Resin 3D printers are awesome, however, the whole process is extremely messy. Especially when an accident happens and the resin leaks from the vat all over the printer.

When this happens mid-print, it usually means one thing – the resin will leak onto the precious LCD of the printer and cure. This means one thing – the UV light will be blocked by the cured parts and you will probably experience holes in your printed parts.

Usually, the people on Facebook advise you to scrape the resin away with a plastic razor. This usually works for small leaks, but it doesn’t work well on large leaks.

I experienced a resin leak recently on my Elegoo Saturn. Scraping the resin was not leading anywhere and I managed to scratch the polarizer film on top of the LCD. Therefore I stopped and I decided to make a (successful experiment): use acetone to dissolve the cured resin. It worked flawlessly!

The method is based on the observation that resin softens in an acetone bath, but the polarizer film seems not to dissolve in acetone.

The procedure

Let me start with a warning – if you decide to follow this guide, you will do it at your own risk. I tested the procedure on the pre-order batch of Elegoo Saturn with the TM089CFSP01 LCD. It is possible that later batches or different LCDs use a polarizer that is not acetone resistant. In that case, the procedure will damage your LCD! If you want to try it, try rubbing a corner of the LCD with acetone first to see if it is acetone resistant or not. On the other hand – if your LCD is ruined with resin, there is nothing you can lose.

The procedure is simple – soak the cured resin with acetone to soften it and scrape it away. However, the acetone evaporates quickly, so simply pouring it on the screen does not work (as it evaporates), nor rubbing an acetone-wet cloth over it. The solution is to soak a paper towel with acetone, put it on the LCD and cover it with plastic foil to prevent evaporation. After 10-15 minutes the resin softens and is easy to scrape off. You can also apply the same feature with IPA – it will just not make the resin as soft as acetone.

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