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Anycubic Photon and Mono X 3D DLP Printers


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36 minutes ago, Paul_sterling said:

Thanks Mike, I would be very interested to get your insights into support structure and angles etc, please, as I've not found a completely happy medium as yet. 

 

Thanks, Paul. 

Interesting question for which I do not have a simple answer.

 

A lot of my printing has been done at 30 degrees with the most detailed end upwards. Some items have been done at 45 degrees.

 

In order to get the V2 halves into a single print they were inclined 80 degrees so a trade off between quality and print times.

 

As far as supports go I tend to use medium size for the majority and add in light when necessary and admit to going heavy on the number of them.

 

I usually start with generated autosupports and then look to see if they suit. I might then edit them or delete the lot and start adding supports manually. More often than not I end up doing them manually which can be a pain.

 

I start doing the main supports first getting a good coverage and making sure I go as close to the visible edge as I can especially for any lower sloping edges. Here I am starting to add the main supports to a container from Thingiverse:

Untitled21.jpg.1defbb3788e4626d511bfd1c58f18dfc.jpg

 

I then switch to light supports varying the connection length as necessary:

Untitled29.jpg.28a04f29e3158959e45d5f50149419a1.jpg

 

Yes, it is a lot of supports but if done carefully they clean up easily and most importantly keep edges straight. I find printing at 0.035mm suits most models.

 

As a comparison here are the supports for the v2:

v2.jpg.d97fa543b6946abafb48b5dec255efe9.jpg

 

Edit: Should add that I tend to print with Anti-aliasing set to 4.

Edited by MikeTrice
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17 minutes ago, MikeTrice said:

Gresley carriage end printed at 30 degrees:

 

 

 

Thanks Mike, 

 

Very much appreciated, in some respects not having a straight answer is a good thing, as it means you support the parts on a case-by-case situation, which also means it's fairly tolerant to different support patterns, I think............

 

This mornings test was a success, the 50x10x5 bar pieces all came out at 50.06-50.16mm x 10.1-10.15, which is absolutely fine taking into account light bleed on an 8.25s exposure (the S can probably have another 1-2 seconds shaved off on this alone.

 

Cheers, Paul. 

 

 

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The downside of printing at a lower exposure is the moulding can be softer and more easily marked so take care. If in doubt: try it (and let us know how it goes ;-))

 

Yes it is fairly tolerant and I don't always get it right first go. Saving from Chitubox in Chitubox format can be a life saver.

 

I probably should explain the last bit for those unaware of why I said it. In the default Anycubic slicer once you have painstakingly added the supports you can only save the result in stl format. This means the stl contains both supports and the original model. If you subsequently want to add more supports or alter existing ones it is difficult to do unless done manually in a 3D modelling tool or by starting from scrath and readding the supports. The Chitubox format save both original model and support structures but allows you to continue editing them in the light of initial print success.

 

I have also of late taken to running any .photon files through Photon File Validator and checking for any islands in the resulting sliced file, often using the Validator to fix a lot of them.

 

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11 hours ago, MikeTrice said:

I have also of late taken to running any .photon files through Photon File Validator and checking for any islands in the resulting sliced file, often using the Validator to fix a lot of them.

 

I am a big fan of the Validator and always use it, especially on files I've produced from Sketchup. Often I'd found files looked  fine in sketchup, Flashprint , meshmixer, Chitubox and the Photon slicer, but once sliced with either the Photon slicer or Chitubox the print would  come out with strange anomolies - seperate items  connected together by a thick block for instance, or windows with  the 'glass' areas printed as solids rather than as hollows, , Trying to work out what was going on  I took to running each file through the validator prior to printing and  found that the Validator package always showed up the anomolies accurately, thus preventing a wasted print..

 

I've since found out that the wierd anomolies were  due to my slapdash 3D modelling not making the items manifold and so on, and I now make sure that a make each item a true solid in Sketchup before exporting the stl but still use the validator as a final check, and like you, to fix a lot of island and detached pixel issues which it does very well:

 

 

Edited by monkeysarefun
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Cracked the screen on my Photon last week, not quite sure how, I'd guess a bit of resin on the bottom of the FEP stuck to the LCD. Put a replacement in, and got an "LCD error" (T_100 L_0). Swapped back to the old screen, same error, . Contacted Anycubic (on Friday evening UK time), this replied this morning asking if I'd tried updating the firmware - I had, and had tried downgrading and upgrading again, hadn't fixed it, so they're sending a new main board, no questions asked. Quite chuffed with that. It is only 6 months old, but still... 

 

Bought an Elegoo Mars in the mean time, as I imagine it'll take a few weeks to get here, and that seemed a better option than another Photon, and I wasn't sufficiently convinced by any of the more expensive offerings out there!

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26 minutes ago, njee20 said:

Cracked the screen on my Photon last week, not quite sure how, I'd guess a bit of resin on the bottom of the FEP stuck to the LCD. Put a replacement in, and got an "LCD error" (T_100 L_0). Swapped back to the old screen, same error, . Contacted Anycubic (on Friday evening UK time), this replied this morning asking if I'd tried updating the firmware - I had, and had tried downgrading and upgrading again, hadn't fixed it, so they're sending a new main board, no questions asked. Quite chuffed with that. It is only 6 months old, but still...

 

My LCD went to just a faint mauve glow, I tried to do the firmware upgrade in case that fixed it, the upgrade only took a second or so which seemed suss, rebooted Photon and got some kind of LCD error message, posibly the same as yours. Currently its waiting for me to replace the LCD screen which I have here  but not had the time to do yet. I assume the firmware upgrade didn't run correctly due to the faulty LCD. Hopefully I can rerun it post LCD replacement and it'll all come good -  fingers crossed.

 

Weirdly, I ordered an Elegoo Mars just yesterday since Amazon AU had them at a good price and free delivery gauranteed by this Thursday...

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Not so sure, the firmware upgrade is quite quick, it makes some different beeps. Certainly with mine the firmware change worked (check in the system menu), and the printer was seemingly ok, just wouldn’t print. The LCD just blocks out the UV light from below, it doesn’t ‘light up’ per se, so “faint mauve glow” sounds like it’s not working at all - you’re just seeing all of the UV array from below filtering through. 
 

I certainly couldn't get the rectangle to show on the exposure test.

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M printer was in the shed on a day when the 'feels like' temperature was 51 degrees - it cooked the LCD screen on my multimeter that I left in the sun (just went black) so I assume it wasn't the best place for the 3D printer to be. 

 

Just been checking out a review of the Phrozen sonic mini. Uses a monochrome screen and has curing times of 1.5 to 2 seconds per layer - due for release here Mid March for about the same price as the Photon original here .Seems another contender for anyone thinking about a resin printer

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Noticed that Anycubic have snuck out the Photon Zero, which here costs about half the price of the Photon. Has a smaller build area of 97 by 54 by 150mm and the LCD masking screen  is a budget one of 490 by 854 pixels, giving an XY res of 115 microns, 4 times the photons. Uses 16x anti-aliasing to compensate but I haven't seen any prints made from it yet.

 

Came home to an  Elegoo Mars sitting on my doorstep here less than 24 hours after I ordered it - thats amazing service for down here, I guess Amazon Prime membership does pay off sometimes..

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  • 3 weeks later...

Wish I'd stocked up on IPA before now - the two places I can get it in bulk firstly doubled their price and now are out of it.  My backup plan to use methylated spirits instead has probably been thwarted because yesterdays major news site here had an article about how to make your own hand sanitiser using metho and one other thing that I didn't bother reading, so now I guess  that will vanish too.

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26 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

Wish I'd stocked up on IPA before now - the two places I can get it in bulk firstly doubled their price and now are out of it.  My backup plan to use methylated spirits instead has probably been thwarted because yesterdays major news site here had an article about how to make your own hand sanitiser using metho and one other thing that I didn't bother reading, so now I guess  that will vanish too.

 

RS stock IPA, and at present is cheaper than Ebay, circa £7 a litre,

 

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Thank you for that, its a pity I'm down here..   Just a month ago I could get  5 litres of 99% IPA for $27.95  (about 14 pounds) from a solvents supplier just down the road from work, Their website lists it now at exactly double that but sold out.

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11 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Thank you for that, its a pity I'm down here..   Just a month ago I could get  5 litres of 99% IPA for $27.95  (about 14 pounds) from a solvents supplier just down the road from work, Their website lists it now at exactly double that but sold out.

Ah sorry I was too impatient to reply and didn’t take note of  your location.

 

id bought some for the two photon S’s, before this all kicked off, and though RS is expensive normally, it’s now not too bad as the market demand has gone nuts.

 

frankly at current prices on eBay and such like, you may as well buy a bottle of vodka to use.........

Edited by Paul_sterling
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15 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

Thank you for that, its a pity I'm down here..   Just a month ago I could get  5 litres of 99% IPA for $27.95  (about 14 pounds) from a solvents supplier just down the road from work, Their website lists it now at exactly double that but sold out.

 

It might be too expensive to consider, but this was posted on one of the Facebook groups recently:

"Look up monocure3d website they have a cleaning solution that’s non flammable and low odour. They are in Melbourne. I think it’s around $80 5litres."

 

 

Steve

Edited by 55020
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Hmm. User name of linmeiyun1758 and only sold 10 items. No business address given and seller says he is based in the UK rather than a specific town.

 

Ebay is flooded with Chinese sellers who give a generic UK location (sometimes London) but are based in China. I understand they employ a student or similar to post it from the UK but as the package often shows, there is a Royal Mail pre-paid label on one side and a Chinese export label on the other. Sometimes delivery can be within a week but sometimes the items never turn up or turn up after months.

 

Also, Royal Mail would not accept Isopropyl Alcohol and I doubt airlines will take it. So it's a slow boat from China and then courier - all for £12?

 

You can get 50 listings all for the same item - same pictures and same text and just the title changes with some random characters at the end. Business names sometimes vary I think these are all computer generated.

 

I now try to find real UK sellers but it's getting a bit of finding a needle in a haystack, especially if one sorts on price low to high.  Unfortunately, some items can be extremely difficult to find from UK sellers, probably all driven out of the market.

 

Better stop, this is getting to be a rant!

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Try Hexeal Chemicals limited. I have used them several times most recently in February this year. I paid £15.00 and the current price is £20. They have a UK website and premises and also sell through EBay. Delivery is by courier,

 

Mark

 

1C26ABB6-556A-4F5F-9EBB-4AD7701966BE.png.dba2d32f8651edadb8336a331ab70d45.png

09C1795A-B841-432F-A051-C38918ACA72D.png

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  • 1 month later...

I have just been sent a new motherboard from Anycubic because the printer (Photon S) wouldn’t open any files a week after I did a firmware upgrade. I fitted the new board yesterday and it still has the same problem. Has anybody else experienced this before I go back to them?

 

Thanks in anticipation

 

Mark Humphrys

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Dumb Captain Obvious style question that I apologise in advance for but have you tried using a different USB stick?

 

 

 

 

 

I had a weird problem (printer would begin print, then display  67% complete after about 5 seconds, , then reckon it had finished ) that went away when I tried a new USB stick..

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  • 2 weeks later...

I ordered what looked amazingly good price IPA it never turned up and the vendor disappeared luckily paid via PayPal so got my money back there are some real scum out there so take care

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 08/05/2020 at 16:50, LongRail said:

I ordered what looked amazingly good price IPA it never turned up and the vendor disappeared luckily paid via PayPal so got my money back there are some real scum out there so take care

Me too, but got a refund.

 

Has anyone tried methylated spirits ?, also available without blue tint.

 

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