Quote Originally Posted by kanningphish View Post
Does anyone know what the benefits of a filament printer are over a resin based printer?
Cost, both in materials and in buying the printer.

The Peachy has completely killed the up-front cost argument; resin printers have gone from five times the price of a cheap FDM printer to half the price of a cheap FDM printer. Can't argue with that.

Resins are still more expensive than filament, but they're getting cheaper (when the Form 1 was announced the resin was something like $200/L, now it's under $50/L) and the printer capabilities reduce consumption anyway (greatly reduced need for support structures, better reliability so there's less waste, etc). Realistically, the cost is now low enough that any normal object is going to be "a dollar or so", and nobody really cares that on an FDM printer it might only be 20c (plus six hours of trying to persuade the FDM printer to work reliably).


As Mike has said, physical properties might be a bigger factor. FDM printers have to use thermoplastics, primarily ABS and PLA. Both are rigid (necessary as they have to support themselves during the print and get pulled/pushed through the printer) and have a low melting point (necessary as they have to be extruded). The Peachy's resin should have a much higher melting point for a start, which probably doesn't really matter to anyone (it's still not high enough to replace metals). The much more interesting aspect is that because the structure is largely supported by water, you can use flexible resin. Makerjuice have been producing some nice rubbery ones, which will be perfect for kids' toys, phone cases, vibration dampers, etc.