Hey gang, Tim here at Core Electronics and today we're harnessing all the colours in the world and putting them on our 3D prints.

Today we're combining the world of alcohol inks and resin prints. One of the special properties of transparent resin prints created by DLP 3D printers like the Creality LD002R and the SLA printers like the Formlabs Form is how vibrantly you can colourise them with alcohol inks. Simply by dabbing on just a few drops of ink with a paintbrush you can create incredibly bright and vibrant models which still retain some transparency.

I've filmed the process of three different methods to get colour into transparent resin. Dabbing alcohol ink after the UV processing, alcohol ink before the UV processing and mixing the alcohol ink directly into the resin tank and then printing using that mixture.

Just quickly, UV post processing is a step you always do to resin prints to dry up and harden the outside surface. You can use a UV light like this one or you can just leave the models out in the sun.

So let's jump right in to the first method I used. So I'm going to take you back in time to my setup when I painted with alcohol inks after the UV post processing. I used a couple of takeaway containers, one filled with water, a nice brush and I had gloves to help control a potential mess. The paint really clings to the surface of the models. So here I go painting these jewels and the end result looks a bit more pigmented than other methods. This pigmentation sections end up making the colouring look a bit blotchy. This method along with all the others disguise that yellowing that may have occurred from having too high of an exposure setting which is really neat.

Acetone or isopropyl alcohol lightens the Colouring effect and can completely remove the ink altogether if so desired. The method makes my model look entirely coloured throughout. However, any little scratches will ruin that surface finish and jelly-esque effect.

I mix the alcohol paint for one of the gems to create an aqua colour and one of the gems I left unpainted just to give some contrast. Colour like this can also be used more delicately for an effect seen on this frayed of spooky ghosts. And the pigmentation can be an advantage as you can see on these two gelatinous cubes giving a grimy depth to them. Anyhow, these gems make you feel rich and I know that for sure.

On to the next method. In this method, I paint alcohol ink directly onto the model after the print is done. I let the ink dry and then I do the UV post-processing to it. Here I am bringing the build plate with four test pieces attached to the table. With my gloves, I remove any of the spots using clippers being as gentle as I can and making sure not to touch the uncured model directly with my fingers.

Once I remove all the pieces, I clean up the goose bump lumps just a little and then I dive straight into painting. They all painted up very easily. The green one I spent a bit more time faffing around with some isopropyl alcohol making the colour just a little bit weaker. But overall, they took the ink even better than the previous method.

Then, once I painted them all up, I let them all rest. And once the alcohol ink dried, I came back and went through the process of UV curing each of the components like normal. Took a little bit longer to cure all the sides.

After doing this, the surface finish felt ashy and the surface was not as smooth as it originally was. So I took them home, shavedOff all the goose bumps with a razor blade. And as the colour had seeped into the pores of the resin, I didn't actually lose any colouring on the surface of the pieces. I was very psyched about that.

Once I cleaned them up, I gave the components two layers of clear coat gloss spray paint and this resulted in my favourite finish of all of them. This gloss coat improved the transparency, depth of the colour, smoothness to touch and hard to rub off colouring.

Now, this was the most fun technique to do, mainly because I felt like a wizard creating concoction or potion. So I poured my transparent resin into the tank to about the halfway point. And then I used around 20 drops of alcohol ink and half a teaspoon of Pearl Ex powder, which I tipped directly into the resin tank. Pearl Ex powder is some crazy cool stuff which adds sparkle to anything, but it can go everywhere. So be proper careful with it. In my prints, I've been using blue inks and duo blue green Pearl Ex powder. I would then stir it around until it was proper, proper mixed. But make sure to do it carefully because you don't want the resin to get out of the tank as it could damage the LCD screen.

Then I set the exposure time for each layer higher, 10 seconds per layer for this Creality LD002R printer. And this is because the alcohol ink and in particular the Pearl Ex powder will cause the light to be reflected and refracted instead of curing the resin the way it normally does. Then I press play on some prints and UV cured them just like normal. And just check out some of the swell results from it. They are completely different than the previous two methods. The previous methods end up with a colour effect reminiscent of jelly. Whereas alcohol inks utilized inThis method gives more of a cloudy, deeper effect. The Pearl Ex powder gives this otherworldly sheen when the light hits it the right way and it is completely embedded throughout the component.

The drawback of this method is cleaning the tank and the FET but a bit of isopropyl alcohol and elbow grease fixes this right up. The colour never rubs off from the final model which is pretty nifty.

If you haven't used your printer for a while and it has this concoction inside it, make sure to stir it up and give it a bit of agitation because otherwise all the Pearl Ex and ink will have sunk to the bottom. I even printed a larger classical model with a little bit more green ink put into the tank. Hopefully the colour doesn't come off as too kitsch. I'll leave that up to you to decide.

So that has been my current experimentations and thoughts on colorizing transparent resin prints. I'd love to know other techniques and I hope you've enjoyed. And with that, until next time, stay cozy.