3D Printing - Day One With A Resin Printer

[BlaxKleric]

Decided to take the plunge, purchase a 3D printer and get up to my elbows in resin. As lots of people seem to be tempted too, I thought I'd start cataloguing my experiences straight from the start using "Elegoo" Water Washable Resin on a Mars 3 Pro 3D Printer and Mercury Plus 2.0 Wash & Curing Machine. 



Began very simply with a couple of Rook test pieces before moving on to "Chitubox" Basic and some STL files I own. 



If interested, then you can find out more in my first of a series of postings here: https://www.fantoricalwargaming.com/post/3d-printing-day-one-the-rook

[Monkey]

Ooh. Very interested to hear more about how you get on with this. Would also like to see some pics of the monk and Dr. Who stuff when it's finished please.

[BlaxKleric]

Thanks Monkey. Yep. I'll be posting more about both the Monk and Dr Who stuff next week. I was planning to initially do seven posts over the next few weeks covering my initial experiences, and then do weekly updates. Let me know if there's anything specific you want to know about and if I've experienced it I can tell you - I've already had the dreaded fail which left hard resin on my FEP so needed to empty the resin vat - and a costly spill - both of which will be covered in the next post. 

[BlaxKleric]

I've posted up an account of my trials & tribulations for Day Two of me using a resin 3D Printer. Hopefully, it will help others considering buying one.



In it I look at using Chitubox Basic to both rescale and support models.



If interested, then you can find out more in this series of postings here: https://www.fantoricalwargaming.com/post/3d-printing-day-two-unsuccessful-scaling-and-supports

[eilif]

Thanks for sharing your journey. Will be watching this space.

[BlaxKleric]

Cheers Eilif. I'm obviously a few days further down the rabbit hole now, LOL, but still have several more day-by-day postings to do. Hope they help. 

[Cait Sidhe]

Printer twinsies   , I recently got the exact same setup after finally caving and deciding to get a resin printer. I was expecting it to be a lot more hassle but so far having fantastic results with only one failure (not enough support on a head). I hope you don't mind some unsolicited advice.

You've set the profile to the Mars 3 Pro in chitubox but the manual for the printer actually recommends faster speeds than it sets by default. I can't remember off the top of my head but it's at the section about the rook print, it tells you what settings to change. Your exposure times also seem high for the resin your using, Elegoo handily provide an official guide if you're using their own brand resin with their printers which saves a bit of messing about. The drive link below is to the spreadsheet but for grey water washable you should have bottom exposure 35 and normal exposure 2.5.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_jnyMfNkm4sPJhKyN46ey5CO-ks4MRyR/view

So I wouldn't bother hollowing miniature sized stuff. I dunno if the models were pre-hollowed or not but miniatures, especially 15mm use a tiny amount of resin and won't be too heavy so you aren't saving much and just adding an extra headache.

I was gonna comment on the residue but you realised already they weren't dried out properly before curing. I did the same on my first print as I was impatient to get it done.

One other tip I would give is to remove the supports after cleaning but before curing the minis, they should just pop right off and leave no/minimal marks on the models assuming they're not too thick. If they're attached to delicate parts like thin swords or the like then pre-snip them but otherwise they should come away with a satisfying popping.

[ulverston]

This post is especially interesting as I am on about week 5 with my Elegoo Mars 2 Pro... I belive the printing plate that I have is smaller than yours so I am limiting muself to smaller 28mm vehicles. In fact I have just printed some Schwimwagons out in 20mm (from Eskice on myminifactory) and I am blown away by them.
Good luck with the printer I am sure you will love it.... hopefully in the future there will be more creators of historical minis.

[BlaxKleric]

Thanks Cait Sidhe. I shall have a look at those exposure settings you mention. I've been keeping the supports on some figures to help show how they print out - but will definitely give this a go in the future. Indeed, I've just printed out some Fat Dragon wall tiles as a test and they've bowed whilst drying/curing to the point of un-useability. I'll be doing a post about that in the future. Take care and thanks once again. 

[BlaxKleric]

Cheers Ulverston. Glad you found the post interesting. I do have some historical printing posts planned. But I'm currently focusing on some sci-fi and fantasy ranges I like. I do plan to do a series of posts about different Patreon campaigns out there though and intend to cover all the genres with that as time goes on.

[BlaxKleric]

I've posted up an account of my experiences for Day Three of me using a resin 3D Printer. Hopefully, it will help others considering buying one.



In it I take my first look at joining Patreon and printing out Cyber-Forge Miniature's Star Force release, including a large, single-piece shuttlecraft.



If interested, then you can find out more in this series of postings here: https://www.fantoricalwargaming.com/post/3d-printing-day-three-patreon-and-cyber-forge-miniatures

[Brummie]

Very cool!

I'm relying more and more on 3D Printing directly.

Its so much potential! Love what I can get for sci fi and moderns.

[modelwarrior]

Very helpful thread for us souls tempted to dip our toes into the world of 3D printing.

How easy and quick is it to clean off all that extra stuff,(3d printer long thin stuff whatever),flash ?

Also are you keeping a running cost of all this printing as I would be really interested to see a daily/weekly cost to it all ?

[BlaxKleric]

Thanks Brummie. Apart from some metals, I've almost stopped buying any more minis since this printer arrived. There's just so much out there on Thingiverse and MyMiniFactory which I love and want to print/paint/game with. I think it's especially good for Sci-Fi & Fantasy stuff. I haven't dipped my toe in modern/historical stuff yet but intend to at some point.

[BlaxKleric]

Cheers Modelwarrior. The supports are very easy to take off, and indeed sometimes simply drop off the print prior to washing/curing. The Printer came with a free set of cutters too, so even if you decide to keep the supports in place until after curing you can still carefully cut them off as part of the clean-up process. I have inadvertently chopped the odd finger off already. But the resin takes super-glue really well, and where possible I have simply re-attached the piece.

The difficult bit can be removing the figures from the build plate, as things are a bit slippery and I find wriggling the trovel under the prints can be a bit heavy going at times - if the piece is really stuck on there.

I've splurged quite a bit on Patreons so far - which work out at about £11 each per month - as I wanted to see what was out there - some give loads of figs, others just a handful. I've also gone through several bottles of resin since I started - but I'd put that down to schoolboy enthusiasm and just printing tons of stuff I'm probably never going to paint. A 1000g bottle of resin costs about £30 on Amazon - the price fluctuates - and that will easily print 8-10 plates (if not more) of 8 x 28mm figures. The waste comes with all the supports, losing resin whilst cleaning the build plate, emptying the resin tank when there's a failure, and any spills - which all occur no matter how careful you are.

Personally, I think I spent about £50 buying the Star Force set (and two other ranges which came with the same Patreon), and printing out all the figures, the spaceship, and the robot vehicles. And now I own the STL files, I can simply build upon them whenever I want.