Formlabs Castable Wax Resin Settings on B9 Core

[BruceTrick]

Formlabs Castable Wax Resin
This resin casts beautifully, no post curing required.

The settings on the B9 core 530 Series is:
30nm layer thickness
35 mJ/cm2

[akgold]

Thanks for the info
is this the new blue resin ?

[BruceTrick]

The wax castable is the new purple resin.

[Robert Howle]

Can u post pics of some prints with small design elements?

Robert Howle

[BruceTrick]

Sure thing! A bit hard to see because it's dark, but it's capable of some very nice prints.


https://imgur.com/R1y0G31

[akgold]

Formlabs Castable Wax Resin
This resin casts beautifully, no post curing required.

The settings on the B9 core 530 Series is:
30nm layer thickness
35 mJ/cm2

Can you tell us how much it costs?
You say you don't have to cure it?
Awfully dark I was expecting a lighter color how did it cast ?
any pics of casting?

[BruceTrick]

It casts wonderfully, I did a casting on another ring. Cost is on their website, I'm just here to share the settings for those who wish to try it out for themselves.

It contains wax and there is NO post cure. Just clean with 99% IPA for 10 minutes, no more no less.

[Robert Howle]

Had u cast B9 Emerald or yellow before this. Are u using the same burnout as before or a different reg wax burnout?

Post your burnout schedule please for the new purple stuff.

All castable resins contain wax, just a question of how much. More wax equals longer print times and usually some loss of fine details when using DLP tech.. I would like to see a piece with scroll work, maybe some design elements in the .35 to .40mm diameter or width.

Thanks for sharing,

Robert Howle

[BruceTrick]

Very true Robert, thank you.
We've maintained our 'normal' burnout schedule that we were using for hand carved waxes. I don't do the castings in my shop. The detail is surprisingly very crisp even showing 0.6mm milgrain. We were using the emerald and the yellow resins previously. Both seemed slightly more crisp than the new purple wax.

Regardless, I just gave my experience so far. Others can take what they wish from it. I shared because I couldn't find this information anywhere else myself.

[akgold]

Very true Robert, thank you.
We've maintained our 'normal' burnout schedule that we were using for hand carved waxes. I don't do the castings in my shop. The detail is surprisingly very crisp even showing 0.6mm milgrain. We were using the emerald and the yellow resins previously. Both seemed slightly more crisp than the new purple wax.

Regardless, I just gave my experience so far. Others can take what they wish from it. I shared because I couldn't find this information anywhere else myself.

We do appreciate it

[Robert Howle]

Yes, thanks for sharing. Just wanted to give as much info as possible to our forum members.

Robert

[perpetual_dreamer]

Thank so much for sharing.. As much as I love using B9 products, the emerald has just not given me consistent results, even with platinum casts and I've tried almost everything for the past year. Perhaps its my caster and their casting/burnout process that is not right. However, today my caster showed me a cast done using Envisiontec green resin on an EVtech printer. I was seriously blown away by how clean and smooth the surface felt and looked, almost like there was no need for any polishing/finishing to wear that ring.

May have to try out this Form Labs resin or see if EnvisionTec's would work. Would be sweet if B9 could come up with a material that required no post cure and burned out much cleaner.

[Robert Howle]

Has to be your caster. Myself and many others cast the green and yellow almost daily with great results.

I am now using Ultravest Max and love the low dust and smooth surface I get.

Since I cast using a 35 yr old broken arm casting "machine" (prob cost $250.00 at the time) and a small 8 x 8 oven and a torch u would think a casting house with all their high tech could cast resins that small shop guys and other casting houses can cast. I just don't get it. The ones I have seen that have trouble love to blame the resins. That's just BS. I have been casting the B9 resins since Cherry and Red and version 1 machine.

Robert Howle

[perpetual_dreamer]

Yeah.. must be my caster for sure. Everyone else I've talked to say they are getting perfect cats with b9 emerald.. The 3 or 4 people using b9 emerald with my caster have similar problems.. tried just about suggesting everything to my caster but to no avail so looking for a wax like resin that doesn't require post cure and leaves no ash

[akgold]

Yeah.. must be my caster for sure. Everyone else I've talked to say they are getting perfect cats with b9 emerald.. The 3 or 4 people using b9 emerald with my caster have similar problems.. tried just about suggesting everything to my caster but to no avail so looking for a wax like resin that doesn't require post cure and leaves no ash

Hey Allen,

Maybe it is time to reach out to another caster.
Or cast in house.
But honestly I had very few problems with Red/Cherry mix on my 1.1 and none with green on my B9 530 it really isn't the resin unless the caster is just crotchety enough to not make the small changes in his casting routine for resin and if he is curing them then he is not doing a very good job.

Where are you located ?

[mikej]

After 6+ years of B9C selling high wax resins (Red, Cherry, Emerald, Yellow), some have finally copied it (or are at least attempting to) and then they market it as something "new". (Because many folks will always try the latest "new" thing even though ours costs less.) We don't talk about "% wax" in our product. Too much and it won't print well, too little and it won't cast well, there's a good balance that we've reached. As you all well know, there are a ton of other variables in casting besides the amount of wax in the resin, and no amount of wax can fix poor resin casting technique. It's great to see folks willing to experiment and do side by side comparisons, but unfortunately many folks aren't doing that, they are just buying the latest new (expensive) thing and then rationalizing it is better (because why else would you pay more?).

[perpetual_dreamer]

Yeah.. must be my caster for sure. Everyone else I've talked to say they are getting perfect cats with b9 emerald.. The 3 or 4 people using b9 emerald with my caster have similar problems.. tried just about suggesting everything to my caster but to no avail so looking for a wax like resin that doesn't require post cure and leaves no ash

Hey Allen,

Maybe it is time to reach out to another caster.
Or cast in house.
But honestly I had very few problems with Red/Cherry mix on my 1.1 and none with green on my B9 530 it really isn't the resin unless the caster is just crotchety enough to not make the small changes in his casting routine for resin and if he is curing them then he is not doing a very good job.

Where are you located ?

Yeah.. I have to definitely look for another caster of he cant fix things. I've only stuck with this guy out of convenience as he is really close to my place. I used to get great casts from him when using cherry/red but still never consistent and almost never with the emerald resin.. After he showed me the cast from Envisiontech resin, I'm left wondering what a perfect cast with B9 resin looks like.

I'm up in Canada by the west coast.

[perpetual_dreamer]

Is there a casting/burn out oven checklist recommended for the b9 emerald resin or anyone care to share theirs? I'd love to give it to my caster for comparison and adjustment in his process.

[panastation]

good evening guys-gals


I have casted this formlabs resin and its not very good. I would say its a asiga wax clone because the evisiontec wax takes more care to burnout so its somewhere in the middle. The prints have a sweaty surface to them .. quality wise b9 and asiga will always have better prints... now after using this machine for years i can say that the emerald resin will cast flawless as will the asiga wax. But you must use phosphate bonded investment not the cheap stuff. For the price i can buy emearald resin + phosphate bonde investmet and will cost less than one lt of these wax resins. Formlabs stuff is good in its own way but for jewlery not close enough.

[Robert Howle]

Been casting all the B9 castables since the beginning. I am now casting almost daily using Emerald Green.

This may not be for everyone but based on my work and the fact that I use to heat cure prints I have now gone to this burnout.

Using nothing but Ultravest Max, a broken arm casting machine, a 8 x 8 oven with holes drilled in the bottom for good air flow.

Pour flask, let bench set for 30 to 60 min. Put in a room temp oven and go:
Ramp to 350 F and hold 2 hrs. (this is to make sure the prints are really cured after being in the Model Cure)
Ramp to 1450 F as fast as possible, and hold for 2 hrs for med to smaller prints, and 3 hrs for heavy signets and the like.
Ramp to casting temp over 1 hr. hold for 1 hr or more and cast.

You have to have adequate air flow or u are doomed to have bad castings.

There is one more thing I do that i have forgotten to mention in the past. I "cup" the bottom of the flask after bench set to direct the max air flow to the main sprue at the bottom of the flask. I use a spoon or curved butter knife. All my flask are on expanded metal raised 1 1/4 inch off the oven floor. I use 3/4 inch nuts tacked together using the laser (2 stacked on top of each other, and there are six of these supporting the expanded metal).

Proper spruing is also a must. As I have said many times in the past, casting is as much art and technique as sience.

If u can't cast the Emerald or the Yellow it's your technique so don't blame the resin. There a hundreds of users casting the B9 resins everyday with great success.

You can read all the white papers u want but if u don't cure, sprue properly, have air flow, and reach the high end temp you won't be successful. Some are making this way more complicated than it is. When I have been casting these resins since the beginning and only used SatinCast and tap water, which I never even measured and mixed by eye, then it can't be that hard to do.

No reason to start mentioning things like: over heating the metal, dirty metal, incomplete mixing of the investment, improper vacuuming, spinning the broken arm machine too fast, pits in the spruing, sharp corners in the spruing, I could go on for quite some time. Technique, technique, technique. All these things apply to wax too, but it is just more forgiving.


Successful B9er since August of 2013 (version 1.1 when I began using cherry and Red mix for printing and SatinCast for investment and a 35 yr. old broken arm machine which is still in use today).

Robert Howle