Buying a resin printer - any advice?

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Buying a resin printer - any advice?

Post by ge_rik » Sat Oct 23, 2021 10:14 am

I'm considering investing in a resin printer. Any advice would be appreciated.

I notice there's something called a Wash and curing machine. Is that an essential or desirable accessory?

The wonderfully named Elegoo printers seem to get good value for money reviews. Or would you recommend something else for someone on a tight budget?

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Re: Buying a resin printer - any advice?

Post by philipy » Sat Oct 23, 2021 12:27 pm

I have an "Anycubic Photon S". At the time I bought it, 12 months ago, I was torn between it and the Elegoo Mars, there was very little to choose between them and both appeared to be better than any other manufacturers ( based on reviews/printer forum comments). In the end I went with the Photon S simply because that was what Steve had and I worked on the basis that I could pick his brains if I needed to! I've been very happy with my m/c so far.

I also considered getting the wash station and on Steve's advice decided not to bother and haven't regretted not spending the extra £120.
The practical alternatives are a plastic salad spinner from Amazon for washing, and a UV false nail curer also from Amazon, and small plastic turntable. I believe that Steve simply uses sunlight for curing, but I'm too impatient for that!

The Photon S comes with its own slicing software, but the Opensource "Chitubox" is better, although it does take a bit of getting used to. The biggest part of the learning curve, for me, was/is getting supports right and orientating the model to best advantage. There are some good Youtube videos on the the subject and I can point you in the direction of the ones I found helpful, although there are loads of others.

Edited to add, that the volume of those two machines is fairly small, but print time does tend to limit the size of what you want to print anyway. It is the bed size that limits what you can print because it takes the same time to print 1 object or 10 identical objects as long a they fit on the bed.
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Re: Buying a resin printer - any advice?

Post by -steves- » Sat Oct 23, 2021 2:46 pm

I have a little experience with resin printing now and can happily give the following from my humble opinion.

The Photon S is a brilliant printer, I still have and use mine however, it's newer brother the AnyCubic Mono is out of this world. It has a marginally bigger print area, but and it's a big one, it prints 3 times faster with exactly the same results, I am over the moon with mine and it cost me less than my Photon S. The bad things are, the mono does not use as many ali parts and things like the resin tank are plastic instead, there are a few bit like that, the whole lid just lifts off rather than having a door on hinges.

Wash and cure, oh my.
In the summer, the fastest curing can be done by sunlight, in the winter I use a wash and cure. I only paid £79.99 for mine as I got it on offer. I used to use an LED light and a rotary table driven by the light, which works, but it is a lot of faffing about.
The wash and go box.
Take the build plate off, stick it in the wash container, set it to wash. When finished, take the build plate out of the container, let drip for a bit. Take the model(s) off the build plate (it's nice and clean now) and allow the isopropyl to evaporate off. Put model(s) on rotary table, stick lid on and let it cure, simples. For £80, I would not go back to the manual way of doing it, but it is pure laziness, or it it saving my time and faffing around? :lol: :?:

If it were me starting out, i would get the Mono, To save money, I would probably do it all manually until I could afford and justify the outlay for a wash and cure.

As Philip said above, the limit is the size of the print plate, the taller the print, the longer it takes as it is 8 or 3 seconds per layer, depending on the machine. So the flatter it is, the quicker it's done. Also as above orientation and supports are key to getting it right.
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Re: Buying a resin printer - any advice?

Post by Trevor Thompson » Sun Oct 24, 2021 10:30 am

I have been using a resin printer for about 18 months now.

I chose an "Anycubic photon zero" as it was on offer with resin for £85 at the time - and I didn't think I could go far wrong at that price.

The build size is small, but I had in mind printing figures to populate my railway - and the build volume was big enough for that in 16mm to the foot scale. It comes with its own slicing software - and won't work with any other software, but I haven't found that to be a problem.

It took me a while to work out the best way to orientate models to get the best results.

The resin printing process is potentially messy - and care is required to avoid the work area ending up as a sticky mess. I didn't get the wash and cure unit to go with it, and went for the nail curing light, turntable and plastic box approach. I really think I am on the verge of buying the washing and curing unit it certainly would be more convenient.

Printing with it is slow, but I set it going and go off to do something else - so why worry about print speed - it is irrelevant! If I set it off before retiring the print will be finished before breakfast anyway.

Resin printing does add an extra dimension to what can be produced. The detail is amazing, and it really complements the output of the filament printer.

I am not advocating any particular make or model - I think you will not regret getting whatever is currently the best offer.

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Re: Buying a resin printer - any advice?

Post by Trevor Thompson » Sun Oct 24, 2021 11:28 am

These posts have made me look afresh at what is on offer in the way of the latest printers.

I have been looking at the Anycubic mono printers online and notice that there are 3 different models under this name - and one of them has a build area of 190 x 120 x 245 mm. That was priced at under £500, and I cant help comparing that with a filament printer I had my eye on with a build area of 280 x 250 x 300 priced at about twice that amount (it is a "professional" printer which explains the price).

One of the features of the filament printer is the lower surface finish particularly on flat areas printed parallel to the build plate.

Lets think about what I want a bigger build area for. You probably are already aware that I am printing large models like buildings and bogie coaches, and the actual surface I am getting say on the roof slates of Dduallt station building or the externally panneled sides of coach 16 need some filling with paint to get a smooth surface. It can be done but I am wondering how the resin printer I have identified would cope with these models?

So could I effectively transfer making these sort of models to a resin printer?

Trevor

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Re: Buying a resin printer - any advice?

Post by philipy » Sun Oct 24, 2021 1:14 pm

Trevor Thompson wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 11:28 am

So could I effectively transfer making these sort of models to a resin printer?

A thought rather than an opinion - in my experience resin is more brittle and the resin printed items are more fragile than filament. So I wonder if, say, a coach side would be robust enough?

Having said that, I am aware that there are all sorts of different resin grades and I've only used pretty much bog standard stuff, so there may be an answer there. If you can get the robustness then I'm pretty confident that the resin version would give a much better finish.
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Re: Buying a resin printer - any advice?

Post by -steves- » Sun Oct 24, 2021 1:19 pm

Trevor

You are indeed correct, there are options under the guise of Photon Mono. I have the cheapest, smaller version and I am over the moon with it. The speed is relevant if you are doing a lot of printing, as I do at times. It may make a huge difference if you get the bigger Mono and start printing tall models, I think you would appreciate it then as it might take it from a day and a half to just half a day.

The only down sides I see with printing in resin is the brittleness of it, HOWEVER, they have brought out a "resin like ABS" as it's called on Amazon, and I think that might be worth an investigation. The other is cost, FDM is very cheap for larger models, resin is not, but I guess if you are just printing for yourself and money is that that bigger issue as quality, then that might suit you better.

Options galore :D
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Re: Buying a resin printer - any advice?

Post by ge_rik » Sun Oct 24, 2021 1:24 pm

AnyCubic seem to have a good deal on AliExpress at the moment. Does this look like good value at just under £200?

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001 ... 6053%22%7D

or alternatively, I might try dipping my toe in the water (or resin solution) with this cheaper alternative
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003 ... 9313%22%7D

I've watched a couple of YouTube reviews and it seems to work OK - the only criticism seemed to be that it was a bit noisy

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Re: Buying a resin printer - any advice?

Post by -steves- » Sun Oct 24, 2021 1:27 pm

ge_rik wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 1:24 pm AnyCubic seem to have a good deal on AliExpress at the moment. Does this look like good value at just under £200?

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001 ... 6053%22%7D

or alternatively, I might try dipping my toe in the water (or resin solution) with this cheaper alternative
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003 ... 9313%22%7D

I've watched a couple of YouTube reviews and it seems to work OK - the only criticism seemed to be that it was a bit noisy

Rik
That deal is absolutely amazing for the AnyCubic stuff, if I didn't have both already I would rip their arms off for it. :thumbup:
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Re: Buying a resin printer - any advice?

Post by ge_rik » Sun Oct 24, 2021 1:34 pm

Just noticed that the price doesn't include VAT so there's another £40 to add ...... :?

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Re: Buying a resin printer - any advice?

Post by -steves- » Sun Oct 24, 2021 2:02 pm

How much is it coming out at for you? £237.29 ? If so that's still a good price.
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Re: Buying a resin printer - any advice?

Post by philipy » Sun Oct 24, 2021 2:14 pm

ge_rik wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 1:34 pm Just noticed that the price doesn't include VAT so there's another £40 to add ...... :?

Rik
If it's coming from Aliexpress, does it include shipping and import duty?
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Re: Buying a resin printer - any advice?

Post by -steves- » Sun Oct 24, 2021 2:22 pm

philipy wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 2:14 pm
ge_rik wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 1:34 pm Just noticed that the price doesn't include VAT so there's another £40 to add ...... :?

Rik
If it's coming from Aliexpress, does it include shipping and import duty?
They ship that from the UK warehouse, so no unexpected charges and I believe shipping is included in that. :thumbup:
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Re: Buying a resin printer - any advice?

Post by ge_rik » Sun Oct 24, 2021 2:27 pm

philipy wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 2:14 pm
ge_rik wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 1:34 pm Just noticed that the price doesn't include VAT so there's another £40 to add ...... :?

Rik
If it's coming from Aliexpress, does it include shipping and import duty?
Yes - it includes postage and I think it's coming either from a UK warehouse or could be somewhere in the EU. The carrier is listed as DHL UK - so I'm hoping that's a good sign

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Re: Buying a resin printer - any advice?

Post by ge_rik » Sun Oct 24, 2021 4:37 pm

You'll have gathered from this that I've gone ahead and ordered, together with a kg of resin.

I'll blame you lot if it turns out to be a turkey!

Mind you, it'll have to wait until Christmas before I get too play with it, so it might be the only turkey we have ..... :D

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Re: Buying a resin printer - any advice?

Post by Phil.P » Mon Oct 25, 2021 11:28 pm

If all else fails...

You will have to print one! :thumbright:

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Re: Buying a resin printer - any advice?

Post by philipy » Tue Oct 26, 2021 6:32 am

ge_rik wrote: Sun Oct 24, 2021 4:37 pm You'll have gathered from this that I've gone ahead and ordered,
So which one have you gone for in the end?
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Re: Buying a resin printer - any advice?

Post by ge_rik » Tue Oct 26, 2021 9:34 am

The AnyCubic combo. It looked like a bargain price and as it was coming directly from AnyCubic it wouldn't be a cheap clone.

The tracking details say it's presently at the national hub in the UK, so hopefully it looks like I won't have to pay import duties as it must have come from a UK warehouse. On the same day, I ordered set of backlight LEDs from AliExpress for our TV and the tracking details say they are presently in transit from China. I just hope they don't disappear into the Black Hole of Felixstowe docks ..... :?

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Re: Buying a resin printer - any advice?

Post by philipy » Tue Oct 26, 2021 9:47 am

ge_rik wrote: Tue Oct 26, 2021 9:34 am

The tracking details say it's presently at the national hub in the UK, so hopefully it looks like I won't have to pay import duties as it must have come from a UK warehouse.
It was a while ago but mine came from a UK warehouse, with no extra charges. Delivery was very quick.
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Re: Buying a resin printer - any advice?

Post by ge_rik » Tue Oct 26, 2021 12:07 pm

philipy wrote: Tue Oct 26, 2021 9:47 am It was a while ago but mine came from a UK warehouse, with no extra charges. Delivery was very quick.
Very very quick ..... look what's just arrived.
IMG_2312.JPG
IMG_2312.JPG (601.31 KiB) Viewed 3551 times

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