Resin Curing Station From a Cardboard Box

I recently got into resin printing and have been finding the most awkward part of the whole process to be the curing!

I'd been using an old nail lamp but it was inconsistent and inconvenient and, much as I'd love to to buy a wash and cure station, I just couldn't justify the cost and the footprint on them is a bit big too.

So I made my own compact curing station and thought I'd share how I did it.
In all this cost me about £25 to do and it used up some bits and pieces I had lying around too!

Carboard Box - size is up to you but I just used the box my lamp came in - recycling ftw!

Tinfoil

Tape or Glue

A UV Curing light - double check which wavelength is best for your needs!

(optional) Turntable - this came in a bundle with my lamp but isn't necessary

This is the bundle I bought but there are loads of other sellers on eBay and Amazon

You'll need to cut a hole in the top of your box to insert your lamp so make sure your box is nice and sturdy first!

• Take your lamp and draw around it onto the top of the box
  
• Next, draw a second rectangle inside the first - make it a little smaller than the first one (picture 1)
  
• Now cut out the smaller rectangle you just drew (picture 2) - this overlap means less UV light will escape from the edges when your lamp is on

Don't throw the bit of card you cut out away - you can use it for a later step if you managed to get it out in one piece!

Next we're going to line the box with foil

This helps ensure all parts of your model are being hit by the light and cured evenly!

Exactly how you do this will depend of the shape of your box and you can just grab a big sheet of foil and squish it in there if you want - foil tape or any kind of mirrored surface would work too, I just wanted to make use of what I had already.

Here's what I found worked well:

• Cut several pieces of foil that are roughly the size of each face of the box (picture 1)
• One at a time, place your rectangles of foil in the box and fold any stray edges over
• Secure each piece of foil with tape or glue until the whole box is covered.(picture 2)

You don't need to get this perfect and it probably won't look beautiful - this is definitely a functional make, not a decorative one!

This is the step where we may need to go just a little MacGyver - I'll show you what I did but you may need to adjust a little if you're using a different shaped light or box.

• Pass the lamp and its cable through the hole you cut in the box (picture 1)
• Take your card offcut from earlier and cut it in half (or cut 2 new pieces of card)
• Place one piece of card on either side of your lamp to hold it in place (picture 2)
• Secure your card pieces in place with tape or glue - the weight of the lamp will likely pull the card downwards like in the second picture, make sure you hold them in place when sticking them so they're flat and prop the lamp up.
  
  Before moving on to the next step, I recommend closing your box and turning the lamp on - if you find there's a lot of light leaking out, check you didn't miss any areas when lining the box and maybe going around the edges of your box with some tape!

You've done the hard bits - you should now have a working curing station!

If you do want to make it look nicer though, you can paint or wrap the box to disguise its boxiness a bit.

I just gave mine a quick coat of black paint and, though it's still clearly a DIY project, it does look a lot nicer though I think it might still need a 2nd coat!

You've done it! Now try it out!

I've found that just 5 minutes is plenty of time to cure my models completely from top to bottom but YMMV depending on type of resin, size of model etc.

Curing Tips:

• I don't recommend leaving this switched on unattended - if left for a long period of time, the light can get quite warm and this is made of card.
• Make sure your prints are clean and dry before curing - if you have white marks on your prints after curing then it was probably still wet!
• Please wear gloves when handling uncured resin