IPA Alternatives For Resin Print Cleaning | EU Available
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- Опубликовано: 1 июл 2024
- Finding alternatives for IPA to clean 3D Resin Printing Parts. It's an inescapable aspect of resin printing that we need to clean off excess resin from our prints. Usually, we use isopropyl alcohol or mean green or even simple green and others.... However, those were all not options for me so I had to go and find another solution...
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Time Stamps:
0:00 - My Resin Cleaning Alternative Needs.
2:20 - How To Test Alternative Resin Cleaning Agents.
4:54 - Sponsor Segment | Thangs | Worth A Little Watch.
5:40 - Ranked Resin Cleaning Alternatives.
5:23 - Things To Know About Propylene Glycol. 
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Are there any plans to make a follow up video about Propylene Glycol?
Just to complicate your methodology a little, a lot of cleaners don't work best at maximum saturation. In the case of sodium carbonate it works by saponification of oils, so it needs free water available to carry away the oils which the soda has just made soluble. If the water is already saturated, or close to saturation it won't be able to dissolve more substances. Of course it could be that resin waste doesn't saponify anyway, but it's still something to consider.
Brilliant video, this is a problem I've been looking at solving for myself once I can organize a wee space to print in my current location. Especially nice to find stuff relevant for Scotland!
Just discovered using PG for prints yesterday, so I ordered some on Amazon. Thankfully, here in Canadia it happens to be cheaper than IPA. I can get 2 litres of IPA for 39.99, and 4 litres of PG for 79.50.
Fairly negligible difference, but I'm more than happy with that price and super excited to be able to use something that works as good or better than IPA, and isn't flammable!!!
Thank you for making such and effort with this process. I've found that the temperature swings in the Printing Room make a huge difference to the stickness of the prints. As temperature drops stickness increases. The best way to have a good clean is to operates at above 20c the whole time. This is a major issue is the UK climate. Cold resin hangs on prints.
What about Irn Bru?? That would be great..... I luv Scotland.....
I fully intend to stay and watch the whole video, but I gave you that thumbs up at the beginning for the transparency alone
I use dawn dishwashing liquid and water in ultrasonic, then repeat with plain water. Works great and a 4 dollar bottle lasts forever.
What kind of resins are you using?
I mostly use Elegoo water washable. But I also have Rich Opto standard resin. The dawn works fine on both types.
we use Propylene Glycol at my work to clean machine components for a 2 part epoxy type mixture. we also use it in a deep fryer instead of a sonic washer (need higher temps). I've found that after so many washes with it, it becomes saturated and will leave a residue, hope this helps.
So in your experience it lasts considerably less than IPA?
8:25 Any update on the usefulness of propylene glycol? How many washes it can handle, etc.?
Hey, I didn't know that Propylene Glycol is used for electric smoking. But it solved a issue: I will use it for the smoke generator of my model steam locomotions 😎. It is cheap compared to what I have to pay usually at the retailer.
Man life saver! I’m also based in Scotland (Glasgow) and was planing on buying all sorts of things to test. Glad I found your video. Will test propylene glycol unless if you have something new? 😉
Awesome video! Thank you!
Better scientific process than half of my lab techs.
Any update on the Propylene Glycol? - how long does it last etc?
I was under impression VG or vegetable glycol was the smoke agent, wonder if that would work, but I believe it’s less absorbent
Can i ask any news (if you have done experiments) on how many prints the propylene glycol can handle before becoming resin-logged??
Im pretty sure propylene glycol is used in car coolant too. Some brands use ethylene glycol instead though
Well that is definitely a surprise to me! Weird to think about even..
Awesome 🤩
Thank you for all the research.
Glad you’ve got into resin printing.
Would you be able to find a cheaper solution for fep sheets or nfep sheets?
Check out the video of " Roland Med." from 4 years ago. He repurposed laminating pouch for that
Are you sure it was better the ipa one looks significantly better in terms of no shiny area's with residual resin. Were the shiny area's resin?
Also how is propylene glycol like ipa with it's higher viscosity it could be hard to filter. Also ipa distills very well and doesn't really absorb water can you do the same with propylene glycol.
Great video. Would be nice to see a follow up.
A long term resulfs of propylene glycol would be interesting. I use straight ethanol. It's about as safe a solvent as you are going to get. about the same price as IPA where I live and the recommended solvent from most resin manufacturers.
Ethanol is still super flammable and off-gasses a lot tho
It sometimes becomes unfeasible when PG becomes even more expensive/hard to get due to some weird limitations (because it is used as a fogging agent).
Also how will you dispose of this resin-contaminated waste? For alcohol you can just run it through curing station, but I don't know about this one.
It’s crazy to me that Europe doesn’t have simple green. Given that it’s safe, eco friendly, and works, I would have that it would be on every shelf over there
PG is very messy as it's sticky and hygroscopic. But that can be an advantage as you can water wash it like IPA without noxious fumes. It will remain on the print so a water wash is needed afterwards.
For me im using petrol or diesel to completely clean my printed resin.just stir a couple times in the petrol/diesel, then i wash it with dish liquid/detergent.
After that i wash it with water.
It works great.less time consuming and fast result.
Did you get the same cleaning results from diesel as with petrol?
there's a lot more testing ... would be nice to know how the testing has gone are you still using it did it get clogged up fast ect?
propylene glycol = rv antifreeze?
I use 94% household alcohol, which is the cheapest solution in Denmark. Cheapest purchase price is 99 DKK (13.27 Euros or 11.51 British pounds) for 4 liters and it can be bought here locally. When I then distill my used alcohol to remove the resin, the price is incredibly low. I can't see any difference if my resin print is washed in IPA or denatured alcohol.
What about safe disposal? With hobby printing amounts of IPA you can mostly let it evaporate and then have only a minimal quanity of post-printing resin sludge to put into the hazardous waste disposal. That is totally off the table with propylene glycol, so I wonder how one would keep waste levels manageable.
Do I take it you have abandoned the FreeCAD project?
I like Methylated spirits (aka Metho, Denatured alcohol) cause it's cheap as fuck in Australia
Hello, I am new at resin printing and am a little bit scared, do you think 3d printing is worth the risk because I heard a lot and am not sure if I am safe anymore I wear mask and gloves and I try to be very careful but I have read many horror stories, is resin that big deal , do you have any health problems from resin, if a spill happens it will be a huge problem for my health?
Are you still using Propylene Glycol?
Very good video, and fun to see "Mad Professor Jonathan" hard at work!
Lol as a vaper i have to try this out :D
Just a PSA, propylene glycol can cause anion gap metabolic acidosis. But it’s nice to know thats an alternative. I’m based in California, and it’s illegal to purchase denatured alcohol here now..so trying to find cheaper alternatives to IPA
Great to hear that this is able to help. I did look into the side effects of propylene glycol and it looks like to get those types of effect it's pretty much needs to be injected into the blood stream. For any one reading, remember that this is the stuff that is mixed with water in smoke machines used in enclosed spaces like nightclubs and e-cigs so it's as "safe" as your going to get to break down non water washable resin. But thanks for pointing it out allain.
@@Keep-Making yup yup of course! I’ve just seen it occasionally in the hospital setting, like you said via IV or injected, and wanted to make sure that folks were informed.
@@Keep-Making Great video! I’ve been scouring the internet for safer alternatives since I’m in an apartment. Any plans to do an update video on propylene glycol? Have you been able to recycle the cleaning solution and remove waste resin? Thanks again!
@@mikeenger3854 it's definitely on the list to come back to 😁
Did you considered using water washable resin with water for cleaning?
Maybe (maybe!) a cheaper solution would be some less refined propylene glycol, I don't know if it exists and it's commercialised, but if it is, then it would lower the price per liter.
I think that it's water soluble, so it's better to buy the 99.9% solution, and then dilute it to the right point. I guess some tests should be done in order to find the optimal ratio between PG and water.. a 70% should work. 👍
Its a nice in depth video but i feel like you shouldn't have used the ultra sonic cleaner if you were only interested in the chemical properties.
Do you know of a non toxic material that could replace resins like epoxy and polyester?
There is a fully eco resin , forgot the name, but at 100$++ for 500ml its pricy
has anyone tried to using dish soap like blue dawn. that stuff will clean just about anything
What's tldr?
So does this mean, if you do live in the US, that Simple Green or Mean Green are typically seen as the best alternatives?
No...its not...I suggest taking a look at Uncle Jessy on RUclips he has a great video on Resin Alternatives and he goes deep into how he used them how the prints came out using them as well much better than this video...he actually shows the prints in the Alternatives being used. .
Did you just Sous Vide resin prints ? 😂. Amazing.
Interesting results ... but Propylene Glycol seems to be quite more expensive in my country too (Bulgaria), and difficult to find cheaper and in lower volumes (than a barrel of 200L for example :)).
IPA is rather cheap - I can find it for 6-7 euro/L almost everywhere, but recently I bought methyl alcohol for under 3 euro/L.
My only problem with cleaning is that eventually alcohol gets dirty with washed resin and is not good for cleaning as some particles start to stick to your models, and it also becomes difficult to see inside a container (I can gently grab larger models even blind with a spoon or similar tool, but small parts like weapons for example ... I've found some after filtering the alcohol for reuse :)).
I'm not printing that much to dirty it too quick, and switching between two batches (dirtier for initial rinsing, and cleaner for final clean /in ultrasonic cleaner/).
Filtering I do with firstly ... patience (to wait for the dirtiest batch to settle down), and then I use a water-bottle pump to suck the cleaner fluid on top with minimal disturbing the resin on the bottom. Finally the dirtiest bottom fluid I filter out, which is really slow as it quickly gets to slow dripping, but at this point it's only a small amount and I can leave it to drip for a long time (I suspect that in doing so some considerable amount of alcohol actually evaporates :)).
But since resin and alcohols have a good weight difference (~30-35% ... alcohol is ~21% lighter than water, and resins are usually 12~15% heavier than water) - for comparison it seems Propylene Glycol is almost as heavy as water (~96%) so resin in glycol won't separate well or at least much slower.
But again waiting for the separation is a very slow process, so I devised a rather specific plan now to make a DIY centrifuge (the waste oil type that allows for continuous flow, and separates heavier particles to the sides of a spinning drum, while the clean fluid flows over a top edge and gets collected for reuse).
I've settled on the size & shape of the drum, and already got the attachment to the drill (a Dremel 4300 to be precise as it's a very high RPM), and the tough resin (Siraya-tech Blu Nylon-black).
I only have to draw the drum in 3D (chose Free-CAD as it's not worth it to me to use any paid software, and it seems Free-CAD is future-proof from becoming paid by its license).
I'll also have to print couple of discs of the same diameter (140mm, which fits in a Mars 3 on its side) to test and see what are the highest safe RPM, and dial down additionally by some safety factor ... then final test with an exact copy of the drum, to account for the full size and some fluid in its working volume.
And finally to assemble/print the housing, which is really simple - it's fixed, and the only important details are on its bottom as it needs to separate 3 areas for collecting the clean & dirty fluid separately, and to allow the Dremel rod to pass thru it center and not allow the fluid to leak thru. There's no pressure or load on the housing, so simple ridges between these 3 areas are plenty to solve the "problem".
Of course when all the fluid has been processed, there's still some fluid left in the working volume of the centrifuge (that couldn't flow over the top ridge), so one option is to collect it in the dirty fluid container and use it the next time you run the centrifuge; filter it the slow way; or the most advanced /but hardly worth it/ way is to use some heavier displacer that would stick to the walls of the spinning drum and would push most clean alcohol to flow over the top edge. If you're not aiming at 99.9% pure IPA you can use well salted water (and if you're NOT using ethyl alcohol, as salting out doesn't work with it - only with IPA & methyl alcohol), or if you don't mind to extract the last 5-9% water by another way (like with micro-sieves that allow only water inside, but not alcohol), btw you can use micro-sieves soaked in water /both heavier than alcohol/ as displacer in the centrifuge itself before stopping it. Micro-sieves tend to leave dust residue, but luckily centrifuge will settle that dust with the resin and you'll still get clean alcohol out.
When I draw the drum & housing in FreeCAD I'll share the plan, and after testing the safe load (ie highest safe RPM) will add the technical details.
So far I've settled on a drum with 140mm diameter as it's small enough to print in Mars 3, and would be ~30mm deep (to keep it lighter when used and full of alcohol).
Initially I've set the target RPM at 12,000 (most Dremel can reach 35,000 RPM), but I'm sure the strength of the printed drum will lead to reducing the RPM enough for safe but still efficient use.
The trick about centrifugal forces is that while the radius contributes to the effective G-force it's only a linear factor, while the RPM is exponential factor! So a smaller but higher RPM centrifuge will reach much higher G-forces.
Just for a reference 11304 RPM at 70mm radius of rotation would result in 10,000 g-force!!! (for comparison polycarbonate CD/DVD discs that are 120mm diameter can spin to above 20,000 RPM before shattering), so while I doubt that I could reach near 10,000 RPM even with tough resins, I'm quite sure I'll still reach few thousands effective g-force :)
Oh my god, don't use methyl alcohol - do you know it damaged your nervous system EVEN THROUGH SKIN?
I'm from Poland - I always buy 5 liter bottles, IPA costa ca 9-10 USD, while Glycol (which I never used yet) costs 22-25 USD. For 5 liters. For such cost of IPA it's reall easiest to keep several jars of used IPA to decant. Cost of IPA is low enough that there is no point in building specialised equipment for filtering - investment will never return!
I found also that coffee filters are not a great solution. Even though I'm using some special 3D printed funnel, it clogs completely after filtering
What type of facemask for the fumes are you using?
JSP Force-8 with ABEK1P3 filters. I use the same.
So what's happening here? How has Propylene Glycol held up for you?
Regarding ventilation - indeed it's a challenge to maintain comfortable temperature (esp. higher temps if needed for thicker resins), which it's cold outside.
But there's a very efficient solution (that all energy efficient houses should be using) - a Heat recovery ventilation (aka HRV). And they're not difficult to build yourself.
Check for example this guy: "I built the best DIY heat recovery ventilator I’ve seen on RUclips" (search it in youtube)
Still using Propylene glycol? Or switched back to ipa?
I use it primarily for the first main wash currently and then I finish it off with IPA as it dries faster.
Thank you for this video, been looking for alternatives to IPA and Methylated Spirits to clean my resin, (same situation small workshop, next to family kitchen) Odour not suitable to this environment. Therefore been using water-washable stuff but i find i far too brittle and more expensive. Looked at Mean Green and noticed it was a Degreaser. So natually went looking for UK alternatives. Will definitely be picking up a bottle of No Nonsense.
Did you ever try No Nonsense, how did you get on if you did?
I really don't see the difference in quality between the top 3 results.
can we talk about the fact that no nonsense degreaser is 3rd from the top and is 15 pounds for 5L