RepRap: Blog

Remember that unsuccessful attempt at a micromug? Well, I wanted to reuse the slide and set about cleaning it off. I noticed that I had not cured the resin in the reservoir, and it had flowed around - but not into - the micromug. I thought it might be messy to clean off the resin, now two or three days old, so I decided to try to cure it with a UV lamp. It cured, and I started to peel it off under the binocular microscope to make sure the slide was clean.

To my immense surprise, I was able to peel the object embedded in the flowed resin off intact! Closer observation revealed the bottom of the micromug - approximately 12μm thick - also remained intact. This suggests a way in which thin printed objects can be removed from the slide. Here is the micromug embedded in a thin resin sheet, lifted and placed almost on top of a 0.5mm hypodermic tip:

This is the first time I have successfully separated an object from the print bed. Granted, it was an awful print, but it has still served a useful purpose.

[UPDATE]

Here's another truncated micromug with a bit of Vivid marker in it. The outer 40μm rim is definitely solid enough to be manipulated with a hypodermic point, and you can clearly see not just the 3D shape of it, but the intact base to the micromug.

By the way, I cleaned Probe 9 off by soaking it in a 0.40S&W case full acetone and scrubbing it with a cotton bud. It seems to have survived this treatment. We shall see. Darn thing could be tougher than originally envisaged.

# posted by vik-olliver @ 3:01 AM