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08-09-2022, 11:20 AM #1
- Join Date
- Aug 2022
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1st experiencs printing D&D mini's with resin
I figured I'd share my experiences using a resin printer to print D&D miniatures in the hope that it will help others. I'd also welcome feedback on things I might want to try. A little about me first. I'm a somewhat experienced FDM printer and had my FDM printer pretty well tuned to print minis but ultimately FDM can't get to the level of detail that resin can so I decided to take the plunge and buy a resin printer. I knew my main goal was to print minis so I didn't need a large format printer which narrowed the choice considerable. Speaking to friends and looking on forums I narrowed my choice to anycubic and elegoo and the decision was made for me when anycubic put the AnyCubic photon mono 4K 6.8" printer on sale for $140 which seemed like a spectacular price. I also invested in the anycubic wash station. First I tried the test print and was blown away by the results. Wow the detail was incredible but the room stunk. I knew If I didn't fix that issue resin printing wasn't going to happen. After a little research I decided to buy the anycubic active carbon filters (elegoo make some that look identical and I suspect are just as good). For ~$25 the problem was 100% solved. I run the filters cover the cover whenever I'm printing and there is 0 smell! Next I decided to jump in and print some mini's with mixed results. I'd print 6-8 minis on the plate but typically only get 4-6 without issues. The bigger issue was I had to filter the tank and clean the bottom every time. After some experimenting with Chitubox and LycheeSlicer I figured out the issue was I wasn't adding enough supports. Once I started adding more supports things improved though both tools (at least in the free version) leave some unsupported islands. When I discovered this I started running uvtools after the slice and invariable it would find a ton of minor (and sometimes major issue) that needed to be fixed. This made a huge difference to the success rate. Running UVTools is a pain but it makes such a difference to the results. The other discovery was adding a spring steel plate for $7. Prior to the spring steel plate I either had to raise the mini's off the build plate and support or have a hell of a time removing them intact. One I added the spring steel plate I print 95% of my mini's directly on the build plate (0 raise) and simply flex the steel and watch them all pop off intact. This made removing the mini's much easier and eliminated much of the gluing them onto bases. My best print yet was 13 D&D skeleton mini's crammed onto a 6.8" plate with 100% success! The final discovery was when I started printer bigger minis I suddenly started getting more failures again. After some reading and experiments I discovered that the issue was a combination of two things. 1) I needed to add in a few medium supports around the edge to help avoid the model breaking away when printing and 2 I needed to hollow the model out and add holes to make it lighter. Once I did both of these the large mini's printed just as easily. I hope this helps others. My focus was on printing D&D minis but it should be applicable to anyone who is printing smaller objects.
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