Has anyone got a resin printer? Anyone printed gears with it yet?

[Stojan]

Your most welcome,

I can from my standpoint give you some more information regarding the Anycubic Photon printer I bought.

I was planning to by the Moai SLI which is a DIY kit at about $1800 USD, the Form 2 I just couldn't see the value in it at 3/4k plus.

What I did ask from both companies was samples, I received a rook from Form 2 and an Alien head from Moai.

I can tell you this that the prints I have made with the Anycubic Photon as every bit as good as and in no way different from either of the samples I received.

There is an Anycubic Photon V2 which has a larger digital display and slightly larger print bed but modified so it is easier to replace parts for future servicing.

From my experience with SLI it really doesn't matter too much if DLP or Lazer.

Depending on the amount of money you will be spending a resin printer called  Phrozen is also by the looks a great buy it is about $1800 AUD you can work out the USD value there. The other news regarding Phrozen is within the next few months they will be releasing an A4 build plate which will be able to make enormous models, the screen with be replaceable with dual high res screens for those that wish to manufacturer rings and other smaller builds by volume. I believe the price of the A4 Phrozen will be about 3k AUD.

One other thing worth mentioning regarding resin printers, the print speed is a known constant which varies only slightly depending on the type of resin you will use, eg clear or tinted.

eg my build volume is 115 x 65 x 155 if I were to print a block be it solid or hollow it would take say 8 hours to make. This would vary slightly depending on the type of resin used plus or minus say 35 minutes either way.

So a 1 cm part eg a square block (the shape is not important) be the plate full of blocks or just the one would take say 1 hour to print. So if you printed 10 or 1 it is the same print time.

We of course already know that a FDM printer the make time varies greatly from a few minutes to days.

The print quality that I get with my Photon is amazing the times I have given are based on a 50 micron setting. If printing at 25 microns you can pretty much add 60% to the time as you lower the curing time required per layer if printing at 100 microns you can subtract about 60% as well as you need to slightly increase the curing time due to thicker layers.

All I can say is that 50 microns for me is perfect you can not see any striations associated with an FDM smooth silk finishes.

A gear up to the size of the build plate say 3mm thickness would take 15 or so minutes to print.

The other thing that resin printers will afford you is (and I can hardly wait to print some) the shape and type of gear is not relevant in the slightest. You are not constrained by axis 3 4 6 etc. So if you don't own a cnc mill etc you will be able to print gears in the shapes and types you would not have imagined.

The other thing worth remembering if building in parts, all you need to glue the parts is the same resin you use for building the part, just smear a little on both ends and then use a small UV type light which uses a button battery, that will be enough to cure the seams and to weld them together.

If you need to for whatever reason strengthen the part as well, tissue paper or toilet paper which every is the closest just use a dropper and put the resin on the tissue a little on the part, expose it to UV or the sun and then just cut away what is not required. It works a charm, in my haste I have broken off arms and things by being careless and have fixed and filled doing that.

I hope Arty doesn't mind this topic. If your reading this Arty maybe you may have a funny gear type that you would like to see printed, you have my build volume, if you post the mesh I will print it and show the results.

Cheers and avagreatday fromt he colonies downunder.

Steve

[JimG]

Does the resin give off any fumes?  I am concerned about where I would put a resin printer.  My choices are limited to inside the house or in the unheated workshop surrounded by sawdust.  My Prusa MK3 seems safe enough inside the house as long as I stay with PLA.

Steve,

I've just got myself a Phrozen Shuffle and in all the research I did before buying,  I kept seeing remarks about the stink of the resin while printing.  So I spent a week building a housing to enclose it in with the fumes being exhausted out of a window toplight.  On my first print I found out that there was pretty well no smell at all so all my efforts were redundant.  :)  I'm in my seventies so maybe my sense of smell is not quite so acute as it was,  but I certainly could not notice anything objectionable close to the machine while it was working.  I was using the Phrozen Grey resin - maybe other resins have more noticeable fumes.  I would try the machine first when you get one to see if you,  or the others in your home,  require some fume avoidance measures.

Jim.

[Stojan]

Hey Young Fella,

In your 70's and playing with technology you make me feel like a young pup... Im 61..

I have the Anycubic Photon already, I didn't find the smell objectionable my wife been the OCD person she is she says there is, well I cant tell above her perfume powders and makeup LOL.

How are you finding the Phrozen are your projects adhering to the build plate any issues worth noting. Im looking forward to their next model which will be A4 in size that will open up all sorts of possibilities.

Would love to see a pic of any work models gears that you have made.

Fantastic to see another oldtimer playing with new toys.

Cheers and greeting from the colonies downunder
Steve

[JimG]

In your 70's and playing with technology you make me feel like a young pup... Im 61..

Got to keep the grey cells moving  :)

How are you finding the Phrozen are your projects adhering to the build plate any issues worth noting. Im looking forward to their next model which will be A4 in size that will open up all sorts of possibilities.

I haven't done very much printing principally because I'm still trying to get my head around modern 3D CAD packages.  I was fairly proficient with an ancient copy of Rhino but that stopped working when I upgraded to Win 10.  I've been fiddling around with some of the free offerings available and not really getting under the skin of then - old Rhino and thirty years of 2D CAD experience aren't much help.  :)   However I did have some files of small detail parts for 1:64 scale models and I printed some of them with excellent results.  I used ChituBox slicer on these files and sent them to the printer and they printed extremely well with no problems.   Admittedly they are quite small and low volume - the smaller wagon springs are about 17mm long - so they are probably not a full test of adhesion to the plate.  But they were certainly fixed very well when it came to getting them off at the end of printing.

I was impressed with the Shuffle when I got it out of the box.  It's a very sturdy piece of equipment and the quality of its Z axis driven by a ball screw is very good.  I don't think there will be any problems with "Z wobble" that seems to be an occasional problem with other similar products with lighter Z axis construction.   It literally was a case of getting it of of the box,    switch on,  square up the plate (very easy),  pour some resin in the reservoir, and load a file into it and press "GO".

Would love to see a pic of any work models gears that you have made.

Hopefully I've attached a couple of the wagon detail parts.  :)

Fantastic to see another oldtimer playing with new toys.

I am also just about to get a Pokeys box for my KX1 mill so I will have to try and get my head round Auggie as well.  I've had a tentative nibble over the last year or two but I have got anywhere unde4r the skin as yet.  :)

Jim.

[Stojan]

That is nice, I am still amazed by what talented people can make nowadays from the coders to the makers making life for me the "end user" a breeze.

I ask you why would you now buy parts when you can produce quality of your own.

The face of manufacturing is changing, I can already see walking into a auto store ordering parts for you car, and the sales person telling you the printing should be done in a few minutes. There is no logical reason to keep millions of small plastic parts in stock taking up space when you can print and go on demand.

I hope you get many years of enjoyment from that printer. I'm waiting on a delivery today of some tints and some more flexible resin, I have a job primed and rdy to go so see how this flexible stuff works.


Cheers and avagreatday from the colonies downunder.

Steve

[ArtF]

wow, those are great prints. Seeing stuff like that always ends up costing me money.
I love my fdm printer, Im getting the feeling resin may be in store
soon by the look of those prints.

Merry Xmas by the way..

Art
 

[Stojan]

wow, those are great prints. Seeing stuff like that always ends up costing me money.
I love my fdm printer, Im getting the feeling resin may be in store
soon by the look of those prints.

Merry Xmas by the way..

Art
 

Arty just wait till you see what I'm finishing, its a multi part model, 4 x my build volume.
One thing I will tell you, if you love your FDM it will be short lived - I can recommend the Anycubic as an inexpensive entry to resin printers, there is no need to spend more than $500 odd AUD I bought mine on eBay auction for a few dollars under that.

The build volume isnt that much smaller than some of the more expensive ones eg Formlabs 2 at about $8000 AUD, the quality of print is no different, I got samples from them and from a DIY kit MOAI there is no difference. The approach is different other than that the quality of print is potato or potatoo.

If you want to spend some dollars and would like to go BIG print eg A4 build volume, Phrozen will be releasing one next year Feb/March according to the rep here in AU which will be about 3000AUD.

I was lucky my kids and grandchildren chipped in and bought me the AnyCubic.

Check out these youtubes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YrUQOYLoK0 AnyCubic quick what it does

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8bjQFvQDpc flexible resin one of now many options as far as resins go. Buy clear resin and tints that way you get the colour you want.

And once you have a perfectly smooth model you can then do something like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=770cSWbmBRg