Curing box for UV resin printing with mirrored interior walls. Large enough to hold a few prints from the Elegoo Mars, with a raised platform to allow miniatures to cure from below as well.
Parts
- The sides and bottom are made from mirrored cardboard sheets.
- The corners are held together with these sweet two-part clips, which allow the bottom to be removed and replaced if resin drips on it.
- The box is lit by this 80W UV floodlight.
- The whole assembly is housed in a 5 gallon bucket.
The cardboard sheets are 6" by 9", and the finished box is a bit larger due to the corners. I cut one sheet to be slightly smaller than 6" by 6" for the bottom.
For the corners, I printed 8 sets of the clips in batches of 4, using some questionable old filament:
The fork fits tightly into the corner and will only survive a few removals, but that’s not a problem if you are replacing the bottom.
Assembly
The cardboard sheets were glued into the corners with Gorilla Glue, then I used a box of nitrile gloves to hold it square while the glue dried:
After the glue had set, I peeled off the protective film and tested it out with the floodlight as a floor. The reflected light was painful after a few seconds:
To make the bottom, I cut one cardboard sheet into a square slightly smaller than the box, then glued the forked halves of each clip onto it. I let the glue set with the clips attached to the rest of the box, to make sure the fit stayed correct.
Results
Light distribution seems to be quite good and prints cure evenly from every direction:
Almost every direction, that is. Minis with bases and other flat bottomed prints had to be tipped on their side for a few minutes to cure the underside. Using Onshape, I designed a small table frame:
After a few hours of printing on the CR-10, it was ready to be wrapped in plastic cling wrap:
While the box reflects well, the light is bright enough to leak through the bucket. After washing the bucket, a layer of this reflective vinyl wrap solved that nicely:
When curing old alcohol, I remove the box entirely and set the mason jars on the foil floor.
The floodlight gets warm while running, but the fan is facing up and keeps it from overheating - even when you forget it overnight. The only downside is the lack of a power switch and the weight.