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Water wash resins

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ddmckee54:
I've been threatening/wanting to get a resin printer, but one of the biggest things that keeps me from doing it is the smell of the resin.  I've heard that the water wash resins have a more tolerable smell.  Anybody with first hand experience want to tell me if this is true or not?

Don

A7er:
Hi Don.
I have a print running at the moment. The printer is in my utility room which is about 10 feet long. The smell at the printer is negligible, the smell at the end of the room is non-existant. The worst smell will be when I use isopropanol to clean the build plate and FEP film after first washing them with water. Just a wipe over with a small piece of cloth. The finished print will be washed with plenty of water over a bowl, and the water then poured into a large plastic bottle for disposal later. I haven't used other types of resin, only the water washable. The isopropanol is in a 250ml bottle and has lasted for dozens of prints. I use a small spray bottle filled with water, and model makers paintbrushes to clean the print. My washer/curer has a water tank, but it takes about 2 gallons of water, so I don't use it.

The utility room is attached to the kitchen and I don't need to shut the dividing door. My cooking smells worse than the resin!

crueby:
Great info - I wasn't aware of the water wash resins. Do they keep very long once the bottle is opened, or do they have a short shelf life? Is there a difference in the strength or details of the prints from the other types of resin? The resin printers give lots more fine detail, but they do have some drawbacks in the handling of the resins. How do you dispose of the wash water?
Thanks!

ddmckee54:

--- Quote from: crueby on August 18, 2023, 06:46:27 PM ---How do you dispose of the wash water?

--- End quote ---

I've heard that setting your solvent out in the sun for a few days, then filtering out the particles will get rid of the big chunks.  Or you might be able to use a centrifuge like they do when making bio-diesel and spin the resin bits out.  Eventually when it get's too dirty to reuse, I suppose let the water evaporate and dispose of the remainder like you're supposed to do for latex paint?

AdeV:
I've used both types of resin - water wash & IPA/Methanol wash. Both are about the same, to be honest. I got an Elegoo Mars 3 Pro, which has an internal carbon filter. I assume it's working OK, because I can't smell the printer in normal use. Then again, I've smoked for 30 years... so maybe I just can't smell it!

I did happen across an interesting video just today, which suggests that all the carbon filters do is knock the smell down; they don't do anything to reduce the VOCs from the process. I guess YMMV.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjhmXzvbyfA

My printer lives in a good sized office - but on the back of that video, I might move it out into the main workshop - which is extremely well ventilated (despite my best efforts to stop it being so!), and also quite large...

Resin printing allows for insanely good levels of detail, but the maximum model size is typically significantly smaller than what's possible with an FDM (filament) printer.

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