So I don’t do resin printing a whole lot but when I do I have my own homemade recycling set up. It’s by no means as professional as this one but it does work extremely well. I will also say you don’t want to use this kind of setup anywhere other than a well ventilated area like outside. Essentially all you need is an adjustable water/alcohol distillation unit (I got mine on Amazon for ~$100) and ten some jugs to capture the ipa. The thing I’m going to try after seeing his video is using some Hdpe trash bags to capture the mess of a resin cake it leaves behind… that is the biggest mistake I made at the beginning, not having a protective layer between the tank and the dirty ipa.
@@dakotacampbell6753 I've also been curious about the cheap water distillers. I'm not sure exactly what these bags are made of, but I might look into it when I buy a water distiller for testing.
@@emberprototypes I'm using a water distiller for more than six months, and it works great. But as it could be a fire hazard, you need to have a fire extinguisher nearby. I have calculated I'd lose around 5 to 15% of alcohol in the process : regarding the initial weight, the resin trash weight, and the pure alcohol weight, something is missing everytimes. But it still totally worth it. But I didn't used a bag and the resin leftovers sticking on the metalic surface are hard to remove. Using this bag should improve my process, thanks for the idea.
@@Meowcate that is definitely a pretty major hazard. a water distiller will be trying to get the "water" up to 100degrees. but alcohol will never reach that so unless you have one with a temperature control it will try to boil the liquid to 100 before it shuts off. Depending on what the weather is like where you live it can be relatively easy to recycle with a solar distiller. all you need is an airtight clear plastic container, that youre able to fit a black plastic container inside of. Put your dirty resin in the black plastic container, put it in the clear container. seal it. and put it somewhere were sunlight will hit the black plastic. That will heat the alcohol enough to evaporate it, and it will condense on the inside of the clear plastic container and then pool at the bottom of it. So it can be helpful to print a little stand/plate out of gyroidal infill for the black container to sit on so it will hold it above the pooled alcohol, so the black container doesn't float and tip over. If you need to recycle larger volumes then build a couple of them,
I appreciate how thoroughly you describe your processes. I'm very interested in hearing about an in depth look into UV curing your resin contaminated solvent to remove the resin. There are a few videos on RUclips where people have built a system that pumps the dirty solvent through clear tubing that's got UV lights surrounding it followed by a set of filters to remove the cured resin from the solvent. The solvent does come out clear, but your statement that it may not be actually pure solvent (IPA) could be true. The recycler is spendy, but looks like it works great. Definitely worth it for a business with a lot of output. Thanks for creating and sharing your videos. They're great.
Thanks so much for watching and the positive feedback 🙏 And yes, I do intend to do some testing to prove or disprove all the non-scientific "recycling" methods out there.
@@HardCoil yes, and how much of it can you actually cure, if any. I'll be making a video or two on this in the future and talking to a chemist friend 🙂
Very informative and enlightening video and just as it has been mentioned prior it would be interesting to see something like this for those that are just hobbyist. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for this! It was very interesting to see the process that you use. I'm only just spinning up the printers again after a break of two years, but I have been very keen on this particular bit of kit. I think it's definitely going to be a worthwhile investment, once I get to the point where I can move to a larger premises!
Nice setup! As stated in your video about handling resin, there opt to be a cheaper route to clean the prints in 2-3 stages where IPA99% is the last stage. I'm using rubbing alchohol 75% on prewash and secondary washing stage before the ipa, and the resin sink to the bottom due to sedimantation. This way the cost is greatly reduced.
1 - 99% anhydrous IPA from MG Chemicals. 2 - Highly dependent how what we print, I actually don't really keep track of the number of cycles...once parts start requiring additional time to get clean it's an indication that I'll need to recycle soon.
@@retromodernart4426 Yes these low cost water distillers exist...I've been meaning to buy one and play around with it actually. The issue is that resin precipitate gets left at the bottom and can cake/burn, which I imagine could lead to problems down the road or potential safety hazards.
@@undertow92182 everyone keeps commenting on how cheap IPA is by the gallon...I must be getting ripped off here in Canada (though I buy the really good 99% anhydrous stuff from a legit chemical company)
As you said so many benefits to bringing this process in house, namely they way the third party you were using before was far more wasteful. As a workflow I am curious if it still wouldn't be better to have 50% or more of the IPA over your need so the machine is not down for all two cycles of the machine. I suppose that depends how heavy your print volume is and if it being down for that time impacts your ability to deliver on time. Either way thanks for showing this process and that it can be done, if not yet at the small at home scale, at least at the small to medium business scale.
Yes the way I do this definitely results in down time , but it's really not too bad. It doesn't prevent me from actually printing parts (which is the most time consuming)...so I can print parts and leave them ready to be washed once the recycling cycles are completed. I also don't run the printers all the time, so I intentionally choose to recycle when I don't have work for example. The convenience factor of having it in-house is through the roof! 😅
What is the cost break down between buying fresh/disposal price vs how many cycles to break even? Any service or expected hours of life on the distiller? Looks like a nice option.
I recycle around 60L of IPA each time...maybe 4-6 times a year depending on how much work I have. Each 20L barrel of anhydrous 99% MG Chemical IPA is around $200 CAD for me. I could get it cheaper if I bought giant drums of it, but I don't have space to safely keep that amount. So within a year that's around $2400-3600 CAD. Considering I purchased the machine for around $3000, it's paid itself off many times already and is more convenient and better for the environment.
@@emberprototypes Did you ever look at Methyl Alcohol instead of IPA? I use Methyl Hydrate(99.9% Methyl Alcohol) that I get from the hardware store(Used as a cleaner for shellac, or as a anti freeze) for $13 CDN/4L. Works out to roughly 1/3 the price of the IPA you listed above, and is often cheaper with discount. It does require a bit more care as it is more poisonous, but it's not hard with all other precautions being used with the printing process. It cleans better than IPA, and evaporates faster as well.
@@grazingshot honestly have not because IPA is what most people use (including industrial printers). I've tried TPM before but it's very oily and required a post IPA wash to evaporate which means keeping two solvents...so not really that convenient. Interesting to know about an alternative!
A lot of hazardous wastes are simply incinerated. IPA in particular breaks down to CO2 and water. The real hazard would be the resin itself, so you should probably let them know that it's contaminated with liquid UV resin in particular, although they might not know enough about it to have a specific procedure for it.
The closest thing you'll get to a DIY option for something like this is likely a $100 distiller from Amazon. They don't have much capacity, and likely lack the convenience and safety features of a system like this, but at least they're relatively cheap. I don't think there's actually much risk to doing so, but I'd still run it outside with an extinguisher just in case.
@@AuntJemimaGames this is correct. This recycler is just distillation, which boils the IPA and condenses it down into a container. The leftovers remain in a bag for disposal. You *could* do this with cheap DIY stills, but not recommended due to safety hazards (fumes, explosion, fire). These recyclers are certified to be explosion proof and are extremely reliable and well encapsulated. They also are meant to work with the bags which prevent resin junk from sitting at the bottom of a still tank and burning into oblivion.
that's neat, but honestly I'm too scared of fire hazard to try to distil ethanol at home I know it's not making it brand new, but I do hope that my 3 wash system and sunlight baths/settling cycles are extending my solvents' lifespan, let me cope
Haven't had to, but it's definitely made for a variety of solvents. You can set the temperature accordingly for solvents that have different boiling temps. These things are often used in automotive shops (in fact I bought it from an automotive reseller haha)
So distilling IPA has a place. And yes that is the best way to get your IPA pure. Most people don't need their IPA to be pure because most of the time the the IPA is still concentrated enough to do its job. if your wash bath is 3 liters and its 99% by volume. You can add almost 500ml before the concentration is below what would be recommended for cleaning Resin prints. Not taking into account you need to top off the IPA since some of it will stick to the print etc so you will top it off over time. If you wait for the excess resin to drip off and have 2 ml of resin sticking to the print. That means you can do 250 washes before that alcohol is no longer viable. if you do a clean dirty wash you can get even more washes. The IPA will become cloudy long before that because of pigments. So removing that pigment means you can do more washes without replacing the still viable alcohol. For most hobbyists, the alcohol is still over 90% IPA which is why this settling and sun stuff works. The needs of hobbyists vs business are different.
Unless im missing something, this is just a distillation process? Just heat up the ip and it will evaporate , cool it down and you have your ipa again.
No, you’re right. Solvent recyclers often use a vacuum pump as well as heat, to reduce the boiling point of the solvent and so require less heat energy to evaporate and it’s much safer, cos the solvent only needs to be heated to 40 °C or so.
Nice! Wish there was a smaller version, can’t justify $5k+ for my low volume. Very cool that you can recycle in a responsible manner
Yeah there totally needs to be a smaller more affordable version of this out there. Thanks for watching!
So I don’t do resin printing a whole lot but when I do I have my own homemade recycling set up. It’s by no means as professional as this one but it does work extremely well. I will also say you don’t want to use this kind of setup anywhere other than a well ventilated area like outside.
Essentially all you need is an adjustable water/alcohol distillation unit (I got mine on Amazon for ~$100) and ten some jugs to capture the ipa. The thing I’m going to try after seeing his video is using some Hdpe trash bags to capture the mess of a resin cake it leaves behind… that is the biggest mistake I made at the beginning, not having a protective layer between the tank and the dirty ipa.
@@dakotacampbell6753 I've also been curious about the cheap water distillers. I'm not sure exactly what these bags are made of, but I might look into it when I buy a water distiller for testing.
@@emberprototypes I'm using a water distiller for more than six months, and it works great. But as it could be a fire hazard, you need to have a fire extinguisher nearby.
I have calculated I'd lose around 5 to 15% of alcohol in the process : regarding the initial weight, the resin trash weight, and the pure alcohol weight, something is missing everytimes. But it still totally worth it.
But I didn't used a bag and the resin leftovers sticking on the metalic surface are hard to remove. Using this bag should improve my process, thanks for the idea.
@@Meowcate that is definitely a pretty major hazard. a water distiller will be trying to get the "water" up to 100degrees. but alcohol will never reach that so unless you have one with a temperature control it will try to boil the liquid to 100 before it shuts off.
Depending on what the weather is like where you live it can be relatively easy to recycle with a solar distiller.
all you need is an airtight clear plastic container, that youre able to fit a black plastic container inside of. Put your dirty resin in the black plastic container, put it in the clear container. seal it. and put it somewhere were sunlight will hit the black plastic. That will heat the alcohol enough to evaporate it, and it will condense on the inside of the clear plastic container and then pool at the bottom of it.
So it can be helpful to print a little stand/plate out of gyroidal infill for the black container to sit on so it will hold it above the pooled alcohol, so the black container doesn't float and tip over.
If you need to recycle larger volumes then build a couple of them,
I appreciate how thoroughly you describe your processes. I'm very interested in hearing about an in depth look into UV curing your resin contaminated solvent to remove the resin. There are a few videos on RUclips where people have built a system that pumps the dirty solvent through clear tubing that's got UV lights surrounding it followed by a set of filters to remove the cured resin from the solvent. The solvent does come out clear, but your statement that it may not be actually pure solvent (IPA) could be true. The recycler is spendy, but looks like it works great. Definitely worth it for a business with a lot of output. Thanks for creating and sharing your videos. They're great.
Thanks so much for watching and the positive feedback 🙏
And yes, I do intend to do some testing to prove or disprove all the non-scientific "recycling" methods out there.
@@emberprototypes I guess the question is if you can actually really cure resin that's suspended in IPA
@@HardCoil yes, and how much of it can you actually cure, if any. I'll be making a video or two on this in the future and talking to a chemist friend 🙂
Very informative and enlightening video and just as it has been mentioned prior it would be interesting to see something like this for those that are just hobbyist. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for watching!
Thanks for this! It was very interesting to see the process that you use.
I'm only just spinning up the printers again after a break of two years, but I have been very keen on this particular bit of kit. I think it's definitely going to be a worthwhile investment, once I get to the point where I can move to a larger premises!
Yeah if you can afford it and your amount of IPA use justifies it, it's an amazing addition to have IMO!
Nice setup! As stated in your video about handling resin, there opt to be a cheaper route to clean the prints in 2-3 stages where IPA99% is the last stage. I'm using rubbing alchohol 75% on prewash and secondary washing stage before the ipa, and the resin sink to the bottom due to sedimantation. This way the cost is greatly reduced.
Great video, 2 questions:
1. What percent IPA are you all using?
2. How many was cycles can you get out of a single IPA bath before cleaning?
1 - 99% anhydrous IPA from MG Chemicals.
2 - Highly dependent how what we print, I actually don't really keep track of the number of cycles...once parts start requiring additional time to get clean it's an indication that I'll need to recycle soon.
Someone needs to make one of these solvent recyclers for home/hobbyist use! I'd love to have one, but at $6000,it's too expensive for me.
Yeah these are definitely out of reach for most consumers...one day!
@@emberprototypesThose Uniram machines, yes,. but not a regular electric distiller, see my comment for more details.
@@retromodernart4426 Yes these low cost water distillers exist...I've been meaning to buy one and play around with it actually. The issue is that resin precipitate gets left at the bottom and can cake/burn, which I imagine could lead to problems down the road or potential safety hazards.
Yeah, $6k+ to recycle something that is about $16 a gallon is a hard sell.
@@undertow92182 everyone keeps commenting on how cheap IPA is by the gallon...I must be getting ripped off here in Canada (though I buy the really good 99% anhydrous stuff from a legit chemical company)
As you said so many benefits to bringing this process in house, namely they way the third party you were using before was far more wasteful. As a workflow I am curious if it still wouldn't be better to have 50% or more of the IPA over your need so the machine is not down for all two cycles of the machine. I suppose that depends how heavy your print volume is and if it being down for that time impacts your ability to deliver on time. Either way thanks for showing this process and that it can be done, if not yet at the small at home scale, at least at the small to medium business scale.
Yes the way I do this definitely results in down time , but it's really not too bad. It doesn't prevent me from actually printing parts (which is the most time consuming)...so I can print parts and leave them ready to be washed once the recycling cycles are completed. I also don't run the printers all the time, so I intentionally choose to recycle when I don't have work for example. The convenience factor of having it in-house is through the roof! 😅
What is the cost break down between buying fresh/disposal price vs how many cycles to break even? Any service or expected hours of life on the distiller? Looks like a nice option.
I recycle around 60L of IPA each time...maybe 4-6 times a year depending on how much work I have. Each 20L barrel of anhydrous 99% MG Chemical IPA is around $200 CAD for me. I could get it cheaper if I bought giant drums of it, but I don't have space to safely keep that amount.
So within a year that's around $2400-3600 CAD. Considering I purchased the machine for around $3000, it's paid itself off many times already and is more convenient and better for the environment.
No maintenance costs yet AFAIK. The only costs are electricity (negligible) and the bags, which are consumables but incredibly cheap (I think $5 each)
@@emberprototypes Did you ever look at Methyl Alcohol instead of IPA? I use Methyl Hydrate(99.9% Methyl Alcohol) that I get from the hardware store(Used as a cleaner for shellac, or as a anti freeze) for $13 CDN/4L. Works out to roughly 1/3 the price of the IPA you listed above, and is often cheaper with discount.
It does require a bit more care as it is more poisonous, but it's not hard with all other precautions being used with the printing process. It cleans better than IPA, and evaporates faster as well.
@@grazingshot honestly have not because IPA is what most people use (including industrial printers). I've tried TPM before but it's very oily and required a post IPA wash to evaporate which means keeping two solvents...so not really that convenient. Interesting to know about an alternative!
I've seen someone use a water distiller. They're not cheap though. The cheapest temperature controlled ones I see on Amazon is about $80.
Good to know - Thanks!
A lot of hazardous wastes are simply incinerated. IPA in particular breaks down to CO2 and water. The real hazard would be the resin itself, so you should probably let them know that it's contaminated with liquid UV resin in particular, although they might not know enough about it to have a specific procedure for it.
Yes, I always used to let them know and provided the necessary TDS & SDS. Pretty crazy that this is normal though.
Next video: "Using URS500 Solvent Recycler to make a moonshine"
😂😂😂
think i saw your reddit post earlier
So - how does it work, and can someone DIy it on a smaller scale?
The closest thing you'll get to a DIY option for something like this is likely a $100 distiller from Amazon. They don't have much capacity, and likely lack the convenience and safety features of a system like this, but at least they're relatively cheap.
I don't think there's actually much risk to doing so, but I'd still run it outside with an extinguisher just in case.
@@AuntJemimaGames What safty features does this have that you're referring to? Can you elarobrate? Or were you just taking a wild guess?
@@GeorgeGraves any chance of a spark or too much pressure could ignite the vapour inside the cheap distiller as its only meant for water
@@krosscross Is it normal to have spark or pressure inside a distiller? How does pressure ignite vapours?
@@AuntJemimaGames this is correct. This recycler is just distillation, which boils the IPA and condenses it down into a container. The leftovers remain in a bag for disposal.
You *could* do this with cheap DIY stills, but not recommended due to safety hazards (fumes, explosion, fire). These recyclers are certified to be explosion proof and are extremely reliable and well encapsulated. They also are meant to work with the bags which prevent resin junk from sitting at the bottom of a still tank and burning into oblivion.
that's neat, but honestly I'm too scared of fire hazard to try to distil ethanol at home
I know it's not making it brand new, but I do hope that my 3 wash system and sunlight baths/settling cycles are extending my solvents' lifespan, let me cope
Have you used it for any solvents other than IPA?
Haven't had to, but it's definitely made for a variety of solvents. You can set the temperature accordingly for solvents that have different boiling temps. These things are often used in automotive shops (in fact I bought it from an automotive reseller haha)
What kind of plastic bags are you using? HDPE?
I buy them from Uniram, not exactly sure what the material is.
I have tried the Sun curing method twice - both times when I have washed parts later they get covered in Gum. Does not work
What about using molecular sieves to filter the isopropanol or the monimers out of solution?
Not sure it that would get the monomers and stuff out...but I've heard it's good for getting water out of the IPA
Sieves have far too small a pore size for absorbing monomers. And you definitely don’t want to do it the other way around!
@@mduckernz Thanks!
aluminum sulfate and decanting
*looks at how my IPA is dirty*
Yeah its still good
😂😂😂
So distilling IPA has a place. And yes that is the best way to get your IPA pure. Most people don't need their IPA to be pure because most of the time the the IPA is still concentrated enough to do its job. if your wash bath is 3 liters and its 99% by volume. You can add almost 500ml before the concentration is below what would be recommended for cleaning Resin prints. Not taking into account you need to top off the IPA since some of it will stick to the print etc so you will top it off over time. If you wait for the excess resin to drip off and have 2 ml of resin sticking to the print. That means you can do 250 washes before that alcohol is no longer viable. if you do a clean dirty wash you can get even more washes. The IPA will become cloudy long before that because of pigments. So removing that pigment means you can do more washes without replacing the still viable alcohol. For most hobbyists, the alcohol is still over 90% IPA which is why this settling and sun stuff works. The needs of hobbyists vs business are different.
Unless im missing something, this is just a distillation process? Just heat up the ip and it will evaporate , cool it down and you have your ipa again.
No, you’re right. Solvent recyclers often use a vacuum pump as well as heat, to reduce the boiling point of the solvent and so require less heat energy to evaporate and it’s much safer, cos the solvent only needs to be heated to 40 °C or so.
Correct. It's just a very reliable, safe, and well designed system that does solvent distillation.
whats the recovery %? 90%+?
This is actually something that I've been unsure about until recently purchasing some NIST calibrated hydrometers...so I'll find out soon!
Pretty unsafe way to operate a machine i.e heating a flammable solvent. There’s a router next to it.
@@MrRahulgore these are industrial grade explosion proof machines that are made for solvent distillation.