Experimenting with Acetone exposure

How long was your exposure? Did you do it all at once or did you smooth it over several sessions. It looks really good. Some Kapton tape on the ceramic tile might help with the sticking issue...

TiM

I use kapton on the bottom of the steamer basket in mine, the prints come off fairly easily.  I only keep it in while the acetone is boiling, maybe 40 sec.  If you shut off the heat and leave it in, then the vapor will settle and you will get more smoothing at the bottom.  Better to have exposure while the vapor is evenly distributed in the pot.  I let it dry 20 minutes or so before giving it another short shot or two, then leave it for a few hours to harden up again.  I figure a series of brief exposures will save detail better than a more intense melt.

Tried an experiment with the acetone bath technique and had some very unusual results, which perhaps someone can use.

Here's the vapor bath setup I use.  It's a canning pot with the rack for holding mason jars in place, which holds the print up out of the acetone.  I use an old circular saw blade as a base to set the print on, since the rack is too big for most items.

And here's a print I was going to smooth.  This was going to be my first "good" print to smooth, as opposed to a failed print I pulled out of the trash solely for testing.  But it was also one I could live without.

In my previous tests, the print melted enough to stick to the saw blade so firmly I almost broke it trying to pry it off, even after letting it sit for hours.  So I decided to do an experiment.  I sprayed a layer of non-stick cooking spray on the saw blade first, then set up the acetone in the pot, set the blade down on it (non-stick side up), and then put the print on top of it.  Four minutes on heat using the trusty one-burner propane cooktop on low, then let it sit for about six hours.  And...

My guess is the oil somehow got into the vapor and created this interesting speckled effect all over the entire print... except, amusingly, on the bottom surface.  Don't know how; the spray didn't get onto the print before vaporizing (it wasn't even in the room when I sprayed it).

It's an interesting look and maybe someone will think of an application where this is a positive.  It's not ideal for this nameplate, though.  I wonder what would happen if I put the same nameplate into another bath (without the non-stick spray).  I suppose there's nothing to lose by trying.

I'm trying to use an small crockpot for my acetone bath and having poor results. I put a good amount of acetone in the bottom of the pot and turned it on high until I saw moisture on the lid. Inserted three printed parts sitting on tin foil. After 20m the parts are not smoothed, only appear to be beginning to have a shiny surface, and began forming bubbles. Really should have started experimenting with this using scrap pieces

Bubbles appear on the bottom of this piece, but were found on the bottom, top, and middle of others.

Ya I think I left the heat on too long. Also, I watched a video where they kept the part in there for something like 45m. Try, try, and try again   Thanks for the input Ian

My previous attempts didn't even get that much softening with four minutes on heat and six hours in the can.  Odd that with nothing else changed, I need to do a tenth as much exposure to get more softening.  I wonder if I'm ever going to figure this stuff out.

This is the previous test under the same heat and exposure levels:

To get the best results from the vapor bath, it's still better to start with .1mm layers.  It's hard to get them completely smoothed at .3mm without several exposures and maybe melting more detail than you would like.  If I have a simple part I will print at .3 layers, then give it a once over with 80 grit sandpaper.  80 grit removes plenty of plastic, and gets the layers most of the way down, then the vapor finishes it off.