Resin Casting Help
I work at a university makerspace that has a jewelry lab. Looking for advice on our lost resin casts. The pendants pictured are from last semester using formlabs resin and printers. Now we use an Elegoo Mars 5 Ultra with Siraya Tech Cast Purple. The ring pictured is the first attempt at a detailed print. Pretty much every silver cast comes out with a surface like that, but alloys like nordic gold turn out much better. Investment used is R&R Plasticast. The burnout is very close to the Formlabs one pictured and is done in a kiln with a fume hood above it. Casting is done on the Kaya Cast system. The holding temperature for our flasks is 1100F and silver is melted in a crucible with a torch and occasional pinches of borax.
Our carving wax molds always turn out great, so we've been considering resin specific variables. Flasks are vacuumed with a shop vac before casting to remove ash or dust and then brought back up to 1100. However, I've seen posts relating this texture to ash caused by poor curing.
Our current curing system is 3 minutes in the ultrasonic with the dirty ipa, and then 5 in the ultrasonic with a much cleaner ipa. However, both of these baths may be too dirty. Then, 15-20 in a Formlabs Cure machine. However, Prints still feel tacky and are not completely matte. Does this mean we need to cure better? I will personally experiment with brand new ipa and glycerin curing this week. One final question is if anyone has input onto how much better perforated flasks perform than solid ones. Thank you!