LF alternative to shapeways with higher resolution printers

[hirofkd]

Great thing about having a 3D printer at home is that you can run a test print at any time, and if the shape doesn't work, you can tweak the design and try again right away.
I've been using Wanhao D7 for about 2 years, and I paid a little shy of $600 USD (shipped directly from the factory), not just for the printer itself, but also the chance of learning how to design printer-friendly parts on the CAD.
Parts like car wheels are very difficult to obtain perfect symmetry with plastic sheet and putty, but even a budget resin printer can give amazing results.

[sky1911]

Mofo, since you're running one such baddy, I wonder what would you say is the average printing cost of a 1/12 engine. Say 917 sized?
Block with the heads and everything that counts as engine. And, if you do, what would be a comparable detail level from Shapeways?

I'm not asking to ask anyone to print for me, but I just want to get a feel for the running cost for printing once the purchase of such a
device is out of the way. For example how much is the resin, cleaning agents to clean the tray after printing, how much electricity is
used while printing for something of that engine size, and of course printing time. Also is there a sensible limit as to what you should
print. Let's say I have designed a new 1/12 fuel filler cap and want to print it to see if it works on the model. Would that make sense
to print on its own? Probably not considering you might waste a lot of resin for the bottom few layers (like the ground supporting the
cap), right?

That aside, I like the idea of being able to create your own parts at home without (major) delays other than the printing time. And
since the printer is now in a price range where it is possible to get one without too much of a heart break...

[MoFo]

Great thing about having a 3D printer at home is that you can run a test print at any time, and if the shape doesn't work, you can tweak the design and try again right away.

The most surprising thing about running a resin printer: cleaning my hobby space. I've been doing a major clean up and disposed of a TON of scrap kits and spares box detritus that I'd normally keep because 'you never know' or 'it might be useful someday'. Every time I found myself wondering if I should keep something, I thought, 'eff it, I can just print another!'

As for costs... the simple answer is, it depends.

Resin runs from $40 - 150/L. Most prints don't use an enormous amount of resin, but with good design and some of the printer's software features, you can reduce that further by hollowing out the part and letting the excess resin drain out of some hidden corner. So, a solid engine might use, say, 100mL of resin, but hollowed, it could be closer to 25mL. Supports will add some of that back - you can't have any part of the print floating in midair, so any isolated points need supports, as will the print in general. You'll also lose a certain amount of resin in cleaning, since the part will be covered in a thin film, and more will pool in fine details and recesses. This will very much vary based on the print; for the solid engine, it may only be a few mL, while a hollow engine might double the resin usage with supports and cleaning.

The cleaning agent is alcohol. Most people use either 99% Isopropyl alcohol (isopropanol) or ethanol, depending on availability. You can save some money by using 90% isopropyl. It's recommended that you keep two jars of it - one for a first rinse, which will remove all excess resin and get very dirty, and a second for a final rinse, to remove any traces of the first rinse. When it gets particularly grungy, you can recycle the alcohol by pouring it into a bag and leaving it in the sun; the resin in solution will cure and precipitate out, and the alcohol can be filtered off and re-used. You'll certainly lose some through evaporation and the like, but it's surprisingly efficient.

Other consumables include the build vat - it has a clear, teflon film in the bottom that needs to be replaced occasionally - and the LCD itself, which will gradually degrade from the UV exposure. The clear film is what each layer is actually printed against, then the print head lifts up, pops the print off the film (because it sticks better to the metal build plate than the slippery film), then lowers to slightly above the film, so it can print the next layer. So over time, the film gets stickier, until it causes problems and needs to be replaced. Replacements aren't wildly expensive though - $10 - 20, and my first film lasted 8+ months, so it amortizes pretty well. It would have lasted longer were it not for an unrelated error (my LCD went buggy for a bit, exposing all the resin in the vat, so it had some crazy-strong forces pulling on it). The LCD is also listed as a consumable - it will gradually become less effective at masking because the UV light degrades the pixels - but that seems to be on the order of once every few years. The only replacements I've seen within the community are people who leaked resin into their printer, or otherwise physically damaged the screen.

Time will depend on the number of layers and the specific resin. The printer exposes a full layer at a time, so it would take the same length of time to print one fuel filler as it would a dozen of them. So the main determining factor is how many layers you're printing - if I print a front wing parallel to the LCD, it might take an hour; if I print it perpendicular to the LCD, it could be a day. How LONG each layer takes will depend somewhat on the resin; different manufacturers have slightly different formulas, and react faster or slower. Clear resins tend to cure faster than opaque resins, because there's less 'stuff' blocking the light. So you could be looking at anywhere from 10 - 25s total time for a .05mm layer. A sheet of paper is about .1mm, so it could be anywhere from 1 - 3 sheets of paper per minute, or 6 - 18mm per hour. If you're printing for yourself though, that doesn't matter much; you don't need to babysit the printer once it's dialed in, so it could be running while you're at work, or in bed.

For something like a fuel filler cap, printing one of them should be less than 30 minutes (maybe as low as 15 min), so it may not be THE most efficient use, but it's not really a big deal. That's a situation where you might double the amount of resin used in waste, but in real terms, it's not going to be much $$$ - maybe 50 cents instead of a quarter. For a full engine, it's probably an overnight or all-day print (but if it's otherwise sitting idle, who cares?), and would probably be under $10 in materials costs if you own the printer. Definitely under $20, even if you go nuts factoring in alcohol, LCD wear, electricity (about 35W, apparently), and such.

If you're asking me, though, it would be more, depending on how much time/effort I need to put into setting up your print/s - if you've got 50 different parts and each one needs 10 - 20 minutes to set up all the supports and check that it'll print okay, I'm going to charge you for the hours of my time that will consume. Plus, I'd want to cover myself just in case something goes wrong and I need to re-print for some reason.

[indycals]

I've been following the Proton owners page on facebook for a few days now. Reading all he posts that pop up on my feed, seeing all that's involved, I think I'll stick to sending my prints out.

[lezdep]

Need an advice. My better half is really unhappy about smell that is surrounding my SLA/DLP printer when it is printing. For me that means
I cannot print inside the house and cannot pretty much print anything until I eliminate that smell. I have placed my printer right in front of my
spray booth with extractor fan constantly running. Still I can sense smell around it and somehow it manages to spread around escaping extractor's
suction.

I am looking for idea on how I could deal with the smell, so it does not spread around the house. And how I could reduce it with some sort of
air filtering.

Stuck with printer that I cannot use at present

[Alex_Kung]

So which printer did you get?

It sounds like you need a full enclosure for your printer and ducting into your spray booth exhaust ducting.

I have held back on getting an SLA printer because I know I will need some sort of ducting to exhaust the fumes outside and that will not be easy to do in my current situation.

[bestbalsakits]

active coal filter, see https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2444199

Also, not sure why you did not get the Photon, or are yours & photon the same?

Wim

[sky1911]

For what it's worth.. Anycubic are having a Black Friday sale and offer significant discounts on their printers. Since we're talking the Photon series here,
feel free to go here: https://www.anycubic.com/collections/an ... d-printers

The Photon is down from $419 to $239 and the Photon S is down from $489 to $389.

If you're wondering what the difference is, find this https://www.windowscentral.com/anycubic ... c-photon-s

Code: Select all

                Photon             Photon S
Layer height    0.01mm - 0.2mm     0.01mm - 0.2mm
Print speed     10mm/h             20mm/h
Z Axis          Single rod         Dual linear rails
Anti-aliasing   No                 Yes
Build volume    116 x 55 x 165mm   116 x 65 x 165mm
Light source    UV LED             UV Matrix

The regular photon has a metal chassis, the improved S has a plastic shell. However, the S has an improved z-axxis, which may offset the "flimsy"
chassis. Plus the touchscreen on the S should be a significant improvement over the regular Photon. Not sure if that is really a necessity? Also the
S has a Matrix UV whereas the base model comes with an LED. So I wonder if it would be better to just by the small one (I'm more of a metal fan,
cheap puns and memes come to mind) and get an aftermarket z-axxis update.

What's the opinion of the aficionados? Did anyone try both versions? I'm leaning towards the regular and upgrade that one.

[stubeck]

My mother in law just got me a da vinci nano I'm going to play with. To start I'm just going to throw a Red Bull RB14 at it to see how well it works, and I'm likely going to start trying to make some of the small bits I see on her. I know its not the best printer in the world, but I figure as a start its worthwhile and I can move to something else if I start doing it a lot.

[daniel]

I bought me a Photon and it's a great tool. I'm building the 1/12 Mefistofele at the moment and it feels like I rebuild the whole car