Cheap & Simple FEP Film Vat (Alternative) for UV-Resin 3D Printers

For this project you need Laminating Pouches

When making a FEP film vat (alternative), it’s important that you use only PET laminating pouches as these are harder than PETG pouches.

PETG laminating pouches do not fit, and they are also soft which means they scratch easily.

What is a laminating film? It is a sheet of laminating film that is composed of various layers of plastic. The harder layer (PET) is on the outside and the softer layer (EVA) is on the inside. The harder outer layer is usually made from PET plastic (Polyethylene Terephthalate) and the softer inner layer is made out of EVA plastic (Ethylene-Vinyl Acetate.

PET…This is as much as 200 times stronger than glass. It is virtually unbreakable and also has very high impact strength. It is also chemical resistant and super transparent!

What is UV-Resin 3D printing?

Typical 3D printers use what’s called fused deposition modeling (FDM), in which a heated nozzle extrudes plastic filament causing it to melt, meticulously tracing out every detail of the object it’s making.

Resin printing (SLA) turns the process upside down. Instead of starting with a solid raw material, it starts with a liquid and turns it solid. The process uses a liquid, called “Photosensitive resin”, that hardens into solid Polyester, vinyl ester epoxy or urethane when exposed to light. Some resins react to visible light and have to be stored in black containers. Others react to ultraviolet light. If you keep them out of the sun, you won’t have any issues. To make the change, a Digital Light Processing (DLP) projector shines an image into a vat of resin for each layer of the object to be made. Once the first layer hardens onto a platform, the platform moves a tiny bit deeper into the vat of resin — and the projector shines a new image to harden the next layer.

The big benefit of UV-Resin printing is the ability to make objects very small, very detailed or both.

The resolution of the print job on an FDM printer is limited by the thickness of the plastic coming through the nozzle. Good home printers get down to 100 microns (one-tenth of a millimetre, or 0.0039 of an inch).

Step 1: How Do We Get Started?

First, grab your laminate pouch and split it into

2. All you need to do next is dissolve the EVA side in the oven (The heat from the oven makes this transparent) Ensure that the PET side is placed down on some baking parchmanet paper before placing in the oven.

3. Place in the oven at 200-210 deg C (392F) and for approx 4-5 seconds. That is all! You may find that it is tacky to the touch afterwards, but this is normal.