i just tried 3d resin printing for the first time and boy was it interesting but i unintentionally
risked my life doing so so grab yourself a cuppa and let's have a chat what's up i'm jonathan and
welcome to maker tales this video is sponsored by thangs now on to my first print for full disclosure
i sent an email to a whole bunch of resin printer manufacturers and elegoo were kind enough to supply
me with a mars 2 pro and their wash and cure station to get started in resin printing but this
video has nothing to do with the printer and all to do with resin printing results but if you're
interested in the future once i feel like i've got to grips with resin printing i will be reviewing
it i would like to think that as i put in so much research into my resin printing setup that this
is the reason why my first print and cleanup went off without a hitch as is customary i printed off
the rook torture test and just wow i knew resin printing was high fidelity but my expectations
were definitely surpassed after countless hours of research and having seen hundreds of models online
with it actually in my hands i was blown away that you cannot see or feel any layer lines at
all in fact the only thing i see and very very slightly feel are these horizontal lines which
are the individual pixels themselves and these things are tiny here is a needle to put this
all into perspective okay okay now i know this is the rook torture test which is basically made to
look the best and not fail from the manufacturer themselves so i straight away put something else
of my own to print now hold on before we get to that i've gone through a whole journey to get
to this point so let's rewind this back as i'm sure you can tell from the title of this video
resin printing was and still sort of is completely new to me now this video will contain hints and
tips of getting started with resin printing but is by no means a how-to or a tutorial
at all those videos will be coming in the future but this video is all about truly documenting my
first steps into resin printing so as i'm sure you can guess i've been more of an fdm sort of guy for
quite a while for about seven-ish years but out of nowhere for a while i've been thinking that i
really should be giving resin printing a go now my first initial thoughts were pretty
much uh how hard can it be 90% of the things that are printed in wrestling are miniatures
and just sort of a general wow at how cheap resin printing has gotten then i did some research and
i'm sure for those of you that know maker tales know that i don't do just a little research one
month in and probably 200 hours of research down the line i realized this is a much bigger apple
than i thought i was biting into on a very top and superficial level these are the key things that i
initially learned we all know resin is toxic but nobody really knows how toxic toxic is because
research is still ongoing but i'm going to be airing on the safe side as no surprise to anyone
resin printing removes almost all the limitations of fdm printing but adds a whole host of others
the mechanical side is the easiest part of it all unlike fdm printing the slicer settings are
pretty key the model orientation and support generation will probably be the bane of it all
you can't just set up a resin printer anywhere and lastly cleaning cleaning cleaning and more
cleaning so with all that and a whole bunch more learned i made a decision if i'm going to start
resin printing i'm really going to get in to resin printing one so i can get good results
and two so i can help others who are already into resin printing or looking into resin printing
my first key thing to tackle here was location because you really cannot do resin printing just
anywhere it's a little bit of a messy and quite smelly process at times
not to mention the toxicity of it all so really don't do this in a office bedroom or heaven forbid
a kitchen this really needs a space to rule over for me it was my workshop but that was in no state
to be a clean space so i did a little bit of vr within blender to redesign it all in my last video
now more crucially this was important for one key reason temperature you see resin printing is
a chemical reaction so temperature plays a pretty big role in fact in my research the root problem
for the majority of resin failed prints was the temperature in some way or another because as you
can imagine a space that is out the way is exactly that a garage a shed a basement and these spaces
are usually not heated and resin manufacturers even tell us that the recommended temperature
is between 20 and 25 degrees celsius now i'm not saying this is where all the problems lie
but it definitely does play its role because it influences the resin's overall viscosity
as well as the curing time so that then changes how well it sticks to the build plate as well as
the printing settings so definitely keep that in mind now with the location sorted i want to
very quickly touch on safety and cleaning i'm sure i'll cover this in a lot more detail in the future
but just be aware that this stuff is toxic be it normal resin or eco resin it's not nice stuff and
will eventually lead to chemical sensitivity and burns if it consistently touches your skin
lungs or anything really so keep things clean and be meticulous of what and where you touch when
you're cleaning prints personally i use an organic vapor respirator and i have an activated carbon
filter in my clean shop speaking of cleaning the majority of resins promote using isopropyl alcohol
to clean off excess resin and that is exactly what i did now there are alternatives out there which
in my limited opinion are much better because you don't run the risk of blowing yourself up and now
i wish i took my research into these alternatives a lot more seriously but as i wanted to save a few
bucks i went with isopropyl alcohol and that there is where i went wrong after finishing my
first large-ish print and cleaning everything off i had my respirator on and had no idea of
the huge buildup of isopropyl alcohol vapor in the air and by pure chance there was no sparks
or autoignition hot spots in my clean shop if not the whole space would have gone boom with
me in it so i would maybe suggest looking into some alternatives like some industrial degreasers
like mean green or simple green which is exactly what i'm going to do and i'll be sure to test and
show you my results in the future now a quick word from thangs. thangs is a community for all
kinds of 3d enthusiasts and they have a selection of over 3.4 million free models to download they
are constantly updating and improving and recently have added a whole bunch of updates
like full hashtag support and a super simple way of collaborating and sharing models or entire
folders privately with others be sure to check thangs out by using the link in the description and
by using that link you're not only just checking out the fastest growing 3d community but you're
helping me make more videos like these and for that thank you now let's go back to putting on my
own first prints a few weeks back i did a deep dive into photogrammetry where i made
this little guy now i wanted to see this in resin to see if there are any real differences in the
results it was pretty simple just chucked it into the slicer used some pretty default settings and
i had another successful print side by side the differences between the two are pretty clear the
key place i noticed the difference is in the face of the hair as this is where i got the most detail
from my photogrammetry now feeling a little more confident i wanted to really push the boundaries
both in definition and to the point of failure a little haphazardly i created my own real torture
test that i would have never hoped to have printed on an fdm printer and also grabbed
a bunch of scan the world models along with a cthulhu ring i chucked these all into the slicer
used again some pretty default support structure generation put it into the print
and lo and behold it didn't fail i'm sure you can see by these results that detail is just
not a problem in my opinion when it comes to resin printing it really is unreal again in these shots
you'll sometimes see a needle and my pinky just for context now putting aside the toxicity and the
somewhat frustrating workflow of resin printing which i'm sure i'll get more comfortable with
in time as i've made all the accommodations for it the only real downside i see is material
strength but even then resins are constantly under development with tougher ones flexible ones
even glow-in-the-dark there's always a new resin coming out it feels like and these are all liquid
resins which probably against the manufacturer's recommendations we can mix and match to create our
own resins with their own unique properties so at the end of the day i'm not fully convinced but i
am slowly turning into a fan it's still early days and i have a lot more testing playing about
and learning to do but it's definitely starting to look like this is going to become a staple maker
tool now with that said i feel that comparing fdm to resin printing is sort of like comparing
scissors to a knife they both do the same thing and both excel in different areas depending on
your needs however bringing it back to printers the resin workflow is a very tough pill to swallow
but if you're willing to meet the space the safety and the cleanliness accommodations i personally
feel that the overall resolution outcome outweighs those headaches anyway that there are my two cents
on my first time trying out resin printing i would love to hear your thoughts though do you want to
do resin printing do you have a resin printer is it all just too much of a headache for you i would
love to hear it down in the comments or over in the discord a huge thank you to my patrons you
guys are absolutely awesome and it's the reason that i'm able to make videos like these thanks to
your support and if you're enjoying what i make here and you think i'm worthy of your support
i would love to see you there too don't forget that we do have that discord channel and that's
linked down in the description thank you for watching keep making and let the quest continue