Yay! I Got A New Resin 3D Printer!
Out With The Old, In With The New?
My first 3D printer - and FDM Flashforge Adventurer 3 - was a doddle to set up. Find a place for it to sit, bang in a spool of PLA, print the thing you want to print! It was actually a terrific introduction to 3D printing for the absolute beginner as it just worked.
I cut my 3D printing teeth on this printer and I would have highly recommended it to anyone starting out if things had not moved on. You see, this first printer thought me what sort of printer I might actually need for my main hobby of small scale model making.
Above: Not a replacement, but an extension of what I have.
Don't get me wrong, the Flashforge is *great* for general 3D printing. PLA filament is idea of DIY home projects and a week doesn't go by where I'm not printing out some doo-dad or gadget, or a part to repair other items or even printing out larger scale models (like my classical busts) or ornaments. So my new resin printer isn't a replacement for my FDM printer, it is just a second printer to do smaller, finer detailed models.
Both will be sitting side by side.
Things To Do First...
Unlike my Flashforge printer - which was up and going on day one - the Mars 3 Pro requires a little preparation time and research before you get to printing your first print.
I can particularly recommend reading up or watching a few videos on the safety aspect of resin printing before rushing to your first project. Unlike an FDM printer, a resin printer uses quite nasty and toxic materials which emit very unpleasant and unhealthy fumes!
You must ensure that you have a suitable place to site your resin printer, somewhere well ventilated and that does not stink out the rest of your house (your wife/partner will not be pleased)!
I am printing in my mancave attic and while it isn't shut off from the rest of the house, it is at the top of the house and does have several large Velux windows that provide good ventilation points. However, on top of this - and because I do not have a separate garage or workshop - I have taken the precaution of buying an proper resin printer enclosure 'tent', which had integral fume extraction.
"Built-in carbon filter sheet can effectively adsorbs and eliminates the odor of resin, ensuring a pleasant and odor-free working environment. The addition of exhaust fans and expandable pipes allows for the convenient discharge of polluting gases, maintaining clean and fresh air in your printing space."
The integral fume extraction tube conveniently goes to one of the big Velux windows just above where I have the resin printer situated. But, the tent also shades the printer inside from any direct sunlight.
Even with this nice bit of kit, I will still be using a combination of goggles, mask and nitrile gloves when working with the liquid resin. I do not intend to take any chances.
Start On An Even Keel!
One perhaps overlooked - but simple - point about working with a printer that uses - basically - a small bath of liquid resin is that the printer should be level.
This is a little tricky when you live in an old Victorian house as there are practically no even floors in the place. This means I had to level the workbench that I will have my printer setup sitting on.
Above: I placed a solid flat work surface on top of a sturdy cupboard I have in the desired location for my printer. The separate worktop allowed me to level the surface independently. |
It's a simple job, I just checked the bench with a spirit level and then used some strips of wood (lolly sticks in fact) to rebalance the work top. Once level I measured the piles of sticks precisely and then created a 3D 'shim' or wedge of the correct dimensions.
Above: My 3D designed an printed 'blocks' or shims. Each just the right thickness to rebalance the worktop board. |
These I stuck to the underside of my worktop - like little feet - and that gave my bench a nice level surface. And ta-dah! ---->
As Columbo said; Just One (/Two) More Thing/s...
After watching quite a few videos on the resin printing process one thing in particular struck me as being a bit off putting. The cleaning up process.
There's no getting round it, working with liquid resin is a bit ikie! 😄
The stand out part I didn't like the look of is that your build plate is submerged in the bath of resin as it undergoes the printing process. Depending on what make of printer that you have the cleaning up of this component can then be a very messy undertaking.
There are two things - I discovered - that can make this sticky clean up a little easier: using a water based resin and installing a magnetic flexy plate.
WATER WASHABLE RESIN: As a beginner I want to try and make the learning experience as pain free as I can. There is lots to learn about the basic process and procedures in resin printing and having to deal with the messiness and health issues associated with normal liquid resin is one potential problem too many for me at this stage.
So, I decided to cut out the worst of the nasty chemical bit when it comes to cleaning and opt for the water washable resin alternative...
NOW... There may be downsides to using this type of resin - which I will highlight in the following video - BUT at this early learning stage of resin printing the advantages outweigh any downsides from using this water washable alternative.
Eventually, when I have built up familiarity and experience with the resin printing process I may swap over to traditional liquid resin IF it seems like it will offer clear advantages.
MAGNETIC FLEXIBLE SPRING STEEL BUILD PLATE: The other problematic issue - for the beginner - in resin printing is said (by some) to be the actual removal of the finished print from the standard build plate. This involves scrapers and brute force in some case which might end with some damage to the delicate model parts if you are not careful (which beginners - i.e. 'me' - tend not to be)!
To get around this there are third part add-on flexy plates which you can use. These magnetically attached thin metal rectangular sheets stick to your normal build plate surface in two parts. One part adheres to the build surface permanently but the second is magnetically attached to the first.
This allows you to unattached the second sheet - with the printed model on it - from the build plate component all together and then you can bend the plate to help detach the model from the metal sheet. Simples!
...Or - at least - that is the theory, and I thought I'd give it a try. The down side is that the installation procedure does require a bit of fiddling. This video explains the process of using a 'spacer' to alter the limiter feature of the build plate's elevation...
The tricy-ish part of this process is making the spacer doo-dad to insert into the printers arm so that it compensates for the new thickness of the build plate with the flexy sheets attached. This is no more than a few millimetres difference but you have to be precise otherwise it mucks up the printers function.
I measured the steel flexy plates and they came to a thickness of 2.20mm. So then I designed a little spacer with screw holes in it to fit under the printer arm's limiter...
With this done it was onto installing the actual flexy plates. I should mention that there are several makes available on the market, the most well know of which is one by a company called 'Wham Bam', but I went for the cheaper Chinese knock-off! 😏
That done, it was just a case of me placing the printer in it's new home, going through the levelling process with the Mars 3 Pro and locking those setting down.
I still need to buy an extraction piece for the fume tube so that it can be hooked onto my window when open, but she's already to fill with resin and try out a test print.
The one additional thing I should mention is that my brother also gave me an Anycubic Wash and Cure station (left in the photo). While an absolute necessity when using traditional liquid resin (as washing by hand can be done, it is another messy job and I have seen a few DIY curing boxes), it's still very useful for use with the water washable resin that I'm going to use.
The curing station in particular with be very handy to 'set' the printed resin model...
And there we go - ready to undertake my first print! Fingers crossed, eh? 😬
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