Picking the best resin (SLA) printer is not an easy task. Every large and small 3D printer manufacturer offers a range of models covering many features that are backed by an equally extensive range of customer support. Although review sites and user feedback on forums can help with making a decision, especially for beginners it can feel like just a wild guess. Even for advanced users, it is a chore to stay on top of all the goings-on within the world of resin printers. This is why [VOG] (VOGMan, formerly VegOilGuy) has started a resin printer review site that asks for feedback from the community.
In the video, [VOG] explains the goal behind the data gathering, how to use the form to submit experiences with a specific resin printer, as well as any communications with the customer support behind these printers. Ultimately this should result in a pretty solid, community-sourced data set that can be used to figure out trends, pin-point issues with specific printers and make statements about which printer manufacturer offers the best customer support.
(thanks to [Dan] for the tip)
Database for resins as well?
If the database proves successful then I hope to build one for FDM printers and Resins too. It’s all about community input. The more folks chip in, the more we can ALL get out 😁
I love my Prusa FDM but really envy the detail that resin produces! I tried researching resin printers but most ‘reviews’ seem to be written by the manufacturers.
I did read a few positive write ups on the Phrozen 4K
Just bought Creality Halot One under 125€ (with VAT). It works beautifully. No need for any cloud connection whatsoever. Even FW update I did using just a flash drive and a downloaded FW file.
I slice with PrusaSlicer and convert it half-automatically with UVTools. Only gotcha was that it needs to be in CXDLP v3 format, not v2 and I needed to change it in Printer description in a profile in PrusaSlicer… from which this parameter gets saved as a comment/description into output .sl1 file and UVTools read it from there when doing conversion.
problem with resin is that they are all basically the same. there is not much to improve mechanically, only the size and screen DPI are important and that info is readily available. it’s a lot like post-ender3 FDM: nowadays they are all exactly the same with minimal improvements. in FDM though, you can have different nozzles, direct extruder or Bowden, dual Z, a better board, z sensors of many types… in resin land there is none of that . most have the same design and use the same firmware and slicer even.
also I regret buying the resin printer. i barely use it because of its limited “general purpose” applications. resin is a pain to work with it uses supports like crazy, parts need prying off the bed and dunking in IPA . ideally you have to provide draining holes , or print 100% infill.
also I thought the whole “resin is bad for you” was an exaggeration. well it does smell bad and my brother got a slight rash on his fingers after grabbing a part that had been curing in the sun for a few hours.
if you’re into tabletop games and want to print figurines they are the best . other than that I’m not really sure.
I just very recently got Creality Halot One new for just 120€ (with VAT!) and I bought it primarily just for PCB manufacturing using boards with preapplied photoresist which are very very cheap here. I absolutely abhor using perfboard/veraboards and can design AND manufacture 1 layer PCB with SMD parts using Kicad and UV quicker than doing it on perf/veraboard and I really mean it without a hyperbole.
Though of course I tried using it for its original purpose and I agree that it’s less general purpose device that my two MK3S but I also want to say that from _my perspective_ all those pain points you mentioned are *massively* exaggerated. Here are my observations:
– On YT videos I always see filthy resin bottles wrapped in plastic bags, filthy tools, jars & sh*t… Those people just IMHO have absolutely no discipline, no concept of keeping one hand clean, no short term memory or attention to remember if they accidentally dropped a little resin droplet somewhere.
– I do not need to pry anything from the bed. I take the bed into one hand, rest it on a table and with my clean hand I smack it with a sharp spattle. On very big prints it ends up lodged in the middle so I smack it by the handle and done…. never pry.
There are also flexible removable beds with are standard on FDM printers for a half decade now but I think it’s completely necessary unless you do very very big resin prints.
– You can leave resin in a VAT for a very long time. You don’t empty the vat by pouring it to a filter and unnecessarily get it sided dirty. You use a syringe and to suck it all out and then you can clean it in your IPA washer.
– Making IPA washing station is super easy and super cheap.. it was a one day project, one stop to Ikea for plastic containers and one to Bauhaus for some magnets… something I reused from the internet something I designed myself and voila… I have a washer or two.
– IPA is expensive in Europe but buying it in 20L packs helps extremely and I had been doing that even before I got my resin printer… (*clean*) IPA is for everything (appropriately mixed with water).. cleaning flux, cleaning floors, disinfection, cleaning displays, drying stuff.
– You don’t cure it on sun… for gods sake you should use any cheap UV light.. from nail polish lamp to individual leds bought as parts.
– Prefer transparent resins for better curing.
– I do not know what resin you use… I’m on my first which I randomly chose from the really cheap ones from Austrian shop 3Djake. It does not smell almost at all. I print and handle it all in my bathroom with a good ventilation though. Only really try to sniff around the VAT *when printing* it smells of burning PMMA which makes sense since most of resins are supposedly based on MMA monomers.
I mean, I didn’t say “it smells so bad it makes me sick”. it just smells bad, like melting plastic, but nothing that can be smelled a couple meters away from the printer, but apparently some people are overly sensitive to this. I use Wanhao resins that came bundled with the printer.
I do leave the resin in the vat for long periods of time. I’ve left it for months – sometimes it develops a skin so it’s time to filter it, but that’s about it. if the pigments have settled I just stirr it a little and that’s it.
I ended up buying a washing station because they were cheap anyways.
What you mention about “one clean hand”? yeah that does not work. I always end up brushing something with my finger and there goes my clean hand. I avoid touching the resin-soaked parts as much but there is always this little accident that ruins it. The washing station has helped a lot though, i grab the plate by the clean part and dunk it completely.
About curing it in UV lights? Well, I’ve been trying to cure things in UV lights for decades now. I could NEVER get the right wavelength of UV to cure anything. I see people using random UV sources and curing things, that never worked for me. I tried everything from blacklight tubes to germicidal lamps. The sun was always the reliable one. To avoid this completely I just got the curing station (and also noticed it had two sets of UV lights. probably different wavelengths?). Years ago, i got this UV curable solder mask and tried everything to cure, for hours. no change. 15 minutes in the sun was all it took… sigh.
There are some minor differences like how the light is focused, if it’s using multiple lenses or a mirror or some higher end SLA (not MSLA) use lasers. These can all have effects on print quality, and bad setups can cause lines in prints at some angles or speeds where the resin is in just the right place to get more or less light than it’s supposed to. Different types of displays used can have effects as well, purpose built B&W screens will have better cure times than repurposed RGB screens because there’s less layers for the light to pass through to get to the print.
Being said, just about everything sub $500 is a Chituboard based printer that’s the exact same guts as 400 other printers. Some mods like Mariner even have you flash Creality MSLA firmware on other brand’s MSLA printers and they work exactly the same.
In essence, you’re right… it’s very similar technology across all brands. But how is that technology put together? What are the parts like? Does a price difference really mean a quality difference? Which company is really best according to REAL users. That’s the beauty of the database. If successful, it will be a great free resource for everyone 😁
One thing I will warn you about for phrozen, the post sale support is terrible, I had one of their 4k professional printers arrive with a faulty lense and a bent z axis, they wouldn’t replace the z axis as they said it could of been damaged through misuse and while they admitted there was a faulty batch of lenses which mine was a part of, they made me buy an entire light unit because they “couldn’t” replace the lense only and the “light unit isn’t faulty and so isn’t eligible for warranty replacement”. The printer was well put together and after spending another 600usd in parts to repair the doa faults it worked well, but that customer service experience has taken my business elsewhere since.
This is the sort of information we need in a database. This will allow us to see trends in how companies treat their customers. One bad experience is just unlucky. 1000 bad experiences out of 2000 customers is a travesty. 😁
Don’t need an opt in database, I do like his videos. But when researching you go by price then join Facebook groups/ reddit groups and scroll to see what people’s thoughts are…and settings
Some do Larry, but not everyone. One of the reasons I started this was because I get so many people saying to me “this company is useful,” and “that company is great.” But these could be isolated comments so I can’t voice them openly. But if we have a database than anyone can complete and importantly “see”, then everyone gets the information they’re looking for. Or that’s the hope. I need people like you to share your experiences and help boost the quality of the results 😁
The other point is that, compared to FDM, resin prints tend to be quite brittle. I once dropped, by accident, a print from a >£10K resin printer at work, it shattered on the concrete floor. I then deliberately threw, with quite some force, some FDM prints (from a <£200 printer) of the same part at that same floor, none of them sustaiend more than slight scratches.
If my database proves successful, I’m hoping to build one for FDM printers too.
As for brittle prints, you’re right. If I want something robust, I generally print on FDM. But if if want precise, attractive and strong, there’s now a wider variety of resins capable on matching and in some cases exceeding what filament has given us 😁
I have a FSL3D Pegasus resin printer I got from kickstarter years ago. The hardware I think was pretty decent, the software sucked, I started writing new FW for it, but never had the time to really focus on it Maybe someday.