Resin Vs. Filament - Benefits of each?

[CaptainObvious]

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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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?

[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.