteriorate. problem is with the old nozzles is that I can't get the heater out and end up having to replace both parts!

Oh well, my best quality was with the out of the box UM2 pre OB, so that is my weekend goal. Ill post pics if i ever manage to do it. If someone could post links to good bearings it would be appreciated, I know someone did a while ago but i lost the link!

[cloakfiend 995]

and @Geert_2 I have a cheap plant spray bottle to test, but need to make sure the thing will not dissolve with use. you could always get a spray can of acetone, but thats gonna get expensive quickly if you use it as much as I do. For less than two cans worth I can buy 5litres in a container.

[geert_2 557]

and @Geert_2 I have a cheap plant spray bottle to test, but need to make sure the thing will not dissolve with use. you could always get a spray can of acetone, but thats gonna get expensive quickly if you use it as much as I do. For less than two cans worth I can buy 5litres in a container.

 

Yes indeed, I hadn't thought of that. If the spray can totally consists of polypropylene or polyethylene, it will survive. But if it contains ABS parts, you would indeed have a real problem when spraying acetone...

[cloakfiend 995]

I need to find a spray can of ethyl acetate.

[Edel 5]

personally id stay away from the metallic filaments and i've found the transparent ones very good . the whole whitening thing is air related, I've still not figured it out to either get it or avoid it completey, but use ethyl acetate if you want to avoid it to an extent. its much harder to avoid it with acetone, but if your painting it then who cares!

OK but you wrote that is not so good, after you testing, you went back to normal aceton, or?

ive never done a water bath? as its not letting the acetone/ethyl acetate sink in. dont do any extra steps i havent. but most of all above anything else is that you need to make sure youre printer is running smoothly!

This is not the problem, prints are in 0,04 or 0,06

if you have any issues with layer lines then they will still be visible after the dip. i always get the same quality results no matter what color filament from colorfabb i use.

ive got another video (with the heads that i also did but did not post that has me comparing ethly and acetone side by side) ill post that up soon, but as usual i ended up talking too kuch and need to edit it right down.

if ultimaker reverted back to their original recipe this would be much easier as it didnt crack, and smoothed way better, but colorfabb is all thats left.

yes but the UM Filament was a time manufactured by Inofill, so i tested it, too...

this method is for the purists out their who want the very best surface quality with minimal effort. however some sanding and stuff is required as after all, you are wanting the best you can achieve as cheaply as possible.

 

Dear my friend, some answer a bold in the text above...

I read now, everything, all 16 site ;)and now let me make a resumee, because same questions still open.

If you watched in the other section, with my videos, i m also trying , but not as good as yours, so i hope i can learn here....

i still have the effect, but not so strong as yours...

i used Colorfabb PLA/PHA Silver.... ok you told you are not sure about the metallic parts inside and more transparents are better

which one did you test of those 5 available colors?

Natural

Red Transprant

Orange Transprant

Yellow Transprant

Green Transprant

Material you test (where you wrote it down), an still on markt

Colorfabb PLA/PHA leaf green, black, warm red, triffic red, ultamatrine blue

i only asking so detailed, because i want to buy now the best on of those, where the effect is the strongest!!!!

The Way:

ok now we have way 1 - dipping in aceton or way 2 brushing aceton

Way 1 Dipping.

- Dipping between 30-60 secounds, depend on filament color, but e.g. 40sec for warm red

but then my importan question: put it directly out, no cleaning of the wet part? let all aceton on the part? how long did you leave it and let it try, before you brushed it with a toothbrush?

then directly primar your plasti kote and painting.

is this all correct or forgot i something?

so the white is no froth up of the pla? i m not so sure in the moment...

you mean its only a change of the color to white?

Way 2

sanding,

cleaning of dust

brushing with aceton, quick, one brushing only, one layer

how long waiting now before brushing?

u brushed it with a toothbrush?

you still use the mequire polish? i not sure about this before painting, because there is wax inside, or?

hope you can answer the question, that i can experiment more

because the cholorform is also not so good

Edited October 25, 2016 by Guest