This zWax is good for casting but no good to take pictures for inspection or presentation.

It is hard to see to detect bad spots of print because it is reflective and transparent. 

If UNIZ can come up with more opaque type castable resin, it will be much better. 

Hi Kyu,
Great piece of work.
Do you find the Zwax models are overly soft and can tend to distort when invested?

I try to set longer exposure time like 11sec for 0.05mm layer which makes longer time consuming but yield more clean and solid output with less distortion 

Thanks for that tip, I’ll give it a try on future projects!

Hi Kyu,

I’ve had a lot of trouble finding out how to calculate how much metal I’ll need to cast a zWax ring. My understanding is that with traditional wax, you can weigh the wax to figure out how much of a particular metal you need. Like this:

METAL/WAX FORMULAS

Is this how you cast your piece? Do you know if those metal/wax ratios are the same for zWax?

Thanks for any help you can offer. I’ve printed a ring and I dropped it off to be cast, but they seemed really uncertain about how to measure how much metal to use.

-JJ

Metal comes out little heavier than this ratio. 

Just add 0.5 to this ratio for zWax casting. Gold 10K 13.5 – 1

Also be careful with the estimated metal weight by the volume suggested by your cad program because zWax could come thicker or thinner depends on how old your resin is in the tank and how much your exposure setting is. More frequent exposure to the light makes zWax resin viscosity thicker which will result in a heavier metal outcome. 

Hello Kyu,

We are using the zWax for jewellry applications.

We are printing with 25 and 50 micron layers thickness. But the problem is all the holes are getting filled up with resin. we are using the following parameters

Base 3 layers, 18 sec, low motor speed and 15 mm lift height- 50 micron

4-100 layers, 6.5 sec, lowe motor speed and 8 mm lift- 50 micron

100- last, 25 micron, 5 sec. exposure, low motor speed and 8 mm lift

Attached is the Uniz file, all the features like prongs and holes are getting filled up, prong thickness is variable.

Could you help us know, how are able to handle this.

My mail id is chandan@3digiprints.com, and we are from India.

It’s not only parameter setting problem. The resin becomes less vicus as it gets old and exposed more to the light.

Thicker liquid makes thicker parts. The thicker liquid does not drip down fast enough so it lingers around the small holes and the next UV cycle hits the area before the resin completely dripping out so blocking the holes. 

I always use new liquid when the bottle is 1/2 used. I know it is too expensive but you will save time and precious metal by not making the jewelry too thick. 

I am trying to explorer 3rd party resin to see if I can find more consistent & reliable outcome.  

Thanks for sharing the photos Kyu! We will release a UDP mode zWax resin very soon.