Wash and cure routine not working, prints still tacky

[ScreamingMantis]

uhhh I think I might be doing something wrong with my wash and cure routine. I printed a simple mini base yesterday and it cured looking glossy, but it still felt tacky in my hands and showed fingerprints right away. It’s like the surface never fully hardens even though it looks done. I used the same IPA I’ve been using for a few weeks, did one longer wash around 8 minutes, then cured it for roughly 6 minutes total. It was dry to the eye, but not dry to the touch. For anyone who’s fixed this, what was the simplest change that actually worked? Fresh IPA, shorter wash, longer dry time before curing, longer cure, or switching resins?

 

[ep29030]

Try a longer cure time. I often cure mine 30 minutes now. Another thing you might try is heating the cure area to 35-40C. This helps resin to cure more fully as well. Some resins recommend and elevated temp post-cure after UV light. I use a small heater made for resin printers inside my cure box to do the heating. It is set at 40C. I wash prints off with old iIPA to remove most resin, then drop them in an ultrasonic bath in ipa for 3-5 minutes, followed by 3-5 minutes in water in ultrasonic bath. Then 30 minutes in cure box at 40C with UV light. It gives me consistently good results for my prints, which are small parts most of the time.

 

[Master_Eraqus]

Most of the time tacky for me was dirty IPA. Fresh IPA plus a quick second rinse made a bigger difference than just curing longer. I also started letting it air dry fully before curing.

 

[Alan]

A few weeks old IPA is often the culprit, it can look fine but be too saturated to clean the surface well. The simplest change that fixes it for a lot of people is fresh IPA and more dry time before curing. Do you air dry it fully, or go straight from wash to cure.