3D resin printer - recomendations

[JeremyC]

My son has a Creality Ender 3 filiament printer, but we are thinking of jointly purchasing a resin printer. The affordable choice appears to be either the Anycubic Photon or the Elgoo Mars. The hoped for use is war games miniatures (my son) and 7mm scale components (myself). Any advice on which is the better unit (or other possibilities) would be appreciated.

(I have read various reviews and threads on here, but some users thoughts would be useful)

[njee20]

Both good, both have a solid following with active communities for trouble shooting. There are even threads on here with people talking about each. 
 

I get better results from my Mars, I’ve had the Photon longer and need to give it some love to work out why it’s not as good as it was - I get ‘banding’ on taller prints, but that appears to be a unit-specific problem.

 

I personally prefer the hinged door on the Photon, and it feels more solid as a device. The Mars uses more plastic, and tends to slide around on the desk more. The Mars is very slightly faster in use, it’s got a slightly more powerful light source, I usually do 8 second layers on the Mars and 9 on the Photon. 

Disassembly and LCD replacement (a fairly regular activity) is much easier and quicker on the Mars. 

 

I’ve had good customer service from both companies. For me I just about prefer the Mars, and have further invested in the Elegoo ecosystem, but I’d not  rule out buying another Anycubic printer. The Photon Mono SE looks good. 
 

Only thing I’m not sure about is that Anycubic messed around with the spec of the Photon late last year, they covertly changed the main board to a cheaper alternative which wasn’t compatible with the ubiquitous Chitubox slicing software, nor did It support a lot of the ‘fixes’ or mods people release. Anycubic eventually admitted  they had changed it and I believe they fixed a number of the shortcomings. You may see references to “Fauxtons” - that’s where this comes from. 
 

tl:dr both good, enjoy!

[monkeysarefun]

I have both too and all things equal as far as price etc I'd go the Mars, but if you can get the Photon for cheaper then you won't be disappointed.

 

The choice between them is more based on personal likes etc than anything technical that one overwhelmingly  has over the other.

Edited November 4, 2020 by monkeysarefun

[Fen End Pit]

Another happy photon user here. Depending on your budget I'd be going for a machine with a Mono screen. Personally I'd be tempted by the Anycubic Photon Mono or maybe the Phrozen Sonic mini 4K.

 

David

[njee20]

That gets you quicker cure times and longer pixel life, but actually the screens are much more fragile (the polariser is exposed, there’s no glass over the top) and far more expensive. I’m not sure it’s life changing, I’ve got a Mars 2 Pro which is ~25% quicker for an equivalent print, and a Saturn, which is slower, the advantage of the mono screen offset by everything needing to be slower because of the higher suction/peel forces involved.
 

I’d start and make mistakes on a standard one before trading up to a mono screen. That said, the Mars 2 Pro is only £275, so it’s only £90 more. 

[Paul tpxguard]

i have 2 photons (original not s or newer) and one has had the linear rail upgrade (didnt need it just wanted to try it out as early models where hit and miss on the z axis)  no problems with it at all

also have the new photon mono x but not had chance to unbox it yet

[Sir TophamHatt]

Is the Mars 2 Pro just better because it's quicker?

£275 is a bit more than I'd be happy spending but don't want to false economy with one.  Did that with a static grass applicator - spent £25 and it's not that great.  Spent £95 on a better one and it's loads better.  Also did the same with a CMX track cleaner and just plumped up the cost to buy it rather than cheaper alternatives.  Not disappointed.

 

 

EDIT:  Took a look on Amazon and found the AnyCubic Photon 2K printer for £169.  Returns window until 31 January 2021 + prime delivery = bought.

I'm mainly looking at small board game pieces but can see me venturing into model railway pieces with this.  Now have to figure out how to use it.

Edited November 9, 2020 by Sir TophamHatt

[monkeysarefun]

1 hour ago, Sir TophamHatt said:

Is the Mars 2 Pro just better because it's quicker?

£275 is a bit more than I'd be happy spending but don't want to false economy with one.  Did that with a static grass applicator - spent £25 and it's not that great.  Spent £95 on a better one and it's loads better.  Also did the same with a CMX track cleaner and just plumped up the cost to buy it rather than cheaper alternatives.  Not disappointed.

 

This probably gives a fair idea of the differences and if the extra costs are worthwhile to you.

 

https://all3dp.com/1/elegoo-mars-vs-mars-pro-vs-mars-2-pro/

 

[njee20]

As I said previously, both the Photon and the Mars are perfectly competent printers. The Pro 2 isn’t inherently ‘better’. 
 

Good luck, it’s a steep learning curve! Buy lots of IPA (I use Hexeal Chemicals), paper towels and a UV lamp. 

[monkeysarefun]

21 minutes ago, njee20 said:

As I said previously, both the Photon and the Mars are perfectly competent printers. The Pro 2 isn’t inherently ‘better’. 
 

Good luck, it’s a steep learning curve! Buy lots of IPA (I use Hexeal Chemicals), paper towels and a UV lamp. 

 

 

And take time learning how to level it - thats the difference between successful prints  and happiness versus  lots of frustration when you see an empty build plate suspended above the vat when you come in to check your 8 hour print!

[woko]

I don't have the Mars, but have the Photon and the Photon Mono, without a doubt I would recommend the new Mono resin printers over the older colour screen printers, 11hr prints now take just under 7hrs for me! The quality seems better, and the ease of getting to print is better, along with the zero noise levels! On a side note

I'm also hearing issues with the new Saturn as the lift rate is somehow turbo charged which can cause some issues with delicate supports being ripped off mid print! So something to be aware of when looking at the New Elegoo Mono screen printers!

 

 

 

[njee20]

Yes, by defaut the Saturn has an automatic override in the lift speed so that it lifts/retracts 3mm at the speed you specify, and then speeds up to a pre-defined speed in the GCode for the remainder of the distance. It's not caused me any issues - I did have to slow the lift speed down significantly to get consistent prints though (60mm/s on both seems to work fine, with 7mm lift distance). There's a fix for the speed override, and IMO it's being grossly overstated as a problem, but that'll depend what you print. I suspect it's a bigger problem if you print very large models that fill the build plate. I usually print multiple smaller (N gauge wagons) items, so I suspect the suction forces are different.

There's no reason for the mono screens to give a better result, the pixel size is the same (except the Shuffle Mono 4K), it's probably more around having better dialled in exposure settings. The Mars 2 Pro is virtually silent too, as you say, but I'd still recommend people make mistakes on a cheaper printer, where screens are £20 and very robust, not £80 and rather more fragile, and actually not even available at the moment. Ultimately a 7 hour print or an 11 hour print isn't life changing - I'll still generally run prints overnight. YMMV.

[woko]

3 hours ago, njee20 said:

 

There's no reason for the mono screens to give a better result, the pixel size is the same (except the Shuffle Mono 4K), it's probably more around having better dialled in exposure settings. The Mars 2 Pro is virtually silent too, as you say, but I'd still recommend people make mistakes on a cheaper printer, where screens are £20 and very robust, not £80 and rather more fragile, and actually not even available at the moment. Ultimately a 7 hour print or an 11 hour print isn't life changing - I'll still generally run prints overnight. YMMV.

 

Of course these screens are the same res, however I have noticed my prints from the photon to the mono to just feel a little crisper, but they maybe my photon wasn't all that great to begin with or an issue with the FEP! I will say for me doing a lot of printing now something that has certainly increased since moving from FDM that those 4hrs certainly make a difference for seeing stuff sooner! Especially as my 5hr prints are now 3hrs, but its horses for courses, and for anyone starting out on resin printing its not going to be much of an issue, but I certainly value the quicker turn around in speed and I have only been resin printing for a month now! 

 

On a separate note have a think where you are going to be situating the printer. Earlier printers are noisy, and if in the house you need to think about the fumes, and the fact your missus is not going to thank you for the constant printing noises that will begin to irritate!

Secondly if you place this printer in a garage, or outbuilding then temperature is something you have to factor in, as the lower the temp then you will start getting issues with your resin, and perhaps a few failed prints as a result, so keeping your resin at reasonable room temp is ideal if possible.

 

Hope this helps dude and let us know how you get on with it

 

Cheers

 

Rob

 

 

[Sir TophamHatt]

Although apart from Facebook groups, there seems to be very few forums online about 3D printing in general.

One I visited was full of obvious chinese spam.  Another UK based one had few posts and fewer replies.

 

Unfortunately the videos for beginners on YouTube were just unboxing and using 3D printers, not particularly showing (simply) what the difference is between resin and the other one and what you can and can't print with either.

What is the talk about "screens" and that you may need spares?  I'd expect most things to last the life of the product :S

 

What's all this about "washing" too?

Do you need to wash every build piece in some IPA?  For how long?

Edited November 10, 2020 by Sir TophamHatt

[woko]

37 minutes ago, Sir TophamHatt said:

 

What is the talk about "screens" and that you may need spares?  I'd expect most things to last the life of the product :S

 

What's all this about "washing" too?

Do you need to wash every build piece in some IPA?  For how long?

So the screens are consumables as well, they have a certain amount of hours life in them before they need to be replaced sadly, this is getting better with the new Mono screens they last longer, though as Njee20 pointed out are more expensive than the standard colour screens because they are manufactured for 3d printing only.

So the long and short of it is you will at some point need to replace your screen, anywhere from 500hrs onwards I would imagine as a rough guess!

 

Washing is when the resin printing is finished the print needs to be cleaned before you cure it! So the best way is to use IPA, dunk the print in this, it cleans off any left over resin residue, then either put it out in the sun to cure for a few hours or failing that whack it under a UV Nail light for 5minutes or so depending on the size of the model to cure and harden off properly.

All this needs to be done before you prime and paint your models!

 

And it is advisable to clean you resin vats regularly, I don't leave resin in mine over night, you can do, but it is recommended to clean out your vats regularly, also being very careful when cleaning the FEP film on the base of the VAT, using microfibre clothes you can buy cheaply at Wilko's or the pound shop i find is less likely to slightly scratch the FEP. 

 

It all sounds like a major ballache but once you are used to it, and getting great prints you don't really mind!

 

There are of course now branded wash and cure stations that take a lot of this post processing and clean up out of the mix, but then you pay for the privilege of that obviously and these things start at around £120 I believe maybe a bit less if you track one down on ebay!

 

Maybe we need a Resin Help thread perhaps, for anyone wanting to get involved?

Although I have found all the folks on here are pretty helpful if you just ask

 

 

[njee20]

My concern with the monochrome screens is that they’re more fragile, not having any glass on top - any leaks are far harder to remove, and actually I’ve cracked as many screens as I’ve actually worn out. That becomes an expensive mistake. 
 

I leave resin in my printers for weeks, definitely don’t empty every day. Just a couple of weeks ago I swapped back to a vat  that’s been sat half full out of a printer for at least 3 months (covered admittedly). I give it a little stir with a gloved finger before printing if it’s been a while and then go.

Woko’s suggestion of thinking about where you want it is definitely very valid. The fumes are pretty unpleasant, so I’d not do it in the house unless you have some plans to extract the fumes. I heat the resin in the vat with a heat gun for 30 seconds before printing if it’s particularly cold (in the garage). The light keeps the resin warm thereafter. There is definitely some faff, but I don’t think they need to be mollycoddled to the extent some suggest. I freely admit I’m happy using it sensibly and replacing bits as they wear, rather than trying to eek every last bit of life out of the consumables, which are just that. FEP sheets are a couple of quid and LCDs are £20 or so.
 

FWIW I’ve got one of the wash and cure stations and it is far easier. They consist of a magnetic stirrer and a UV array and turntable. You wash the model in your solvent of choice, I use IPA, then dry it and cure it. They work well. Much less faff. Before that I went through ultrasonic cleaners, toothbrushes, two stage washes, UV nail lamps, handheld lamps, and whilst they all work to a greater or lesser degree, the purpose built thing makes it easier and quicker. 

[richbrummitt]

8 minutes ago, njee20 said:

FWIW I’ve got one of the wash and cure stations and it is far easier. They consist of a magnetic stirrer and a UV array and turntable. You wash the model in your solvent of choice, I use IPA, then dry it and cure it. They work well. Much less faff. Before that I went through ultrasonic cleaners, toothbrushes, two stage washes, UV nail lamps, handheld lamps, and whilst they all work to a greater or lesser degree, the purpose built thing makes it easier and quicker. 

 

Which wash and cure do you have? The anycubic one that I've seen doesn't appear to be large enough for even the Mars Pro 2 build plate, let alone the Saturn. I see further up in replies you say you have/had both of these so am curious.

[njee20]

I’ve got the Anycubic, I’ve printed the adapter to fit the Mars. I generally remove items from the build plate unless they’re very small (bogies/couplers I tend to wash ‘in situ’, so the fact it doesn’t fit the Saturn is a bit moot. I’ve not actually tried the Mars 2 Pro, it’ll be close I suspect. 
 

I keep being tempted to buy the Elegoo one too, it didn’t exist when I got the Anycubic one, and it is slightly better spec. Seems to make sense to wait for a Saturn sized one!

[woko]

29 minutes ago, njee20 said:

 

I leave resin in my printers for weeks, definitely don’t empty every day. Just a couple of weeks ago I swapped back to a vat  that’s been sat half full out of a printer for at least 3 months (covered admittedly). I give it a little stir with a gloved finger before printing if it’s been a while and then go.

 

Obviously dude you are a veteran, but in the case of any of those just starting out having small print fails and parts that break off to begin with is all part and parcel of the learning curve. I was getting a huge amount of fails until I worked out my preferable settings for supports and base layers etc! So its not always quite obvious if you have any loose cured resin in your vat, so cleaning out regularly helps to prevent more of those early print fails I found! I also had a few Stuck to the FEP issues when I first started, which ultimately worked out to be a schoolboy error in terms of Plate leveling!

 

So the wash and cure stations are worth the cash?

 

 

 

 

[Sir TophamHatt]

What are the FEP sheets?

 

I guess I thought of a 3D printer as a normal printer so just add ink (or resin!) and you're away!

 

How does it work with using different colours?

 

The printer I saw drew a line down the side of the bed to get the plastic running properly although that was the non-resin type of printer/plastic (sorry, I forget the name).

[monkeysarefun]

39 minutes ago, Sir TophamHatt said:

What are the FEP sheets?

 

I guess I thought of a 3D printer as a normal printer so just add ink (or resin!) and you're away!

 

How does it work with using different colours?

 

The printer I saw drew a line down the side of the bed to get the plastic running properly although that was the non-resin type of printer/plastic (sorry, I forget the name).

The vat that holds the resin sits on top of the LCD screen. Obviously in order for the printer to work the bottom of the vat needs to be transparent.

 

FEP sheets are a clear rigid film that are used as this base, For optimum printing it obviously needs to be kept fairly pristine, and is susceptible to dents, scratches and tears if you try hard enough!  In practice over time I've found it to get quite milky looking from dozens of tiny scratches caused by getting prints unstuck from it but it can take a surprising amount of deterioration before you need to replace it.

 

And to add another variable to your increasing list of things that are important - the FEP needs to be tensioned adequately to allow the prints to unstick from it as the printing process happens! The good news is that the printer will arrive with FEP already installed and good to go so thats one less thing to come to grips with for a couple of months at least.

 

Don't let all this stuff scare you, you only need to learn it all once, and the payback is the wonder of seeing  your little  masterpieces hanging from the build plate, in all their amazing detail. I never fail to be amazed at seeing that!

Edited November 10, 2020 by monkeysarefun

[njee20]

1 hour ago, woko said:

Obviously dude you are a veteran, but in the case of any of those just starting out having small print fails and parts that break off to begin with is all part and parcel of the learning curve. I was getting a huge amount of fails until I worked out my preferable settings for supports and base layers etc! So its not always quite obvious if you have any loose cured resin in your vat, so cleaning out regularly helps to prevent more of those early print fails I found! I also had a few Stuck to the FEP issues when I first started, which ultimately worked out to be a schoolboy error in terms of Plate leveling!

 

So the wash and cure stations are worth the cash?

 

 

 

 

Yeah, re-reading my post I didnt mean it to sound like you’re being over cautious, I’m more to the gung ho side of things, was merely meaning they can take a fair bit of abuse! You’re totally right about failures, I think the epiphany for me was understanding why failures happen, that makes it so much easier to trouble shoot - whether it’s lift speeds, base exposure, inadequate supports etc. 
 

I like the wash and cure, and it gives me better results than anything I used to do, but you pay for the convenience. Obviously worth it is subjective!

 

44 minutes ago, Sir TophamHatt said:

How does it work with using different colours?

 

The printer I saw drew a line down the side of the bed to get the plastic running properly although that was the non-resin type of printer/plastic (sorry, I forget the name).

Resin comes in an array of colours, you can mix them, or you can get clear and dye it. Ultimately though you’ll have an unpainted plastic part, so you’ll probably want to paint it. I use black or grey 99% of the time. 

that’ll be an FDM printer - they work by extruding layers of melted nylon. You’re limited by how thin the nozzle can be, hence they’re more coarse. Resin printers work by curing a vat of resin layer by layer using a UV or laser light source. Bit of a generalisation, but that’s basically it!

[monkeysarefun]

6 hours ago, Sir TophamHatt said:

Although apart from Facebook groups, there seems to be very few forums online about 3D printing in general.

One I visited was full of obvious chinese spam.  Another UK based one had few posts and fewer replies.

 

Unfortunately the videos for beginners on YouTube were just unboxing and using 3D printers, not particularly showing (simply) what the difference is between resin and the other one and what you can and can't print with either.

What is the talk about "screens" and that you may need spares?  I'd expect most things to last the life of the product :S

 

What's all this about "washing" too?

Do you need to wash every build piece in some IPA?  For how long?

 

Apart from some of the pinned data sheets covering resin exposure times etc that some have attached, the various printer facebook groups are pretty much  a write-off if you want to find out anything useful.  Potentially helpful posts quickly disappear for eternity down the list as people post their latest printing creations, its the stupidest format ever for hosting a forum.

 

There are very  few decent youtube videos that cover the basics of resin printing, but many badly edited and overly long ones. Most videos with  titles such as "Never have a failed print again!" and similar  will cover only one aspect of why prints fail, such as levelling correctly or having sufficient supports. It can be a very frustrating learning curve. 

 

It really is a bit of a black art I'm afraid -  your printer might do 6 weeks of successful prints followed by failure after failure! Learning the possible reasons why and how to troubleshoot is probably the main skill set since the actual printing is a no-brainer - copy file to USB stick, fill vat with resin, put USB stick in printer and hit the go button (oh, and don't forget to ensure  the build  plate is attached and tight - I ran one overnight print with the build plate sitting on the bench beside the printer!)

 

Once you do get it sorted though, theres no going back. Nowadays when I see photos on RMWeb of some small detail that someone has made by labouriously cutting and gluing tiny bits of styrene or cardboard together, I can't help thinking how that would be 10 minutes work in Fusion or Sketchup then you can print off as many as you like!

 

Also, when combined with other skills such as photogrammetry you can have your model churchyard  filled with detailed actual headstones and monuments, no more grey-painted lolly-stick ends!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 10, 2020 by monkeysarefun

[woko]

12 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 

Also, when combined with other skills such as photogrammetry you can have your model churchyard  filled with detailed actual headstones and monuments, no more grey-painted lolly-stick ends!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I remember when I was making my graveyard headstones dude on the fdm printer they where rubbish compared to these babies they look great, cracking stuff dude!

[Paul tpxguard]

i wouldnt bother with iipa it cannot be cleaned that well

i use a product called tek1969 it is non smelly and can be filtered with cheese cloth so a litre will last for ages if you keep on top of filtering 

 just google tek1969 its from the eu by keytech