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3D printing - Elegoo Mars resin


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Couple of questions chaps if you don't mind.

 

Have done the Rook test print on my new Mars, really pleased, came out really well. 

 

Does anyone know if a freshly done print needs to be removed from the print plate ASAP or can it be left there for a while before cleaning and curing? Only thinking if I set off a 5 hour print while I am at work for 12 hours, it'll sit there for a good long while before it gets removed, cleaned and cured. Does this matter?

 

Also, I hear a lot about printing things at an angle. I am thinking one of my first prints will be a, flat on one side, bogey side frame, in OO gauge, or indeed an N gauge bogey whole, any suggestions on how may be best to print it?

 

Finally, just any advice for a newbie, please feel free to send it this way. Plenty of experience using an FDM printer but first time I've ever used a resin printer! 

 

Cheers

 

Tom

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Can be left for ages. I've left a print for a month before! Avoid it being in direct sun or anything, but it'll be absolutely fine. Actually good to leave it for a while as more resin will drip back into the vat.

 

Re: the bogies, in general if something has a flat side I'd place that flat on the plate. My worry with a bogie is that you presumably have either a pinpoint recess, or somewhere to put a tophat bearing, and you'll likely lose this recess if you print it flat.


I print bogies whole (including O gauge ones), I arrange them like this (these are N gauge):

 

50734203076_de1f8b8e63_z.jpgTF-25_chitubox by njee20, on Flickr

 

That is inclined to about 30-40 degrees, lots of light supports, with shallow contact points. I print them with a mix of resins; 25% Siraya Tenacious and 75% Anycubic black. The Tenacious adds a huge amount of flex, failure rate used to be much higher with 'neat' Anycubic.

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Ah great, thanks handy to know. More than happy to leave a print to do over night now then! 

 

These particular side frames I'm after trial printing, they don't have a pinpoint recess, they are to stick onto a flat plain bogey frame so that should be fine. 

 

Ah cool, thanks for showing that screenshot, thats handy. I think the N gauge bogeys I would want to print in 1 piece though, I have got some of the Elegoo resin to start with so will see how they turn out. 

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11 hours ago, tstageman92 said:

Ah great, thanks handy to know. More than happy to leave a print to do over night now then! 

 

These particular side frames I'm after trial printing, they don't have a pinpoint recess, they are to stick onto a flat plain bogey frame so that should be fine.

 

Just watch out when you print directly on the plate that you might get elephant's foot on your prints caused by the extended layer exposure times for the first few layers.   I've got round this by either putting rebates on the first few layers.  I also tried reducting the number of inital burning on layers and actually got away with one layer on some small objects and everything stayed on the plate.  Worth experimenting but make sure you don't leane anything in the resin - you need to filter it regularly if you suspect that bits havedropped off.

 

Jim.

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1 hour ago, tstageman92 said:

Is there any basic settings that anyone would suggest changing on a fresh copy of Chitubox? I have just put my first print on the printer, so will see how it comes out. 

 

 

I'm sorry I can't.  My printer is a Shuffle and all the key settings for exposure, etc., are in the printer's software.  All Chitubox does is slice the model.   But I remember when doing S scale wagon wheel centres that I progressively reduced the number of start layers to see when they stopped sticking to the plate and found that I could get down to one start layer.  I was almost tempted to try no extended start layers. :-)   With other larger parts which were spacers for the chassis of a 1:32 scale loco,  I put chamfers on the bottom corners to offset the growth of elephant's foot and that might take a bit of experiment until you get a good result. 

 

Jim

 

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Evening chaps,

 

Ok, so after a couple of prints with my new Mars, fairly pleased with the results. Thought I would just share a couple of photos and wondering if I may pick your brains regarding a few points I have noticed.

 

So I began with a small lineside building, totally fictional, just to see how the printer performed when printing brickwork and corrugated type surface. I have to say they came out really nicely, I have found that I could do with making the brick mortar maybe 0.1mm deeper so that you can see it a bit clearer, make it a bit more defined. And the corrugated surface printed really nicely.

IMG_20201223_144850.jpg.861e9a03b3da38d6a309b1164ecd2be2.jpg

 

Then I test printed an N gauge Class 416 MLV body. I had previously done these on my FDM printer but just with a really basic shape, and added all the detail myself. I also couldn't 'cut' the windows right out on the FDM otherwise it seemed to cause too much droop at the top of the windows. However on the resin printer, no such issue. Its come out really nice, especially the buffers which I'm really pleased about. 

IMG_20201223_144818.jpg.966d2096bd970b73d7a0a112245c7110.jpg

IMG_20201223_144758.jpg.a3491623d0143c3c77d459c3ad67d2be.jpg

A few minor bits of the support still attached as I've yet to tidy it up but its really neat. I have noticed however that there are some print lines on the side of this body, which run horizontally despite the model being printed at like 30 degrees. So must be to do with the slicing? Any thoughts on that?

 

Also, one end of the MLV body has got quite a bit of excess resin on it, and is not quite as defined and neat as the other end. The end with the excess on it is the end that was nearest the build plate....so am wondering....is it worth dropping the model down from the build plate by another couple of mm? I think this one was printed with 3mm gap between the build plate and the start of the model, so maybe its got a bit of excess resin cured to that end as it was at the end that had a longer exposure time? Any thoughts on that too please? Compare the image below with the one above which is much neater.

IMG_20201223_144829.jpg.505c98d0fccc47a2c92be1d506995b62.jpg

 

But all in all, I'm really pleased, still learning and trying to refine the whole 'cleaning and curing' routine, may feel the need for a new purpose built workbench to keep everything neat and tidy! 

 

Thanks all, 

 

Tom

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Looking excellent.

 

I've printed some brick supports for a tank, in 4mm, with quite shallow mortar lines. I didn't want to make these too deep. I made mine 0.25mm deep and seem to work quite well once painted. I was concerned that might not achieve a crisp edge around the edges of the bricks if much deeper. The whole tank is printed in sections, base with brick, tank and pipe work.

 

The MLV looks great. I have had a few prints where the there are visible lines as you have encountered, usually where the wall thickness is 3mm or more. I seem to have overcome with additional supports, but may not be desirable on your model along the outside, possibly on the inside?

 

 

20201021_222600.jpg

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17 hours ago, tstageman92 said:

Evening chaps,

 

Ok, so after a couple of prints with my new Mars, fairly pleased with the results. Thought I would just share a couple of photos and wondering if I may pick your brains regarding a few points I have noticed.

 

So I began with a small lineside building, totally fictional, just to see how the printer performed when printing brickwork and corrugated type surface. I have to say they came out really nicely, I have found that I could do with making the brick mortar maybe 0.1mm deeper so that you can see it a bit clearer, make it a bit more defined. And the corrugated surface printed really nicely.

IMG_20201223_144850.jpg.861e9a03b3da38d6a309b1164ecd2be2.jpg

 

Then I test printed an N gauge Class 416 MLV body. I had previously done these on my FDM printer but just with a really basic shape, and added all the detail myself. I also couldn't 'cut' the windows right out on the FDM otherwise it seemed to cause too much droop at the top of the windows. However on the resin printer, no such issue. Its come out really nice, especially the buffers which I'm really pleased about. 

IMG_20201223_144818.jpg.966d2096bd970b73d7a0a112245c7110.jpg

IMG_20201223_144758.jpg.a3491623d0143c3c77d459c3ad67d2be.jpg

A few minor bits of the support still attached as I've yet to tidy it up but its really neat. I have noticed however that there are some print lines on the side of this body, which run horizontally despite the model being printed at like 30 degrees. So must be to do with the slicing? Any thoughts on that?

 

Also, one end of the MLV body has got quite a bit of excess resin on it, and is not quite as defined and neat as the other end. The end with the excess on it is the end that was nearest the build plate....so am wondering....is it worth dropping the model down from the build plate by another couple of mm? I think this one was printed with 3mm gap between the build plate and the start of the model, so maybe its got a bit of excess resin cured to that end as it was at the end that had a longer exposure time? Any thoughts on that too please? Compare the image below with the one above which is much neater.

IMG_20201223_144829.jpg.505c98d0fccc47a2c92be1d506995b62.jpg

 

But all in all, I'm really pleased, still learning and trying to refine the whole 'cleaning and curing' routine, may feel the need for a new purpose built workbench to keep everything neat and tidy! 

 

Thanks all, 

 

Tom

Personally I’d try and avoid any supports on such visible faces. Print with supports inside the body, or put a sacrificial plinth around the base of the model (or both). Support structures are a bit of a personal thing, I like lots of light supports, very small contact area and depth (0.3mm on each is my norm). 
 

As for the resin pooling at one end yes perhaps worth lifting further off the plate, possibly worsened by having the model upside down too - again if you supported inside the model the resin wouldn’t be sitting on the external face of the model. 
 

looks like a great effort though!

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Morning chaps, hope you all had a good Christmas!

 

Have continued playing with my new Mars and after taking on your comments and suggestions above, have done another long print overnight last night. Printed with the supports on the inside, which has certainly made it much neater.

 

Overall really good, still appear to have the resin pooling at one end despite lifting the model off the plate by about 5mm...maybe even more required? 

 

I had a major issue with the roof printing, totally my design not being suitable with the roof being far too thin but happy to retry after a few alterations. The body also seems a little flimsy along the centre section so again think that needs a bit of beefing up. One thing that is puzzling me is the fact that on the drawing, the obstacle deflector plate things at the bottom of each front are nice and square with round corners but for some reason mine has printed like an oval at the bottom...any suggestions why this might have happened? I have been using Chitubox, but I hear a lot of chat about Lychee....any bonus' to using Lychee over Chitubox?

 

Here are some photos of my print (sorry, bombarded with photos!)

 

IMG_20201231_100132.jpg.7872de49a73f94a0a31083de1e8d3fa6.jpg

IMG_20201231_100138.jpg.4758f6666c92aa4b08030f33bd749241.jpg

IMG_20201231_100155.jpg.1af89d262f2383bae2a1ed9c9d3f8939.jpg

IMG_20201231_100221_BURST002.jpg.a86f8b277bb7b3539286d2ebbc2e2420.jpg

IMG_20201231_102841.jpg.e75781f898d5c3e1898851e4ccdc0a2d.jpg

 

This is the end with the resin spooling....

 

IMG_20201231_102826.jpg.dfcef1da6d30e0507ba6d5c48cd58979.jpg

 

IMG_20201231_102848.jpg.195f86a24291e8ff69171f822c885793.jpg

 

IMG_20201231_102835.jpg

 

Thanks chaps

 

Tom

Edited by tstageman92
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That’ll be interesting, given the tendency for clear resins to haze and/or yellow when curing. If a resin could be used to make glazing it would open up a whole load of new possibilities.   

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On 15/01/2021 at 18:24, njee20 said:

That’ll be interesting, given the tendency for clear resins to haze and/or yellow when curing. If a resin could be used to make glazing it would open up a whole load of new possibilities.   

It launches today at 8pm.  Got an email from them saying I've got the chance to get one of the 250ml samples that  they're giving away/reducing the price of.

 

I clicked the 'Order' button  so hopefully I'm in the lucky  185 that get either a free bottle or the chance to pay $5, $10 or $20.

 

If so I'll try it out and report back.

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So is it worth buying the ELEGOO Mars 2 Pro Mono or is the ELEGOO Mars 2 Mono LCD just as good, from what I can tell coming at this from a newbie the Pro has Carbon filter that can't be changed. The other you can buy said carbon filter and bolt it to the side and replace it every so often. 

 

I am learning Fusion 360 and could do with doing some test prints to see if my designs actually work in really life, but can not make up my mind.

 

I am also interested to see how the clear resin works out, as that may change a few designs I have done.

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Correct. The Pro also has a marginally higher z-axis and a metal vat (plastic on the standard 2). I'd buy the standard one (and I've got a 2 Pro).

 

If you want me to test a design before diving in feel free to send me one to test for you.

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17 minutes ago, njee20 said:

Correct. The Pro also has a marginally higher z-axis and a metal vat (plastic on the standard 2). I'd buy the standard one (and I've got a 2 Pro).

 

If you want me to test a design before diving in feel free to send me one to test for you.

 

Thank you for the offer, I hadn't noticed the z-axis but as I am working in 1/148 not sure I'll need the extra will check now. 

The money saved I can buy a wash and cure station that some seem to use, do you have one?

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Yes! I’ve got the Anycubic one (because Elegoo didn’t make one at the time) and it’s excellent, much better. I wish I’d bought a second when they were heavily discounted, to keep one for washing and one for curing!

Edited by njee20
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On 05/02/2021 at 19:22, njee20 said:

Yes! I’ve got the Anycubic one (because Elegoo didn’t make one at the time) and it’s excellent, much better. I wish I’d bought a second when they were heavily discounted, to keep one for washing and one for curing!

 

I have bit the bullet and ordered a Elegoo Mars 2 and Elegoo Curing device due this week, the mars 2 was £180ish on Amazon over weekend so went for it. May be here for advice soon, steep learning curve I suspect.

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1 hour ago, Tricky-CRS said:

 

I have bit the bullet and ordered a Elegoo Mars 2 and Elegoo Curing device due this week, the mars 2 was £180ish on Amazon over weekend so went for it. May be here for advice soon, steep learning curve I suspect.

Did you get the Mercury Plus, ie the washing and curing device? Or just the Mercury (which just cures), IMO the latter is grossly overpriced, the washing bit is the useful one. 
 

That is a bargain for the Mars 2 though, lucky I didn’t spot that! I see replacement screens came into stock too (and then sold out) but at least the consumables are starting to trickle through.  

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