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(WORKING) Nicks-Fix "Continuous IPA Filtration" system

It doesn't seem to take many resin prints before themy cleaning alcohol is just slimy beyondas allsnot; recovery,fortunately butfor severalme peoplethis smarterissue thannow I,has havea created  an effective system to process and filter out the dissolved resins.solution!

 

The "Who"

Nick Wilson of the Youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/@nicks-fix posted a video about his new Continuous IPA Filtration system he had created.  The breakthrough for me was seeing someone pairing up the cheap water filters I had already rejected, but now with an alcohol safe diaphragm pump to handle the pressure needed for the cheap filters!  (...and WHY didn't I think of that?)

Resin Printer Mods and Continuous IPA Filtration! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfM1CXBOZns

The Basics
  1. Expose the alcohol to UV curing light,light
    • Creates a suspension of tiny, hard to ensureremove, allplastic particles in the tinyalcohol
  2. Separate out the plastic particles haveleaving solidifiedclean alcohol behind
    • Unsatisfactory previous attempts to reclaim usable alcohol
      • Cheese cloth - Soaks up the alcohol and can be wrung out to squeeze and separate the solids
        • LOTS of time and effort splashing contaminated alcohol around
      • Filter paper - Clogged almost immediately and didn't really trickle through even over time
      • Cotton cloth - Used to "wick" from higher "dirty" container to lower "clean" container, but too slow to be useful
      • Waiting - Settling out solids takes longer than I am willing to wait, since 90 days was not even a start
      • Vacuum filtering caused far too much loss of alcohol with my setup (I'm not a chemist)
      • (I chose not to use alum or other chemical additives to help precipitate particles out of solution)
    • Nick's usage of a diaphragm pump to push alcohol through the filters   
      • Filter out these solids using a diaphragm pump and cheap water filters

 

The How"What"
  • Silicone tubing - flexible and mostly resistant the these specific chemicals
    • Gets alcohol from dirty container through the UV exposure and into the filters
    • Returns the cleaner alcohol back into a clean container
    • OR could be used to simply recycle from and to the same container making it progressively cleaner
  • Hose barbs - hollow threaded fitting with a nozzle for the hose to slide over
    • Connects filters or pump to the silicone tubing
  • Plumbing Nipples - Hollow tube with threads on each end
    • Connects filters to each other
    • Connects pump to filter
  • Diaphragm pump - Liquid pump capable of moving alcohol without danger
    • Inlet pulls cleaned alcohol through the filters
    • Outlet pushes cleaned alcohol into clean container

The "How"

 

 

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