The build plate on my resin printer is a bit on the small side. When I have printed something as large as a 100mm dia flywheel I can't get it to adopt a good angle to ensure a clean print. This of course could be down to my inexperience! I thought I would try a different approach. If I couldn't get my new design flywheel, 89mm dia, to lay flat on the build plate, I would cut it in half. In my CAD programme of course. I also took the opportunity to remove some of the solid to make more of a shell to save hollowing it out in the slicer software. This way both halves of the flywheel pattern could fit on the buildplate, flat. The taller something is in a resin printer the longer it takes to print. A print at 100mm high could take several hours. One at 20mm high a little more than an hour. The print was almost flawless, very easy to clean up and the two halves were bonder together with epoxy. A little filler and sanding made the print ready for sand casting. I just couldn't get the sand cohesion right. No matter how I rammed it, the sand wouldn't hold together, especially between the spokes. This left me baffled to say the least. I had added more water as the the sand had been sitting in its storage big for nearly two years. But it didn't feel right. I wondered if it needed more Bentonite. I added some and the texture of the sand changed dramatically. I will let the sand sit until tomorrow and try again. These pictures show the halves of the flywheel pattern, and then glued and filled.
