Water soluble resins

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Water-Washable Resin 101: Everything You Need to Know Before Getting One

With 3D printing continuously growing in popularity in the past decade, some people are now actively looking for a more environmentally friendly option for their hobbies. While FDM 3D printing is considered more eco-friendly than resin printing, some companies have promoted water-washable resins...
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Thanks, Dave, that article answers a lot of questions! The only concern I have is that water soluble resins are more brittle. Also, they may not have the ability to create the details needed for small decorations.
 
After seeing that video I'm convinced that water resins are not for me. I already have had trouble with small details breaking off my prints. The problem is if your not designing your own parts and using a pre-made .stl file when you scale it down to a smaller size that the original was intended to be some of the fine details are made so small that they are super delicate. I've already destroyed several prints just trying to remove all the supports.
 
We tried water-washable resin and in the end went back to standard resins and returned to cleaning with IPA.

Detail reproduction was comparable to standard resins.

However, when using water-washable resin, the wash effort was much more labor-intensive; water alone failed to clean the resin properly. Washing in ethanol also failed. Wash failures resulted in multiple wash attempts greatly increasing the time needed to clean the models. In order to clean the resin properly with just one or two washings, we ended up using IPA anyway.

Hopefully, as resin technology continues to improve, better water washable resins will be formulated in the future.
 
I have had great success with Water-washable Resin.
I use a Elegoo Mars 3 3D Printer and Elegoo Water-washable Resin. Your success depends on experience and execution. Learning to support your 3D items correctly is critical. Such as supporting islands. I use the standard default sets in Chitubox software most of the time. If you hollow out your 3D item you must have an escape hole for cleaning or it will crack eventually. I have been ample to get fine details on crew figures recently 1:48 and 1:64 scale. I have found the Gray Water-washable 3D solution works better than the white. Stronger harder to break. But they will snap especially the smaller parts with enough force. I use 2 Dish buckets/pans for clean up. First 1 warm water and Dawn dish soap. Swish around for about 10 minutes. 2nd pan rinse water. Run under faucet till pan is about fill. They should be clean. I put the dishpans out in the sun. The plastic residue hardens and falls to bottom to be removed when you remove the water. I hope to do video soon. Don't be discouraged. Water-washable Resins work. Attached are photos of The Bluenose crew printed solid that I am working on and will make available online on shapeways.com or I.materialise.com. eventually. I printed at 1:48 and 1:64 with equal details. My models are on my youtube Channel search: Carl Whitten Artist.

BluenoseSchoonerCrewNew7.20.24.png

BluenouseCrew1:48scale.jpg
 
Nice work, Carl. Great to read that you are having success with water washable resin.

Please be advised that Shapeways declared bankruptcy on July 2 and ceased operations on that date, unfortunately (click here). This is confirmed by a notice we received from the Clerk of Court, United States Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware, dated July 12th. We are one of Shapeways' creditors and were adversely affected by the bankruptcy, fortunately very minimally.

If you are also a creditor, you now have less than 90 days to file a claim with the Court. For information on how to file a claim, visit the Court's website at https://www.deb.uscourts.gov/ and click on the "Programs & Services" tab - Claims Information.
 
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I tried elegoo grey water washable about 3 years ago and, if I remember correctly, the surface finish was poor compared to normal resins sonI didn’t continue using it. However, that was before I had a wash machine. I’ve been meaning to give it another try, even more so after reading Carl’s post. IPA is very expensive and even with a two tub wash, then rinse, process, gets dirty quite quickly. I haven’t tracked this but I’d say I use a litre of IPA per litre of resin.
 
Here's an update on my experiences with water resins. I recently got a new Elegoo Saturn 4 ultra printer and it came with a bottle of their Water Soluble 8K resin.
After going thru now my 4 th bottle of resin I happy to tell you it's great. No more IPA and hardly any smell. I've printed many small fine detail figures and various objects and can not find any difference in quality VS standard resins. I might add that the Saturn 4 Ultra is quite the nice machine, Self leveling and very fast when run in high speed mode which it approx. 30-40% faster then regular speed.
 
My only concern would be sturdiness.
- UV / sunlight / warm
- brittle when touching

Any thoughts about that?
 
Well I printed several mini 40k Warhammer figures and mailed them to my grandsons in New England to paint. They painted them and play with them like any 8 year old's play with stuff. So far no harm no foul... If it can pass the 8 year old test I think it's plenty sturdy.
 
Bob sav said:
Here's an update on my experiences with water resins. I recently got a new Elegoo Saturn 4 ultra printer and it came with a bottle of their Water Soluble 8K resin.
After going thru now my 4 th bottle of resin I happy to tell you it's great. No more IPA and hardly any smell. I've printed many small fine detail figures and various objects and can not find any difference in quality VS standard resins. I might add that the Saturn 4 Ultra is quite the nice machine, Self leveling and very fast when run in high speed mode which it approx. 30-40% faster then regular speed.
Click to expand...
That seals it, next bottle will be water washable.

What makes the Saturn 4 faster? As I’m in the throes of several 15 hr prints I’ll be very happy to be corrected but my take on resin is that speed is essentially determined by the layer thickness and curing time, the latter being determined by the resin. The speeds of all the other stuff, moving the plate up and down etc, are as needed.
 
There are 2 printing speeds in the menu,.. Regular and fast. I've printed the same item with both settings and there is a nominal decrease in printing time in the " fast " mode. Quality of 2 prints look the same to me.
 
Carl W said:
I have had great success with Water-washable Resin.
I use a Elegoo Mars 3 3D Printer and Elegoo Water-washable Resin. Your success depends on experience and execution. Learning to support your 3D items correctly is critical. Such as supporting islands. I use the standard default sets in Chitubox software most of the time. If you hollow out your 3D item you must have an escape hole for cleaning or it will crack eventually. I have been ample to get fine details on crew figures recently 1:48 and 1:64 scale. I have found the Gray Water-washable 3D solution works better than the white. Stronger harder to break. But they will snap especially the smaller parts with enough force. I use 2 Dish buckets/pans for clean up. First 1 warm water and Dawn dish soap. Swish around for about 10 minutes. 2nd pan rinse water. Run under faucet till pan is about fill. They should be clean. I put the dishpans out in the sun. The plastic residue hardens and falls to bottom to be removed when you remove the water. I hope to do video soon. Don't be discouraged. Water-washable Resins work. Attached are photos of The Bluenose crew printed solid that I am working on and will make available online on shapeways.com or I.materialise.com. eventually. I printed at 1:48 and 1:64 with equal details. My models are on my youtube Channel search: Carl Whitten Artist.

View attachment 460028

View attachment 460029
Click to expand...
Those figures look excellent! Have you tried printing them on an FDM printer? I would be very interested in printing them at 1:93 scale.
 
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