What's a good intro 3D printer for printing shoulder pads.

[Marshal Mittens]

Thinking about getting one, buying from shapeways is too expensive.

[Grotsmasha]

Any of the big brands, Anycubic, Elegoo are solid choices. Personally I'm on the Anycubic Mono (2K), and find the quality for shoulder pads to ok with dialed-in settings. I would recommend the upgrade to the Photon Mono X (4K) ($580AU with Resin on eBay at the moment), just for that higher resolution.

I also have the Photon Zero, which is quite a small machine, but the quality needed for shoulder pads isn't there.

[Slave to Darkness]

Small hijacking of the thread but I thought It may be worth asking, Is it worth picking up a printer 2nd hand or is it one of those things better buying new? Im seriously considering investing as GW prices are obscene now. 

[infyrana]

Small hijacking of the thread but I thought It may be worth asking, Is it worth picking up a printer 2nd hand or is it one of those things better buying new? Im seriously considering investing as GW prices are obscene now. 

No idea on the second hand market.  I would be concerned about how the original owner treated theirs, if the plate is off and you can't get it aligned for whatever reason, you will have bad prints.

 

I use an Elegoo Mars Pro 2, I'm sure it can be improved upon, but it works.  I've had issues printing big items but that is more a case of the quality of STL supports and settings rather than the printer itself.  When the file is setup right to print, the prints come out fantastic.

 

Maybe not 100% accurate but, any good printer can be rendered bad by poor setup print files, even bad printers can give good results if the file is setup right.  Even a PLA printer can give good results if the file and item is set just right.

[Tyriks]

I have used Anycubic Photons, Elegoo Mars 2 Pro, and Phrozen Sonic Minis. I like the Sonic Mini a lot but I only use them at work. The Mars 2 Pro is what I primarily use at home and I like it a lot. I found it less... particular than the Photon, and slightly bigger build plate without a huge cost increase. I'd recommend it for sure.

[Grotsmasha]

Small hijacking of the thread but I thought It may be worth asking, Is it worth picking up a printer 2nd hand or is it one of those things better buying new? Im seriously considering investing as GW prices are obscene now. 

 

If you know the providence of the printer i.e. belongs to a friend who is upgrading, I'm sure 2nd hand is fine, I'd be wary of getting one second hand from an internet rando.

For a little more than the cost of the new Heresy box, you could get a new 4K printer and enough resin to print the equivalent models, and then some.

[twopounder]

Thinking about getting one, buying from shapeways is too expensive.

I liked shapeways for a while, but I agree, they price gouge something terrible. For a starter printer, the Elegoo Mars or Anycubic Mono are good for their price. Usually south of $300. Amazon is currently down (imagine that) but I think I've seen the mars for as little as $170. Mind you, this is resin so I HIGHLY advise watching some videos on how to handle resin, print cleanup and UV curing. You'll get amazing detail but it takes a little work and a lot of care, as UV resin is toxic before it sets.

 

 

Small hijacking of the thread but I thought It may be worth asking, Is it worth picking up a printer 2nd hand or is it one of those things better buying new? Im seriously considering investing as GW prices are obscene now. 

Not really. Resin printers are really cheap and easy to use, however there are two things to be aware of:

1) The screen burns out due to the UV light passing through it. This means you do need to replace screens (around $20 - $40), so buying a printer with a burned out screen can end up costing as much as a new printer.

2) The motors still have a limited life. If it was run 24x7 in a hot garage, you could be buying something that is an inch away from death. Unless you're getting it for $20, I'd just spend the $150 - $200 for a brand new one with warranty. There are even some specials that can get you a free can of resin to go with it.

[Slave to Darkness]

 

For a little more than the cost of the new Heresy box, you could get a new 4K printer and enough resin to print the equivalent models, and then some.

Thats the plan. 

[Arkhanist]

Thinking about getting one, buying from shapeways is too expensive.

I did buy a 3d printer precisely to cut down on my shapeways and resin bases bills, and it has proved to work very well for that, and more besides! This space is moving pretty quickly, but budget resin printers now produce extremely good quality prints.

 

The way a resin 3d printer works, there's basically a monochrome smartphone screen above a bright UV light. Above that is a vat of UV-reactive resin with a transparent film (the FEP) at the bottom. The build plate descends on a motor into the resin, pressing a very thin layer of resin between FEP and build plate. The screen lets through a UV picture for that layer, the resin hardens and sticks to the build plate. The build plate goes up to pull the layer off the FEP, then comes down to do the next layer. Repeat 1000 times, and you have a 3d printed part or model!

 

So basically the 3d part is made up of little 3d cubes; their height is the layer height (usually 0.02 or 0.03mm for detail parts, i.e. 20 to 30nm), while the x/y size is determined by the pixel resolution of the screen.

 

For flat, smooth surfaces printed close to vertical or horizontally, this cube nature can lead to slightly visible layer lines; a small 'steps' effect in the surface of the model. You can use a sanding stick to remove these, a good primer will also fill them fairly well - or you print at a higher resolution (smaller nm pixels). They are FAR less visible than those from a lower resolution FDM printer, i.e. the hot plastic string things, but they do still exist for fine detail. The higher resolution, the finer the details you can print, and eliminates lines.

 

For reference, shapeways prints at a 16nm for their smoothest fine, and 25nm for their smooth fine detail - on hefty big printers using a slightly different process, but the principle is the same.

 

I bought a Mars 2 (same as the mars 2 pro, just cheaper and without the built in filter). This has a 2k screen, with a resolution of 50nm. The detail is very good for the price, and you can definitely get nice prints out of it, no question. This is very very, similar to the anycubic mono (i.e. 2k) and you can't go wrong with either, just go with whichever is cheaper on sale at the time! The following generation has bumped that to 4k screens, with smaller pixels (~35nm) and finer detail. The difference is not night-and-day huge - but it is there.

 

So I would personally suggest spending a little more, and going for a current gen budget 4k printer. They're regularly on sale, and can often be found for barely more than the older 2k ones. 8k printers also exist, but by that point you're down to using a magnifying glass to see the difference, so after painting is kinda overkill for our purposes.

 

Of the current options, the best two are probably the elegoo mars 3, and the anycubic M3 (review links) which is a 'refresh' of the anycubic mono 4k, that's just come out. The M3 has a slightly bigger build volume than the mars 3, but the mars 3 has been top of the chart for the last 6 months for budget printers. Given they're all based on chitu hardware, the differences are pretty minor really, though elegoo tends to be slightly less finicky to get reliable prints out of.

 

Where I am, I can get the Mars 3 for £256 or the M3 for £299, so I'd go for the Mars 3; but it depends on what's on sale at the time! If I *really* needed to save that £36, I'd go for the Mars 2 (the green lid) for £220.

 

All these are 'standard' sized build areas, that can print around 10-15 models at a time, or a tank in smaller parts so are fine for most purposes. If you want to print resin scenery or tanks in one go, or very large busts etc, then it's worth considering the bigger versions of these printers, such as the elegoo Saturn 2 8k (literally just about to come out), or the anycubic m3 plus (they have similar size pixels to the smaller printers - a bigger panel needs more pixels/resolution to keep the same detail so 4k 'big' printers are akin to 2k smaller ones). It takes me a *lot* longer to paint than print, so being able to print a few more smaller models at a time wasn't worth it for me personally.

 

I definitely wouldn't recommend older printers that pre-date the monochrome screen; they're lower resolution, and much slower to print.

 

You've then got learning about resin and slicers and supports and cleaning prints with IPA, which is probably better for another forum! Just bear in mind uncured UV resin is toxic to water life, and can cause allergic reactions, so always use gloves and print in a well-ventilated area, and don't pour anything down the drain.

Edited May 27, 2022 by Arkhanist

[twopounder]

The Elegoo Mars 2 is $209 on Amazon with the extra savings coupon. Also comes with 15% off a resin bottle. Its only 2k, but that's great to get started with shoulder pads and learn how to work with resin.

Edited May 27, 2022 by twopounder