Looking at a new resin 3D printer

[lee websterParticipant @leewebster72680]

I have an Ender3 printer which is sort of OK for most things. I an now thinking of getting a resin 3D printer. I would like one that has a capacity of 200 X 175 X 115, the size of the largest thing I want to print at the moment. The price of such a printer is a bit more than I want to pay. The Anycubic Photon M3 was top of my list until I watched a review on youtube today. It did not go well. Any suggestions?

[lee websterParticipant @leewebster72680]

[Bruce EdneyParticipant @bruceedney59949]

They are messy, smelly and a PITA to get orientation and supports right. I had a Mono X in a cupboard in the house with an extraction fan and you could still smell it elsewhere. Effectively you need a separate shed/space to have the printer and the wash up area. Stick with the Ender. Mine prints really well and made most of the parts for my Hypercube.

[lee websterParticipant @leewebster72680]

Bruce,

Excuse my ignorance, but what's a Hypercube? If you have any photo's I would like to see them. I have over 30 small parts to print out for casting. With the Ender3 that will mean days of sanding and filling and painting to get a decent surface. I thought a resin printer would save a lot of that.

[Bruce EdneyParticipant @bruceedney59949]

Hi Lee

Hypercube is a reprap CoreXY printer. Basically a home made printer.

The Ender should be able to produce excellent quality printer as long as you have got the machine tuned well. You need to figure out what are the best settings for the filament you are using.

What filament are you using?

Bruce

[lee websterParticipant @leewebster72680]

I just use a cheap and cheerful pla from the supplier of the printer. I must admit that when it comes to quality one of the test print files that came with the Ender3, a cat with Chinese writing on it, a good luck charm I think, printed with virtually no visible lines. The 2" high figure took nearly 6 hours to print. Multiply that by say 6 of my pieces, that would be a day and a half. On a resin printer it's supposed to take the same time to print 6 things at once as just one piece. I will keep looking at reviews.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

But can't you set the printer running and walk away? Arranging parts so that two are printed as one job will also mean you don't have to attend to it so much. If so you could print 6 parts over three nights while tucked up in bed.

I've taken to leaving the CNC to it these days just going back when I know it's coming up for a tool change. Same thing with the CNC if I want a finer finish then it takes longer as the stepover between cuts is less much like setting a printer for finer layers

[lee websterParticipant @leewebster72680]

I have used Cura slicer to produce the gcode for my Ender3 to print the two halves of a small engine cylinder block/crankcase. The two files just fit on the Ender3 bed and will take 15 hours to print at .2mm layer height. I will print them out and see what the quality is like. Because they are fairly large they are easier to fill and sand. Many of the smaller parts are so fiddely I was not looking forward to the finishing process. I am now wondering if I should let the Ender3 print all the big bits and buy a small resin printer to handle the smaller parts. All the 3D prints will be used to produce a sand mould for casting in aluminium. Small resin printers are very affordable at the moment, and seem to be in stock!

Lee

[Ed DuffnerParticipant @edduffner79357]

I currently have an Elegoo Mars which has smaller than your specified build volume but it works quite well. I've been looking at getting a bigger printer as well.

The Elegoo Saturn matches your print volume: 192 x 120 x 200 mm. Depends what your budget is I suppose.

…and there's also the Elegoo Jupiter, larger again (277.848mm(L)*156.06mm(W)*300mm(H)) if you can find one for sale. I believe these are on some kind of pre-order status.

I'm not linked with Elegoo in any way.

Ed.

[lee websterParticipant @leewebster72680]

Ed

I will look at the Mars. As much as I would like a Saturn or bigger resin printer, my Ender3 will do the job with some extra work from me and the Mars is less than half the price of the others.

Lee

[lee websterParticipant @leewebster72680]

I downloaded an Ender3 fast print profile from youtuber Chep. It reduced the print time of the two side of an engine block from 12 hours 55 mins to 6 hours 31 mins. A huge time saving, but some of the small details suffered badly. I am not sure if that profile will be of use in future. I have sent an email to a supplier of the Photon M3 asking if it really is as bad as a review suggested. It was the only review i've watched that mentioned problems.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

I would be really interested to see reviews of 3D printers in MEW, anyone interested in reviewing their printer (or any other workshop equipment), please contact me.

I particularly would like to see 'this is a good piece of kit and why' reviews rather than 'this is useless' ones. Reviews by genuine users that signpost good kit are far more useful to readers.

Neil

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

I understand the latest version of Cura yields faster prints and there are a few Youtube videos of a technique of designing slits in the model walls for certain shapes that also helps print faster.

For getting larger items you can tilt and angle the model to get it in but there all sorts of trips and catches so it takes a lot of work to get it right. Some hours of video watching may help.

Since the resolution of resin printing is a few thou it is often practical to split the model up and make tabs and slots etc to join them together accurately.

[lee websterParticipant @leewebster72680]

This evening I converted all the cylinder head files to stl's, 13 of them in all. It is a very small head, 56mm dia, but with water passages and ports for the inlet and exhaust ports, a complicated little thing. Mind you, the number of files could be more down to my inexperience! A .2 layer height on my Ender3 has a projected print time of just over 15 hours. If I start it printing tomorrow morning it should be finished by late evening. A few days of filling and sanding, some primer, and I should be ready to cast it.

I had a reply from the company I emailed about the Photon M3. They were surprised by what I said I had seen in a youtube video, but seemed to think that a hacker couldn't hijack the printer for neferious purposes.

[Cabinet EnforcerParticipant @cabinetenforcer]

You mean Thomas Sanladerer's review? All the issues he raised are to do with the additional features that you do not need to use, just don't connect it to the internet and use USB to move files like any sensible person. He did actually say this in his review…

Otherwise wait 5 minutes, there will be a similar model released from the other manufacturers before long, doubtless with various "improvements" to counter the M3.

[lee websterParticipant @leewebster72680]

Cabinet Enforcer.

I missed that bit! Yes it was his review. The M3 does seem to be a bit of a bargain. It is very tempting just to order one and see how I get on. I will see how my 3D prints turn out on the Ender 3.

[lee websterParticipant @leewebster72680]

I took the plunge today and ordered a 3D printer, an Anycubic mono 4K and a Creality wash and cure station. Hopefully they will be with me soon. Thanks for all the advice and comments. I printed the two halves of my Austin 7 crankcase on my Ender3 a few days ago. I had no intention of doing anything with it, I just wanted to what it looked like in the flesh. I have also changed the scale of the model A7 engine from 1/2 scale to 1/3 scale. My 3d prints were in 1/3 scale at 0.28 layer height to speed up the printing. It took 10 hours. If I had printed them at 1/2 scale it would have taken one and a half days at 0.2 layer height, and more than two days at 0.16. It was these printing times, and the countless hours filling and sanding that prompted me into buying the resin printer. When I saw those tiny crankcase pieces, I had to prepare one of them to try casting it. I will only cast one half, I can't face getting the other half done! I will post pictures when I can.

Lee

[Cabinet EnforcerParticipant @cabinetenforcer]

I would recommend getting: a box of disposible nitrile gloves, 5l of isopropol alcohol, and a silicone mat for working on (pastry rolling mat for example), a small metal funnel for putting resin back in bottles, and remember the safety specs, you don't wan't a splash of resin in your eye.

The silicone work mat can just be left in the sun to cure any spilled resin, remove once it has hardened, much easier and less wasteful than mopping up spillages.

Also, even if you ordered some resin with the printer, order some other resin to try out, I got 2 large bottles of the same colour and type of resin when I got my printer, this was dumb

[lee websterParticipant @leewebster72680]

Thanks Cabinet,

I ordered a bottle of water washable resin with my printer. When I have tried it out I might try different resins. I might try one of the "tough" resins, it stand up to the pounding of sand casting! The items you recommend will be added to my shopping list.

Lee

[lee websterParticipant @leewebster72680]

All items have now been delivered. I have installed the Anycubic slicing software and A copy of Lychee slicer on my non-cad computer. Lychee wants to register itself and my cad computer is not on the internet. If I get on with Lychee I will have to bite the bullet and connect the computer to register. I haven't printed anything yet as I have to get to grips with at least one of the slicers.

Maybe I haven't got the settings right, but the printer does seem to want a lot of resin for the 1/3rd scale A7 crankcase. Two halves at 130mm long, 70mm high, 30mm wide, and it will take 371ml of resin. Thats a third of a bottle that costs £30. I hope to learn a bit more on saving resin before I do a trial print.

Lee

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