# 3D Printing > General 3D Printing Discussion >  Resin Vs. Filament - Benefits of each?

## Razorette3D

I've always used a 3D Printer that has printed using PLA / ABS Filament.  However, now I'm starting to see a bunch of 3D Printers that use Resin in place of filament.  To me Resin seems like a better method, in that it is much faster than Filament.  Can anyone tell me what the benefits of each of these are over one another?

Why would someone choose Filament over Resin, and vice versa?

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## Darksyde

From what I have read so far resin has better support with smaller points of contact. The layer banding is a lot less noticeable (note the layer 'thickness' is about the same) since you don't have the slightly rounded ends of the smushed layer of plastic. Fine details are easier to achieve. I have seen comparable extrusion detail but they are highly tuned where the resin machines /seem/ to just work (haven't eveer used one myself).

For me the downsides are the resin itself. Resin can be nasty sticky stuff before it is cured. There is residue needing to cleaned off finished parts. Left over resin in the build resivoir. Resin must be stored properly and used within a certain time frame after a container is opened. The peachy printer in particular adds water in to the mix which I'm not sure how you handle when the print is done.

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## DerekPeterson

As far as I am concerned, Resin using Stereolithography (SLA) gives much more accurate prints, without the layer banding that traditional filament gives you.  I think it is the future of 3D Printing, along with SLS (Selective Laser Sintering), which uses a laser to melt down powder.  

I think filament printers are too limited as far as how good the resolution and minimization of layering can be.

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## cokreeate

I like the finish product off a resin printer than a filament printer.
The problem is the cost of material, resin is pretty pricey.

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## AndrewK

I imagine that prices will be coming down on Resin after some time.  SLA and SLS is the future of 3D Printing.  Filament won't be around long, I don't think.

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## kanningphish

Are prices for resin really much more than filament?  I just think that the quality of resin printers is so much better than filament.  I mean you virtually can't see any lines with the naked eye with resin printed objects.  I wish I didn't buy my replicator 2, and would have bought a resin printer instead.

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## 3dkarma

Resin prices are coming down fairly significantly; makerjuice.com has had a lot to do with it.  I believe you can get resin from them for as little as USD $40.00 per liter, which puts it well within the range of the more expensive filament prices per Kg (1 liter of resin weighs slightly more than 1Kg, according to their technical data).

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## Compro01

> Are prices for resin really much more than filament?



I did some numbers awhile ago regarding the relative cost of resin vs. filament.




> A solid 6" cube would have a volume of 3.54 litres.
> 
> For resin : 
> 
> Makerjuice SubG+ is $45/litre, and the 3.5% shrinkage will require you  to print 3.67 litres of resin, so you'd need $165.15 worth to print it.
> 
> Makerjuice SubG, which is $40/litre, and the 8% shrinkage will require  you to print 3.85 litres of resin, brings the cost down to $154.00.
> 
> Formlabs resin is $149/litre, which brings the cost to $527.46.  Price  will probably be higher than that due to shrinkage, but Formlabs doesn't  seem to specify the resin shrinkage anywhere I can find.
> ...


Inexpensive resin is roughly twice the price by volume of inexpensive filament.

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## 3dkarma

> Inexpensive resin is roughly twice the price by volume of inexpensive filament.


I don't think that comparison is necessarily valid.  How does the quality of pushplastic resin compare to that of makerjuice?

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## NJ_Lifer

> I don't think that comparison is necessarily valid.  How does the quality of pushplastic resin compare to that of makerjuice?


I agree.  I think there is a lot of inexpensive resin out there that is comparable in price to inexpensive filament (at least the stuff that works).  I don't think it will be more than a few years before SLA printers replace filament based printers in peoples homes.  The print quality is just so much better with SLA (resin).

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## CaptainObvious

Are there any biodegradable, environmentally friendly resins (like PLA in the filament realm)?

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## Feign

> Are there any biodegradable, environmentally friendly resins (like PLA in the filament realm)?


CO, you've hit on exactly the reason that FFF printing isn't going away any time soon.  As prices drop on resin printers, prices will also drop on home filament extruders that people can use to just recycle their old plastic waste into new filament.  While resin prices drop, filament prices can drop to effectively zero.

Also, there's currently no easy way to print multiple materials on a SLA or SLS printer.  When a low resistance conductive filament is developed (Filament with moderate/high resistance conductivity has already been made), it will change the game completely for filament printers.  Right now a 3+ head FFF printer is a luxury, but when a head for conductive lines gets introduced, 3 heads will be essential.

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## Compro01

> As prices drop on resin printers, prices will also drop on home filament extruders that people can use to just recycle their old plastic waste into new filament.  While resin prices drop, filament prices can drop to effectively zero.


While extruders may be excellent for recycling existing prints and waste, I expect that using consumer plastics will give you issues with consistency.  You already see regular regarding black filaments due to certain colourants that don't agree with extrusion being used.  I would expect similar issues with recycled consumer plastics.




> Also, there's currently no easy way to print multiple materials on a SLA or SLS printer.


1. Technically, SLA's cousin Polyjet does multiple materials nicely, though it's absurdly expensive (or at least Stratasys charges a lot for it, regardless of actual cost) at present and way outside the home user's budget.

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## Feign

True that there's a lack of consistency with recycled consumer plastics, but just as filament extruders advance, so will FFF hotends.  It's not implausable that FFF hotends might develop in the direction of material versatility as SLA continues to proliferate and outclass FFF as the fine detail print technology of choice.  I envision a pellet-fed FFF or SLS printer in the future that has a built-in grinder for one-step printing from recycled materials.

As for Polyjet printers, I said "no easy way" when I should have said "no currently consumer-affordable way"  That said, there was once a time when full-color printing from a home office was also absurdly expensive.  Eventually, Stratasys will loose their grip on the Polyjet market and those will be the new normal for 3D printing.

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## LambdaFF

From a young father point of view : SLS/SLA are not something home-friendly. The waste products and solvents are just too hazardous at the moment and will need robust integrated processes to be widely adopted. This will mean development, cost and most probably closed material packaging / software / ... Automatization on such scale means it will probably no longer be desktop.

The history of technological paths shows that end quality is not always the most deciding parameter for wide adoption.

My guess is that both will evolve in parallel and just as we have ink printers and laser printers, we'll have FDM and SLA offering 2 different options.

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## CaptainObvious

> From a young father point of view : SLS/SLA are not something home-friendly. The waste products and solvents are just too hazardous at the moment and will need robust integrated processes to be widely adopted. This will mean development, cost and most probably closed material packaging / software / ... Automatization on such scale means it will probably no longer be desktop.
> 
> The history of technological paths shows that end quality is not always the most deciding parameter for wide adoption.
> 
> My guess is that both will evolve in parallel and just as we have ink printers and laser printers, we'll have FDM and SLA offering 2 different options.


Regarding your first point, the moment a toddler gets a mouthfull of uncured resin from a hollow printed toy that cracked, SLA goes out of the window for home use. Even FDM printers run or are going to run into health safety issues, ABS releases fumes that you don't want to have as part of your home atmosphere, and all filaments, AFAIK, release fine dust that can cause problems; personally, if I seat next to my printer for too long I get a cought just from that, I got a really bad cought when I first started with 3D printing, from having my head right into the thing calibrating it for hours on end.

If I remember correctly MakerBot doesn't list ABS as a printing filament for their printers because doing so would make them liable in case of any health condition caused by using it as a printing material.

Yes a printer can have air filtering, a SLA printer could concievable have self cleaning of the parts and inaccesible resin "tub", etc, etc... then you end up with a machine that needs to be plugged to an outside vent, or have replaceable air filters, solvents for cleaning, and the resin/filament that need to be replaced by the user which leads to a machine that has to be absolutely idiot proof or the manufacturer will be bombarded with lawsuits when someone gets hurt.
It's a very tall order to achieve that in a machine that would also be affordable to the masses; not that it couldn't be done, somehow, someday, but I would caution against too much hype about 3D printing, lest it goes through its own "Dot Com Bubble".

I don't want to come out looking as a luddite, far from it I think 3D printing if phenomenal and has great potential, but as I said, let's not get carried away.

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## Feign

Any 3D printer should ideally be a garage-use item if you have kids.  For SLA printers, a good tip is to use clear resin and leave the print in direct sunlight for as long as it takes to cure the thing almost to its core.  Still, with the cleaning and postprocessing on photopolymers, you're much better off with a FDM printer while you're sharing space with young children.

If I'm not mistaken, as long as your extruder and printer are all clean, recycling food-grade plastic into filament wouldn't remove its food-grade quality...  Right?

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## 3DPBuser

Food-grade: I've heard that printing with brass nozzles can go against this.

As for resin vs. filament, if the part is to be used outdoors (in sunlight), I don't think resin can be used because it will crack. 

And power printing, I think, is not as strong as filament, for end products.

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