3D printing help and tips
This page is for those that use mainly resin 3D printers and need a bit of help or have specific issues with their prints. I have quite a bit of experience with certain printers so can give general advise and suggestions that might help and specific advise for the ones I have used. Curently I have an Elegoo Mars and an Elegoo Saturn, previously I have owned 2 Anycubic Photons and a Kelant S400 Combat, I also am custodian for a friend's Anycubic Photon M3 Max which I have used for a couple of weeks. The notes below are a bit ad-hoc as they were typed as I thought of them, if there is something I have missed or a particular problem I have missed, feel free to ask as I may have just forgotten to cover it.
Small printers
Generally small printers based on a phone screen (Photon and Mars) are easy to use and very forgiving on settings, specific settings are given below. They will print almost any resin with suitable adjustments to the settings and are relatively trouble free. The original Photon had a central light source that did not give great exposure near the ends of the screen area, consequently I always avoided the last 10mm at each end. The Photon S had a better light array and did not have this problem but did have a very flimsy casing with a wobbly lift up door, for this reason I never bought one but settings are the same as the older Photons. The Elegoo Mars I have found no issues with and it produces good prints at all times, being a later machine with a much more powerful light source, its print times are a lot shorter and it can do what the Photon used to do in about a third of the time.
Larger printers
The Elegoo Saturn is a bigger version of the Mars and also prints at the faster speeds, see settings below. Whereas the Mars has a built in carbon filter to clean the air inside, the Saturn is an earlier model and has vents at the back that I have piped outdoors via a vaccuum cleaner hose to advertise to the neighbours what I am doing. Actually you can't smell it at all outside and later model Saturns also have the internal filter and no vents. Saturns use a screen from a pad rather than a phone so the area is 2 to 3 times the size of the smaller printers and can be used right up to the edge. The Kelant I previously owned was also of this size range but had a lower light output so was slower to print but otherwise much the same.
Big printers
The Photon M3 Max is massive, around twice the print area of a Saturn in a machine around 4 times the size as it also has a huge height for those wishing to print factory chimneys in one piece or O gauge coaches standing on end. It also is of the faster printing type but due to the bulk and mass of the moving parts it has acceleration and deceleration built into its movements so overall is quite a bit slower. As the required height of the bottom lift increases and the speed of lift decreases with print area, the overall result is a much slower print with some suprising results, see further on for details.
Print files
The files that you put into the slicer program will normally be .stl but the output will depend on your printer. A good slicer should match your printer profile to its relevant output, Photons use .photon files, Elegoo printers use .ctb which is the Chitubox format. The Kelant uses .zip files and as there was no profile available, I had to create one manually and select .zip every time I saved the file. Bear in mind that althought both my Elegoos use .cbt files, you can only print the one that was created specifically for the machine you are using, a Mars file will not print in a Saturn and vice versa. Consequently I have to add Mars or Sat to my file names so I know which printer they work with, a bit annoying but it saves a lot of hassle, there is nothing more tedious than getting the Saturn ready to print then finding that the file is for the Mars. In case newcomers to the hobby don't know, the file must be copied onto an SD card or flash drive for use in the machine. If you have lots of files its a good idea to use several small drives or cards rather than one big one as searching through the menu on the printer's tiny screen is not fun, I tend to limit each drive to about 12 files, preferably of the same type and label them WD wagons, Bogies, Alco etc, it makes it much easier to find what you want. With less file to choose from it would be easier to only load the card/drive with the one needed but as I have hundreds of files, I prefer my method of multiple drives.
Some specifics
Much time has been put into finding out exactly what goes on when resin is printed, the basic idea is that the bed will retract to the bottom and raise up the required amount for the first layer, lets say 0.1mm. A layer of resin will be trapped between the bed and the screen which will display the sillhouette for the first layer, the UV light will shine up through the clear parts of the screen and cure the resin trapped above, simple. Actually not so simple, the time the light is on has to match the thickness and colour of the resin and the light's intensity, the resin must have no gaps in it or air bubbles and the bed has to lift off in such a way that the print separates from the film not from the bed. This is achieved with settings, the settings given for the resins will help, as will the settings in the printer handbook or online help but problems still occur, sometimes I think that half the time I spend working with printers is out guessing them so they do what I want and not carry on with their own agenda. Below are some areas that need attention so as not to cause problems.
Light
Too much light will overcure the parts making them brittle and possibly stuck solidly to the bed making the print impossible to get off. The first layers are always exposed to a higher degree but there are limits, the raft or base attached to the bed is sacraficial and disposed of later, along with the supports. Later layers are at a shorter exposure but can still be over done, too much exposure will make the print and supports brittle and separating the two will damage the print. Not enough light at the first layers will make the print less likely to stick to the bed and later layers will be too soft and deform as more layers are added, giving a warped result often with cracks.
Lift and retract speed
As the bed lifts up the film below the prints is torn off the print, this must happen gently or a soft print will be damaged or distorted, harder prints are more likely to damage the film. The first or bottom lift is for the first few critical millimeters and has to be slow, second or upper lift is to clear the print and allow the resin to flow into the gaps and can be a lot faster. Retraction is the reverse of this, the upper parts can be fast but the bottom part must also be slow. The reason for this is not obvious and caught me out on the M3 Max recently. Bearing in mind that the resin has to get out of the way as the bed descends, the larger the bed is, the more the resin has to move, so the slower the descent has to be.
This is not a problem with a small printer but the M3 Max is big and the settings inherited in Chitubox, the slicer I use, were totally wrong. First test were with small items where the resin has a fairly unobstructed route out from under the bed and were fine, but when printing a building that 2/3rds filled the bed, things got more congested. The print failed for other reasons and when I took the print off the bed to dispose of it, I noticed a skin on the resin surface. The vat was removed to sort it out and it was hot, as I peeled off the skin, another formed underneath and it got almost too hot to touch, and so on until the vat was empty. The film survived so I disposed of the obviously duff resin left in the bottle and tried again, it did the same thing with resin from a new bottle. After some internet searching I found the problem, the retract speed was too fast, the resin was trying to get out from under the bed but was still moving when the print started, this was putting wisps of partly cured resin out in the vat and the cycle then repeated for every layer. As resin is basically an unstable fluid, resin with partly cured bits in it is even more unstable and needed very little to set it off, which was the light that got in when I removed the front panel. The cure was to slow down the bottom retract speed and add a 2 sec light off delay before printing to wait for the resin to stop moving.
Signs of this problem are almost invisible wisps of partly cured resin in the vat, waft a small paint brush through the resin and you will catch them, and a print with slimy sides with what looks like traces of molding flash visible. The instant curing I had is an extreme reaction and will not be common.
Colour and temperature
The resin makers quote around 5 to 10% more time per layer for darker colours and 5 to 10% less for pale colours or clear, this is down to better light penetration in pale resins and poorer in dark ones. All colours fit into a scale between these two extremes so just allow accordingly, clear - 10%, flesh and pastel colours -5%, medium shades use the time quoted and darker shades +5% with black or very dark colours +10%. Temperature does have an effect, when the ambient temperature is below 18 C the resin flows more slowly and slower bed speeds might be a good idea, or find a way to raise the temperature of the room, or just the printer. If the first print on a chilly morning fails quite early on, a second try will probably work as the printer will have warmed up the resin by then, I sometimes put a small print on first knowing it will fail just to warm upo the printer and resin. My printers are in the workshop with me which is normally above this temperature but between October and April I am careful about leaving windows open and can always add insulation to the printers, an old T shirt will work and if its a dark one will also keep light out as the windows or cover of the printer are not a total block to outside UV. A friend in a cafe gave me his old laser temperature reader as buying a new one is cheaper than getting the old one calibrated, with this I know that a T shirt will raise the resin temperature by 5 to 10 C during a print. I also use it on the bed of my FFD printers to see what the temperature really is, usually not what the printers think it is, then make adjustments accordingly. You can buy these really cheaply online.
Positioning models in the slicer
There are as many ideas on how to do this best as there are printers, we all have ways that work for us but might not work well for others. A lot depends on what is being printed, bearing in mind that the bottom will always be a poor finish, the bottom of the print needs to be a part that is either not visible or can be easily sanded. The finish of the bottom will be worst if its horizontal to the bed but improves as its tilted up to 45 degrees, past that point you will need supports on other areas that are now past the critical 45 degree angle and these are likely to be visible areas. My WD wagons have an underframe built in and the supports can be added to the vertical faces of the underframe from the inside only, which leaves all the visible parts blemish free. I have tried tilting them a few degrees sideways as well but this usually results in a poorer finish overall. I know one printer who prints loco bodies in a Photon at about 10 degrees from horizontal, this has never worked for me but he seems to get good results.
Also consider the thickness of the parts, my WD wagons have small sectionangled trusses underneath, lifting one end make the trusses at the high end easy to print but the ones at the low end worse, I finally had to settle for a low angle of tilt to get them to print reliably and they still come out a bit wobbly. The final solution was to beef them up a bit so there is enough material to sand down after printing.
Supports
Supports must be added in the slicer program and slicers vary a bit in how they do it. You usually get a choice of light, medium or heavy and these should be used with small, medium or large prints, but they can be mixed and there are some exceptions. Generally use the auto setting and see what it does, any supports overlapping the outer edge can be removed and replaced where they should be, areas like the first bit to be printed can have extras added and any needed to support small parts that will be visible on the outside can be done with a light support. If the legs of the support get too long, the slicer will add cross supports to stiffen them but more can be added manually, also the dimensions of the supports can be changed in the settings. I find medium a bit under weight and thicken the legs a bit, also the raft that is for the legs to sit on often doesn't attach well to the legs, just omit the raft and use a cylinder 1mm thick for the leg foot, these will blend into a sort of raft where needed and is a lot better than the raft ever was. Never use light supports on big printers, the film will rip them to pieces. Never put in so many supports that you can't cut them out after printing, better to use less butheavier supports.
Curing
The settings below will give good results with fairly robust models but they are not fully cured. Curing has to be even from all directions or the part will warp and no-one needs a banana shaped loco, also over curing makes the parts brittle and discoloured. When they are cured, either paint them fairly quickly or store them in a closed drawer or cupboard away from light. Parts can also be stored straight from the printer for later curing but this tends to bite you when you get one out, forget its not cured, and find a banana two days later, ask me how I know.
The early advice on this was to put them on a window sill for a while or in the garden on a sunny day, I hear Australians saying that they put them outside for 30 minutes and they are done, not here in the UK, more like 2 days is needed. You also have to turn them regularly and check them often. Some have made themselves a curing cabinet or box with built in UV lights, also fine, I tried this and could bake them solid in 2 minutes, I might have bought the wrong light. There are also purpose made curing stations at various prices and I acquired a used Elegoo Mercury from a popular online seller at a good price. It has strips of UV lights surrounded by a mirrored surface and a light powered turntable, it will cure anything from all angles in 30 seconds but only takes smaller parts that will fit on the 100mm turntable. To get bogie wagons in it I have to stand them on end and lean a pair against each other but it still works.
Other factors
It is said that printers should be level, free from dust, vibration and excess heat and cold, the last two I agree with but my printers are within 1M of a milling machine and bench grinder and neither seem to have any effect on them at all. As for level, they will print at any angle as long as the resin is not going to slop over the edge of the vat but level makes sense and they all have adjustable feet, so why not.
Something that has a large effect on the whole printing process is the size of the film at the base of the vat, these also vary in thickness from about 0.15 to 0.3mm which also affects performance. The larger the film, the bigger the tearing force as it separating from the print at every lift. If the film is thinner it tends to separate with a pop whereas thicker films seem more gentle. The advice here is to listen to your printer when its operating, it will be silent as the layer is being exposed, it will purr quietly as it lifts slowly for the first few millimeters, then speed up as it switches to the faster upper lift. At some point you will hear a pop as the film separates, you will also see the resin level rise gently then suddenly drop at this point. This should happen while the bed is still lifting slowly, if it separates after the machine has speeded up, add a millimeter or two to the first lift. Also if the pop as it separates is loud, try a slower bottom lift to see what the effect is. Particularly with bigger printers, spread the parts to be printed evenly over the build area, not all at one end as the forces on the film will be uneven which can cause distortion and/or damage to the film.
Replacement films are available for all printers either from the manufacturer or from several after market sellers, these are not necessarily the same thickness and its worth a try with something other than the real thing. The Kelant wrecked its films quite often which were of the thicker variety, the thicker ones tend to be softer in texture and look like they may be two laminated layers. Not willing to spend a fortune on replacements, I bought a 2M offcut from a roll of FEP film from a food processing firm, they use it for the windows in food packaging but their's is thinner and stiffer. this completely transformed the Kelant as the new film suited it better than the original, it separated better and more gently as the film was less flexible. It was also less prone to damage and could be gently scraped to get bits off after a failure where the original was more likely to tear, it also did not stretch with use as a baggy film will never print well.
Something that came up when using Photons was that after replacing the film for the first time I had a string of failed prints, a session with Google followed to find a solution. The film is attached to a base former with many small screws then this is dropped into the base of the vat and attached with more screws, the Photon film is pulled tighter as the former is screwed in until it can have tunes played on it as its so tight. The solution was to place the top of a fizzy drink bottle under the film so that it bulged up in the middle then fit the former to get a baggy film, as this is fitted in the vat it fits over a ridge that tightens it up to hopefully th ecorrect tension. This is checked by loading a sound analysing ap on your phone, I use Spectroid, and tapping the film with the rubber on the end of a pencil. You need around 350 hz, without the bottle top it will be 700 hz or higher and cannot stretch enough to release the print without damage.
I do this with all my printers now and the imporovement is noticeable. Only the Photon has this particular problem, all the others I have replaced have come out at around the right tension without the bottle top, but I always check anyway. The Kelant had a different problem, the vat was noticaeably bigger than the print area, on most printers the bed has very little clearance inside the vat but the Kelant had 2 to 3 cm all round which must increase the surface area of the film by 30% or so. This meant that the angles of the film as it pulls away from the print and the forces involved were totally different from the other printers I have used, this printer worked best with a more taut film, which was why it was so much better with the thinner film. Generally a baggy film will give poor results and they do stretch with use. If the film is old the print will separate higher in the lift than with a tight film which means it might now be separating during the faster part of the lift. Also the angle of the film relative to the print will be steper when it is separating which is more likely to damage the print and stretch the film more. If your film is losing its tension, replace it, its false economy to carry on with it as it is less likely to print well and could split at any time.
A split film can be anything from a minor pain to a total disaster, if the split is over the print area, the printing process might cure the resin that leaks out and temporarily seal the split, I have had this several times. The film will be glued to the screen when you try to remove the vat and care must be taken to not spread resin everywhere, but it will usually all clean up fairly easily. If the split does not seal, the resin is likely to spread over the inner floor of the printer and probably find its way into the workings below, the first thing it gets to is usually the light array. This requires a fairly major strip and clean but there is no easy option, Youtube will probably have a video on how to do it so expect to get very messy and waste up to 3 hours getting it all out. Most printers use ribbon cables to connect various parts, the most delicate is the one from the screen which is fragile and easy to tear where it joins the screen. A small screen is not expensive but the big ones certainly are so be careful with that cable.
Kelant S400 Combat settings
I looks like I am one of the few that have managed to get a Kelant S400 printer to behave itself and print properly. I have posted details on a printing forum and have received several emails from people around the world for advice so I shall repeat it all here so its on record for good.
The Kelant is a good printer but it has requirements that are completely different from most other printers. It took me around 30 prints to find the settings it liked, all failed for various reasons but it now prints well every time. Chitubox is the best slicer to use for the Kelant, I found the slicer that came with it lacking in features and not reliable. All the settings below are based on Chitubox, for other slicers the settings will be the same but the names of the settings may be a little different.
Machine Settings
Go into Settings in Chitubox and name the profile Kelant S400. If you use other printers, the Kelant X and Y axis may not be the same way round, my Photons are the other way. Set the resolution to X - 2560 and Y - 1600, set the size to X - 192, Y - 120 and Z - 200, ensure that the box for Lock Ratio is checked, actually it is solid grey rather than white.
The main problem is that the separation forces when the film is pulled off the print are high and can pull the print apart or even pull it off the build plate. To counter this you must use heavy supports for large items and medium supports for smaller parts. The medium supports must be made thicker in the slicer as they will not work as they are preset, minimum thickness 1.2mm for the middle sections. If you use Chitubox, a raft is generated when you go to add the supports, I found that the supports do not attach well to the raft and often fail, the solution is to click Remove All and the raft will disappear. Now when supports are added they will all have their own bases which will all merge into one to form a raft, these will print well. You can change the shape of the base in the settings, I use a cylinder 1mm thick, do not use thicker or the print will be very difficult to remove from the plate.
If the print has no flat faces it can be printed in any position but it is better to tilt it so that the amount being printed for each layer is kept to a minimum, particularly the first few layers of the actual print as these are most likely to fail. If the print is a geometric shape, tilt it so that the base is at an angle of 30 to 50 degrees to the plate and then tilt it sideways by about 8 degrees, this means that the print will start in one corner and move out in all directions which is better for the printer, the film and the supports. Apart from ease of printing, the base of the model which has the supports will never print well with this type of printing. If positioned level it will need a lot of supports and will print very rough, as you tilt the print it will improve in finish but it will never be good and will need sanding afterwards. If you tilt the print past 45 degrees you will need supports at the side or end as well which will then suffer from a poor finish. I find that the best way is to decide which face can be easily sanded, make it 0.5mm deeper and sand it back after printing. Some of my prints are assemblies and the poor face can be hidden by other parts, or if the part is hollow it can be supported from inside where the problem will not show.
Print Settings
- Layer Height - I use 0.1mm for most things as there is no real improvement in quality if you go smaller but the print takes a lot longer, the following settings are based on that.
- Bottom Layer Count - 8, any more will make the base like armour plating and impossible to get off the plate.
- Transition Layer Count - leave at O as the Kelant does not use this.
- Exposure Time - 8.5 - 11 sec for white or grey resins, translucent resins can use 7.5 - 10 sec and dark colours 9 - 12 sec. The shorter times will leave the print soft and liable to warping after printing when it finishes curing, the longer times will mostly complete curing in the printing process. For organic shapes (no straight edges) the shorter times work fine but for geometric shapes use the longer times as post print distortion is far more noticable with them.
- Bottom Exposure Time - 50 sec for white or grey, 45 sec for translucent and 55 sec for dark colours.
- Light Off Delay and Bottom Light Off Delay - 0 sec, not required for most uses.
- Bottom Lift Distance (Kelant call this First Lift) - 4mm. Listen to the machine in use and you can hear it speed up as it gets to normal lift speed, you should hear the film tearing off the print before this happens. For a small print in the middle of the plate increase this to 5 or 6mm as the film flexes more with a small print, the film separation must be complete before the first lift is finished.
- Lifting Distance (Kelant call this Second Lift) - I use 5mm but it can be up to 15mm.
Bottom Lift Speed - 15mm/min, this must always be very slow.
Bottom Retract Speed - 40mm/min.
Upper lifting Speed and Retract Speed - both can be 200mm/min.
Advanced settings -
- Leave both light settings at 255
- Anti-ailiasing should be ON and I use Level 4.
- Do not use Grey Level or Image Blur
When saving files for printing use zip format, it is the only option that a Kelant can use. File names must have no spaces or special characters, use underscore for spaces if you add to the file name. When ready to print, turn on the machine but do not insert the flash drive until the machine has finished loading or it will not detect it. Use the flash drive supplied which is of the long skinny type, fat bodied ones will hit the casing before making connection and will not work. Find the file and select it for printing, all the parameters you set in Chitubox will be displayed on the screen. You can make changes before printing to the speeds, exposure and distances but do not alter the layer height, to do this you must start again in Chitubox with the new layer height set there. If you want more than 1 print, save any changes you make and it will use the new settings for further prints.
I am happy to answer individual questions by email but this should get you started, the settings the machine and Chitubox default to will work on most small printers but not the Kelant and I suspect not any printer with a larger print area. It is mainly the film separation forces that are the problem, a bigger film has much higher forces that have to be avoided by careful settings. Kelant's solution is to use a lot more supports which uses a lot more resin and does nothing for the print quality. None of the settings are written in stone, they can be varied but may have adverse affects on quality or adhesion, if you try some that are better, let me know and I can try them myself.
Anycubic Photon settings
These machines are very forgiving with settings, even if wildly wrong they still try to do the job. The Photon S has a better UV array and may need less exposure, best to check this out by comparing the settings below with your manual or on the Anycubic website, the rest of the settings will be OK. Initial setting up is automatic in most slicers but the settings required are -
Resolution - X - 1440, Y - 2560, the Photon has these settings reversed compared to most other printers.
Size of print area - X - 68.04, Y - 120.96, Z - 150.00, Z is 160.00 for the S2 version.
Print settings -
Layer height- 0.1mm gives good results, less will not be much better and will take a lot longer to print.
Bottom layer count - 4
Normal exposure - 12 to 14 secs, a little less for translucent and more for dark colours.
Bottom exposure - 55 to 60 secs.
Light off delay - 0 secs, not normally required.
Bottom lift - 5mm.
Normal lift - 5mm.
Bottom lift speed - 10mm/min.
Upper lift speed - 200mm/min.
Bottom retract speed - 10mm/min.
Upper retract speed - 200mm/min
Anti aliasing ON at level 4, do not use the other advanced settings.
These settings will give good results with most resins, if you have problems it could be caused by other factors, see below.
Elegoo Mars settings
These machines are also very forgiving with settings, even if wildly wrong they still try to do the job. Initial setting up is automatic in most slicers but some will need a tweak to improve performance -
Resolution - X - 4098, Y - 2560
Size of print area - X - 143.430, Y - 89.6, Z - 175,00.
Print settings -
Layer height- 0.1mm gives good results, less will not be much better and will take a lot longer to print.
Bottom layer count - 5
Normal exposure - 2.7 to 3.2 secs, a little less for translucent and more for dark colours.
Bottom exposure - 24 - 30 secs.
Light off delay - 0 secs, not normally required.
Bottom lift - 7mm.
Normal lift - 5mm.
Bottom lift speed - 25mm/min.
Upper lift speed - 210mm/min
Bottom retract speed - 25mm/min.
Upper retract speed - 210mm/min
Anti aliasing ON, Grey Level 4, Image Blur 2. Do not mess with other advanced settings.
These settings will give good results with most resins, if you still have problems, they could be caused by other factors.
Elegoo Saturn settings
These settings probably apply to all Saturns as they have been improved with new models but not fundamentally changed, best to check your manual.
Resolution - X - 3840, Y - 2400
Size of print area - X - 192.00, Y - 120.00, Z - 200.00.
Print settings -
Layer height- 0.1mm gives good results, less will not be much better and will take a lot longer to print.
Bottom layer count - 6
Normal exposure - 2.7 to 3.2 secs, a little less for translucent and more for dark colours.
Bottom exposure - 20 to 25 secs.
Light off delay - 0 secs, not normally required.
Bottom lift - 10mm.
Normal lift - 5mm.
Bottom lift speed - 20mm/min.
Upper lift speed - 180mm/min.
Bottom retract speed - 40 mm/min.
Upper retract speed - 180mm/min
Anti aliasing ON at level 4, do not use the other advanced settings.
These settings will give good results with most resins, if you still have problems, they could be caused by other factors.
Anycubic Photon M3 Max
The settings I inherited when I entered the M3 as a new machine in Chitubox were completely wrong and did not work at all. Being naturally trusting I just went ahead with them and had several failures before I took the time to look at the settings.
Resolution - X - 6480, Y - 3600
Size of print area - X - 298.08, Y - 165.60, Z - 300.00
Print settings -
Layer height- 0.1mm gives good results, less will not be much better and will take a lot longer to print.
Bottom layer count - 6 to 8
Normal exposure - 3.5 secs, a little less for translucent and more for dark colours.
Bottom exposure - 20 secs.
Light off delay - 2 secs.
Bottom lift - 10mm.
Normal lift - 10mm.
Bottom lift speed - 20mm/min.
Upper lift speed - 240mm/min
Bottom retract speed - 40mm/min.
Upper retract speed - 240mm/min
Light off delay - 2 sec
Transition type - Linear
Transition layer count - 4
Anti aliasing ON at level 4, do not use the other advanced settings unti proficient.
These settings will give good results with most resins, if you have problems it could be caused by other factors. The issues I had were mostly caused by the upper and bottom retract speeds both being 240mm/min and this machine definitely needs the light off delay of 2 sec, also the bottom lift speed was way too high.
The verdict
If anyone has any comments on the information on this page, bear in mind that it works for me so can't be wrong, but I am open to suggestions or modifications if you have something to add. All these tests were with Elegoo standard grey resin, Elegoo water washable resin or Anycubic standard grey resin. The performance of all these is very similar and I use them all on and off. The only resins I don't get on with are the Elegoo abslike which is nothing like abs and never goes completely solid, not good for my uses but probably fine for figures etc. A customer recommended Siraya Tech Fast Grey which I bought a botle of to try, it didn't seem any different to the ones I normally use but costs more, I went back to the Elegoo.
A couple of other points of interest are that organic shapes which these printers were designed for always print well, or so it seems as being of irregular shape, a bit of distortion will easily go unnoticed. Geometric shapes like wagon bodies, loco bodies, buildings and almost everything I print are not the same, any distortion stands out like a sore thumb. I am told that raising the print higher off the bed helps with this as the first lines of actual print have a tendancy to splay outwards, and a lot of supports here also help. The official practise with straight lines in a printer is to tilt the parts, partly to reduce the impact on the supports underneath and partly to reduce the stresses on the part and the film. This is correct but tends to give diagonal lines in the print as it does each layer, this can be improved with more supports but this uses more resin and can be a real pain to remove when finished. You can also print at a finer resolution, I use 0.1mm mostly but I could switch to 0.05mm for a better finish, but this would double the print time. Another idea which I haven't had a chance to try yet is to add an sacrificial rim to the bottom of the wagon or whatever about 1mm deep, this will have ups and downs in it from the supports and the bottom end may be a little splayed but after curing, it can be sanded flat and all the nasty bits disappear. I really must try this as it makes a lot of sense.
Mark Clark - Locosnstuff 2023
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