UV Curing Station for SLA,

thingiverse

As always, I will promote and reward the first people to post quality makes (must enable tips on your profile for reward). A quality make is a successful, complete, hopefully decent-looking print at 100% scale. Preferably completely assembled, with in-process photos and if you can please note any issues or alternative parts used to help others. Thank you. This is a great way to cure prints without breaking the bank. In most cases, I can fully cure items in about 3-10 minutes depending on size, resin used geometry, and density. I designed this around readily available and relatively cheap UV lamps, fans, and motors found on Amazon. It was designed as a cheaper alternative to the Prusa UV cure station the CW1 ($699 usd!!) Can you build something cheaper? Yeah just set stuff outside, on one of those $5 solar-powered spinning bases. The advantage of this design is the slow rotation offers even UV exposure and the intensity of the two wrap-around UV lamps leads to quick and thorough resin curing while the dual fans help dry any remaining isopropanol or other cleaning liquid. Also since all sides are being cured at once, this theoretically reduces warping. I like it a lot; it's pretty straightforward to assemble, works well, is a convenient size to store, and I don't have to go outside where other humans are. When curing, I personally put a white paper plate over the top to help reflect light back down and protect me from direct UV exposure (be safe kids). You can run it without a top and it works just fine; just try to avoid looking into the pretty lights for long without proper protection. If you have a jumbo SLA printer and need a taller curing station, and you'd like one, I can make you one. Just let me know. I use this to clean off resin after printing (works great!): INTLLAB Magnetic Stirrer Stainless Steel Magnetic Mixer with stir bar (No Heating) Max Stirring Capacity: 3000ml This is the beaker I used to match the file; however, it was surprisingly hard to get it to fit just right and still make sure the flow was not inhibited by the cage. I'm not 100% that other brands would work. Recommended Accessory: Lastly, one of the best little accessories to an SLA set up is a silicone litter/pet food mat or some version of it (wham bam sells the slap mat), put it under your machine and clean-up station; it'll protect your table contain your spills and clean up easily if you do accidentally tip over a resin bottle or something. Even has a little lip to keep in liquids.