- Joined
- 30 Mar 2008
- Messages
- 2,477
- Age
- 39
Given a lot of my work lately has been geared towards printing on Shapeways and as I am eagerly awaiting an Elegoo Mars 2 resin printer, I thought that I would kick off a new thread dedicated to the subject of 3D printing. My living room looks like a bit of a jumble sale with Amazon boxes and boxes of gloves, filters and all the other stuff needed.
Actually, that may not be a bad place to start. I've discovered that resin printing requires a metric ass tonne of consumables and support equipment. What I have so far...
- 1 litre of Elegoo ceramic grey water washable resin. It's a bit more expensive but I didn't want the hassle of also needing to use IPA to wash things down (ie one toxic chemical is better than 2).
- 1 Elegoo Mercury Plus combined wash and cure station. Hopefully a bit of a cleaner workflow than dunking between buckets. Also contains the UV array to quickly cure the resin.
- 1 pair of safety glasses, tinted to look cool (actually I find a tint helps in viewing small detail, maybe it's just me)
- 1 box of nitrile powder free gloves. Resin is nasty stuff, I don't want it cooking on my skin. Apparently this is better than rubber gloves, not sure why.
- Masks. Already had these anyway. Depending on how bad the fumes are I may switch to a respirator.
- a pack of 100 filters plus funnel. Needed when removing excess resin from the vat to make sure there's no solid bits in there if you want to reuse it, as this could damage the FEP film in the base of the vat.
- a pair of flexible mini squeegees. To help clean the vat without damaging the delicate FEP surface.
What I'm missing, is a printer!
As the resin gives off fumes and there is the potential for spillages, I'll be doing the printing in the conservatory. This is likely to mean I'll be constrained in when I can print due to temperature, but it's the only well ventilated room in the house. I have a nice heavy set of drawers in there I intend to use as a stable base... unfortunately I have discovered it isn't level so I'll need to jack that up first. Then put down some plastic sheeting or some trays of some type (silicone mats used for animal food bowls were suggested so I may pick up a couple).
I've been watching a lot of youtube videos over the weekend, it seems the key to a good resin print is good supports. This channel provides a lot of good advice.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbv2mDrRqXovPdahRyoCFhA/videos
To anyone building models for the purpose of 3D printing, I suggest this one in particular.
And just to finish off, here's a photo of my Shapeways fleet (most of them anyway).
Hopefully I'll provide updates later this week...
Actually, that may not be a bad place to start. I've discovered that resin printing requires a metric ass tonne of consumables and support equipment. What I have so far...
- 1 litre of Elegoo ceramic grey water washable resin. It's a bit more expensive but I didn't want the hassle of also needing to use IPA to wash things down (ie one toxic chemical is better than 2).
- 1 Elegoo Mercury Plus combined wash and cure station. Hopefully a bit of a cleaner workflow than dunking between buckets. Also contains the UV array to quickly cure the resin.
- 1 pair of safety glasses, tinted to look cool (actually I find a tint helps in viewing small detail, maybe it's just me)
- 1 box of nitrile powder free gloves. Resin is nasty stuff, I don't want it cooking on my skin. Apparently this is better than rubber gloves, not sure why.
- Masks. Already had these anyway. Depending on how bad the fumes are I may switch to a respirator.
- a pack of 100 filters plus funnel. Needed when removing excess resin from the vat to make sure there's no solid bits in there if you want to reuse it, as this could damage the FEP film in the base of the vat.
- a pair of flexible mini squeegees. To help clean the vat without damaging the delicate FEP surface.
What I'm missing, is a printer!
As the resin gives off fumes and there is the potential for spillages, I'll be doing the printing in the conservatory. This is likely to mean I'll be constrained in when I can print due to temperature, but it's the only well ventilated room in the house. I have a nice heavy set of drawers in there I intend to use as a stable base... unfortunately I have discovered it isn't level so I'll need to jack that up first. Then put down some plastic sheeting or some trays of some type (silicone mats used for animal food bowls were suggested so I may pick up a couple).
I've been watching a lot of youtube videos over the weekend, it seems the key to a good resin print is good supports. This channel provides a lot of good advice.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbv2mDrRqXovPdahRyoCFhA/videos
To anyone building models for the purpose of 3D printing, I suggest this one in particular.
And just to finish off, here's a photo of my Shapeways fleet (most of them anyway).
Hopefully I'll provide updates later this week...