[NEEDED] Resin printing needed please.

[Joeallerton]

Hello I am a student looking to 3D print a small bust I modelled, it stands roughly 16cm tall and is 13cm wide on both axis, I have tried numerous 3D printing services online and have been massively unpleasently surprised with the price estimates. All the peices of the bust have been hollowed out with a 0.5-1 cm wall thickness and plenty of drainage holes however the estimates I've gotten for resin printing have been landing between 200-1000 for just one of the five peices, I do realise that if I want to commit to the hobby in the future then I'll have to end up buying one although for my first 3D print I really want to get an idea of the quality given by a resin printer first hand.

The reason I'm printing in resin rather than plastic material like PLA which I did entertain is even when printing in PLA the estimates still got up to ?60 for one of the 5 peices and if I am going to spend ?300 on the final print or more, I want it to be as close to professional as possible. Please help I am willing to spend all the postage and material costs and anything else necessary. Thank you,.

[CarterTG]

In the resin realm, only a small handful of desktop printers have the build envelope to accommodate a 13cm x 13cm model in one go. This is likely one of the reasons for the high quotes. The most prominent candidate would be the Formlabs printers with its 18 x 14.5 x 14.5 build envelope. Services printing with the Form 1 or Form 2 are probably factoring in a vat replacement in their quote since they use a PDMS material notorious for clouding from use.

In the Formlabs forum, I?ve seen used Form 1 machines dangled for $800 and Form 2 units posted for around $1800. The caveats being the unknowable health of the galvo/laser/mirror system and having to repeatedly buy new vats.

The other strategy might be to post a services wanted in their forum to solicit quotes based on target dimensions of the model.

The other route would require more modeling work. Slice up the bust so that the face, hair, ears, neck, etc can interlock with registration keys. Face edges would be hidden by hairline border or other clever features. This way it can easily be printed on the latest crop of sub-$300 printers like the Anycubic Photon, Elegoo Mars, Monoprice Mini, etc. The Elegoo?s build envelope is 15.4cm high x 11.9cm long x 6.8cm wide at 50 micron resolution. The others aren?t too far in envelope size. Dab some fresh resin into the mated pieces and blast it with UV to lock down. This last solution permits lots of adjustments and reprints in-house if the keying fitment warrants.

There are tons of videos floating out there demonstrating the details and surface smoothness achieved by resin machines. If that doesn?t cut it, Formlabs has started sending out free print samples from the Form 3 (gray butterfly one) done with an 80 micron laser width. Their other samples are still printed on the Form 2.

[industrialforms]

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