The “VARTM-UltraLite Toolless Infusor”© 2 March 2025
Introducing my “VARTM-UltraLite Toolless Infusor” invention, world-wide first look & I chose this community as the most appropriate place to break the news (as a bubbly mammoth which I will probably have to delete to rename!!)
So, The beginning of the end for vacuum bagging?
I don’t do clickbait so
- Not in all cases
- Still “much more work to be done” but it continues to be promising – no overcomable barriers encountered yet (although I have known my share of despair at times)
NLC’s “VARTM-UltraLite” invention is a silicone membrane incorporating precisely engineered resin racetracks, vacuum channels, flow media & especially designed clamp-free ports. It took over 3 years and many dozens of iterations & £/$ 1000s to get it to this level of perfection.
The moon’s atmosphere on your kitchen table.
So I continue in my many disrespectful tests of one of our more notable “VARTM-UltraLite”© inventions (many more in the brain/pipeline) This is about the 5th in a series which is waiting to be edited for YouTube.
- All pieces 2 layers, 200gsm to 300gsm
- Around 1KG of our ultra-slow infusion resin was used – approx 125g +50g removed = c800g in all within the cloths) Confession, I actually used bits of B2,B4 and some of the leading brand’s hardener as I Can’t Be Arsed (that wasn’t on reddit, so it wasn’t that which caused the post problems) to refill the bottles.
Lessons learnt:
- If anything can go wrong it will – this time some resin got out of one of the inlet cups and is now a feature of ANOTHER carpet
- Don’t use multiple hardener speeds, it’s mad science
- Don’t have the top layer as release film, it’s better to have a sacrificial/bonus top layer of cloth to better pull away resin from the channels, saving turnaround-to-next-reuse time
Kickstarter Participants
If anyone is interested, I am looking to vet Low-Maintenance Friendly Enthusiasts that can keep a secret better than me to participate in serious trials, including male & female moulding – it stretches reasonably well :).
I’ve seen a lot of 3D Printer reviews & the reviewers get 1st access in return for working closely with the manufacturer – well, like that.
- I’m in the UK & ultra-small, although that will probably change very quickly.
- I’d like to be setting up another shop in the US by fall, as you call it.
- We’ve got excellent trade relationships > 3 years & supply pretty advanced infusion resins, cloths & foams
- I set up because I got rejected by the big boys to get better than retail pricing for 2000m of cloth and 600Kgs of resin, so during the launch we have a mates rates philosophy – unprofessional prices for unprofessional but friendly & honest service
HEAD-SCRATCHER (Answers on a postcard please) :
Now, the picture (above) has layers arranged bottom to top as actually infused. The carbon was on the metal base, the UHMWPE nearest the “VARTM-UltraLite Toolless Infusor”, with perforated release film between each layer. There are questions that I can probably only ask those selected for the trial, but here’s one that has me scratching my head:
The Carbon Fiber that was on the bottom has a 25-30mm void, it had 4 other layers of double-thick 200-300gsm cloth above & alternating perforated release film,
So how can it be that
- It is the only layer with a void directly under the port when all layers above have no void
- The bottom of the void is dry, the top of the void is dry, yet the cloth is partly infused in the middle (tap-test-it’s definitely not dry cloth all the way through
- I hope to be a positive contributor to this community
- I hope to find some new mates than can do a friendly test & review of the “VARTM-UltraLite Toolless Infusor”©, 1st in the UK & ASAP over in the land of newly arrived commonsense and care & pulse-check emails
- I hope to change my reddit user name, or hope to learn to live with ithad trouble with reddit d
Answers via reddit please – this never needed to be put on the website
James (Mad Scientist) – Yeah, non-redditors probably won’t get that either 🙂
The video will have to wait in a long line for editing & uploading to the YouTube Channel – which only had a test kevlar scissor video prior to having to use it as a reddit work-around to give it a new 12 second resin trap video