Best Flexible Resins to Buy
Toughness and rigidity are important requirements for 3D-printed objects. However, toughness and rigidity alone cannot make an object resistant to damage. Flexibility is also required to ensure that the printed object can resist damage due to flexion caused by bending, twisting, or compression. Flexible photopolymers can imitate rubber or elastomers' properties; they usually have high tensile strength and degrees of hardness, measured as Shore A units. The tear strength of flexible resins is also quite high, usually as high as 20 kN/m. Flexible resins make objects with high energy return or cushioning effects, such as footwear components, bicycle saddles, etc.
What are the Advantages of Using Flexible Resin?
Flexible resins aren’t the ideal choice for decorative pieces; although some boast good surface finish, getting a high level of detailing with flexible resins might not be easy. However, flexible resins do have many advantages to offer. The foremost one is the ability to produce 3D objects that retain their structural integrity even after being subjected to bending, compression, and twisting forces. Resisting damage in these cases makes them perfect for applications that call for shock absorption and cushioning. Other applications include soft-touch applications such as grips, handles, seals, gaskets, and so on.
Which Are the Best Flexible Resins?
1. Liqcreate Flexible-X
Are you looking for a flexible resin that will give your 3D-printed objects good flexibility and rebound properties? The Liqcreate Flexible-X is an opaque black flexible photopolymer resin compatible with open MSLA, DLP, and laser-powered 3D printers. It works best in the 385-420 nm range.
The Flexible-X has a low hardness; the hardness of Flexible-X can be expressed as 55 Shore A. Apart from the low hardness, it can also elongate up to 160%. The degradation temperature of this resin is over 250 ℃. It has a tensile strength of 2.4 MPa and a tear strength of 14.9 Kn/m. These properties make Flexible-X the perfect choice for making industrial parts with good flexibility and elasticity. The manufacturer recommends sticking to the established processing parameters for the best results. You can find detailed instructions about 3D Printing with this resin here.
Purchase Link: Matterhackers.
Price: $155
2. Ameralabs TGM-7 Flexible Resin
This resin was specifically made for printing tabletop gaming pieces. Ameralabs TGM-& is a fast-curing flexible resin. This resin offers toughness and resistance along with flexibility. The perfect amalgamation of stiffness, flexibility, and impact resistance ensures that your game pieces can withstand intense gaming sessions. With the TGM-7, you can print your gaming pieces with crisp details, and you won’t have to worry about them being brittle.
The manufacturer has received good reviews from multiple users because of the product's quality and the excellent condition in which the product is packed and shipped. The manufacturer packs the resin in a sturdy bottle and adds a pair of nitrile gloves for safe resin handling. Models made with this resin survived multiple falls onto a hard surface from 12 inches above. These models could also pass flex tests wherein models made with this resin were subjected to flexure.
Purchase Link: AmeraLabs.
Price: $28.54
3. Siraya Tech Tenacious
The Siraya Tech Tenacious is a strong and flexible 3D printing resin that offers strength, flexibility, impact resistance, and a great deal of flexibility. This range of 3D printing filaments gives versatility along with strength, toughness, and flexibility. This resin has a high concentration of polymer, which is why it has outstanding mechanical properties; it also adds significant toughness and flexibility. If you make thin objects with this resin, they can be bent 180 degrees without breaking. On the other hand, thicker objects made with this resin show greater resilience.
Another advantage of the Siraya Tech -Tenacious resin is that it can be mixed with other resins to improve their strength and flexibility. Different variants of the Tenacious resin include the Tenacious Clear, Tenacious Obsidian black, and Tenacious Flex Black. Tenacious Flex Black is the toughest of all, with 70A Shore hardness; it also has a faster rebound and is more flexible than the other two.
Download link: Siraya.tech.
Price: $65/kg
4. Carbon EPU 41
This engineering-grade dual-cure resin has played important roles in major commercial projects such as the Adidas 4D Midsole and the Fizik adaptive saddle. Objects printed with EPU41 are highly elastic, tear-resistant, and possess high cycle resistance to fatigue. Products made with EPU41 have good functionality; they are ready for use straight from the printer and have been tweaked to give you peak performance.
The EPU41 Black is an advanced version of the EPU41 green. The EPU41 Black suits products that require good shock absorbent properties or cushioning effects, such as bike saddles and midsoles for athletic footwear. Carbon also provides excellent support to its customers. With the Carbon Design Engine, their performance-oriented lattice, users can now explore elastomeric lattice designs. This resin offers 300% elongation, 20kN/m tear strength, 68 Shore A toughness, and 9Mpa tensile strength.
Download Link: Carbon3d
Price: Contact Manufacturer.
5. Formlabs Elastic 50A
The Elastic 50A is an elastomeric resin that lets you make objects with high elongation and energy return. The products made with Elastic 50A have good springback. Such objects can bend, stretch, compress, and easily return to their original shape. Elastic 50A is transparent, allowing you to make transparent objects such as wearables, straps, and stretchable casings. The objects made with this resin have high tear strength and can withstand continuous rugged use.
The Elastic 50A has a high tensile strength of 3.23 MPa. At 50% elongation, the stress on the material is 0.94 MPa, and at 100%, the stress on the material is 1.59 MPa. The hardness can be expressed as 50 Shore A. The material has 160% elongation and a tear strength of 19.1 kN/m.
Purchase link: Formlabs.
Price: $199
6. 3D Systems Figure 4 Rubber 65A BLK
This manufacturing-grade elastomer allows you to make rubber parts with production performance properties and slow rebound properties for objects such as grips, handles, gaskets, bumpers, seals, vibration-dampening components, and more. This resin offers long-term stability even with exposure to UV and Humidity. It has an excellent compression set and UL94 HB Flammability standards. This resin also features a high elongation of 126% at break and a Shore A value of 65. The tensile strength of this material is 23 MPa. This material is also biocompatible according to ISO10993-5 and ISO10993-10 standards.
Purchase link: 3DSystems
Price: Enquire with manufacturer
7. 3D Systems Figure 4 Rubber BLK 10
3D Systems Figure 4 Rubber BLK 10 is a high-tear, flexible material that can produce hard rubber-like parts with slow rebound properties for grips, handles, bumpers, and strain relief applications. It is an extremely tough material with a surprisingly exceptional surface finish. Rubber BLK 10 provides good UV and Humidity stability for long-term environmental stability. The maximum elongation is 80%; it has a tensile strength of 540 MPa and has a Shore Hardness of 59D and 97A. The tear strength is 76 kN/m. It has a flammability rating of UL94 HB. Also, the material is biocompatible per the standards established by ISO10993-5 and ISO10993-10.
Purchase link: 3DSystems.
Price: Check with the manufacturer
Which is the Best 3D Printing Software?
There are a lot of 3D printing software that you can use to prepare your designs for 3D printing with resin materials. A good example of such tools is SelfCAD. SelfCAD is one of the easiest 3D modeling software that you can use to create your 3D models from scratch or use it to modify them based on your requirements. For example in the video below, you can import an STL file and change the color, as shown below.
The software also comes with many other interesting tools like image to 3D useful for converting images to 3D models. There are freehand drawing and sketching for creating designs from scratch. There are also various 3D shapes that you can use as a foundation for your 3D models and then use the various modification tools to adjust them based. Get to know how to work with 3D shapes in this video.
SelfCAD also comes with powerful tools for preparing your designs for 3D printing. One of such tools is the magic fix that allows you to fix any non manifold meshes in your designs, as shown in the video below.
Once you finish creating your designs, you can then use the in-built online slicer of SelfCAD to slice your designs and generate the Gcode to send to your 3D printer. The slicer of SelfCAD is easy to use and it’s compatible with most of the common FDM 3D printers. Learn how to slice STL files in SelfCAD in the video below.
The software also comes with many resources for learning 3D modeling and SelfCAD in general like the interactive tutorials, SelfCAD academy, and even the many YouTube videos like 3D modeling for beginners series, and 3D modeling 101. SelfCAD is also affordable. It comes with a free license with just the basic tools, a Pro License with all the tools for $14.99 monthly or $139.99 annually.
Flex your 3D models made with flexible Resin
Flexible resins are unlike your normal SLA photopolymers; they react to certain wavelengths of light, but they have an entirely different set of properties than commonly used resins. Flexible resins have higher tensile strength and are tougher, with high Shore A values. They can also be expanded to over 100% before they break. These are usually used to cater to applications that require energy return, shock absorption, and/or cushioning effect. They are also used in cases that require soft-touch applications like grips, seals, gaskets etc.
Enjoy powerful modeling, rendering, and 3D printing tools without the steep learning curve.
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