Could use guidance on choosing printer for prototyping PCB enclosures, etc. please :)

[curious aardvark]

A couple of things.

How important is the appearance of the enclosures ?

You can easily print 100% solid objects on an fdm machine.

And depending on the orientation you can print really small and fine details.

And of course there is the almost limitless number of different material you can get.
I know you can also get an increasing num ber of resins - but if you compare the cost it's a LOT cheaper to experiment with fdm materials than with resins.

Are the nubs from where the print attaches to the top plate ?
In which case you may be able to get a sheet of something to stick on the plate to give you smooth bottom prints.

Or design a print that goes on top of the plate and has extensions that fills the holes in the late up :-)
That would probably be the best bet - and it would also give you better plate adhesion.
Might be a bugger getting the ptints off though as I would imagine resin would stick really well to resin.

Or simply use an epoxy to fill the holes.
Whole bunch of ways to gt rid of the nubs :-)

It might also be worth your while to invest in a little cheap fdm machine and to experiment with different fdm materials.
I waas thinking about something like the monoprice voxel and then I saw the one below.

Or get something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/TENLOG-Indepe...016025&sr=8-21

That will make two items at the same time.
Looks like a decent machine, generally good reviews.
Decent build volume.

And bear in mind that you don't necessarily need a heated enclosure.
Pet, pet-g and all forms of pla - are fine without. As are some nylons and various other filaments.
Even uses 300c hotends - so you can even have a play with polycarbonate and similiar hi-temp materials :-)

I wouldn't swear to it - but pretty sure it's using linear rails on the printbed - which would be awesome :-)

And look at it this way - no 3d printer ever goes unused :-)

[AGrayson84]

A couple of things.

How important is the appearance of the enclosures ?

You can easily print 100% solid objects on an fdm machine.

And depending on the orientation you can print really small and fine details.

And of course there is the almost limitless number of different material you can get.
I know you can also get an increasing num ber of resins - but if you compare the cost it's a LOT cheaper to experiment with fdm materials than with resins.

Are the nubs from where the print attaches to the top plate ?
In which case you may be able to get a sheet of something to stick on the plate to give you smooth bottom prints.

Or design a print that goes on top of the plate and has extensions that fills the holes in the late up :-)
That would probably be the best bet - and it would also give you better plate adhesion.
Might be a bugger getting the ptints off though as I would imagine resin would stick really well to resin.

Or simply use an epoxy to fill the holes.
Whole bunch of ways to gt rid of the nubs :-)

It might also be worth your while to invest in a little cheap fdm machine and to experiment with different fdm materials.
I waas thinking about something like the monoprice voxel and then I saw the one below.

Or get something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/TENLOG-Indepe...016025&sr=8-21

That will make two items at the same time.
Looks like a decent machine, generally good reviews.
Decent build volume.

And bear in mind that you don't necessarily need a heated enclosure.
Pet, pet-g and all forms of pla - are fine without. As are some nylons and various other filaments.
Even uses 300c hotends - so you can even have a play with polycarbonate and similiar hi-temp materials :-)

I wouldn't swear to it - but pretty sure it's using linear rails on the printbed - which would be awesome :-)

And look at it this way - no 3d printer ever goes unused :-)

You're such an amazing help!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't thank you enough for how kind and helpful you've been, responding to my posts and being so willing to help out

So my initial thought going into this whole 3D printing thing was that appearance was a huuuuuge factor for what I was doing. While I only wanted a printer for prototyping, I wanted to be very happy with the appearance as I put prototypes into use. So the higher resolution and less visible layer lines (and my ignorance of other pros and cons of FDM vs SLA) is what steered my toward SLA. However, at least with all PCB enclosures I've designed and printed so far over the last few days, I'm finding that sanding several areas has been required. Could be due to me still trying to sort out how to dial this printer in, or maybe it's just to be expected.

I'm absolutely seeing the the cost of experimenting with resin being much higher as you mentioned. Especially with the shallow height of the cases I'm doing, I really can't tell if something went wrong till the printing is done and the build plate raises out of the vat for me to see the result. I've already, for some unknown reason, had several of my PCB enclosure halves end up pretty significantly thicker (on the part that was against the build plate) than I designed them to be... which has already used up almost all of my 1000 mg of ABS-like resin lol.

Yes Sir, the nubs are on the side that is against the build plate. Good thought about maybe finding something you put over the plate, but it seems the manufacture revised the plate to have these holes because the amount of suction that was happening in the vat as the plate raised and lowered, and this was also causing a bit of splashing around and making a mess for at least one customer in a review I saw on Amazon. Definitely something I can still look into.... maybe slowing the lift and retract speed would prevent that.

So it did cross my mind to maybe flip my design over and NOT build the top of the top enclosure, and the bottom of the bottom enclosure, against the built plate... but rather use supports and snap them off then sand those areas, since the underside of the enclosure halves wouldn't be seen. Not sure if the extra resin use for the supports, and removing the supports is worth it over me just sanding the nubs down if I'm not able to do anything feasible to resolve the nubs.

I did just look at that TENLOG printer and seems like most people are pretty happy with it! I totally appreciate you showing that to me, I'd have to decide if I'd rather not just spend the extra money and get the one I was looking at that has the heated enclosure, just so I have the capability of hopefully being able to use whatever material I want. Nylon and carbon fiber-infused nylon sounds interesting to me, but so does the polycarbonate. I haven't done enough research on the various materials I might want to experiment with to know whether or not I would want to try to use them for something or other, and to know whether or not they require a heated enclosure..... but definitely appears I still have a bit of research to do haha. I definitely unknowingly jumped the gun on my purchase.... but maybe it'll still work out for me if I can overcome some of these small obstacles so far. But I will say that post-processing has proven to be annoying and time consuming lol! A 15 minute bath in my new ultrasonic cleaner filled with Mean Green (with and without heat) is not removing the excess uncured resin very well. I have been taking a soft bristle tooth brush and Mean Green to the components to pre-clean them before dropping them in the ultrasonic cleaner. The only thing I'm finding to thoroughly remove the excess is the isopropyl alcohol. I'd almost rather spend money on getting a nice FDM printer as well and just use each one for certain things..... even though price of my current printer and the price of what I'm looking at are a bit more money, combined, than I really should be spending on this stuff. But like you said, if you have them, you'll use them!

Once again, I super-appreciate all of your help with everything. You've be extremely awesome!!!!!!!!