RE: RPC Resins

From: jbondy@howmet.com
Date: Wed Feb 06 2002 - 21:09:44 EET


John/Jason and list:

We spent most of last year testing RPC 100ND in our three SLA5000s. We
build almost exclusively in Quickcast patterns as we are an investment
casting foundry. Each year, we average about 1,000 Quickcast patterns.

We too were attracted to RPC because of its speed and cost. In the end,
however, several problems caused us to switch over to Vantico 7520. Some
of these problems included vat life and finishing. The problems with vat
life lead to drainage and green strength issues which we felt needed to be
overcome. Our finishing department people got to hating anything done in
RPC when compared with 7520.

As a result, our testing with the 7520 resin proved it to be just as fast
(if not faster - no Z wait as well) at a reasonable cost, longer vat life
and easier finishing.

Jeff Bondy
Howmet Corporation

From: "Jason L. Dickman" <jdickman@sharedreplicators.com> on 02/04/2002
      03:40 PM

Please respond to jdickman@sharedreplicators.com

|--------------------|
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To: "Huck, John" <jhuck@cessna.textron.com>
      rp-ml@rapid.lpt.fi
cc:

Subject: RE: RPC Resins

John,
For the last year we have been doing beta-tests for the RPC resins (700,
300
& 600) in our SLA-7000s- basically the same machine as your 5000 except
without the dual-spot feature. As with any new material I was skeptical at
first but overall the RPC family of resins have proved to be an asset to
our
operations. Here are a few of my observations:

The good stuff...

Very fast- some parts can be run without any pre-dip or z-wait. In general
we set our pre-dip to 10-15 seconds and z-wait to 0.

Great process latitude- params are not fixed one way or another. The resins
allows you to do things that Vantico resins could not. (i.e. Friday at 4:59
pm -you can push the machine without crashing!)

700ND and 300ND both work well in foundry applications. We have run over
100
investment cast parts and have not seen any issues with this resin.
Stainless, Aluminum, Steel, Nickel...

Quick-Cast parts drain well.

600ND- despite it flexible nature builds are rather stable without tons of
supports.

Fine point supports build nice and are easily removed.

Before February 18th RPC is still a 3rd party resin supplier.

Good price!

_______________________
Bad stuff...

Faster resins may have a shorter vat life. This varies on what you run in
your machine.

Warping on very small parts is hard to control as the resin is fast.

No water-clear type product???

300ND needs both UV and Thermal curing (you need an oven to control temp
and
time) to obtain the advertised Tg.

After February 18th, 3D Systems owns RPC.

_____________________________________________
Overall the RPC resins are great. Anyone running a SLA using any other
resin
would be foolish not to at least investigate the RPC products. Faster
builds, cheaper resin.

go to www.rpc.ch for more info.

Jason

______________________________________
Jason L. Dickman
VP Lab Operations
Shared Replicators, Inc.
3638 South Memorial Dr.
Tulsa, OK USA
       74145
Voice: 918-270-8923
Fax: 918-622-1138
Web: jdickman@sharedreplicators.com

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-rp-ml@rapid.lpt.fi [mailto:owner-rp-ml@rapid.lpt.fi]On
Behalf Of Huck, John
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2002 1:11 PM
To: rp-ml@rapid.lpt.fi
Subject: RPC Resins

I'm looking to the RPML for help? Here at Cessna Aircraft in Wichita,
Kansas we have a SLA5000 running Vantico's SL5195 resin. We would like to
change to a RPC resin that eliminates the 30 second pre-dip delay required
by the SL5195 resin. Before we change over I would like to get information
from other SLA5000 users who are also using the RPC resins such as the
100ND
or 300ND. Some general questions we have are listed below. I would like
to
ask more detailed questions directly so please email me call at the number
listed.

     Has any SLA5000 users used RPC100 ND or RPC300 ND for investment
castings? More specifically for thin walled (.040 to .100) castings?

     Does RPC300 ND resin need post curing? If so, how is this done? Do
the parts warp in this post processing? Do the parts become very brittle?

John L. Huck, Jr.
Cessna Aircraft Company
5800 East Pawnee
Wichita, Kansas 67218
316.831.2455
316.831.3846 Fax

For more information about the rp-ml, see http://rapid.lpt.fi/rp-ml/

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