Hi Lawrence,
It sounds like you really know your Solus!
Could you maybe Screen-Shot your settings for SolusCast and Emerald for us to try out?
That would be highly appreciated!
Thanks,
Carl
nzfinescale wrote:I've only just discovered this thread, although I did have a discussion with Mark along these lines.
When setting up the vat using the thin paper spacer I noticed that my vertical guides flexed significantly for the initial layers of the print. This happened for around the first 0.7mm. (Check it out - just watch the top of the guides for the first few layers)
So I started setting up my base plate with a 0.7mm spacer. This worked just fine and eliminated the flexing and also gave me uncompressed print layers (which is something I want with my prints). Subsequently I have come back down to a 0.5mm spacer. I still get some compressed layers, but it avoids the odd fail where the print doesn't stick to the plate. The sweetspot will be somewhere between 0.5 and 0.7mm I think. 0.8mm was too much - no print on the base. This does not make any rational sense and should not work at all if the zero mechanism is correct - but it works for me and I'm obviously not alone. And I checked - the zeroing mechanism works just fine, and when I test print without a vat the initial space between build plate and quartz is 0.5mm when set up with a 0.5mm spacer.
I also stopped using multiple initial layers with long exposures. 1 layer with an exposure about 2x the normal seems to be good for Proto and Emerald. SolusCast does seem to need a lot more though. Why does everyone have that mess at the base of their prints? It is totally unnecessary.
I also have similar experiences on film tension and lift height. If the tension is low, then the lift height needs to be higher. My initial Soluscast runs were awful, until I worked out that the default profile has a lift of 2mm. Increasing to 3mm gave me great prints. Likewise the delay needs to be longer with viscous resin like Emerald.
I guess the point here is that we need to understand how the whole process works. Everyone's set up will be slightly different (and will change over time with bulb aging, film stretching etc). By understanding the process we can tweak it to suit.
Lawrence