Lots of people have already commented on the correct solution, which is that you are waiting too long and curing a mixture that is too high in resin. My recommendation is that you just have several stages that you cycle through. Because of your industrial level of use, you need to think of this on an industrial scale. Bucket 1, clear to mostly clear IPA. Bucket 2, Used two days - sit in the sun (or in the curing machine), Bucket 3 - resting to get the resin particulates down, bucket 4, filter through the large filter first to get the big pieces out, then filter through a brita (or cheaper filter to clear it and go back to being bucket 1). Additionally, your methodology for testing could use some work. Instead of waiting for days to test, just pour resin into ipa directly. you now have a mixture to test with.
I basically do this, but instead of using a 4th bucket, after the 3rd bucket settles, you can get rid of the sediment with a turkey baster or a pipette, you don’t even need to use a filter
This! I do a very similar thing with old pickle jars. It really doesn’t take long for the resin to separate and then siphon off the IPA with a large syringe. I suppose you could filter the IPA at the point, but I don’t ever bother.
Been watching your channel for some time and glad you're also a local Rochestarian. Great content and production quality. I just got my 1st resin printer this week and wonder what you do to dispose of waste mean green or iPa (even if you're able to clean and reuse most of it) in Monroe county?
I advise not to sit it outside in the sun, as the IPA will dry out to easily. Instead, pour it in a large clear plastic jug and sit it next to a window that is in sunlight. This way the the IPA doesn't dry out and the resin can cure. Then filter through a decent coffee filters.
From a chemistry standpoint, distillation is the way to go. from a safety standpoint, recommending distillation of IPA to someone without experience beyond describing it as "burning of the IPA" is another matter.
I use an air distiller. (electric no fire) in 1 hour and 4 liters of IPA cleaned. Just need rinse the distiller with all the goo. No open fire. Still do it in a well ventilated area. Not sure why people are so scared. They clean with IPA, they spray it for cleaning etc. Still with a active printer next to them.
I have been fairly successful filtering my IPA. I try to use 90+% and cure it early and often before filtering it through the paint strainers. I do this 2-3 times before I get clear,, clean looking IPA. I usually have a few different "cycles" always going so when I'm curing the resin in one batch of alcohol, I'm filtering another, and using another. It's frustrating for sure when I get failed batches, but early and often is the best suggestion I have for you.
Hey Uncle Jessy, I have been recycling my IPA with some level of success. I normally can recover about 70% of the original IPA. I hope this help, here what I do : 1) I do not let the IPA get too dirty. I normally recycle my IPA after around 5 medium size prints. 2) I keep two batches of IPA, one that is cleaning the parts and one that is recycling, this way I do not have downtime. 3) I do wait for a day or two for some of the resin to settle, this is the main reason why I keep two batches of IPA. 4) After the dirty IPA rested for a couple of days, I let it out, on the sun for curing. The sun may cure slower than the UV, not really sure, but as the IPA cures, I can see the resin being attracted to the container walls and the partially clear IPA left in the center. I usually leave outside for a day. 5) After curing under the sun, I filter it with paper towels, two layers. 6) After filtered, I store the recovered IPA for use and let the solids out to cure and dry completely before disposing. PS : I did have one time where I got the gelatin you got, and I concluded it was because there was too much resin, so that is why I try to not let it too dirty. I also do a two step washing. The first step is more to take the majority of the resin (Old wash & Cure - 1 min) then I move to the second wash (New Wash and Cure - 6 min). It may be overkill, but I basically need to recycle the first tub, the second one really takes a long time before it get dirty. I also remove my supports before any washing and I never printed anything hollow. Just letting you know, so you can have an Idea how my dirty parts look like :-) That did not sound really well ... :-)
What I do is have two containers for my Elegoo wash/cure machine and I swap them once a week. I then leave the swapped-out conatiner to sit for 2-3 days to let most of the resin sediment fall to the bottom. Problem is, these containers have a spinner at the bottom that makes it very difficult to scoop out the sediment, so I ended up printing a false bottom / shallow basket that I put into the container at the bottom (resting on the spinner). The sediment collects on top of this and then after a few days you can pull it out - bringing most of the sediment with it. This doesn't filter 100% of the resin out but gets most of the big particles out. The IPA will go back to being reasonably see-through from murky-opaque looking like yours, and I then top it up with new IPA (~15-20% of container volume worth). I now go through like 2-3 litres of IPA every month instead of like 10 litres before I used this method. Big saving with what 95%+ IPA costs round here..
To conserve on IPA usage like others have said do multi stage cleaning before you put your uncured prints in whichever Wash and Cure station you use. I go one more step to save money and I use simple green or mean green for the first stage with warm water and brush off the majority of uncured resin then I transfer my prints to a second stage IPA bath to get off the excess simple green that some complain making the prints slightly sticky. Then after that bath I transfer my prints to the wash and cure station that way I go through less IPA as most of the uncured resin is scrubbed off in the simple green or mean green. I have extra IPA bath containers that I will rotate in and out of circulation when the IPA starts to get too murky I'll move that container outside and let the resin and IPA seperate and then strain out the resin from the IPA. I'm not 100% sure of it's safety of the contamination of simple green into the IPA 2nd stage bath, from what I've looked up I believe their isnt any safety risk of the two mixing, but maybe someone more knowledgeable will be able to answer that.
I have been struggling with this video for a while now... Hopefully this at least helps some of you out there in terms of WHAT NOT to do. Would love to hear what suggestions you all have! Also - a huge thankyou to Elegoo for continuing to support my crazy project ideas... even when they completely fail... for now ;)
Didn't think a video on 3D printing could make me gag, but there ya go... FWIW - the manual for the AnyCubic Photon Mono X recommends the, "let it set and separate method," but I haven't actually tried it myself.
If you think you need to let your dirty IPA sit for a while then perhaps it's worth distilling a big bucket of dirty IPA into smaller containers and then testing them periodically, that way you can leave them different durations to see if there is a sweet spot, also it means you're not cleaning liters of dirty IPA every time :)
Couple of ideas: Seems like the ipa is a solvent for the resin. Well, seems like a simple chemistry problem with the solution(heh) being put the solution of ipa/resin through a distillation. Should be able to reclaim a good percentage of near pure ipa as long as the mixture isn't some form of azeotrope. Maybe another trick of chemistry will work, loading the solution with another cheaper material that will want to absorb the resin / ipa more? Kind of how to get the last bit of water out of IPA is to load it with salt. Perhaps some form of vacuum/pressure filtration will allow you to suck the IPA out of the resin "sponge." Or perhaps a centrifuge? Could be a fun/dangerous project 😁
I do this to my resin at the research lab I work at all the time and it seems to decently clear it up. I cure the IPA resin mixture for about 10 mins then the cured resin falls to the bottom and leaves relatively clean IPA at the top I then just use a large syringe to skim the clean IPA at the top out without mixing up and disturbing the cured resin.
just an idea out of the box, i clean my resin prints with one cheap airbrush and ipa. fill the cup of the airbrush with the ipa and spray direct on your print, once the ipa is empty just spray whith air coming from the airbrush until the print its dry, then you put that on th uv light and wualaa your print turns awesome and you save a LOT of ipa = save money. i been doing this since i started to print and never have a problem or lost quality of my prints. love your chanel mate and all of your techings. keep ir up! greetings from argentina
You should try to contact the channel "Nile Red." He's a chemist and this seems like a perfect collaboration. Also a cheap easy distillery will work, but has inherent risks.
Oh awesome. Will look them up! Yeah refusing the distilling route. Flames + IPA just seems like a horrible idea. Refuse to burn down my house for RUclips 🤣😂
@@UncleJessy I was going to mention this same thing NileRed is amazing with chemistry in making education videos. This would totally be up his alley as he's always looking for good content. I'm sure if you reach out to him maybe ship him some dirty IPA gallon containers or have him create it himself he would do it.
@@pweezy5953 as far as I understand, IPA already has a pretty low volatility point. So I do believe a hot plate could be more than enough to accelerate the flashing off of the IPA from the solution.
@@UncleJessy I'm pretty sure you would not need an open flame to flash off the IPA from the solution, but Nile red is a great RUclipsr to get into the science of how to do what you want.
I was also searching for some good filtering solutions, but so far they were more expensive than just to replace the IPA. Thanks for your tests, are very valuable 👌😊
i actually found how to clean ipa with resin - i put a jug with dirty ipa in freezer, in the morning 95% of resin in ipa is condensed, ipa is clear when defrosted, while it could be slightly colored with pigment
2:00 I'm sure you figured this out by now seeing the date but this has to do with resin composition and saturation. There's a tipping point when your IPA is so saturation with resin from lack of cleaning, the chemical reaction yields that gelatinous result. However, if you keep it relatively clean and let it fully settle for atleast a day, you'll be successful recovering a fair amount.
I just experimented with the idea of curing the resin then filtering - Works well but you probably want to do it when the resin to alcohol ratio is lower so that it is easier to separate out. I just used the 20w CFL blacklight that I have to cure it out then filtered through a coffee filter. I'm probably gonna experiment with different filters at some point and see what luck I get
I run a print shop on Etsy (don't worry, not gonna plug it! lol), but I have tried everything I could to save IPA because I spend as much on IPA as I do on resin. And with the volume I go through, that's a LOT of IPA. Here's the best solution I've found. It's similar to something that you mentioned in the video, but with a few changes. I use a two step cleaning process. I rinse every print off in a bucket of "used" IPA first (see below) to remove the majority of the resin. This helps me extend my IPA usage by a couple of days by limiting the resin that gets suspended in the "clean" IPA. After the initial dunking in used IPA, I transfer to an ultrasonic cleaner with my clean IPA. I change my IPA every 4 to 5 days. By "change", I mean start the rest of this process. 1. I have 3 large sealed containers that I rotate through, for dirty IPA. When it's time to change the IPA, I dispose of what's in my "dirty" bucket (at this point it's more resin than IPA). Then I pour what's in the oldest sealed container of IPA into the dirty bucket. By the time I pour it, that container has been sitting for roughly 2 weeks and the alcohol has decanted from the resin significantly. This is now my new first wash "used" IPA. 2. Now, I pour the formerly "clean" IPA through a metal stainless steel filter strainer from Sovol (on Amazon for about $14...not affiliated at all, just like the product) into this now empty sealed container and shuffle it to the back to decant for 2 weeks. The filter is more to remove any chunks of supports than to remove any resin. 3. Lastly I fill my clean container up with fresh IPA and start the process over. Is it perfect? Not at all. But at the volume of printing I do, I was changing my IPA every 2 to 3 days and this has allowed me to double that. Since I'm selling prints, I have to try extra hard to make sure that I'm not stretching the wash out too far and sending my customers sticky prints. If you do find a way to reliably clean IPA well enough to actually reuse in the ultrasonic cleaner, that would be phenomenal. Hoping you find the magic alchemical formula. Thanks for all the videos!
hi, if you postcure your prints submerged in water it quickly eliminates all stickiness from cleaning with dirty ipa! (oxygen contact prevents the resin curing on the surface, leaving it sticky)
@@UncleJessy I think you've hit the problem on the head. Putting a container and let it sit for a week. Try doing that then do like 1 week for one container, 2 weeks for another, etc. and see what the magic wait time is.
@@UncleJessy That's what I do, let it rest for 3 or 4 days and let it cure in the sun. All the goo stay at the bottom of the close container and I can take the IPA out throught a coffe filter, then I give a good wash on the container and throw away all that remains. It gives me good results. In the end I use a first washing container with used IPA for a quick first wash and then my Elegoo wash and cure station with some fresher IPA to keep it clean longer and have the best cleanning possible. Tank you for testing other solution !
Like you, I've experimented and found a process that works for me. I purchased 2 gallons of IPA. 8 good sized mason jars. And last 2 very large glass jars for storage of the IPA when not in use. No filters needed in the process. When my IPA gets cloudy due to use, I pour into the mason jars. Cure each mason jar for 10 minutes in my cure station with the lid off the jar. Place the lid on the jar, shake jar to get resin off the side of the jar, and then let sit for a couple of days. The IPA floats to the top and the resin is semi solid on the bottom. The now cleaned IPA I store in a large glass jar till needed. The resin at the bottom I scrape out with a rubber spatula. And it's an ongoing process. Every week I have enough clean IPA to work with and during that week I'm cleaning the dirty IPA. I haven't needed to buy any new IPA for months now.
Polymer guy here. I enjoy your channel and your approach to this topic. You are battling three elements in you used IPA. First, the solubilized and unreacted monomers. Those won't come out without distillation or vacuum distillation. Second, the photo initiators are in the solution as well. Same as unreacted monomer and won't come out without distillation. These two problems are why you got the gelled material rather than a precipitate. The concentration was probable too high in the IPA, too. Third is the pigments. You can filter those but you may have to reduce the filter's efficiency to less than 10 microns. You could use pool filtrate (diatomaceous earth) in a filter press. In the end you may be able to filter the particles out but you won't be able to filter out the monomers and photo imitator. You will need to heat distill or vacuum distill the IPA. You could use an inhibitor such as MEHQ to prevent gelling in a distillation set-up if you use the IPA with the current level of washes. Don't know of this helped but best of luck!
Try a centrifuge, spin it in a sturdy container at a very high speed to force seperation. Try curing after you see separation. While spinning and while not spinning
I have a couple large, clear containers. I put the dirty IPA in one, and put clean IPA in the wash and cure. I point a UV light at the dirty IPA container (the one you suggested in another video) for a hours at a time until it becomes clear. If it takes days, it doesn't matter cause you have clean IPA you're using right now. When the clean IPA becomes dirty, put it in your second large container and your newly cleaned IPA is strained and put into the wash and cure container. Proceed to rotate between your containers, adding fresh IPA if you start to run out. I do tend to notice that the strained IPA becomes murky if you fully strain it into the container, so I usually don't pour all of it back in to prevent that. I don't think you can get it fully clean like fresh IPA, but it's definitely able to be used.
I’ve been curing what’s in the ipa after every time I use it then filtering it out using the paint strainer. Now I’m pretty new to all of this but it’s been staying pretty clear so far. I Enjoy all of your videos!
I have done this successfully several times using just coffee filters and my cure station. What I do is let the IPA sit for a few days to let it settle (this seems to be super important) and then throw the IPA in the cure station with out disturbing it. This sometimes sets up into a gel like yours but not quite as stiff. I just break up the gel with something and run the IPA through 3-4 coffee filters stacked together. I think when you let the IPA sit and settle the resin collects at the bottom and makes larger particles that can be filtered out easier. If you don't get the IPA so dirty the gel wouldn't be as stiff and might be recoverable. Like a lot of other people have said, one big problem is that you are waiting too long and the IPA has too much resin in it.
Hey Jessy, do you have any recommendations on how to clean cured resin off of the tanks themselves? I cleaned them as much as I can but there is still a lot of particles on the tanks that I'm not excited about
First, I don't recommend keeping IPA in your wash station tank. I don't do it, period. If I"m not going to be cleaning prints for a few days, I take the IPA in the wash station and dump it into a five gallon bucket (my wash station is pretty large, about 3.5 gallons). Then I go and rinse out the wash station tank. I destroyed a couple wash tanks by leaving cleaner, IPA, or resin in the tanks... so that's where this is coming from. If you don't do this, it's much easier. You can also take off the impeller at the bottom of the wash stations (allen wrench) and then you can deep clean under them. The magnets that are on the Anycubic one that I have have been damaged (well, my older wash and cure, the one I got before the big one) and so I'm very cautious about that.
IPA has a density of 786 g/l and photopolymer resin (at least the one I found) has a density of 1195 g/l. In principal, centrifugal fractionation seems like it might work.
Uncle Jessy- Lots of good ideas in this thread, but the answer might actually be a combination of some the answers already given. Firstly, the IPA IS a solvent of sorts, but the resin to IPA ratio is just too lopsided to make some methods work. The idea of the 'spinzall' centrifuge is a good starting point, but lets think about dissimilar mediums and temps for a second...you have different specific gravity liquids that are 'sticking together' due to the solvent nature of the IPA. FInd out what the freezing point of the resin is (99% IPA won't freeze fast, if at all) and try to separate from there. Dry Ice is what? 139.2 degrees below zero and I'm willing to bet I can pour even the high ratio resin mix into a stainless steel vessel or container and place it on top of some dry ice. The high solids resin *should* begin to freeze or congeal quickly and pull away the chemical solvents mechanically due to different freezing points. I'm just quickly guessing here, guess I'll have to try it!
Method that works on me: Use coffee filter one layer to filter the crumps > use the Brita water filter to refine a bit > use a clear glass jar and UV light it for 5 mins and let it sit for a night > put it into the UV light machine without moving it vigorously for 5-10mins > shake it and UV again for 5-10mins > let it sit for a night > you will see the alcohol is crystal clear > filter it with a new Brita water filter, make sure the bottom resin don’t get in > then you get a 99% crystal clear alcohol, you can double check by putting it into the UV machine again, you won’t see any crumps or cloudiness anymore. Good luck ! FYI don’t uv light too long when it is too cloudy for the first time, they will bond together too fast with High concentration to form a jelly like video above. Depend on the concentration of the solution, repeat the follow steps a few times if necessary. It will be crystal clear again.
@@davewhite115 i am able to refine it to be clear. but i dont recommend to use it. it is pain in the ass to filter it out. It took too much time not worth it since alcohol price is going back to normal nowadays.
i used to filter it after each week of use. now i tend to let the ipa sit in containers for a couple of weeks then filter it off. i have never let my ipa get to that colour. at the moment been using methylated spirits for cleaning the prints.
Resin 3d printing newbie here : I'm thinking about getting a resin 3d printer but one thing I wonder about is how do you dispose of the resin residue when you let the isopropyl alcohol air dry? Can I just chuck it in the bin and call it a day or should I go to some institution specialized in chemicals disposal?
At lowes and other hard ware stores they sell 5 stage filtration systems. For drinking water. You could test those each individually as the are meant to filter different things?
Easiest way is put the IPA in a clear plastic bottle and let settle the resin to the bottom and then put in the sun for a week... filter and clean IPA... for me works Another method that a friend of mine uses in his print farm is converting a fish tank as a clean tank and use some carbon filters and the water pump to clean the IPA, only one thing must be change are the plastic fititngs because IPA destroy the plastic.
Fish tank filter? That's kinda brilliant. I wonder if it would be worth trying a water polisher, like a diatom filter or maybe even a venturi protein skimmer?
@@mwarwick3876 Maybe I'm not used about diatom filters , water polisher or venturi protein skimmers, as fas as I know the whole deal is how your materials react with IPA and it's corrosion properties, all to avoid leaks. Also maybe the best idea is use a 70%IPA in that kind of tanks as a preliminary clean, and then in a separate container with 99% just for rub the printed parts.
I have an immersion circulator. Mostly used for sous vide cooking. I have been using water washable resins thus far, but will have to branch off into IPA soon to make stronger prints. I intend to use old 2 liter bottles with lids and some plastic tubing from a hardware store plus a couple of plastic barbs and epoxy to make a very crude but very safe still. Drill holes in the lids of the 2 Liter bottles and glue the barbed plastic ends into each one. Since the immersion circulator has only a water heater of sorts in it, it can safely heat the water to nearly boiling in a very controlled manner, which will heat the 2 liter bottle filled with dirty IPA in it. That will be contained in a large pot or some other cylindrical item that keeps the top of the 2 liter bottle vertical enough to not have it spill dirty IPA into the tubing and only allow vapor out. The vapor would collect in another bottle with a sealed similarly barbed lid on it. It would evaporate almost all the IPA out leaving mostly resin behind and you can then cure and toss that crud filled 2 liter bottle. Just keep the barbed lids and the hose for re-use and have a spare 2 liter bottle ready to cycle in when needed. This would be working as you do other things, so it's not an active process that you really have to do anything to manage. The temps are simply maintained and the evaporation happens over time and moves the alcohol into another cooler container as you do other things. After a set amount of time, you can just collect the good IPA and add more as needed and keep on trucking.
I've gone through all of this with the exact same results you got. The one and only thing I've noticed that could possibly help is that I store my dirty IPA in an area that gets a bit of indirect sunlight. It does not sit in the sun and the window has a tinted film on it, but I do notice that after a day or so of sitting that a thin film of solid-ish materiel will form on the side of the tub facing the window. The whole tub does not gel up, just a thin film forms along the side. I know it's not sediment because the IPA is still relatively clear and there is not a film building up on the bottom. Only the sides. It comes out easily and I expose it to finish curing it under the UV light and it goes hard as you would expect. I haven't done extensive testing on this so I don't know if it's helping or not, I just made an observation. This is also not heavily used and saturated IPA. Perhaps that has something to do with it, like you mentioned toward the end. But I have tried various methods of filtering and short exposure to UV and nothing works. Even short exposure to UV will form a film which I then fish out leaving the remaining liquid. I expose the remaining liquid to another short round of UV and keep repeating. There is never any IPA left. I think that the molecules are just so small that they are unable to be filtered by easily accessible methods. And once you get IPA saturated with enough resin and expose it to UV, it just polymerizes like you've seen. A distilling method like you mentioned would work if there is still IPA left to evaporate out, but it would be highly explosive and there may actually be laws against it in certain areas. Another possible method would be something like osmosis or high pressure filtration, but that only stands a chance if the resin molecules are noticeably larger or smaller than the IPA molecules. I have no idea what the sizes of them are and I suspect it could get rather costly and messy. At this point I've given up cleaning or filtering it. I keep two or three tubs as progressive wash stations and I move from one to the next, getting cleaner as I go. Once the first, and dirtiest, one hits a certain point and it's not cleaning well, I put it in the sun for a couple of days and just let it gel and dry out. The whole tub goes in the trash once it's all cured and I've already moved the others up the line and started a brand new tub with clean IPA as my last rinse before curing.
So my thoughts: I think you are getting gel in the wash and cure because it is mixing when it cures. Might try removing the plate from the bottom. What I am waiting until I get an fdm or larger printer for (only have a mono), is to build a funnel that screws onto a standard Mason jar, then a spout for the wash and cure station (I have the anycubic w&c 2). I was planning on using Terry cloth towels in my funnel with a screen material layer as my first stage, then wring out the towels. Then I was going to run it through a paint filter. Then once complete I was planning on either leaving that jar in the sun or removing the turntable and doing it in the w&c station. I was expecting that it would have to be left long enough for the resin to separate, but with Mason jars I just keep a rotation of fluids, and once the liquid clears and slowly cures at the bottom, then reuse it, then just run the process weekly. This is not an ideal solution, but filtering is only going to get large particles. To remove the really small stuff it has to separate naturally, which is time consuming. Just my two cents for a project I wanted to do. I appreciate that you are conquering some of the trial and error.
I've been using a degreaser (Spray-9) instead of IPA, but Coffee filters have been working well. You need something in the funnel to keep the filter off the walls or you just get liquid filtering though the bottom and not the sides. I use a webbed insert I printed. as the filter starts to clog with resin the flow rate slows so I end up with the funnel full and draining slowly, But I just let it sit for a few hrs and et eventually drains leaving the a thick paste of resin in the filter. Curing outside dries it out. But I'm only doing about 1L at a time so you may need multiple funnels to do 8Ls My fluid isn't perfectly clear when done though, but pretty close. To get back to 100% distilling is probably your best bet, all be it dangerous. You could try a wine filter pump. They work by using a pump to push the wine though multiple very fine filters under pressure to remove very small particles. You would still need to pre filter somehow though to remove the majority of the resin. Example of a wine filter ruclips.net/video/jeohQosn34M/видео.html
Set up some sort of centrifuge? Like what we use in the lab to separate liquids and suspended solids in liquids? But never tried to separate the volume you would need.
I'm not printing nearly the amount that you are, and I'm sure somewhere in the comments someone else had mentioned this, but what works for me is a large (2 gallon) glass container with a lid and a spigot just like you'd use to make ice tea or lemonade. I picked one up a local store for about $10. Pour in the dirty solution from your washing station and let it sit (for several days or a couple of weeks). The resin settles to the bottom. The spigot is about 2 inches from the bottom of the container so when I refill my wash station only clean (or mostly clean) alcohol comes out. If I were printing a ton, I would simply have 2 or more of these so I could continually rotate batches and keep printing.
i was thinking about the gravy jug we have where the idea is the fat rises and the goodness comes out the spout attached to the bottom of the jug but the 'punch jug' idea seems to be an even better solution.
Do you cure the resin in the IPA before pouring it in the container with the spigot or is it uncured resin in IPA you put in there? What do you do with the resin thats at the bottom once you open the spigot up and drain the mostly cleaned IPA?
Did you ever find a solution for your setup? What I do is very simple and you sorta touched on it. I have a number of clear Gold Peak tea jugs. What I do is pour my dirty IPA into it and let it sit at a window where it can get good sunlight. By the end of the week, the resin has cured and I then filter it a few times through coffee filters. But my funnel is large enough to hold a mesh strainer, to which I place the filter. This way most if the filter is used and speeds up the process. I also let it filter near the window to help cure any resin that gets through. At the end, my IPA is near clear and reusable. Without a chem set, there is no way you're going to perfectly clean the IPA. It needs to be noted that I don't use my resin printer anywhere near as often as Jessy does. I also use mostly clear resins or my own 'Monster Batch' resins. With my clear resins, I enjoy adding paint or ink pigment powder to it. This way I can get a nice glittery effect if needed. But cleaning the IPA from this resin is more difficult.
I am certainly not a chemist and I haven't actually started 3d printing yet. I am still learning before I am buying. But I did look into the filtration process for water and discovered that their is commonly a phase of the process where coagulants such as Aluminium sulfate is added that rapidly combines with particle that are suspended in the water and cause them to separate. Perhaps this could be a solution you could try?
I have a solution that works fairly well for lower printing needs. I use a bit of a combo that I have seen from various youtubers. I use a 2 wash IPA system. The first one washes off the primary residual resin, the second I put only clean IPA in never recycled. When the first bath needs to be cleaned out I put it in a giant pickle jar (80oz/2.5 qt) and let it sit in the sun for a few days then I strain it through a coffee filter, put it in the sun for another day or 2 and strain again. The result is slightly discolored IPA that I use in the first bath. Most likely it doesn't need to sit in the sun so long but I usually only print on the weekends. I have also come across the goo you mention but it settles to the bottom of the jar and I filter it out using a drain filter then let it cure on a plate or something.
I have seen people who let the liquids separate over time and decanting. I wonder if it is possible to centrifuge the emulsion to speed up the separation?
My process involves more IPA initially but I think you can use it longer. I will use a batch, wash my prints in it, wait for it to start turning colors. Once it is noticeably different in color (a few washes) I will pour it back into into the IPA bottle, let it sit for a while to let it settle out some then blast it with UV. After it has settled and the UV made the sludge I decant the remaining back into another empty container. It is admittedly a lossy process, you lose maybe 10-20%, at least the way I do it. You might be able to get a bit more if you filter the sludge.
Leaving it to separate, then pour the top clear part through a filter and let it stand again, seems to be decent enough. Leave the residue out in the sun to cure in the container and then put that through a filter. You'll need some extra containers and a bit more IPA but such is life.
Coffee filter is the point. I see people suggesting artist paint filters, which are less dense than coffee filters. I made the mistake of trying to filter raw resin through it, and nothing went through - wasted a cup worth of resin, but works great for filtering water/IPA with resin.
I use the wash and cure station as well and what I do is pour the dirty IPA into a sperate container after a few uses Usually about a weeks worth of printing for me ( a empty 2 liter works well for this). let it sit in the sun for a few days and cure. You will get fine particle that will form. You can then filter that out and get "cleaner" IPA there are still some residue so it isn't pure IPA any more but it doesn't have a high enough concentration of resin to keep curing, if you do this you can reuse the IPA multiple times. after filtering I let the filtered material evap fully and cure in the sun. I can cycle between batches of the cleaned IPA solutions adding fresh new IPA occasionally as I go. This method has worked well for me. Pleas note I don't print as much as you so you might need to do that every day or after a day or two with the amount you print. This means you might need a few "batches" with the amount of printing you do. I have also found that some resins react differently so the type of resin you use has an effect on how often you need to clean it. The main problem you are having is that you are waiting two long between cleaning. As a test maybe you should pull a sample out each day and try curing that and see what the critical point is? Maybe you could print a centrifuge that you could make it forcibly separate out faster? I am also using the 99% ipa for the most part that I have to get ordered in. The local stores usually only have 71 percent or if i am lucky 91. I have seen you use 71% a lot so maybe that has an effect on if it jellos or makes particles when you cure?
When I do the coffee filter method I do it after every print or every other print and I cure the fluid in clear water bottles (16.9 fluid ounces if I remember the size right) before filtering. Still turns out a little murky but much cleaner than before and I have to change filters every bottle because they will get too clogged after that. It's not a fast process unfortunately but it has worked for me so far. I prefer not to wait typically because clean alcohol really makes a difference in my prints, but I do wish there were an easier way to do it in bulk like you seem to want to do. Interesting idea for distilling the alcohol, but I would want to avoid that setup as well, especially considering the flammable nature of alcohol. I wonder how much the container may play into things. Probably not much if any since I know PET tends to be chemically resistant, but it does leech chemicals into water and possibly moreso into alcohol? I haven't tried any other materials like glass. I think I'll see if attaching a bottle brush to a drill can quickly clean the left over residue of resin left in a Mason jar or something. Edit: I just remembered that there's an old survival method of distilling water where you take a basin/tub of salt water (resin alcohol in this case) and put a piece of plastic over the top and a rock in the middle to create a low divot point (kinda like a funnel) and a container inside the basin. Basically the sun heats the water into vapor, the vapor gets caught and collects on the plastic and as it collects and cools it gets larger and heavier to the point where it will be pulled by gravity down to the point where the rock divot is in the plastic where it drips down into the catching container. This would probably be too slow of a process for our needs, but it would be interesting if it worked in some sort of sealed container and maybe using a sun oven to speed things up. Perhaps having some sort of heatsink system for the collector container to keep the collected fluid cold.
The reason you were getting the gelatin material is because the IPA is a mild solvent for the resin which is why it cleans so well. This being said, the resin cant cure as fast as it is being broken back down to liquid form. I started filling a 3 gallon bucket up with used solvent. I use a mixture of 60% acetone 40% IPA. The mass of the dissolved resin is still heavier, so after about 2 weeks there will be a few inches of clear IPA at the top you can siphon off with a generic fuel line. The resin will begin to form a slime at the bottom that needs scraped out every other month depending on use. Your videos are always so awesome and fun to watch. There are so many of us out there that wish we could personally thank you, for the knowledge you've help spread. Keep up the great work!
Did you consider using something like those oil absorption wipes? I'm not sure those will work in this instance but there may be a fabric type filter that reacts/binds with the resins and not with IPA. That is how those oil filters/wipes work, they attract and bind with the oil but water is unaffected
I've been curing the IPA then running it through a coffee filter, and it's worked fine, with no 'Jello' problem. Possibly a difference in resin brands?
Have this same problem, what I've been doing is reusing those big Gold Peak tea bottles and pouring my used IPA in there and then sitting it outside on the side of the house for a few days. That same gelatin blob will form but it tends to rise to the top of the container and the IPA settles to the bottom and isn't entirely clear but significantly clearer than it was before. The hard part is trying to filter it out from that blob as the blob tends to quickly clog the opening of the bottle and it's hard to separate it without making a huge mess. I try and filter it out with a paper strainer and pouring the contents into a disposable aluminum pan and then dumping that back into a container to refilter again and then reuse. I've been able to reuse at least some of this IPA and haven't noticed any huge issues with it so far but it is a giant pain in the ass trying to filter it back out without getting that blob stuff everywhere.
Me being one of those who suggested curing the resin in the IPA, i also say patience, let it settle, or if you wanna have some fun design an excenter separator or just get a salad spinner and put the container in it, should get them separated pretty quickly
Hi Uncle Jessy. Appreciate your videos. My experience has been that there is no fast solution. But there is an effective solution... When my IPA gets murky, I transfer it into a one gallon clear water jug. In my basement where my Print Lab is, I have a large window with a large sill. I put the water jug in the sill, refill my cleaning station with fresh IPA, and keep going with life. After sitting in the windowsill for about a month or so, the IPA has separated from the resin, the resin has solidified, and I am able to Simply pour out the clear resin and throw away the jug. At any one time I usually have about four jugs on the windowsill doing their thing. This means I have to keep four or five that's of IPA on hand, but once I get to that point I just rotate through the used stuff. Cheap and simple. This has worked well for me. Hope it helps!
I have only been printing since January, and no where near as much as you, but I found that if I left the ipa on the windowsill in an enclosed container I got some good results. Still got the sludgy bit, but I think because it was a much slower cure most of that settled to the bottom so I could pour off maybe 75-80% of clean ipa before getting to the sludge.
When I cured my IPA and got the gelatine type substance that’s when I let it sit fir a few days and the ipa just came right out of the jello and I “filtered” it in to a different container
This right here. Put a bunch into a very clear container, I use large animal cracker containers. Put the entire thing that a uv lamp or outside. Let the container sit for a week. Decant the cleaner ipa off
@@UncleJessy I think this would only work if you are not past a certain point of resin saturation. As you mentioned, perhaps only a week or so of cleaning instead of 3+ weeks. You would likely get sediment or at worst a thin gel that can be filtered instead of the entire tub turning into thick, solid gel.
I haven't used IPA in a while due to covid but when I was I would just leave it out in the sun for a few hours. Sure some would evaporate but the resin solidified into like a course sand at the bottom of the container.
I by no means print on the level you do, but I have adapted a method where I have a bucket of “dirty” IPA that I do an initial rinse in. After that I clean it in the wash and cure station with my “clean” IPA. I let the dirty bucket sit ( I use a clear large container) and the resin will eventually settle. I then put that bucket into a large container with a UV light and let it cure for quite a long time. The resin then becomes cured into particles that you can filter. If you have too much resin in it, it will become like gel!
Don't know if you solved your issue with a practical method but I got a two part method I like that can be done relatively quickly ( I'm not waiting days for this). Dissolve some aluminum sulfate into distilled water then mix it up really well, then mix it into the IPA and I just let it stir for 30 minutes using my cure station for this. I dump the mix into a bucket, and let it sit there and stir it occasionally when I remember for the next half hour or so until I feel warm and fuzzy that the resin precipitated out of the IPA. Between cleaning the cure & wash tub and normal household distractions it's usually settled for me. I pour off the cleaned IPA into a couple big pickle jars (and use a dedicated turkey baster for the last bit if I feel it's worth the effort). I could strain it, but I haven't yet and I'd rather just cure the leftovers in the sun and bin it. In the jars I dump some brine water and stir it up again. This step dries the IPA out letting the salt water pull more water from the IPA and it makes a nice layer to tell the two apart leaving me more concentrated IPA than when I started the whole thing which I see as another reward for the effort. When done right you'll be edging toward a layer of 99% IPA, but I have neither the means nor the inclination to quantify my results... Which I guess is odd for me and my number chasing ways... The salting step I either wait for about 30 minutes for this step if I'm impatient or let it sit till the next day when I'm willing to deal with it again. In the jar you'll see within minutes the separate IPA layer and water layers making it easier to get just the IPA out and store it. As for the mixtures, the salt water I just use kosher / iodine free salt dissolved in tap water. For the flocculants I mix 50 grams into 1.25 cups per 2 liters of IPA, (for ~$10 for a 1lb on amazon you can clean/improve up 18 liters of IPA). I should try mixing both steps into one some day and see if it works out. if the resin wasn't cleaned from the IPA well, you can tell on the salting step because you have clear salt water to compare your IPA to.
I don't print very much in resin. but i started to collect the dirty liquid in glass jars. since i am lazy they sat around a few days.it did start to separate. but i think it cures better in glass. it continued to separate during curing. I was previously using the same plastic containers i was using for actually washing the models in.
Im having HUGE problems....so i have a HALOT One resin printer with elegoo water washable resin and when i go to print its like it just fails half way. So i got a orc bust statue and the head came out great but when i went back 9 hours later it was like right after it was done with the head it did not add the neck and the body to it. everything sticks to the build plate very well takes a bit to get off. I just dont know why no matter what i print or the size it only partially prints...when i printed dwarf minis the legs printed until it got to the waist and then stopped but the dwarf beside him on the build plate printed just fine.....im just stuck i have know idea whats wrong or how to fix...PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!!!
i have a two bucket method. I have a bucket of IPA i use and a bucket that sits. once one bucket gets dirty i swap them, by the time i need the second bucket the resin in the first has separated out
You may want to try simple evaporation: Pour your dirty IPA in a larger container. Place a smaller empty container (you may need to weigh it down so it doesn't float) in the middle of the pool of IPA in the larger container. Cover the top of the larger container with saran wrap. Place a small weight (a small rock?) on top of the saran wrap in the middle, above the small empty container. The dirty IPA will evaporate onto the saran wrap, condense, and drip into the smaller empty container, leaving clean IPA in the smaller container. This is actually a military survival technique to purify water.
I gave it a try over the weekend and it works, but I didn't recover much IPA. I was evaporating in the sun, which caused the resin to harden and lock in some of the IPA. I think the key is to keep the slop in the dark and let the resin settle to the bottom before evaporating. I shot some video that I will put together on it.
@@Make3DTV I cure my jars of dirty IPA under a UV lamp, then set them in the window sill for a week or so. I've never gotten this gelatinous mass though, just a murky suspension which eventually settles on the bottom. Then you just decant off the clear IPA (you could do that through a funnel/filter too).
having been dumb with my first printer i ran into the gelatine problem, i found an effective way to reclaim a bit of ipa was to simply put the gelatine in a tupperware box, with gelatine resin in one corner and raise the corner below the resin, leave in direct sunlight and as the resin cures more the ipa leaks out, its more or less a resin foam thats left over so if it gets to such a consistency you can literally squeeze out ipa, which i did with a bit of flat scrap plastic. granted i reclaimed a fraction of what i put in but i lost a good chunk to evaporation. i was using the same ipa for several months because i didnt know i should filter it
Hey Uncle Jessy, ive been using Ez Filter system. Its basically a brewery set using carbon filters. Its 2 containers stacked with a filter strainer with carbon pallets in the middle. I transfer used IPA into the top bucket and just wait a few hours. The liquid in the bottom get clearer every use. I repeat this till I reach a clear liquid. After about 3 or 4 times the carbon pallets have soaked up most of the impurities and I just leave them in a clear container in the sun and bring them to our local chem dump. With kind regards, fellow resin printer fanatic from the Netherlands.
I must state that I've not started using IPA yet, BUT what I noticed is that after leaving my cleaning fluids sit for some days, all the resin that is suspended starts settling in the bottom of the container. At this stage, I usually put them in direct sunlight for a while so all the gunk in the bottom cures. after that, I run it through standard 10nm paper filters (as the one used to pour resin back in its bottle). The result is not perfectly crystal clear, but it's way less cloudy and residues are not left on the printed models. As of now, what I'm using to clean my prints is: 90% Denaturated Alchol (leaving it into direct sunlight destroys the pink pigment and avoids prints staining) Commercial Degreaser (in Italy it's called Chanteclaire) Tap water What I noticed is that resin tends to set better in the tap water container than the other two, so maybe alchol and degreaser are preventing resin from clogging. I'll take this chance, since you use Elegoo Mercury to cure loot studios prints, how long do you let them cook under UV light? I print 32mm scale models and I get the best results usually between 10/15 minutes, but people are saying this is way more than needed. I use Elegoo ABS-Like grey resin. Thanks for your content, man
The biggest issue I have is that I can't get more buckets for my elegoo wash and cure. If you had 2 or 3 then letting them stand for days wouldn't be a problem.
I came to the conclusion that just use the ipa till it stops being a good cleaner. it reaches its life at the same time if you clean it or not. I don't care that i can't see my prints in the dirty ipa while its being cleaned. now chemistry might work by adding something that binds just the resin but ipa is cheap enough that i just cure it to a rubber mass and let it dry out in the sun b4 I toss it.
I do not wait nearly so long, but my experience has been that the resins I used seem to start to fog it a little bit after a dozen or so prints. then I let it settle out in a jar thats not part of my washing stuff off operation. whatever settles out goes straight into a container that will be exposed to sun at the end, but the rest I put in the sun in a glass jar for like 15 minutes or so. the actual resin that cures will drop out of solution better when its more dilute to begin with I think. I shake it up to get goop off the sides and let that sit to settle for a day or more, pour it through a filter (cheap metal mesh not a disposable fine one like those paper ones) and the trick of course is to pour off only the almost or completely clear solvent at the top. Admittedly I started using denatured alcohol early on, so my solvent jars probably contain a bit of ipa but mostly denatured alcohol, and maybe it drops out of solution easier? I basically only lose solvent to what is absorbed by paper towels, what is trapped in all the stuff that settles out and eventually gets sun cured in a final step, or to evaporation from containers and spills. I have barely touched to gallon of solvent I started with, because reusing it with this settle out and half cure to precipitate it out of solution process on the initial 750ml or so, which I filtered twice or thrice in 2 months, and is currently clear enough to not tint totally clear parts when it looks clear. in my experience even solvent that looks clean might have enough resin in it to cure for a bit in the sun and separate, I am just way to lazy to do it like every other print. I suspect it would work though.
My use is only average but I clean my IPA by sunlight. Here in the UK our milk comes in frosted plastic bottles so I pour my dirty IPA into it while using old tights to catch any larger particles, leave in sunlight for about a week. Gravity seems to sink the resin to the bottom and then I pour back into a container when it is clear again, also filtering through some sheer mesh tights. Seems to work pretty well and I am still using the same gallon of IPA I bought with my Photon Mono.
I just did this and had decent results. Bit of a process though: I took a black light and shocked my tub for about 1.5 min, then did a rough filter through cheese cloth for larger particulate filter, shocked the IPA again and repeated the filter with cheese cloth, then did a 3rd filter with a fine resin filter but it got plugged up. It seems like the best course of action is apply black light till you get some clumps/cloudy appearance and filter as many times as it takes. I noticed a significant color shift in the IPA after doing this.
I have a 8000ml container (looks like the new wash and cure + container). I put the container in the sun for a day and it gets the gel-goo stuff. I have 2 large totes and drilled 1/2" holes in the bottom of one. I set it up on wooden scrap blocks in the first tote. I put two layers of paper towels in it and pour in the gunk. The liquid runs through and the gunk doesn't. I take the gunk and put on an old cookie sheet in the sun. The resulting liquid does seem to clean well, but it is still grey. I figure it is just the pigment not getting filtered out. Not a perfect solution, but I get to re-use the liquid. This is just my main/rough cleaning. I also put the parts in my small wash and cure for a final rinse, which I keep with clean isopropyl and pour it into the big container if it gets too dirty looking. I am sure I do not use it on the scale you do and with isopropyl getting cheaper, I may just let it all evaporate in the sun and refill each month or two. Generally using sirayatech grey + tenacious for resin.
I got my anycubic mono se 6 weeks ago and have already done 250+ hours of printing. This here has been the bane of it all and I'm also impatient to let it sit for days. I have to turnaround prints to sell so don't have time to leave it to settle for a week! I have two buckets of IPA, a dirty first wash bucket that I dunk the prints in to wash most off the resin, before putting them in my wash station for a final clean. This saves my wash station IPA making it last longer. The buckets in between prints sit in my window to promote the resin to cure and after a week of daily use and some settling in between prints they're still cloudy and that never changes.ones intendedusually a ball of sludge at the bottom which I clean out and then filter the IPA back into the container. It will never be clear again but it is more transparent and cleans pretty well. How long were you UV curing the IPA, I literally out my bucket in for 30 mins in the curing station and nothing changed in the liquid. I don't know if the anycubic buckets have some UV protection because even in the window sill they still take a lot longer to cure any resin than similar sized air sealed buckets. I did as an experiment leave a bucket to settle in the sun. It took 9 days to go clear in the English sun! I figure as long as it is transparent and not opaque it is good enough. I don';t think distillation would be worth it, but I'd love to see a video that proves me wrong!
Im going to take a look into designing a 3d printable centrifuge. This is a spinning device that accelerates separation of liquids with different specific gravities. Could be a solution
I do a multi step process. First it starts with how I clean my prints. First, full disclosure, I print mostly 32mm minis, the majority of which aren't hollowed out. When a plate is done I spray it down with recycled IPA from a standard spray bottle, catching the very dirty runoff in a plastic basin. I then scrape the models off the base plate. Anything with little to no fragile parts like bases get peeled off the supports. Then the piece gets put in the clean IPA bucket from my wash and cure. Models with supports or that are hollowed out get dipped in used, but sort of clean IPA from a separate bucket. Then put in the wash bucket. I usually wash for about 10 minutes, remove any supports then cure. Now what do I do to recycle IPA? I have a series of containers with used IPA the dirtiest from the spray bottle runoff gets dumped in a bottle that I leave where ambient light will cure some of the resin. It then goes into a gallon container to sit. At any time I have about 3 gallons in the process. Every time I transfer to another container I run it through a coffee filter. By the time it reaches the spray bottle it is nearly as clear as new IPA. I can usually get almost two weeks of printing done before needing to clean out the bucket and put new IPA in. I'm considering distillation, but haven't tried it yet. None of my IPA looks like the bucket in the video. I start to recycled long before it gets that cloudy
Distillation would be the correct way but you could also try getting it to seperate on its own. I know you said you're impatient and don't want to wait for it but you should be able to put it in a fridge to help speed up the seperation process. Might speed it up dramatically. Might be worth a try.
I have also been experimenting on this and was excited to hear you were looking into this. I'm probably on 400+ resin prints over the last year. Currently, I pour my waste resin into a 5 litre bottle and let it sit for a week until the next lot of IPA needs putting in. Before I put in the waste IPA, I carefully pour out some of the used IPA without disturbing the sediment at the bottom. It works ok for a second run but needs replacing much faster than virgin IPA.
here in italy we have both isopropil alchool and we also have Denatured ethyl alcohol 90 ° the second one is what i use to clean and its way faster in separating once it separate i simply point a UV light to it and then filter it and then is good to go again
I just had a thought, its not the most ideal solution I would think but what if you got a small centrifuge and ran the dirty IPA through that? You mentioned that the IPA and resin are already separating over time so a centrifuge would just speed that up and create a better separation. Perhaps the resin left after the separation in a centrifuge might even still be usable (although probably not an ideal quality).
I've never tried but I'm sat here thinking could a fish tank filter work? They have lava rock and carbon etc to remove small particles so could you set up a small tank with only ipa and a filter?
Personally, for my big ultrasonic, I designed a little cage that uses 1 or 5 micron home water filters cut into thirds, and a cheap aquarium pump. Don't ever let the tank get super dirty, it is an active filter system running anytime I clean anything. It legit pulls like 99% of the schmutz out of the tank easily. Those filters get GROSS after a while, but the mean green / ipa mix stays perfectly clean for ages.
have you tried using ethanol insted of ipa? i havent tested it myself but someone (fauxhammer video maybe?) mentioned that it clears up better after postcuring
Distillation doesn't need flames or anything in order to work, just simply a hot pad, it looks a little over the top but distillation is your best bet for recovery of solvents in any case. The jelly is caused because you allowed the overall mixture to become too saturated with the resin and when it begins to cure the polymer bonds essentially wrap around the alcohol and trap it inside creating and emulsion gum. Because there is separation, very brief periods of intense UV and then allowing a separation to occur might result in allowing the ipa time to remove itself from the emulsion.
Something I discovered by accident - because the Anycubic Wash and Cure powers on into the "Cure" state I sometimes accidentally cure models I intend to wash. Well, I came back from the weekend on a Monday and had some prints to wash. The IPA had settled - it's not perfectly clear by any measure, but it's also not completely cloudy. I accidentally started the wash and cure on cure mode, and the gelatin stuff formed in the bottom, and in sheets along the side. Naturally, I had to clean this out. I filtered it through regular resin paper filters and ended up with not perfectly clear IPA, but definitely clearer. The gelatin sheets got caught up in the filter, and the goo at the bottom I DID NOT try to filter, but instead decanted into an empty water bottle and placed outside in the sun to fully cure and ultimately dispose of. Naturally there's some IPA caught up in the gelatin but without a more complex burn/vapor/capture apparatus I don't expect to ever be able to recover that IPA. (I assume alcohol creates a chemical bond with the resin which is why it is an effective cleaner. It can't really be filtered, because it's not flee floating particulate in the IPA.) So if you decant everything into a separate container - larger is better, the exact same size as the wash and cure basin would be best - and just let it settle, this lazy man method might just work.
Im about to do some tests with this as well. What I have come up with is simply putting the dirty stuff in to a large container then letting it sit and separate. The solids go to the bottom and the rest goes through out. I am then going to use a large sponge to soak up the liquid and hope the solids stay at the bottom. The sponge contents can then be strained in to a filter like that Brita that you had. the solids will then be cured and thrown away. And hopefully I have some clearish reusable IPA.
You may need a vacuum filtration setup. I have been doing this after curing my alcohol in the sun. Feel free to reach out to me and we can chat, I am a chemist and can help.
if they seporate over time, you could probably use a centrifuge to speed up the process, and another filter type i thought of, is fuel. im guessing if the filters youve tried cant filter out the resin greyness, they arent fine enough, or the particle size is the same as the ipa. i do wonder if the distilling idea would work too, but just using the sun and some black paper or white paper to direct as much energy as you can into your ipa container, but without flame :)
Curing the ipa actually does work. The reason it's not working for you is you're not letting it settle before curing it. That makes the resin form it's polymer chains and cross links with heaps of isopropyl alcohol trapped in a matrix. Personally I let it sit for a week for some of the longer settling resin and two weeks for this really cheap anycubic resin I have. If you can't let it sit you may not have an option here, this is the main way we clean water it in massive settling pools. We do this because it is one of the best and cheapest methods we have. I'd highly recommend you get yourself a big bucket and buy more ipa. When it's saturated, pour it into the big bucket and leave it for a week, two if you can, then use that new ipa you have. Once the old ipa has settled out, give it a good curing then filter through a coffee filter. Bam cleaner ipa, you need two or maybe more 'sets' of ipa because it neeeeeds to settle. I use a 7L resin wash for my primary dirty wash then 3L for my clean, and my clean wash looks brand new after hundreds of hours. Probably because I regularly settle, cure, and filter my big wash, about once every two months. The amount of resin you wash in also obviously helps to keep it usable for longer. I'm not sure which specific resin you're using, but you can lookup the sds for it and find out what the primary monomer being used is. Then the navier stokes settling equation can tell you exactly how long you need to let your resin sit. Although keep in mind the particle size is likely one monomer long, hence the settling time of weeks. Good luck but patience is the best thing to clean your resin with, but I get that might not work for you and your busy schedule
Every 500g resin I stand the IPA in an upside down water bottle on the windowsill for a couple of days. The resin settles in the top of the bottle and pours out fairly clean from 2 poked holes in the bottom of the bottle, the gel gets stuck in the narrow cap area of the bottle. Easy discard after that. First time I tried the bottle in direct sun and the resin stayed in suspension and would not drop out. I suspect the same is happening in the curing station. No filters have worked for me at all.
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Lots of people have already commented on the correct solution, which is that you are waiting too long and curing a mixture that is too high in resin. My recommendation is that you just have several stages that you cycle through. Because of your industrial level of use, you need to think of this on an industrial scale. Bucket 1, clear to mostly clear IPA. Bucket 2, Used two days - sit in the sun (or in the curing machine), Bucket 3 - resting to get the resin particulates down, bucket 4, filter through the large filter first to get the big pieces out, then filter through a brita (or cheaper filter to clear it and go back to being bucket 1).
Additionally, your methodology for testing could use some work. Instead of waiting for days to test, just pour resin into ipa directly. you now have a mixture to test with.
I basically do this, but instead of using a 4th bucket, after the 3rd bucket settles, you can get rid of the sediment with a turkey baster or a pipette, you don’t even need to use a filter
This! I do a very similar thing with old pickle jars. It really doesn’t take long for the resin to separate and then siphon off the IPA with a large syringe. I suppose you could filter the IPA at the point, but I don’t ever bother.
very similar to what i do
Been watching your channel for some time and glad you're also a local Rochestarian. Great content and production quality. I just got my 1st resin printer this week and wonder what you do to dispose of waste mean green or iPa (even if you're able to clean and reuse most of it) in Monroe county?
I advise not to sit it outside in the sun, as the IPA will dry out to easily. Instead, pour it in a large clear plastic jug and sit it next to a window that is in sunlight. This way the the IPA doesn't dry out and the resin can cure. Then filter through a decent coffee filters.
Being a Chemist, that’s what I would have suggested, a distillation column.
Being an idiot, I'm going to recommend fire!
From a chemistry standpoint, distillation is the way to go. from a safety standpoint, recommending distillation of IPA to someone without experience beyond describing it as "burning of the IPA" is another matter.
@@pants15 it's a brilliant technique to separate it. It's just that the IPA is not in the state of aggregation that we want.
@@1234fishnet So no splosions? :(
I use an air distiller. (electric no fire) in 1 hour and 4 liters of IPA cleaned. Just need rinse the distiller with all the goo. No open fire. Still do it in a well ventilated area. Not sure why people are so scared. They clean with IPA, they spray it for cleaning etc. Still with a active printer next to them.
I have been fairly successful filtering my IPA. I try to use 90+% and cure it early and often before filtering it through the paint strainers. I do this 2-3 times before I get clear,, clean looking IPA. I usually have a few different "cycles" always going so when I'm curing the resin in one batch of alcohol, I'm filtering another, and using another. It's frustrating for sure when I get failed batches, but early and often is the best suggestion I have for you.
This is basically what I do. 90+%. Turn on the UV light and watch it bubble. Turn off and let it settle. Pour off the top or filter. Do it frequently.
Hey Uncle Jessy, I have been recycling my IPA with some level of success. I normally can recover about 70% of the original IPA. I hope this help, here what I do :
1) I do not let the IPA get too dirty. I normally recycle my IPA after around 5 medium size prints.
2) I keep two batches of IPA, one that is cleaning the parts and one that is recycling, this way I do not have downtime.
3) I do wait for a day or two for some of the resin to settle, this is the main reason why I keep two batches of IPA.
4) After the dirty IPA rested for a couple of days, I let it out, on the sun for curing. The sun may cure slower than the UV, not really sure, but as the IPA cures, I can see the resin being attracted to the container walls and the partially clear IPA left in the center. I usually leave outside for a day.
5) After curing under the sun, I filter it with paper towels, two layers.
6) After filtered, I store the recovered IPA for use and let the solids out to cure and dry completely before disposing.
PS : I did have one time where I got the gelatin you got, and I concluded it was because there was too much resin, so that is why I try to not let it too dirty. I also do a two step washing. The first step is more to take the majority of the resin (Old wash & Cure - 1 min) then I move to the second wash (New Wash and Cure - 6 min). It may be overkill, but I basically need to recycle the first tub, the second one really takes a long time before it get dirty. I also remove my supports before any washing and I never printed anything hollow. Just letting you know, so you can have an Idea how my dirty parts look like :-) That did not sound really well ... :-)
What I do is have two containers for my Elegoo wash/cure machine and I swap them once a week. I then leave the swapped-out conatiner to sit for 2-3 days to let most of the resin sediment fall to the bottom.
Problem is, these containers have a spinner at the bottom that makes it very difficult to scoop out the sediment, so I ended up printing a false bottom / shallow basket that I put into the container at the bottom (resting on the spinner). The sediment collects on top of this and then after a few days you can pull it out - bringing most of the sediment with it.
This doesn't filter 100% of the resin out but gets most of the big particles out. The IPA will go back to being reasonably see-through from murky-opaque looking like yours, and I then top it up with new IPA (~15-20% of container volume worth).
I now go through like 2-3 litres of IPA every month instead of like 10 litres before I used this method. Big saving with what 95%+ IPA costs round here..
Ooh this false bottom sounds super helpful - would you be willing to share the .stl?
To conserve on IPA usage like others have said do multi stage cleaning before you put your uncured prints in whichever Wash and Cure station you use. I go one more step to save money and I use simple green or mean green for the first stage with warm water and brush off the majority of uncured resin then I transfer my prints to a second stage IPA bath to get off the excess simple green that some complain making the prints slightly sticky. Then after that bath I transfer my prints to the wash and cure station that way I go through less IPA as most of the uncured resin is scrubbed off in the simple green or mean green.
I have extra IPA bath containers that I will rotate in and out of circulation when the IPA starts to get too murky I'll move that container outside and let the resin and IPA seperate and then strain out the resin from the IPA.
I'm not 100% sure of it's safety of the contamination of simple green into the IPA 2nd stage bath, from what I've looked up I believe their isnt any safety risk of the two mixing, but maybe someone more knowledgeable will be able to answer that.
I have been struggling with this video for a while now... Hopefully this at least helps some of you out there in terms of WHAT NOT to do. Would love to hear what suggestions you all have!
Also - a huge thankyou to Elegoo for continuing to support my crazy project ideas... even when they completely fail... for now ;)
Didn't think a video on 3D printing could make me gag, but there ya go...
FWIW - the manual for the AnyCubic Photon Mono X recommends the, "let it set and separate method," but I haven't actually tried it myself.
If you think you need to let your dirty IPA sit for a while then perhaps it's worth distilling a big bucket of dirty IPA into smaller containers and then testing them periodically, that way you can leave them different durations to see if there is a sweet spot, also it means you're not cleaning liters of dirty IPA every time :)
Couple of ideas: Seems like the ipa is a solvent for the resin. Well, seems like a simple chemistry problem with the solution(heh) being put the solution of ipa/resin through a distillation. Should be able to reclaim a good percentage of near pure ipa as long as the mixture isn't some form of azeotrope.
Maybe another trick of chemistry will work, loading the solution with another cheaper material that will want to absorb the resin / ipa more? Kind of how to get the last bit of water out of IPA is to load it with salt.
Perhaps some form of vacuum/pressure filtration will allow you to suck the IPA out of the resin "sponge." Or perhaps a centrifuge? Could be a fun/dangerous project 😁
Wish I would have been able to watch this about six months ago because I tried several of the methods you used to equal success.
I do this to my resin at the research lab I work at all the time and it seems to decently clear it up. I cure the IPA resin mixture for about 10 mins then the cured resin falls to the bottom and leaves relatively clean IPA at the top I then just use a large syringe to skim the clean IPA at the top out without mixing up and disturbing the cured resin.
For testing purposes, could you simply stir some resin strait from the bottle into the IPA?
yeah.. that's actually a no-brainer..
just an idea out of the box, i clean my resin prints with one cheap airbrush and ipa. fill the cup of the airbrush with the ipa and spray direct on your print, once the ipa is empty just spray whith air coming from the airbrush until the print its dry, then you put that on th uv light and wualaa your print turns awesome and you save a LOT of ipa = save money. i been doing this since i started to print and never have a problem or lost quality of my prints. love your chanel mate and all of your techings. keep ir up! greetings from argentina
You should try to contact the channel "Nile Red." He's a chemist and this seems like a perfect collaboration. Also a cheap easy distillery will work, but has inherent risks.
Oh awesome. Will look them up! Yeah refusing the distilling route. Flames + IPA just seems like a horrible idea. Refuse to burn down my house for RUclips 🤣😂
@@UncleJessy I was going to mention this same thing NileRed is amazing with chemistry in making education videos. This would totally be up his alley as he's always looking for good content. I'm sure if you reach out to him maybe ship him some dirty IPA gallon containers or have him create it himself he would do it.
Couldn't you replace the flame with an electric hot plate? One of those cheap, solid single burners
@@pweezy5953 as far as I understand, IPA already has a pretty low volatility point. So I do believe a hot plate could be more than enough to accelerate the flashing off of the IPA from the solution.
@@UncleJessy I'm pretty sure you would not need an open flame to flash off the IPA from the solution, but Nile red is a great RUclipsr to get into the science of how to do what you want.
I was also searching for some good filtering solutions, but so far they were more expensive than just to replace the IPA. Thanks for your tests, are very valuable 👌😊
i actually found how to clean ipa with resin - i put a jug with dirty ipa in freezer, in the morning 95% of resin in ipa is condensed, ipa is clear when defrosted, while it could be slightly colored with pigment
2:00 I'm sure you figured this out by now seeing the date but this has to do with resin composition and saturation. There's a tipping point when your IPA is so saturation with resin from lack of cleaning, the chemical reaction yields that gelatinous result. However, if you keep it relatively clean and let it fully settle for atleast a day, you'll be successful recovering a fair amount.
I just experimented with the idea of curing the resin then filtering - Works well but you probably want to do it when the resin to alcohol ratio is lower so that it is easier to separate out. I just used the 20w CFL blacklight that I have to cure it out then filtered through a coffee filter. I'm probably gonna experiment with different filters at some point and see what luck I get
I run a print shop on Etsy (don't worry, not gonna plug it! lol), but I have tried everything I could to save IPA because I spend as much on IPA as I do on resin. And with the volume I go through, that's a LOT of IPA. Here's the best solution I've found. It's similar to something that you mentioned in the video, but with a few changes.
I use a two step cleaning process. I rinse every print off in a bucket of "used" IPA first (see below) to remove the majority of the resin. This helps me extend my IPA usage by a couple of days by limiting the resin that gets suspended in the "clean" IPA. After the initial dunking in used IPA, I transfer to an ultrasonic cleaner with my clean IPA. I change my IPA every 4 to 5 days. By "change", I mean start the rest of this process.
1. I have 3 large sealed containers that I rotate through, for dirty IPA. When it's time to change the IPA, I dispose of what's in my "dirty" bucket (at this point it's more resin than IPA). Then I pour what's in the oldest sealed container of IPA into the dirty bucket. By the time I pour it, that container has been sitting for roughly 2 weeks and the alcohol has decanted from the resin significantly. This is now my new first wash "used" IPA.
2. Now, I pour the formerly "clean" IPA through a metal stainless steel filter strainer from Sovol (on Amazon for about $14...not affiliated at all, just like the product) into this now empty sealed container and shuffle it to the back to decant for 2 weeks. The filter is more to remove any chunks of supports than to remove any resin.
3. Lastly I fill my clean container up with fresh IPA and start the process over.
Is it perfect? Not at all. But at the volume of printing I do, I was changing my IPA every 2 to 3 days and this has allowed me to double that. Since I'm selling prints, I have to try extra hard to make sure that I'm not stretching the wash out too far and sending my customers sticky prints. If you do find a way to reliably clean IPA well enough to actually reuse in the ultrasonic cleaner, that would be phenomenal. Hoping you find the magic alchemical formula. Thanks for all the videos!
hi, if you postcure your prints submerged in water it quickly eliminates all stickiness from cleaning with dirty ipa! (oxygen contact prevents the resin curing on the surface, leaving it sticky)
What about a sealed container in UV/sun? Would it prevent IPA evaporation yet still let the resin cure?
I think i need to let it settle first for a week or two before attempting that. I'd end up with the same situation if I dont wait
@@UncleJessy I think you've hit the problem on the head. Putting a container and let it sit for a week. Try doing that then do like 1 week for one container, 2 weeks for another, etc. and see what the magic wait time is.
@@UncleJessy That's what I do, let it rest for 3 or 4 days and let it cure in the sun. All the goo stay at the bottom of the close container and I can take the IPA out throught a coffe filter, then I give a good wash on the container and throw away all that remains. It gives me good results. In the end I use a first washing container with used IPA for a quick first wash and then my Elegoo wash and cure station with some fresher IPA to keep it clean longer and have the best cleanning possible. Tank you for testing other solution !
Like you, I've experimented and found a process that works for me. I purchased 2 gallons of IPA. 8 good sized mason jars. And last 2 very large glass jars for storage of the IPA when not in use. No filters needed in the process. When my IPA gets cloudy due to use, I pour into the mason jars. Cure each mason jar for 10 minutes in my cure station with the lid off the jar. Place the lid on the jar, shake jar to get resin off the side of the jar, and then let sit for a couple of days. The IPA floats to the top and the resin is semi solid on the bottom. The now cleaned IPA I store in a large glass jar till needed. The resin at the bottom I scrape out with a rubber spatula. And it's an ongoing process. Every week I have enough clean IPA to work with and during that week I'm cleaning the dirty IPA. I haven't needed to buy any new IPA for months now.
The solution is to cure the IPA ina sealed chamber so it can't evaporate, which is what you've done
Polymer guy here. I enjoy your channel and your approach to this topic. You are battling three elements in you used IPA. First, the solubilized and unreacted monomers. Those won't come out without distillation or vacuum distillation. Second, the photo initiators are in the solution as well. Same as unreacted monomer and won't come out without distillation. These two problems are why you got the gelled material rather than a precipitate. The concentration was probable too high in the IPA, too. Third is the pigments. You can filter those but you may have to reduce the filter's efficiency to less than 10 microns. You could use pool filtrate (diatomaceous earth) in a filter press. In the end you may be able to filter the particles out but you won't be able to filter out the monomers and photo imitator. You will need to heat distill or vacuum distill the IPA. You could use an inhibitor such as MEHQ to prevent gelling in a distillation set-up if you use the IPA with the current level of washes. Don't know of this helped but best of luck!
I have a variable temperature water distiller that I use and it’s quick and reclaims a lot of ipa that is completely clear
But what's left in the pot? Some sort of crusty coating?
@@chartle1 it’s more like a toffee and just as sticky. I’m now trying to cure it to see if I can remove it as one lump
@@IanJLennard yum sticky toffee resin. 😋
See, they're only downside to that is that has the potential of blowing up, and that's not a good thing.
@@TheRaven-WingGaming Lol I was intrigued until I saw your comment!
Try a centrifuge, spin it in a sturdy container at a very high speed to force seperation. Try curing after you see separation. While spinning and while not spinning
I saw a guy on u tube use a water distiller with the ipa. It is for sale on amazon. The results were fantastic. I am going to try it. Good luck.
Any results or a link to that vid?
I have a couple large, clear containers. I put the dirty IPA in one, and put clean IPA in the wash and cure. I point a UV light at the dirty IPA container (the one you suggested in another video) for a hours at a time until it becomes clear. If it takes days, it doesn't matter cause you have clean IPA you're using right now. When the clean IPA becomes dirty, put it in your second large container and your newly cleaned IPA is strained and put into the wash and cure container. Proceed to rotate between your containers, adding fresh IPA if you start to run out.
I do tend to notice that the strained IPA becomes murky if you fully strain it into the container, so I usually don't pour all of it back in to prevent that. I don't think you can get it fully clean like fresh IPA, but it's definitely able to be used.
I’ve been curing what’s in the ipa after every time I use it then filtering it out using the paint strainer. Now I’m pretty new to all of this but it’s been staying pretty clear so far. I Enjoy all of your videos!
I have done this successfully several times using just coffee filters and my cure station. What I do is let the IPA sit for a few days to let it settle (this seems to be super important) and then throw the IPA in the cure station with out disturbing it. This sometimes sets up into a gel like yours but not quite as stiff. I just break up the gel with something and run the IPA through 3-4 coffee filters stacked together. I think when you let the IPA sit and settle the resin collects at the bottom and makes larger particles that can be filtered out easier. If you don't get the IPA so dirty the gel wouldn't be as stiff and might be recoverable. Like a lot of other people have said, one big problem is that you are waiting too long and the IPA has too much resin in it.
Hey Jessy, do you have any recommendations on how to clean cured resin off of the tanks themselves? I cleaned them as much as I can but there is still a lot of particles on the tanks that I'm not excited about
replying to this to get a notif
First, I don't recommend keeping IPA in your wash station tank. I don't do it, period. If I"m not going to be cleaning prints for a few days, I take the IPA in the wash station and dump it into a five gallon bucket (my wash station is pretty large, about 3.5 gallons). Then I go and rinse out the wash station tank. I destroyed a couple wash tanks by leaving cleaner, IPA, or resin in the tanks... so that's where this is coming from. If you don't do this, it's much easier. You can also take off the impeller at the bottom of the wash stations (allen wrench) and then you can deep clean under them. The magnets that are on the Anycubic one that I have have been damaged (well, my older wash and cure, the one I got before the big one) and so I'm very cautious about that.
You could use a spinzall centrifuge to separate the resin out of the alcohol since they should have very different gravity.
they'd have the same gravity, probably different mass though.
I'm thinking salad spinner: the janky home centrifuge of choice. Haven't attempted it yet, but I very much am going to need something soon =)
IPA has a density of 786 g/l and photopolymer resin (at least the one I found) has a density of 1195 g/l. In principal, centrifugal fractionation seems like it might work.
Uncle Jessy- Lots of good ideas in this thread, but the answer might actually be a combination of some the answers already given. Firstly, the IPA IS a solvent of sorts, but the resin to IPA ratio is just too lopsided to make some methods work. The idea of the 'spinzall' centrifuge is a good starting point, but lets think about dissimilar mediums and temps for a second...you have different specific gravity liquids that are 'sticking together' due to the solvent nature of the IPA. FInd out what the freezing point of the resin is (99% IPA won't freeze fast, if at all) and try to separate from there. Dry Ice is what? 139.2 degrees below zero and I'm willing to bet I can pour even the high ratio resin mix into a stainless steel vessel or container and place it on top of some dry ice. The high solids resin *should* begin to freeze or congeal quickly and pull away the chemical solvents mechanically due to different freezing points. I'm just quickly guessing here, guess I'll have to try it!
@@ralphmachesky532 dry ice is -40 degrees. CO2 ya know.
I wonder if an Ultrasonic cleaner would separate the parts and cause the resin to drop to the bottom..
Method that works on me: Use coffee filter one layer to filter the crumps > use the Brita water filter to refine a bit > use a clear glass jar and UV light it for 5 mins and let it sit for a night > put it into the UV light machine without moving it vigorously for 5-10mins > shake it and UV again for 5-10mins > let it sit for a night > you will see the alcohol is crystal clear > filter it with a new Brita water filter, make sure the bottom resin don’t get in > then you get a 99% crystal clear alcohol, you can double check by putting it into the UV machine again, you won’t see any crumps or cloudiness anymore. Good luck !
FYI don’t uv light too long when it is too cloudy for the first time, they will bond together too fast with High concentration to form a jelly like video above. Depend on the concentration of the solution, repeat the follow steps a few times if necessary. It will be crystal clear again.
How long does the coffee filter stage take for you? I'm using a coffee filter and it is just dripping through taking hours to complete.
@@davewhite115 i am able to refine it to be clear. but i dont recommend to use it. it is pain in the ass to filter it out. It took too much time not worth it since alcohol price is going back to normal nowadays.
i used to filter it after each week of use. now i tend to let the ipa sit in containers for a couple of weeks then filter it off. i have never let my ipa get to that colour. at the moment been using methylated spirits for cleaning the prints.
Resin 3d printing newbie here : I'm thinking about getting a resin 3d printer but one thing I wonder about is how do you dispose of the resin residue when you let the isopropyl alcohol air dry? Can I just chuck it in the bin and call it a day or should I go to some institution specialized in chemicals disposal?
If you want easy testing samples wouldn't it be possible to just mix the isopropyl with a bit of resin directly from the bottle?
At lowes and other hard ware stores they sell 5 stage filtration systems. For drinking water. You could test those each individually as the are meant to filter different things?
Easiest way is put the IPA in a clear plastic bottle and let settle the resin to the bottom and then put in the sun for a week... filter and clean IPA... for me works
Another method that a friend of mine uses in his print farm is converting a fish tank as a clean tank and use some carbon filters and the water pump to clean the IPA, only one thing must be change are the plastic fititngs because IPA destroy the plastic.
Yeah I'm going to do exactly that for my next set of resin tests in a sep container. That 2nd idea sounds really interesting! thanks
@@UncleJessy your welcome if you have any questions I can ask to my friend ;)
Fish tank filter? That's kinda brilliant. I wonder if it would be worth trying a water polisher, like a diatom filter or maybe even a venturi protein skimmer?
@@mwarwick3876 Maybe I'm not used about diatom filters , water polisher or venturi protein skimmers, as fas as I know the whole deal is how your materials react with IPA and it's corrosion properties, all to avoid leaks.
Also maybe the best idea is use a 70%IPA in that kind of tanks as a preliminary clean, and then in a separate container with 99% just for rub the printed parts.
I have an immersion circulator. Mostly used for sous vide cooking. I have been using water washable resins thus far, but will have to branch off into IPA soon to make stronger prints. I intend to use old 2 liter bottles with lids and some plastic tubing from a hardware store plus a couple of plastic barbs and epoxy to make a very crude but very safe still. Drill holes in the lids of the 2 Liter bottles and glue the barbed plastic ends into each one. Since the immersion circulator has only a water heater of sorts in it, it can safely heat the water to nearly boiling in a very controlled manner, which will heat the 2 liter bottle filled with dirty IPA in it. That will be contained in a large pot or some other cylindrical item that keeps the top of the 2 liter bottle vertical enough to not have it spill dirty IPA into the tubing and only allow vapor out. The vapor would collect in another bottle with a sealed similarly barbed lid on it. It would evaporate almost all the IPA out leaving mostly resin behind and you can then cure and toss that crud filled 2 liter bottle. Just keep the barbed lids and the hose for re-use and have a spare 2 liter bottle ready to cycle in when needed. This would be working as you do other things, so it's not an active process that you really have to do anything to manage. The temps are simply maintained and the evaporation happens over time and moves the alcohol into another cooler container as you do other things. After a set amount of time, you can just collect the good IPA and add more as needed and keep on trucking.
I've gone through all of this with the exact same results you got. The one and only thing I've noticed that could possibly help is that I store my dirty IPA in an area that gets a bit of indirect sunlight. It does not sit in the sun and the window has a tinted film on it, but I do notice that after a day or so of sitting that a thin film of solid-ish materiel will form on the side of the tub facing the window. The whole tub does not gel up, just a thin film forms along the side. I know it's not sediment because the IPA is still relatively clear and there is not a film building up on the bottom. Only the sides. It comes out easily and I expose it to finish curing it under the UV light and it goes hard as you would expect. I haven't done extensive testing on this so I don't know if it's helping or not, I just made an observation. This is also not heavily used and saturated IPA. Perhaps that has something to do with it, like you mentioned toward the end.
But I have tried various methods of filtering and short exposure to UV and nothing works. Even short exposure to UV will form a film which I then fish out leaving the remaining liquid. I expose the remaining liquid to another short round of UV and keep repeating. There is never any IPA left. I think that the molecules are just so small that they are unable to be filtered by easily accessible methods. And once you get IPA saturated with enough resin and expose it to UV, it just polymerizes like you've seen.
A distilling method like you mentioned would work if there is still IPA left to evaporate out, but it would be highly explosive and there may actually be laws against it in certain areas. Another possible method would be something like osmosis or high pressure filtration, but that only stands a chance if the resin molecules are noticeably larger or smaller than the IPA molecules. I have no idea what the sizes of them are and I suspect it could get rather costly and messy.
At this point I've given up cleaning or filtering it. I keep two or three tubs as progressive wash stations and I move from one to the next, getting cleaner as I go. Once the first, and dirtiest, one hits a certain point and it's not cleaning well, I put it in the sun for a couple of days and just let it gel and dry out. The whole tub goes in the trash once it's all cured and I've already moved the others up the line and started a brand new tub with clean IPA as my last rinse before curing.
So my thoughts: I think you are getting gel in the wash and cure because it is mixing when it cures. Might try removing the plate from the bottom.
What I am waiting until I get an fdm or larger printer for (only have a mono), is to build a funnel that screws onto a standard Mason jar, then a spout for the wash and cure station (I have the anycubic w&c 2). I was planning on using Terry cloth towels in my funnel with a screen material layer as my first stage, then wring out the towels. Then I was going to run it through a paint filter. Then once complete I was planning on either leaving that jar in the sun or removing the turntable and doing it in the w&c station. I was expecting that it would have to be left long enough for the resin to separate, but with Mason jars I just keep a rotation of fluids, and once the liquid clears and slowly cures at the bottom, then reuse it, then just run the process weekly.
This is not an ideal solution, but filtering is only going to get large particles. To remove the really small stuff it has to separate naturally, which is time consuming.
Just my two cents for a project I wanted to do. I appreciate that you are conquering some of the trial and error.
I've been using a degreaser (Spray-9) instead of IPA, but Coffee filters have been working well.
You need something in the funnel to keep the filter off the walls or you just get liquid filtering though the bottom and not the sides. I use a webbed insert I printed. as the filter starts to clog with resin the flow rate slows so I end up with the funnel full and draining slowly, But I just let it sit for a few hrs and et eventually drains leaving the a thick paste of resin in the filter. Curing outside dries it out. But I'm only doing about 1L at a time so you may need multiple funnels to do 8Ls
My fluid isn't perfectly clear when done though, but pretty close. To get back to 100% distilling is probably your best bet, all be it dangerous.
You could try a wine filter pump. They work by using a pump to push the wine though multiple very fine filters under pressure to remove very small particles. You would still need to pre filter somehow though to remove the majority of the resin.
Example of a wine filter ruclips.net/video/jeohQosn34M/видео.html
Set up some sort of centrifuge? Like what we use in the lab to separate liquids and suspended solids in liquids? But never tried to separate the volume you would need.
I'm not printing nearly the amount that you are, and I'm sure somewhere in the comments someone else had mentioned this, but what works for me is a large (2 gallon) glass container with a lid and a spigot just like you'd use to make ice tea or lemonade. I picked one up a local store for about $10. Pour in the dirty solution from your washing station and let it sit (for several days or a couple of weeks). The resin settles to the bottom. The spigot is about 2 inches from the bottom of the container so when I refill my wash station only clean (or mostly clean) alcohol comes out. If I were printing a ton, I would simply have 2 or more of these so I could continually rotate batches and keep printing.
i was thinking about the gravy jug we have where the idea is the fat rises and the goodness comes out the spout attached to the bottom of the jug but the 'punch jug' idea seems to be an even better solution.
Do you cure the resin in the IPA before pouring it in the container with the spigot or is it uncured resin in IPA you put in there? What do you do with the resin thats at the bottom once you open the spigot up and drain the mostly cleaned IPA?
I use a water distiller. Works great!
I think the abs/tough resins don't separate from ipa like other resins. Have you tried this with tough/abs resins?
Did you ever find a solution for your setup? What I do is very simple and you sorta touched on it.
I have a number of clear Gold Peak tea jugs. What I do is pour my dirty IPA into it and let it sit at a window where it can get good sunlight. By the end of the week, the resin has cured and I then filter it a few times through coffee filters. But my funnel is large enough to hold a mesh strainer, to which I place the filter. This way most if the filter is used and speeds up the process. I also let it filter near the window to help cure any resin that gets through. At the end, my IPA is near clear and reusable.
Without a chem set, there is no way you're going to perfectly clean the IPA. It needs to be noted that I don't use my resin printer anywhere near as often as Jessy does. I also use mostly clear resins or my own 'Monster Batch' resins. With my clear resins, I enjoy adding paint or ink pigment powder to it. This way I can get a nice glittery effect if needed. But cleaning the IPA from this resin is more difficult.
I am certainly not a chemist and I haven't actually started 3d printing yet. I am still learning before I am buying. But I did look into the filtration process for water and discovered that their is commonly a phase of the process where coagulants such as Aluminium sulfate is added that rapidly combines with particle that are suspended in the water and cause them to separate. Perhaps this could be a solution you could try?
I have a solution that works fairly well for lower printing needs. I use a bit of a combo that I have seen from various youtubers. I use a 2 wash IPA system. The first one washes off the primary residual resin, the second I put only clean IPA in never recycled. When the first bath needs to be cleaned out I put it in a giant pickle jar (80oz/2.5 qt) and let it sit in the sun for a few days then I strain it through a coffee filter, put it in the sun for another day or 2 and strain again. The result is slightly discolored IPA that I use in the first bath. Most likely it doesn't need to sit in the sun so long but I usually only print on the weekends. I have also come across the goo you mention but it settles to the bottom of the jar and I filter it out using a drain filter then let it cure on a plate or something.
I have seen people who let the liquids separate over time and decanting. I wonder if it is possible to centrifuge the emulsion to speed up the separation?
Goobertown hobbies is a PhD chemist and a rad guy, maybe hit him up for a collab?
And an sjw
My process involves more IPA initially but I think you can use it longer. I will use a batch, wash my prints in it, wait for it to start turning colors. Once it is noticeably different in color (a few washes) I will pour it back into into the IPA bottle, let it sit for a while to let it settle out some then blast it with UV. After it has settled and the UV made the sludge I decant the remaining back into another empty container. It is admittedly a lossy process, you lose maybe 10-20%, at least the way I do it. You might be able to get a bit more if you filter the sludge.
Leaving it to separate, then pour the top clear part through a filter and let it stand again, seems to be decent enough. Leave the residue out in the sun to cure in the container and then put that through a filter. You'll need some extra containers and a bit more IPA but such is life.
Coffee filter is the point. I see people suggesting artist paint filters, which are less dense than coffee filters. I made the mistake of trying to filter raw resin through it, and nothing went through - wasted a cup worth of resin, but works great for filtering water/IPA with resin.
I use the wash and cure station as well and what I do is pour the dirty IPA into a sperate container after a few uses Usually about a weeks worth of printing for me ( a empty 2 liter works well for this). let it sit in the sun for a few days and cure. You will get fine particle that will form. You can then filter that out and get "cleaner" IPA there are still some residue so it isn't pure IPA any more but it doesn't have a high enough concentration of resin to keep curing, if you do this you can reuse the IPA multiple times. after filtering I let the filtered material evap fully and cure in the sun. I can cycle between batches of the cleaned IPA solutions adding fresh new IPA occasionally as I go. This method has worked well for me. Pleas note I don't print as much as you so you might need to do that every day or after a day or two with the amount you print. This means you might need a few "batches" with the amount of printing you do. I have also found that some resins react differently so the type of resin you use has an effect on how often you need to clean it. The main problem you are having is that you are waiting two long between cleaning. As a test maybe you should pull a sample out each day and try curing that and see what the critical point is? Maybe you could print a centrifuge that you could make it forcibly separate out faster?
I am also using the 99% ipa for the most part that I have to get ordered in. The local stores usually only have 71 percent or if i am lucky 91. I have seen you use 71% a lot so maybe that has an effect on if it jellos or makes particles when you cure?
When I do the coffee filter method I do it after every print or every other print and I cure the fluid in clear water bottles (16.9 fluid ounces if I remember the size right) before filtering. Still turns out a little murky but much cleaner than before and I have to change filters every bottle because they will get too clogged after that. It's not a fast process unfortunately but it has worked for me so far. I prefer not to wait typically because clean alcohol really makes a difference in my prints, but I do wish there were an easier way to do it in bulk like you seem to want to do. Interesting idea for distilling the alcohol, but I would want to avoid that setup as well, especially considering the flammable nature of alcohol.
I wonder how much the container may play into things. Probably not much if any since I know PET tends to be chemically resistant, but it does leech chemicals into water and possibly moreso into alcohol? I haven't tried any other materials like glass. I think I'll see if attaching a bottle brush to a drill can quickly clean the left over residue of resin left in a Mason jar or something.
Edit: I just remembered that there's an old survival method of distilling water where you take a basin/tub of salt water (resin alcohol in this case) and put a piece of plastic over the top and a rock in the middle to create a low divot point (kinda like a funnel) and a container inside the basin. Basically the sun heats the water into vapor, the vapor gets caught and collects on the plastic and as it collects and cools it gets larger and heavier to the point where it will be pulled by gravity down to the point where the rock divot is in the plastic where it drips down into the catching container. This would probably be too slow of a process for our needs, but it would be interesting if it worked in some sort of sealed container and maybe using a sun oven to speed things up. Perhaps having some sort of heatsink system for the collector container to keep the collected fluid cold.
The reason you were getting the gelatin material is because the IPA is a mild solvent for the resin which is why it cleans so well. This being said, the resin cant cure as fast as it is being broken back down to liquid form. I started filling a 3 gallon bucket up with used solvent. I use a mixture of 60% acetone 40% IPA. The mass of the dissolved resin is still heavier, so after about 2 weeks there will be a few inches of clear IPA at the top you can siphon off with a generic fuel line. The resin will begin to form a slime at the bottom that needs scraped out every other month depending on use. Your videos are always so awesome and fun to watch. There are so many of us out there that wish we could personally thank you, for the knowledge you've help spread. Keep up the great work!
Did you consider using something like those oil absorption wipes? I'm not sure those will work in this instance but there may be a fabric type filter that reacts/binds with the resins and not with IPA. That is how those oil filters/wipes work, they attract and bind with the oil but water is unaffected
I've been curing the IPA then running it through a coffee filter, and it's worked fine, with no 'Jello' problem. Possibly a difference in resin brands?
Have this same problem, what I've been doing is reusing those big Gold Peak tea bottles and pouring my used IPA in there and then sitting it outside on the side of the house for a few days. That same gelatin blob will form but it tends to rise to the top of the container and the IPA settles to the bottom and isn't entirely clear but significantly clearer than it was before. The hard part is trying to filter it out from that blob as the blob tends to quickly clog the opening of the bottle and it's hard to separate it without making a huge mess. I try and filter it out with a paper strainer and pouring the contents into a disposable aluminum pan and then dumping that back into a container to refilter again and then reuse.
I've been able to reuse at least some of this IPA and haven't noticed any huge issues with it so far but it is a giant pain in the ass trying to filter it back out without getting that blob stuff everywhere.
Have you tried using a centrifuge to separate the mixture?
Me being one of those who suggested curing the resin in the IPA, i also say patience, let it settle, or if you wanna have some fun design an excenter separator or just get a salad spinner and put the container in it, should get them separated pretty quickly
Hi Uncle Jessy. Appreciate your videos. My experience has been that there is no fast solution. But there is an effective solution... When my IPA gets murky, I transfer it into a one gallon clear water jug. In my basement where my Print Lab is, I have a large window with a large sill. I put the water jug in the sill, refill my cleaning station with fresh IPA, and keep going with life. After sitting in the windowsill for about a month or so, the IPA has separated from the resin, the resin has solidified, and I am able to Simply pour out the clear resin and throw away the jug. At any one time I usually have about four jugs on the windowsill doing their thing. This means I have to keep four or five that's of IPA on hand, but once I get to that point I just rotate through the used stuff. Cheap and simple. This has worked well for me. Hope it helps!
I have only been printing since January, and no where near as much as you, but I found that if I left the ipa on the windowsill in an enclosed container I got some good results. Still got the sludgy bit, but I think because it was a much slower cure most of that settled to the bottom so I could pour off maybe 75-80% of clean ipa before getting to the sludge.
When I cured my IPA and got the gelatine type substance that’s when I let it sit fir a few days and the ipa just came right out of the jello and I “filtered” it in to a different container
I will try that again with this 2nd batch.
This right here. Put a bunch into a very clear container, I use large animal cracker containers. Put the entire thing that a uv lamp or outside. Let the container sit for a week. Decant the cleaner ipa off
@@UncleJessy I think this would only work if you are not past a certain point of resin saturation. As you mentioned, perhaps only a week or so of cleaning instead of 3+ weeks. You would likely get sediment or at worst a thin gel that can be filtered instead of the entire tub turning into thick, solid gel.
I haven't used IPA in a while due to covid but when I was I would just leave it out in the sun for a few hours. Sure some would evaporate but the resin solidified into like a course sand at the bottom of the container.
I by no means print on the level you do, but I have adapted a method where I have a bucket of “dirty” IPA that I do an initial rinse in. After that I clean it in the wash and cure station with my “clean” IPA. I let the dirty bucket sit ( I use a clear large container) and the resin will eventually settle. I then put that bucket into a large container with a UV light and let it cure for quite a long time. The resin then becomes cured into particles that you can filter. If you have too much resin in it, it will become like gel!
Have you tried freezing it? It might separate? My friend used to distill strong drinks doling this
Don't know if you solved your issue with a practical method but I got a two part method I like that can be done relatively quickly ( I'm not waiting days for this). Dissolve some aluminum sulfate into distilled water then mix it up really well, then mix it into the IPA and I just let it stir for 30 minutes using my cure station for this. I dump the mix into a bucket, and let it sit there and stir it occasionally when I remember for the next half hour or so until I feel warm and fuzzy that the resin precipitated out of the IPA. Between cleaning the cure & wash tub and normal household distractions it's usually settled for me. I pour off the cleaned IPA into a couple big pickle jars (and use a dedicated turkey baster for the last bit if I feel it's worth the effort). I could strain it, but I haven't yet and I'd rather just cure the leftovers in the sun and bin it. In the jars I dump some brine water and stir it up again. This step dries the IPA out letting the salt water pull more water from the IPA and it makes a nice layer to tell the two apart leaving me more concentrated IPA than when I started the whole thing which I see as another reward for the effort. When done right you'll be edging toward a layer of 99% IPA, but I have neither the means nor the inclination to quantify my results... Which I guess is odd for me and my number chasing ways... The salting step I either wait for about 30 minutes for this step if I'm impatient or let it sit till the next day when I'm willing to deal with it again. In the jar you'll see within minutes the separate IPA layer and water layers making it easier to get just the IPA out and store it. As for the mixtures, the salt water I just use kosher / iodine free salt dissolved in tap water. For the flocculants I mix 50 grams into 1.25 cups per 2 liters of IPA, (for ~$10 for a 1lb on amazon you can clean/improve up 18 liters of IPA). I should try mixing both steps into one some day and see if it works out. if the resin wasn't cleaned from the IPA well, you can tell on the salting step because you have clear salt water to compare your IPA to.
I don't print very much in resin. but i started to collect the dirty liquid in glass jars. since i am lazy they sat around a few days.it did start to separate. but i think it cures better in glass. it continued to separate during curing. I was previously using the same plastic containers i was using for actually washing the models in.
Im having HUGE problems....so i have a HALOT One resin printer with elegoo water washable resin and when i go to print its like it just fails half way. So i got a orc bust statue and the head came out great but when i went back 9 hours later it was like right after it was done with the head it did not add the neck and the body to it. everything sticks to the build plate very well takes a bit to get off. I just dont know why no matter what i print or the size it only partially prints...when i printed dwarf minis the legs printed until it got to the waist and then stopped but the dwarf beside him on the build plate printed just fine.....im just stuck i have know idea whats wrong or how to fix...PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!!!
i have a two bucket method. I have a bucket of IPA i use and a bucket that sits. once one bucket gets dirty i swap them, by the time i need the second bucket the resin in the first has separated out
You may want to try simple evaporation: Pour your dirty IPA in a larger container. Place a smaller empty container (you may need to weigh it down so it doesn't float) in the middle of the pool of IPA in the larger container. Cover the top of the larger container with saran wrap. Place a small weight (a small rock?) on top of the saran wrap in the middle, above the small empty container. The dirty IPA will evaporate onto the saran wrap, condense, and drip into the smaller empty container, leaving clean IPA in the smaller container. This is actually a military survival technique to purify water.
Great for water, terrible for IPA. Don’t forget that it is very flammable. You’d preferably want to avoid turning it into vapor altogether
@@teyrasiridae4704 I'm going to try it. As long as it's not near a flame, it shouldn't be a problem. Will report back.
Now that's a thought. Easy because the IPA is constantly evaporating.
I gave it a try over the weekend and it works, but I didn't recover much IPA. I was evaporating in the sun, which caused the resin to harden and lock in some of the IPA. I think the key is to keep the slop in the dark and let the resin settle to the bottom before evaporating. I shot some video that I will put together on it.
@@Make3DTV I cure my jars of dirty IPA under a UV lamp, then set them in the window sill for a week or so. I've never gotten this gelatinous mass though, just a murky suspension which eventually settles on the bottom. Then you just decant off the clear IPA (you could do that through a funnel/filter too).
does the resin slowly settle at the bottom over time or not cos if it does then just cure it whilst it is sitting at the bottom
If the resin and ipa separate, would cooling down the solution expedite the process? No experience with resin printers.
having been dumb with my first printer i ran into the gelatine problem, i found an effective way to reclaim a bit of ipa was to simply put the gelatine in a tupperware box, with gelatine resin in one corner and raise the corner below the resin, leave in direct sunlight and as the resin cures more the ipa leaks out, its more or less a resin foam thats left over so if it gets to such a consistency you can literally squeeze out ipa, which i did with a bit of flat scrap plastic. granted i reclaimed a fraction of what i put in but i lost a good chunk to evaporation. i was using the same ipa for several months because i didnt know i should filter it
Have you tried using like a centrifuge? I believe the resin is heavier and should speed up the settling process
Hey Uncle Jessy, ive been using Ez Filter system. Its basically a brewery set using carbon filters. Its 2 containers stacked with a filter strainer with carbon pallets in the middle. I transfer used IPA into the top bucket and just wait a few hours. The liquid in the bottom get clearer every use. I repeat this till I reach a clear liquid. After about 3 or 4 times the carbon pallets have soaked up most of the impurities and I just leave them in a clear container in the sun and bring them to our local chem dump. With kind regards, fellow resin printer fanatic from the Netherlands.
I must state that I've not started using IPA yet, BUT what I noticed is that after leaving my cleaning fluids sit for some days, all the resin that is suspended starts settling in the bottom of the container. At this stage, I usually put them in direct sunlight for a while so all the gunk in the bottom cures. after that, I run it through standard 10nm paper filters (as the one used to pour resin back in its bottle). The result is not perfectly crystal clear, but it's way less cloudy and residues are not left on the printed models.
As of now, what I'm using to clean my prints is:
90% Denaturated Alchol (leaving it into direct sunlight destroys the pink pigment and avoids prints staining)
Commercial Degreaser (in Italy it's called Chanteclaire)
Tap water
What I noticed is that resin tends to set better in the tap water container than the other two, so maybe alchol and degreaser are preventing resin from clogging.
I'll take this chance, since you use Elegoo Mercury to cure loot studios prints, how long do you let them cook under UV light? I print 32mm scale models and I get the best results usually between 10/15 minutes, but people are saying this is way more than needed. I use Elegoo ABS-Like grey resin. Thanks for your content, man
The biggest issue I have is that I can't get more buckets for my elegoo wash and cure. If you had 2 or 3 then letting them stand for days wouldn't be a problem.
yeah same for the creality wash and cure....I even sent emails and Twitter no response at all from them
Pour your used ipa in the bottle it came in.. Marked used ipa... Put that in the sun for a few days.. reclaim liquid on top
How do you print 2s per layer? When I tried it there was nothing there. Nothing. Only a little layer of the fep.
I came to the conclusion that just use the ipa till it stops being a good cleaner. it reaches its life at the same time if you clean it or not. I don't care that i can't see my prints in the dirty ipa while its being cleaned. now chemistry might work by adding something that binds just the resin but ipa is cheap enough that i just cure it to a rubber mass and let it dry out in the sun b4 I toss it.
I do not wait nearly so long, but my experience has been that the resins I used seem to start to fog it a little bit after a dozen or so prints. then I let it settle out in a jar thats not part of my washing stuff off operation. whatever settles out goes straight into a container that will be exposed to sun at the end, but the rest I put in the sun in a glass jar for like 15 minutes or so. the actual resin that cures will drop out of solution better when its more dilute to begin with I think. I shake it up to get goop off the sides and let that sit to settle for a day or more, pour it through a filter (cheap metal mesh not a disposable fine one like those paper ones) and the trick of course is to pour off only the almost or completely clear solvent at the top. Admittedly I started using denatured alcohol early on, so my solvent jars probably contain a bit of ipa but mostly denatured alcohol, and maybe it drops out of solution easier? I basically only lose solvent to what is absorbed by paper towels, what is trapped in all the stuff that settles out and eventually gets sun cured in a final step, or to evaporation from containers and spills. I have barely touched to gallon of solvent I started with, because reusing it with this settle out and half cure to precipitate it out of solution process on the initial 750ml or so, which I filtered twice or thrice in 2 months, and is currently clear enough to not tint totally clear parts when it looks clear. in my experience even solvent that looks clean might have enough resin in it to cure for a bit in the sun and separate, I am just way to lazy to do it like every other print. I suspect it would work though.
My use is only average but I clean my IPA by sunlight. Here in the UK our milk comes in frosted plastic bottles so I pour my dirty IPA into it while using old tights to catch any larger particles, leave in sunlight for about a week. Gravity seems to sink the resin to the bottom and then I pour back into a container when it is clear again, also filtering through some sheer mesh tights. Seems to work pretty well and I am still using the same gallon of IPA I bought with my Photon Mono.
I just did this and had decent results. Bit of a process though: I took a black light and shocked my tub for about 1.5 min, then did a rough filter through cheese cloth for larger particulate filter, shocked the IPA again and repeated the filter with cheese cloth, then did a 3rd filter with a fine resin filter but it got plugged up. It seems like the best course of action is apply black light till you get some clumps/cloudy appearance and filter as many times as it takes. I noticed a significant color shift in the IPA after doing this.
I have a 8000ml container (looks like the new wash and cure + container). I put the container in the sun for a day and it gets the gel-goo stuff. I have 2 large totes and drilled 1/2" holes in the bottom of one. I set it up on wooden scrap blocks in the first tote. I put two layers of paper towels in it and pour in the gunk. The liquid runs through and the gunk doesn't. I take the gunk and put on an old cookie sheet in the sun. The resulting liquid does seem to clean well, but it is still grey. I figure it is just the pigment not getting filtered out.
Not a perfect solution, but I get to re-use the liquid.
This is just my main/rough cleaning. I also put the parts in my small wash and cure for a final rinse, which I keep with clean isopropyl and pour it into the big container if it gets too dirty looking.
I am sure I do not use it on the scale you do and with isopropyl getting cheaper, I may just let it all evaporate in the sun and refill each month or two.
Generally using sirayatech grey + tenacious for resin.
I got my anycubic mono se 6 weeks ago and have already done 250+ hours of printing. This here has been the bane of it all and I'm also impatient to let it sit for days. I have to turnaround prints to sell so don't have time to leave it to settle for a week! I have two buckets of IPA, a dirty first wash bucket that I dunk the prints in to wash most off the resin, before putting them in my wash station for a final clean. This saves my wash station IPA making it last longer. The buckets in between prints sit in my window to promote the resin to cure and after a week of daily use and some settling in between prints they're still cloudy and that never changes.ones intendedusually a ball of sludge at the bottom which I clean out and then filter the IPA back into the container. It will never be clear again but it is more transparent and cleans pretty well.
How long were you UV curing the IPA, I literally out my bucket in for 30 mins in the curing station and nothing changed in the liquid. I don't know if the anycubic buckets have some UV protection because even in the window sill they still take a lot longer to cure any resin than similar sized air sealed buckets.
I did as an experiment leave a bucket to settle in the sun. It took 9 days to go clear in the English sun! I figure as long as it is transparent and not opaque it is good enough. I don';t think distillation would be worth it, but I'd love to see a video that proves me wrong!
Im going to take a look into designing a 3d printable centrifuge. This is a spinning device that accelerates separation of liquids with different specific gravities. Could be a solution
I do a multi step process. First it starts with how I clean my prints. First, full disclosure, I print mostly 32mm minis, the majority of which aren't hollowed out. When a plate is done I spray it down with recycled IPA from a standard spray bottle, catching the very dirty runoff in a plastic basin.
I then scrape the models off the base plate.
Anything with little to no fragile parts like bases get peeled off the supports. Then the piece gets put in the clean IPA bucket from my wash and cure. Models with supports or that are hollowed out get dipped in used, but sort of clean IPA from a separate bucket. Then put in the wash bucket.
I usually wash for about 10 minutes, remove any supports then cure.
Now what do I do to recycle IPA? I have a series of containers with used IPA the dirtiest from the spray bottle runoff gets dumped in a bottle that I leave where ambient light will cure some of the resin. It then goes into a gallon container to sit. At any time I have about 3 gallons in the process. Every time I transfer to another container I run it through a coffee filter. By the time it reaches the spray bottle it is nearly as clear as new IPA. I can usually get almost two weeks of printing done before needing to clean out the bucket and put new IPA in.
I'm considering distillation, but haven't tried it yet.
None of my IPA looks like the bucket in the video. I start to recycled long before it gets that cloudy
Distillation would be the correct way but you could also try getting it to seperate on its own. I know you said you're impatient and don't want to wait for it but you should be able to put it in a fridge to help speed up the seperation process. Might speed it up dramatically. Might be worth a try.
I have also been experimenting on this and was excited to hear you were looking into this. I'm probably on 400+ resin prints over the last year.
Currently, I pour my waste resin into a 5 litre bottle and let it sit for a week until the next lot of IPA needs putting in. Before I put in the waste IPA, I carefully pour out some of the used IPA without disturbing the sediment at the bottom. It works ok for a second run but needs replacing much faster than virgin IPA.
here in italy we have both isopropil alchool and we also have Denatured ethyl alcohol 90 ° the second one is what i use to clean and its way faster in separating once it separate i simply point a UV light to it and then filter it and then is good to go again
i wonder if you could vacuum funnel the gel mixture to then pull out the IPA
I just had a thought, its not the most ideal solution I would think but what if you got a small centrifuge and ran the dirty IPA through that? You mentioned that the IPA and resin are already separating over time so a centrifuge would just speed that up and create a better separation. Perhaps the resin left after the separation in a centrifuge might even still be usable (although probably not an ideal quality).
I've never tried but I'm sat here thinking could a fish tank filter work? They have lava rock and carbon etc to remove small particles so could you set up a small tank with only ipa and a filter?
Personally, for my big ultrasonic, I designed a little cage that uses 1 or 5 micron home water filters cut into thirds, and a cheap aquarium pump. Don't ever let the tank get super dirty, it is an active filter system running anytime I clean anything. It legit pulls like 99% of the schmutz out of the tank easily. Those filters get GROSS after a while, but the mean green / ipa mix stays perfectly clean for ages.
I was just curious would you be making a video on Elegoo's new plant-based resin?
I will be! Might have that up next week. I need to print a few more things with it first
have you tried using ethanol insted of ipa? i havent tested it myself but someone (fauxhammer video maybe?) mentioned that it clears up better after postcuring
Distillation doesn't need flames or anything in order to work, just simply a hot pad, it looks a little over the top but distillation is your best bet for recovery of solvents in any case. The jelly is caused because you allowed the overall mixture to become too saturated with the resin and when it begins to cure the polymer bonds essentially wrap around the alcohol and trap it inside creating and emulsion gum.
Because there is separation, very brief periods of intense UV and then allowing a separation to occur might result in allowing the ipa time to remove itself from the emulsion.
Or use a small exposure to UV then filter about 10 minutes later, then rinse and repeat
The long chains will get caught in the filter before having the chance to begin to form a jelly like compound
Do you have an update on this? I would love a solution even if it's not perfect
Something I discovered by accident - because the Anycubic Wash and Cure powers on into the "Cure" state I sometimes accidentally cure models I intend to wash.
Well, I came back from the weekend on a Monday and had some prints to wash. The IPA had settled - it's not perfectly clear by any measure, but it's also not completely cloudy. I accidentally started the wash and cure on cure mode, and the gelatin stuff formed in the bottom, and in sheets along the side. Naturally, I had to clean this out. I filtered it through regular resin paper filters and ended up with not perfectly clear IPA, but definitely clearer. The gelatin sheets got caught up in the filter, and the goo at the bottom I DID NOT try to filter, but instead decanted into an empty water bottle and placed outside in the sun to fully cure and ultimately dispose of. Naturally there's some IPA caught up in the gelatin but without a more complex burn/vapor/capture apparatus I don't expect to ever be able to recover that IPA. (I assume alcohol creates a chemical bond with the resin which is why it is an effective cleaner. It can't really be filtered, because it's not flee floating particulate in the IPA.)
So if you decant everything into a separate container - larger is better, the exact same size as the wash and cure basin would be best - and just let it settle, this lazy man method might just work.
Im about to do some tests with this as well. What I have come up with is simply putting the dirty stuff in to a large container then letting it sit and separate. The solids go to the bottom and the rest goes through out. I am then going to use a large sponge to soak up the liquid and hope the solids stay at the bottom. The sponge contents can then be strained in to a filter like that Brita that you had. the solids will then be cured and thrown away. And hopefully I have some clearish reusable IPA.
Did you try diatomaceous earth as a filter aid?
You may need a vacuum filtration setup. I have been doing this after curing my alcohol in the sun.
Feel free to reach out to me and we can chat, I am a chemist and can help.
if they seporate over time, you could probably use a centrifuge to speed up the process, and another filter type i thought of, is fuel. im guessing if the filters youve tried cant filter out the resin greyness, they arent fine enough, or the particle size is the same as the ipa.
i do wonder if the distilling idea would work too, but just using the sun and some black paper or white paper to direct as much energy as you can into your ipa container, but without flame :)
Not sure how much of the resin base it takes out, I use sodium metabisulfite as a flocculant 1/2 tsp per qt drops the color out over night
Curing the ipa actually does work.
The reason it's not working for you is you're not letting it settle before curing it.
That makes the resin form it's polymer chains and cross links with heaps of isopropyl alcohol trapped in a matrix.
Personally I let it sit for a week for some of the longer settling resin and two weeks for this really cheap anycubic resin I have.
If you can't let it sit you may not have an option here, this is the main way we clean water it in massive settling pools.
We do this because it is one of the best and cheapest methods we have.
I'd highly recommend you get yourself a big bucket and buy more ipa. When it's saturated, pour it into the big bucket and leave it for a week, two if you can, then use that new ipa you have. Once the old ipa has settled out, give it a good curing then filter through a coffee filter. Bam cleaner ipa, you need two or maybe more 'sets' of ipa because it neeeeeds to settle. I use a 7L resin wash for my primary dirty wash then 3L for my clean, and my clean wash looks brand new after hundreds of hours. Probably because I regularly settle, cure, and filter my big wash, about once every two months.
The amount of resin you wash in also obviously helps to keep it usable for longer.
I'm not sure which specific resin you're using, but you can lookup the sds for it and find out what the primary monomer being used is. Then the navier stokes settling equation can tell you exactly how long you need to let your resin sit. Although keep in mind the particle size is likely one monomer long, hence the settling time of weeks.
Good luck but patience is the best thing to clean your resin with, but I get that might not work for you and your busy schedule
What about the portable filter that you see on TV where it shows someone drinking from a creek but the creek water is being filtered
Every 500g resin I stand the IPA in an upside down water bottle on the windowsill for a couple of days. The resin settles in the top of the bottle and pours out fairly clean from 2 poked holes in the bottom of the bottle, the gel gets stuck in the narrow cap area of the bottle. Easy discard after that. First time I tried the bottle in direct sun and the resin stayed in suspension and would not drop out. I suspect the same is happening in the curing station. No filters have worked for me at all.