Which clear cover would you make yourself? FDM, resin or CNC? Oh, and check out our CNC Kitchen products at cnckitchen.store/ or at our resellers www.cnckitchen.com/reseller

@cda32

10 ай бұрын

Did you say AluminUm? German passport revoked!

@leopoldogastel

10 ай бұрын

I would go for resin. Best results, easy and cheap. Also there is poor documentation for cnc.

@esurfrider7687

10 ай бұрын

As I’m still learning fusion 360, I don’t know all the best tool path strategies for different parts, I typically only use parallel cuts for my projects because all the other options take to long to calculate for my slow computer, i would go with resin because it’s easier and still quite effective. I am currently testing siraya tech blu clear v2 resin. It looks good, I do t really care if it yellows, I just got the bottle today so still need to dial it in, however I have personally tried nova3D ultra clear and it sucks! It’s a total pain to work with, I just could not get the exposure times to work for me and there were issues but I was a novice at sla when I was experimenting with it so maybe I just didn’t know enough about finding correct exposure settings, but it was still pretty cloudy even when I did get it to print, but yeah maybe less yellowish.

@sierraecho884

10 ай бұрын

Cure the resin in an oxygen inhibitor, then spray paint it with clear PU varnish.

@mrsvcd

10 ай бұрын

I would go for the FDM since it is the cheapest, it only costs a spool of clear petg after all and gets the information across. Resin doesn't look good enough for how messy it is and a CNC of the quality needed is probably another mk4 or two. CNC looks the best but for me not enough to be worth it.

For PETG and acrylic you can use a heat gun to slightly melt the surface to make is clearer.

@TeaObvious

10 ай бұрын

i also had the instant reflex: just torch the acrylic - fire sometimes is the answer :D

@proaudiorestore8926

10 ай бұрын

Came here to say the same thing. Instant clear

@gamende14th

10 ай бұрын

You all beat me to it. Fire for the win! That is usually my go to.

@PresidentElectLeRoy

10 ай бұрын

I had not considered fire. Why not? We use it to get air out of resins.

@phil2082

10 ай бұрын

Just not on polycarbonate.

On acrylic you can easily use flame, just don't overwork it. It's called flame polishing, gives pretty good results

@ruuman

10 ай бұрын

you can't beat it, I get a lot of acrylic guards and parts made, the guys only ever flame polish, the results are perfect.

@BRUXXUS

10 ай бұрын

I was really expecting him to flame polish the part. Few quick passes with a torch and it would have been crystal clear.

@experimental_av

10 ай бұрын

Came to say this, thought it was commonly known.

@LimpiezasMyG

10 ай бұрын

I didnt know and I thank you for this comment. Ill try it!

@ravenmooore

10 ай бұрын

at home, what kind of flame can i use?

For a tip on clear resin, I've seen that adding a couple drops of blue resin to your clear will really help counteract any yellowing. Common practice with detergent and white clothes. Also one of the earliest known "life hacks" that people have used for hundreds of years of white clothes, to add blue dye.

@truantray

10 ай бұрын

Old lady hair trick

@aleksandrbmelnikov

10 ай бұрын

Once used to hide yellow teeth.

@flushroyal970

10 ай бұрын

So to make white ton more cold you just added little bit blue, clever...

@CNCKitchen

10 ай бұрын

Good one! I'll try that.

@dyshin123

10 ай бұрын

@@CNCKitchen if your resin can withstand heat, heat it for 30-60 mins at 50-60 degree celsius, according to some resin manufacturer.

FDM printed is clear enough to show the gears and layers give it vibe that fits well with 3D printer

@Pablo_Arnold

10 ай бұрын

I think it would be a cool option to even offer with the kit from Prusa. It's something they could manufacture easily at their print farm

I felt a great disturbance in the 3D printing community, as if millions of Mk4 warranties suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.

@CNCKitchen

10 ай бұрын

May the Mk4th be with you.

While I too like the CNC aesthetic, I’d probably work out-of-the-box and try casting clear acrylic in a FDM mold.

@MachineManGabb

10 ай бұрын

Resin mold, acrylic cast

@conorstewart2214

10 ай бұрын

Youw would still end up with any layer lines or inperfections in the cast part so you would have to smooth the mold a lot before you use it.

@castform57

10 ай бұрын

Make the mold in ABS or similar, and then do a light acetone vapor bath to fuse the layer lines. I've done this once for a cap screw on a boat's engine. Printed the screw in ABS, smoothed with acetone, made a silicone mold of it and cast some tough resin to make the replacement part.

@ziggystardog

10 ай бұрын

@@castform57 yeah that’s the idea. PVB smooths with alcohol if you don’t want to mess with ABS. The problem with printing or machining a part directly is you’re stuck with the limitations of the material.

That Nova3D Clear Resin really is as good as they say, I have done a lot of Prints with it and its just awesome, how clear it is and stays. No yellowing, even when baking for 20 minutes in UV light

@CNCKitchen

10 ай бұрын

Nice one! I might actually buy a bottle.

HA! I did the same thing for my MK4 and XL about 2 weeks ago. It was one of the first things I did because I wanted to see the gears. I did the FDM method (using your older video) though it's not as transparent. But the good news is I can always reprint them. Glad to see someone else do this.

@CNCKitchen

10 ай бұрын

Great to hear. I actually already did the first clear cover only a couple of days after I got the MK4. I dig the silk screen on the lid, but seeing the gears is even nicer.

@rcmaniac25

10 ай бұрын

@@CNCKitchen I like the Silk screen too, so I did a MMU print to re-add it. BTW, what oil did you use? As I want to do that to try and get things clearer

Good video! I'm sure a lot of people have considered this topic. In my experience there are clear resins that don't yellow. The Anycubic clear is a good example, as long as the vat is completely cleans of the tints from a previous resin it'll stay nice and clear, adding a little blue resin tint can also help keep some resins from noticeably yellowing. After the sanding of a clear resin part coating it with a clear gloss spray paint will make it transparent too.

@MaximilianonMars

10 ай бұрын

Very good tips, thank you !

@jimurrata6785

10 ай бұрын

Any of those 'ceramic' coatings that come with headlamp polish kits work well with a rylic and polycarbonate too.

I think the FDM print suits the reprap stylings of the Prusa really well, but aesthetically I think the CNC part looks so clean and professional. Printing on clean glass with a nice even spray of hairspray also makes it so the bottom layer is extremely transparent.

Another option you should use when 3d printing clear filament is ironing and increase top layers to an imaginary number like 50,000 so every layer is treated as a top layer. I'd also recommend a clear lithium grease for the planetary gear. It looks dry which is good for the video but not good for the gear. I love the cnc machine. I'd like to learn more about it like price and how it could be modified for rigidity and to cut other materials at higher precision.

@ShadowVipers

9 ай бұрын

The price I think is over 5k per machine, I saw it when it hit kickstarter.

@jeremiahembs5343

9 ай бұрын

Thank you friend @@ShadowVipers

@jens5906

7 ай бұрын

Currently working on a project where we have a lot of trouble because lithium grease is attacking the plastic (swelling it and making it brittle, most likely due to the base formulation not the lithium salt itself). So you might want to check material compatibility first! :)

@jeremiahembs5343

7 ай бұрын

@@jens5906 Good tip. Thanks!

Try using some 2k clear gloss spray paint on those parts. It really makes transparent resin prints stay clear and not yellow. Also cure the resin in a glass jar full of water to prevent yellowing.

I love the look of the FDM. Something about seeing those lines make it honest to the materials and making process. The fact that the lines obscure the view a little bit works in favor of seeing the black gasket that hides portion of the gears inside

"...and play with yourself" was meant to b; and play with it yourself. You gotta love what gets lost in translation sometimes. Nice vid, love how clear and clean you make them and honest results with fixes.

Another option could be to use some cut glass and FDM print a frame for it to screw or slide into

Resin turned the best one in this vid! so many useful comments, love the community behind

And next week part 2: Injection molding, glass etching and blowing.

@michaels3003

10 ай бұрын

Nice.

Hi Stephan. This is the first time I feel I have something to advice to you. Your videos are fantastic and I’ve been following them for years. Recently I started my way on Resin 3D printing after years of using FDM. I used SirayaTech blue clear V2 that also yellowish. They recommend bathing for 20 minutes on a 60 degrees Celsius water bath and then expose to sunlight for 30 mins. I haven’t have the time to do so, but leaving the piece to sunlight for some days do clears it a lot. I’ll let you know the results once I follow the manufacturers advice. Thanks a lot for the effort in providing tech oriented videos to the community for such a long time. Very well appreciated !.

Resin FTW. I was surprised how much better it looked than the others. I’m also surprised you didn’t mention the easiest fix. A quick spray of clear coat paint. It fills in all the roughness and dries clean and tough.

Against the usual advice, I print flat functional parts using resin without angling them and adding supports. This actually works great for me 90% or more of the time. I wish people would just try it before resorting to angling the prints.

@jeremiahembs5343

10 ай бұрын

That works fine if you don't have any overhangs or use a slope for them but your base can be a little wide if your bottom layer exposure time isn't tuned

@MPTurtleman

10 ай бұрын

It also can greatly reduce print time.

Hitting acrylic with a torch (briefly) or a heat gun (a bit longer) will also smooth out the surface, to a significant degree. You can also use acetone to smooth it out.

to get a really clear machined part, tooling, speeds and feeds are beyond critical. Best for that is a really sharp endmill, like the acrylic line from datron, or even their diamond line. I use a cvd two flute for that but depending on the features of the part, especially lead in and out are difficult to get clear. for facing i like their 2 flute polished cornerradii facemills, such a nice finish. Greetings from the zellerfeld r&d machining guru :D

Not sure if you already have a video on something like this, but I'd love more depth on how you used Fusion to create the model based on the STL! Would definitely come in handy for many things!

I prefer the FDM PETG print because it fits with the rest of the printed parts. Great Video!

While I liked the acrylic piece standalone, I think the resin component looked best on the MK4 as it made the surface behind look almost gold!

Such a cool video !! Well done !

Love the CNC cover. It's a great video as always!

I feel like I would prefer the FDM still because.. the appeal to me is knowing its supposed to be clear, but its just a little bit opaque. Of course my favorite translucent tech is usually the purple. I don't quite know how that works, especially when it comes to printing but man I would love to learn more about the COLORED transparent 3d printing stuff. But if you want the clearest-- the acrylic one absolutely SMASHES

Resin looked great!

I work as a print finisher at an SLA Resin printing company and we use accura clearview for any clear parts. Then sand to 800 grit and polish for glass clarity

With a flex plate you can easily print such parts with resin directly flat on the build plate, you don't have to use supports. I've printed bigger ones before without any issues and the surface quality of the bottom is basically polished already

I have printed large pieces with PMMA like resin, from the esun brand, it works perfectly. A true translucent piece after polishing or processing

I love the CNC aesthetic, but considering it's price, I would go with the resin printed.

@CNCKitchen

10 ай бұрын

Honestly, now taking a look at the resin part a second time, it turned out almost better than the CNCd one 😬

I glad you went back to the iconic "guten tag" welcome! :D

With clear resin. I harden them for a very short time, 5 minutes or so. Then just leave it laying around anders the yellowness will fade. When the yellow is gone I put a clear varnish on it. It'll block uv light and prevent it from becoming more yellow

CNC part is the clearest but it's impressive how close you can get with FDM

In my work, we used to use oil cooling for polycarbonates milling to get more transparent finish, i don't know how it works with acrylic but u can try

I think you could get rid of the cloudiness with a butane torch or heat gun. I think the torch would be best because the hot point is highly focused. This means that you could move quickly over the surface and heat only the outside of the part. The heat gun will likely see more part deformation. This is the same method that's used to make ice sculptures clear. By briefly melting the outside of the part the surface remelts and forms crystal structures that are highly transparent.

Thanks for the great video and I like both the CNC and Resin part. I have a CNC, but I'm new to this game and will take time to be able to make one, but it will be a nice challenge for a small part.

I have MK4 to, and its amazing, we are waiting for mmu3 for mk4

I have a small printing company and when I print parts like this with resin, I just print them directly on the build plate. Far less sanding needed that way. They're usually easy enough to just pry/knock off but heating the build plate does the trick if they stick. Better yet, you can get magnetic spring steel sheets that stick to the platform and make printing large flat bottom surfaces directly on the plate easy as pie. Just flex the sheet and everything detaches perfectly.

What i do with clear uv resin is to put a drop or two of blue or green pigment traslucent. It helps camuflage the yellowish and gives you a glass like look.

yeeee new video love u brothra

I hope more Carvera content is coming! I’m waiting for mine to be delivered. 😊

@CNCKitchen

10 ай бұрын

I've got something else in the pipeline. Even though the price tag is quite steep, it had been a breeze to use so far!

@mtwhitley

10 ай бұрын

@@CNCKitchen Fantastic, can't wait! Yes, it's quite steep as you said; but considering the versatility and feature set, I couldn't pass it up. Excited to see what you have coming! :)

that small CNC looks really nice!

@thorgraum1462

10 ай бұрын

visually on the printer i prefer the resin part, but as a CNC operator/programmer i have to say that nothing beats a nice machined part as long as its machinable

You can do a very light clearcoat on the acrylic part, i do it all the time. it might also work on the printed parts

I was going to leave a comment saying to add a few drops of blue tint to the clear resin to prevent yellowing, but I see that many other resin users have beat me to the punch. When it comes to removing the micro abrasions from the CNC tooling on the acrylic, you can, as others have said, heat treat it a little, or "flame polish" it.

If I was making one I would use resin, but instead of oil I’d use a clear gloss. This gave me glass clear results. If I had one I would go CNC though, and see if I could flame polish it.

I would go for the CNC one due to its monolithic material strength - and flame polishability.

I have made water clear resin prints without yellowing. I use elegoo clear tough resin and do not exceed 1 minute final cure. Sand with 600 grit water paper, then 2 coats of clear enamel. Looks like glass and much stronger than FDM. Works great for cosplay jewels

The Carvera looks pretty awesome.

you can get Acrylic 3d printer filament, called PMMA. Use that same technique as before with PETG, and then smooth it with acetone, though if you want to do better, you could flame polish it after the acetone evaporates. I find PMMA sticks to anything and doesn't warp despite needing a 100C bed. But it soaks up quite a bit of water so you do need to dry it

Smooth glass bed works very well for smooth face with your clear petg/pla printing method!

Resin one can be coated with a thin layer of resin (or mix with IPA) for complete transparency instead of sanding and polishing

@sanches2

10 ай бұрын

That's what i do

Fusion360 allows to transform mesh to body. Then you can stich polygons to form one plane. Unfortunately it doesn't work well with rounds and holes. But it is much easier to work with such representation than just mesh.

@sanches2

10 ай бұрын

I was about to wtite the same, but then i figured out that for this simple geometry it ain't worth it:)

Common trick to make the resin print clear and prevent yellowing is to use UV protective 2k clear coat. 1-2 coats of that and it should be good to go.

You could use a slab of borosilicate glass and drill the appropriate holes, or you could do a clear epoxy casting and remove the air bubbles on a pressure pot using a vacuum pump, also buffing those resins in a bench buffer with progressively finer grit compound would really improve the clarity.

Loved the CNC work! I would try to polish for better result 😀

if you "burn" the acrylic part in the kitchen or with a lighter you can obtain a complete clear part. i work with acrylic and thats the way that i use when i sand the acrylic. is the perfect "polish" method because is not abrasive and "melt" the first layer of the acrylic

The acrylic piece can be flame polished, a torch with light passes over the milky surface will make the micro bits sticking up melt and go flat leaving a glass clear surface and it's permanent.

I'd probably do resin. I've used RESIONE G217 Clear ABS-Like Resin for another project and was pretty happy with the result. It's "non-yellowing", but not cheap.

Clearest would be epoxy casting. You can always use your CNC version to help create casting mold.

I produced some cover glasses out of clear resin - coating them with clear coat paint does prevent the yellowing from happening. I had pretty good results using siraya tech blu clear resin.

For the resin if you spray paint it with clear coat it evens out things and will help with the yellowing too.

You can "lick" machined surfaces with a fire, to make em clear. And also you can try to boil the resin printed part to get rid of yellowness.

You asked off the top "which method is easiest?" and my answer to that is "the one that uses the machine you already own." :) I was actually printing dome lenses out of transparent red PETG on my X1C recently. Settings much the same as yours there, except I closed everything up and turned off the aux fan so the internal temp got up over 40C. The result was almost perfectly transparent! Actually, it ended up too transparent, since the lens is supposed to be a diffuser, so I had to try again with 75% infill.

Not sure about the FDM or Resin printed ones but its easy to make machined acrylic clear like the raw stock it was cut from. As long as the machined finish is good, flame polishing will make the machined surfaces as clear as the raw stock was. EDIT: Being a day late to the video, I should have figured that others would have already mentioned the flame polishing aspect with the CNC's acrylic. Regardless though, still worth repeating I suppose since its works so well and is easy as long as you don't stay in once spot long enough to cause blistering... Definitely can take a little bit of time but the results can be amazing.

This is supper cool! Though one potential problem I see with using oil is that dust would probably collect on the part.

The CNC part can be made completely transparent with some clear coat or with chemical polishing, which is a bit of a hassle but works great. And for the yellowing on the resin part, some resins like the Siraya Tech ones have some guidelines to restore its color and depending on the resin, some need a bit of hot air for some minutes for the Fast resins and for the Blu resins you need hot water and then some UV, although the yellowing usually fades after like a week if you don't want to do that. Still, you need to make it transparent with some sanding/clear coat if you print some angles.

Wow that resin one looks stunning, i think i would still prefer the Acrylic one yet. maybe ironing could help the FDM one but i it could remain cloudy... all of them looking good.

Your video inspired me to do something similar. Use the FDM print with some minor sanding, and then make a negative cast to allow for a clear resin pour.

@CNCKitchen

10 ай бұрын

Silicone form or directly into the FDM negative?

@lawells3

10 ай бұрын

@@CNCKitchen Silicone, it adds a step, but I think it may be a cleaner look.

CNC for sure is best but im impressed with the resin final finish along with the FDM

There's the neon transparent PLA of Redline. It was the best clear filament I saw until now. Hate do to advertisement, but I had a bit of a quest for transparent filaments a year ago.

I've recently printed a new x-carriage/fan ducts for my Anycubic Mega S in clear resin and it came out quite clear. The trick I found for that is to cure the part submerged in water. I was too lazy to sand and polish everything so used a clearcoat on everything which won't touch the hotend, though if I'd known that oil trick I would have used that.

Love that cnc!

Very cool cnc part !

For clear resin… ESUN makes a clear resin that doesn’t yellow it’s called PMMA-like resin… and it’s pretty amazing

Well done!

I like them all. I make a fair few mechanical housing and would love to try to make them with transparent filaments. I am going to go back and try to recreate your filament print with my products, mostly to see how transparent I can get mine. I have not tried to carve anything with the CNC mode for my Snapemaker, but I have a pile of polycarbonate someone gave me. On your polycarbonate, you could try micro-gloss. However, it seems you have done very well using machine oil. You could also use micro-mess on the flat surface to increase transparency, but again, you have done well with your finish.

Heat it up with a torch and spray a couple coats of automotive clear coat in a warm environment or heat up the can. You can also cast it in clear resin from making a mold out of the CNCed part. I would do that one.

I am sure the machined part can be painted with a clear coat spray instead of dipping it in oil. Same is usually done on car headlights after their restoration.

Never thought I would get clickbaited by CNCKitchen. Long time fan. 😂

For SLA printing it is possible to print directly on the plate with no supports. The final part has a much cleaner and clear finish. The disadvantage is that it is definitely harder to pull the part out. I also suspect that it causes more wear to the build plate. It might also require some different settings than what you used to for printing normally, but if you really want a clear part it definitely works.

@MaximilianonMars

10 ай бұрын

Flex plates are available for resin printing, which I think eliminates the difficulty of removing parts flat on the buildplate, and the accidental damaging of parts. I installed an off-brand one copying wham bam's design, but haven't actually used it yet

@gabrielbrunoparreira5670

10 ай бұрын

@@MaximilianonMars that's good to know. I no longer need to these prints but it definitely would be nice if I knew that then 😅. I wonder if the flexible plate has some negative effect on the precision of the parts though. I have never seen them before so I don't really know how flexible they are haha.

I just placed an order with Voxel PLA today.

Ahh... you tricked me into watching a carvara comercial! Thank you. I love it!

This is the first video from CNC Kitchen that I’ve watched that has actual CNC content LOL

i've commented this before, but you can get GLASS clear PETG prints using the Salt remelting method. Simply mask over the surfaces you want to be clear with Kapton tape and then remelt like you would normally. the part that comes out will be like glass.

Hey Stefan the trick to getting machined acrylic to look nice is to very quickly blast it with a blue flame. It instantly becomes perfect.

I am inclined to go with FDM mostly since I think that it is the least likely to crack but form an aesthetic point of view I prefer the resin or CNC part.

Mayermakes resin becomes clearer over time! I saw it at Maker Faire by the maker himself. Great stuff for engineering too.

I really like the acrylic one. The CNC part just looks nice. I wonder how it would look if it were flames polished.

I want to get a cnc for myself and I was looking into the carvers machine. Could you do a full video on it! I think that would be really interesting.

I actually think the resin one looks the clearest. I'd be interested to see on made from a resin that doesn't yellow so much when curing.

I've noticed something very interesting about my clear resin for printing (Elegoo's water-washable one) - it turned yellow after printing and curing, just as people warned me it would, so I've used the calibration models I've printed to test how badly overcuring would affect the color. filmed the results for reference, tossed prints on the shelf, and forgot about it. But a couple weeks later I stumbled upon them again, and to my surprise - they almost fully reverted back to being colorless. I guess it's not a common situation where you have a luxury to let your prints just sit on a shelf for half a month, but I thought it is very interesting.

I’m the CNC cover. Look up vapor polishing of acrylic to get a clearer part. I’m my day we used to use MEK. Very unhealthy! Now there is an MEK substitute or you can use acetone. Another GREAT and informative video. Thank you!

The nova 3D uv resin is very good, very clear, and resists yellowing. I use it for printing small clear parts like Head light lenses for model cars. Clear coat the parts with Mr Hobby GX112 UV cut gloss clear coat paint. The clear works similar to your oil but it is permanent and fills all the little gaps making the part super clear, and the UV cut clear coat will also help prevent yellowing over time.

I should say 1) cnc, 2)resin, 3)FDM. Tips for the Yellowing effect Stefan is that you cure it the minimum amount, and then you can paint it with a UV-resistant clear coating, that helps the part from yellowing pretty good :) Anyways, nice work! It reminds me of a Swiss mechanical watch with a window on its back, very beautiful :)

Resin one looks the best. I also need to check those ultra clear ones though.

Printing clear parts with resin requires a good resin (I have booked great results with Resione G217), which you need to warm up before printing. After printing applying a thin coat of resin with a brush makes it ultra clear (the same as your oil). Ofcourse a clear coat is needed to protect it from yellowing by uv Light.