First Square Attempt. Goal - Perfecting the method

This didn't go to plan, but the failure was instructive. I started with drawing a 16x16 hollow square (black pixels on white background) then using this to create the GCODE:

../png_to_gcode.py 16x16_hollow_square.png -d 10 --safe-z 30 --dipify 100 -o test.gcode

The "dipify" tells the code to dip the point in the resin initially and every 100 points. That function does not currently do a UV exposure, so I'll have to remember to do that for now.

So a very small drop of resin (the probe is 0.3mm diameter for reference) is placed on the aluminium foil covered part of the slide near the edge. The droplet is ~1.7mm in diameter. Then it has to be spread out:

 

A little bit of Kapton tape folded flat over the end of a stick is used to push the droplet into a smear. This was my first mistake. I should have pulled the droplet away from the edge after pushing it forward. I've been away from this too long...

Time now for the probe to make contact. Note that there is a heck of a lot of surface tension around the probe/resin contact area. This is causing a lot of resin to accumulate on the probe. This is not optimal. If I had remembered to pull the droplet back after pushing it forward, the probe would only be entering a thin smear.

If you zoom in on the probe point here, you'll see the problem. The surface tension high up the point has caused a relatively large droplet to form, dangling from the point. This will make a large blob on contact, not a fine dot.

And everything after that point was a mess. So, I set the resin with UV to look at the mess (nothing of note), and cleaned the probe with IPA. I'll scrape the slide clean with a box cutter blade, then IPA, then a blast of compressed air, and remake the slide for another go. Hopefully tomorrow as I'm working today.