Wanting to start 3d printing

[Grimrod]

  Not exactly sure where to start in this field of endeavor.  Which economical printer should I choose? Leaning towards resin printer . and where are some good sites to find models to print out supported by resin printers?

[commanderkaiser]

Not got a Resin printer myself. I know a decent one is something like the Egeloo Mars which is quite a reasonable price and you can great prints.
I personally have an Ender 3 which is a FDM printer. It's a fantastic printer but probably more suited for terrain but is also a decently priced machine.

In terms of models it really does depend what you are after. You'll find loads of free files on Thingiverse and Yeggi (like a 3d print google) but there are plenty of sites where you can buy fantastic models.

[clibinarium]

I have the aforementioned  Elegoo Mars, for about 9 months now. It's cheap and cheerful and produces decent quality prints. Not the best quality, but its a very cheap machine to buy into 3d printing; your getting 80 percent of the quality of a good printer for a lot less than 80 percent of the price. Resin printing itself is a bit of an art- be prepared for quite a bit of failure and tweaking. It's messy too, and resin has to be handled carefully.
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Most of what I print I have designed myself, so I don't often go looking for files. There's a lot of free stuff out there - just google "*name* stl" and you'll find something. But its very eclectic and pretty random. Better stuff can be found through Kickstarters and Patreon.
As a designer, the pervading expectation of everything being free that many in the printing community seem to hold, is kinda irksome. For a consumer of products it's great though. There's room for both, but so much free stuff decreases the willingness to pay for anything. Kinda like what happened with music. But that's getting off the point.

Depends what you want- lots of good scenery for free, but for nice miniatures, you'll have to pay a little.

[zemjw]

It always feels slightly bad form to point to another forum, but there's an entire group about 3d printing over at Reaper - link

Patreons, as mentioned, seem to be a big thing just now. https://myminifactory.com has a load of wargame related STLs. I think YPU (apologies if I'm wrong) puts stuff on there.

As already mentioned, it is almost a hobby in its own right and every bit as frustrating as figure painting