Printed out a duct on a Stratasys Fortus 250mc and then dissolved the support structure in their solvent. I then connected the part to a fan, look what happened.
Time to break out the acetone!
what materials does Stratasys use? HIPS and Limonene?
I have been messing with this lately and I am trying to determine the best workflow for dissolvable supports. The Limonene is very oily and messy and tends to penetrate the tiny pores that exist in any 3d printed part… after soaking for a while, my basically hollow part can become completely filled with Limonene with no easy way to drain it without drilling holes!
Dunk it in acetone for about 10 seconds, then dunk it in water to stop the reaction
A guy I know has an art piece that failed when the entrapped acetone eventually condensed, pooled, and ate through the bottom of his print!
Hence why you must rinse in water to stop the acetone from eating away the part.
In his case, the acetone was entrapped in an internal pocket. chuckle
I really don’t know what materials Stratasys uses, but they provide a dissolve machine with heated water and a pump to speed up the process. So water and solvent are entrapped in the printed part.
What does the solvent smell like?
Hmm, strong almost like ammonia, the liquid almost feels like soap. I remember a Stratasys representative compared it to dishwasher detergent.
A customer of mine puts there parts in a dishwasher and users dishwasher detergent and works fine