Would you buy a resin printer????

Good morning...
So i am looking at yet another 3d printer... AS it stands now I have owned a rostock max v2 (sold) and currently own a Makerfarm Prusa I3v 12, a Flashforge Creator Pro, and a Taz 5.
Ive been fortunate enough to have paid for these a few times over so im looking to make the next leap.
I know there are a lot of threads on resin printers etc but id like to see what you guys think about using it as another tool in my arsenal.

1. Doesnt seem to be any affordable (5k or less) resin printers that have any build volume at all. All very small
2. Ease of use... They seem actually easier to use than FDM, set a couple parameters and go.
3. Obviously cleaning the parts etc is a pain, but I can get past that.
4. Color and material choice is quite limited right now correct?

I love the idea of a resin based printer, its resolution etc. Just curious as to where you all fall on it?
thanks

well you might want to start with a peachy. Build volume - pretty much whatever you like.
cheaper than a litre or two of the resin.
And almost ready to buy.

I guess it depends entirely on what you want to print.

Colour and material - not as limited as you might think. You can get resin in most colours and flexble as well as rigid resins.
Expensive, but available.

So the peachy is a cool idea and may be fun to play with, but the quality isnt very good, and the resin is brittle and not great.
Although it may be able to use other resins also?
if the quality was any good id buy one.

I've been using a couple of them; the Form1+ and the B9 Creator. Both are fairly small, but they both offer much better detail than any FFF printer. The B9 is mostly intended for jewelry and small sculptures; its resin burns out well, so you can use them as patterns for metal castings. Neither is as easy to use as it might seem, but the B9 has had fewer problems than the Form1. Dealing with the resins is messy; they tend to drip where you don't want them to, especially in the Form1, which has all its delicate mirrors and electronics open underneath the tray. Material selections are limited, although Formlabs has put a lot of energy into developing different resins, so they're offering their standard resin in clear, gray, white, and black plus they've got "tough" and "flexible" ones as well. The jury's still out on how well their "castable" resin really works. None of it's particularly cheap, though.

Andrew Werby
www.computersculpture.com

I ordered a peachy just to goof around with... quality is terrible so id never use it for anything... Im wondering why the quality is so bad... what is the variable in the equation that is causing the poor quality?
Could you make the laser come to a finer point? Is the water dripping in to the reservoir causing slight movement/vibration of the part?
There has to be a way to get better quality. the quality is so variable too, some places looks ok, others really bad which makes me think there is some vibration or randomness in the equation.

I have an Ultimaker 2 and an B9Creator 1.2 at home.
I don't use the Ultimaker anymore.
The Ultimaker has 2 advantages, build space and toughness of the finished model. The B9Creator has 2 advantages, incredible print quality and less restrictions when designing.
I haven't used the Ultimaker in nearly a year. I use the B9Creator daily (counted over a year, probably every other day).

I do miniatures for war-games. Soldiers, vehicles, buildings etc.. The casual onlooker does not see the difference in quality between a printed miniature and one bought.
Some things like building get decent results on the Ultimaker, but decent is only enough, if you can't get good or very good.

There are things the Ultimaker is better suited for, but I almost never print those.

As the main advantage of a resin printer is print quality, you should buy the best you can afford. Expecting the Peachy Printer to deliver high quality prints is IMHO naive. ANd a bad resin printer is not better than a good FDM, printer, so why not buy an FDM printer and get the FDM advantages as well.

Resin printers are more messy, because fluids are more messy than solids. Post production is a skill you learn. I remove the build table, use a knife to remove the model, put it in a jar with IPA, put the jar in an US cleaner (filled with water) for some minutes. Get the model out, remove the supports and I'm done. At least with the B9 you do not have to clean and empty the vat after every print.

Whether to buy a resin or an FDM printer is just a matter of what you want to print (and the money available :) ). If the models are small and full of detail, buy a good resin printer. If you need large or sturdy models use an FDM printer.
Of course you can use tricks, like making making copies of the model and cast them in metal or cut the model up into multiple pieces, or add details with prefabricated parts.

I already own three printers so im pretty set with FDM. I may sell the FFCP and the MF and get another taz, for customer users, but the resin would be more for trying to make more of a business out of this. goof around. have fun :)
Right now the resin would likely be a curiousity . but im sure i could make some money off of it.

The quality of the peachy shouldnt be something that isnt fixable though.. sure its a little strange looking and cheaply built, but the premise is the same as any other, laser cures resin. it should be possible to increase its quality...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dunginhawk

I already own three printers so im pretty set with FDM. I may sell the FFCP and the MF and get another taz, for customer users, but the resin would be more for trying to make more of a business out of this. goof around. have fun :)
Right now the resin would likely be a curiousity . but im sure i could make some money off of it.

The quality of the peachy shouldnt be something that isnt fixable though.. sure its a little strange looking and cheaply built, but the premise is the same as any other, laser cures resin. it should be possible to increase its quality...

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You can make money from everything. You can make money with bad quality, if it's cheap enough, or the customer doesn't know better or you brand it art, hip, chic or "the next thing", or whatever.

With any given hardware, there is only so much you can do quality wise. Except you modify it until it is is no longer recognizable, which begs the question why you started out with the stuff you started out.
The premise of an 1950s Beetle is the same as that of an current Bentley Continental. If you know how and are willing to invest time and money or only more money, you can make traveling in the Beetle as comfortable as traveling in the Bentley.

Of course if the "journey is the reward", speed to market and efficiency don't really matter. Go ahead, let us know how it went.

of the machines I've seen working I'd probably avoid the form 2.
The build process is really complex and involves the model coming in and out of the resin for every single layer.
That has to effect quality.

As brumbaer says - resin's only real current selling point is the detail level.

Give it a few years and it'll either disappear entirely as new technologies come to the market, or they'll improve it to the point it's the preferred technology.

Given that there are at least two resin techniques out there that print really fast, it could well be the latter.

I've personally got no current use for a resin printer - but I don't print many artistic models or decorative items and I don't give a rats arse about barely visible lines on the plastic :-)

For me the future of resin printing would have to lie in the potential for really fast prints.

Yeah, like that one that was just unveiled that printed that red sphere with interconnecting pieces in 7 minutes... that one looks promising. if its consumer price friendly

lol well it won't be to start with.
You'll need competition for the prices to drop.

so what about the pegasus touch 3d resin printer? pretty decent build volume as well as a good price point at 3K.
anyone have any experience with that one?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dunginhawk

so what about the pegasus touch 3d resin printer? pretty decent build volume as well as a good price point at 3K.
anyone have any experience with that one?

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I've read that this is one of those dodgy ones to be avoided. More because of the company's client relations than anything else. I can't remember where I read it but if I find the link I'll post it here.

curious.... im wondering what you think the future will hold for this and FDM? Im of the other camp. i think resin based printing is the past and the future. FDM just doesnt have the quality, or the streamlined process that we need for heavy adoption.
I think once resin solves the build size problem and the messiness etc, it will take off. If i could print in resin and have guaranteed (mostly) bonded layers etc vs someone who prints something in ABS that may fall apart in a week, ill take resin.
SPeed is a factor of course as well.
I just dont see FDM printers being around to the extent they are now. Unless a LOT changes. They are too hard to tweak and get perfect prints, too many moving parts.
Now take this with a devils advocate side of things, as i do a fair amount of business in FDM printing. just saying :)

So I went ahead and bought a form1 clone on ebay for 880$. While I think it may be used (cant be sure, but there are some scratches etc) and the CD didnt work (had to contact them to get a DL link) once that was up and running without any calibration at all i started printing.
Now I assume I need to calibrate something, or level something. It cant just be this easy...
So here are some pics of my first print. LITERALLY the first print i tested on this printer. No fails before this, nothing.

The quality and detail is pretty staggering. There are some spots where I see some layer stuff, and there was some VERY thin (layer like thinness) chunks attached here and there that came off in the alchohol. What would be causing that?

Any suggestions on how to make this better would be great... of course I need to find more resins to work... any suggestions there? As you would have guessed, support on this will be lacking haha.

POPCORN for reference scale haha

http://i1132.photobucket.com/albums/...psb2mbcfhz.jpg
http://i1132.photobucket.com/albums/...psogfj3mcp.jpg

http://i1132.photobucket.com/albums/...psxzz6v8ub.jpghttp://i1132.photobucket.com/albums/...ps5f6svdqg.jpg

I found that when I switched to a glass-bottomed tank that the "floaters" (those annoying little chunks that adhere to your parts) went away. I'm not sure if the tanks that fit the official Form1+ will fit your clone, but if they do, you can get them from Zak Timan: ZTiman "at" gmail "dot" com

You can get a variety of resins from the Formlabs store:
http://formlabs.com/store/us/form-1/

Andrew Werby
www.computersculpture.com

he has not gotten back to me :(
check that.. he has

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Brumbaer

I have an Ultimaker 2 and an B9Creator 1.2 at home.
I don't use the Ultimaker anymore.
The Ultimaker has 2 advantages, build space and toughness of the finished model. The B9Creator has 2 advantages, incredible print quality and less restrictions when designing.
I haven't used the Ultimaker in nearly a year. I use the B9Creator daily (counted over a year, probably every other day).

I do miniatures for war-games. Soldiers, vehicles, buildings etc.. The casual onlooker does not see the difference in quality between a printed miniature and one bought.
Some things like building get decent results on the Ultimaker, but decent is only enough, if you can't get good or very good.

There are things the Ultimaker is better suited for, but I almost never print those.

As the main advantage of a resin printer is print quality, you should buy the best you can afford. Expecting the Peachy Printer to deliver high quality prints is IMHO naive. ANd a bad resin printer is not better than a good FDM, printer, so why not buy an FDM printer and get the FDM advantages as well.

Resin printers are more messy, because fluids are more messy than solids. Post production is a skill you learn. I remove the build table, use a knife to remove the model, put it in a jar with IPA, put the jar in an US cleaner (filled with water) for some minutes. Get the model out, remove the supports and I'm done. At least with the B9 you do not have to clean and empty the vat after every print.

Whether to buy a resin or an FDM printer is just a matter of what you want to print (and the money available :) ). If the models are small and full of detail, buy a good resin printer. If you need large or sturdy models use an FDM printer.
Of course you can use tricks, like making making copies of the model and cast them in metal or cut the model up into multiple pieces, or add details with prefabricated parts.

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So ive had the chinese knockoff CTC resin printer for about a week and its a mixed bag. Mostly good. for $880 i was willing to take a risk that it would be garbage, it most certainly is NOT.
Ive printed 10 or so things and almost all of them have finished without issue. ONly when i switched to the yellow makerjuice did i have my first failed print. Im reprinting that now.
The detail is amazing, the product is solid. Im actually quite stunned that a $880 printer can deliver these results.
I am still looking for a production ready machine, like the muve, pegasus, morpheus etc. I would LOVE the larger build area, but with DLP that comes with limits. Where as the formlabs 2 seems to have a decent (not big) build area, great support, and a solid community. Right now im leaning formlabs 2.

oh, and ill echo what brumbaer said... Now that i have a resin printer, even though its not the best one out there, I dont even want to use my FDM printer anymore haha.
If i could get a build area the size of the taz 5 id sell it in a heartbeat.

So the question is... is there a resin based printer out there (muve3d comes to mind, but still makes me nervous) that can print .05mm (50 micro) parts, in the 10x10x10 build area (or close) for 5-6K????
I have that to spend on a new resin based printer and would love to hear my options.

With any given hardware, there is only so much you can do quality wise.
http://www.casesam.co.uk/category-ga...-cover-15.html
http://www.casesam.co.uk/category-ga...-cover-10.html
http://www.casesam.co.uk/category-ga...-cover-33.html

here is the review of my CTC resin printer. mixed bag for sure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPYE...ature=youtu.be