SLA printer thread (Mars, Anycubic, etc)

Jelly

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I recently obtained a Elegoo Mars for 200 bones off amazon and have been fairly impressed so far. I haven't done a whole lot with it yet, but initially i'm impressed. Who's got a resin printer?

I have only printed with Elegoo's Standard Grey Resin so far, but I like it enough i'm going to order some of the other types/colors soon.

One of my first batches of prints. No tinkering pretty much right out of the box. Have some artifacting and didn't really know wtf I was doing. (Supports and angles are important)
MVIMG_20200729_155146_resize_78.jpg


I started tinkering with settings here, bottom exposure/exposure times, a little better. still getting movement in the Z (didn't figure this out till later).
IMG_20200725_004713_resize_16.jpg


The daughter wanted me to print this, didn't turn out too bad all things considering.
IMG_20200729_194125_resize_1.jpgMVIMG_20200729_201645_resize_46.jpg

Printing a Z support plate.
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Things i've learned:

* Tighten your FEP film till it sounds like a snare drum. Mine was pretty loose from the factory.
* Have extra FEP on hand. You're gonna mess your first sheet up fairly quick.
* ISO is impossible to find due to COVID. I've read you can use Everclear or any high proof clear alcohol instead. Will investigate soon.
* It's Messy but fun!
* A dj/party style uv light and a solar turntable is a godsend for curing parts.
* Wear PPE!

I want to reprint a few mechanical parts for my DIY 3d printer but the grey is pretty brittle. I'm going to test some ABS like resin and if I can find some high temp tolerant resin i'd like to reprint my carriage as well.
 
Cost wise, how is the resin doing vs comparable fdm? I like the quality of the sla but last time I looked into it (a long while ago) the resin was kind of pricey and issues of material sticking to the bottom plate were still prevelant.
 
Fdm is still cheaper in the long run. Average cost of resin is between 20-30$ per Liter, and you waste a lot figuring out how to use your new printer. The quality vs Fdm is no challenge, however from my limited experience so far, Fdm printed parts are still stronger.

Re: parts not sticking to the build plate, your fep isn't tight enough, your bottom layer exposure time isn't long enough, or you didn't level your build plate right. Maybe even old resin but once I tightened my Fep I haven't had a single issue with build plate adhesion. In fact it's quite difficult to separate printed parts from the plate now haha.

For display pieces, SLA all the way. If I need to actually use a part, I'll print it on my corexy
 
I have the Prusa SL1/CW1 bundle. Its pretty good but now that I understand Resin better...over priced. My wife does a lot of miniature painting and thats where resin shines for me....you just can't print miniatures with detail on a FDM. I also started using it to print the really small parts in robotic projects, etc that are simply just a pain to print on FDM with supports etc.

I would recommend these days that people get the Elegoo 4k monochrome resin printer...that is one hell of a deal between price and features.
 
Bump for random projects :) I ended up getting a Mars Saturn a while back and forgot I made this thread. The Saturn is a huge upgrade over the Mars (old, non pro) I had. The saturn has no wobble in the Z, monochrome Lcd, bigger, etc.
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The Saturn is a huge upgrade over the Mars (old, non pro) I had. The saturn has no wobble in the Z, monochrome Lcd, bigger, etc.
Yeah the original Saturn was pretty cool. Hated the leveling mechanism, but that was just because of my very high suction prints.

Apparently the Saturn 2 took a hit in build quality. I've seen that the cast aluminum top bracket causes the whole thing to flex a lot more than the og Saturn that had a machined aluminum bracket.
 
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I have according to my Wambam Flex plate I had to order that fit my build plate, it's an OG Saturn, V2 (think revision) It still has the machined bracket, I wonder if the only difference is the build plate size. 🤷‍♂️
 
I have according to my Wambam Flex plate I had to order that fit my build plate, it's an OG Saturn, V2 (think revision) It still has the machined bracket, I wonder if the only difference is the build plate size. 🤷‍♂️
Yeah I remember something about different revisions of the Saturn having slightly different build plate sizes for whatever reason. I recently got back to owning an Elegoo printer (Mars 3) that I really like. I think Elegoo's design works much better on the smaller format printers. I do not miss having to undo all those damn screws to replace FEP. Pictures of the Jupiter having like 50 screws made me lol.

Replaced my OG saturn a long while back with an Epax E10. Pricier, but it does more things right for larger format.
 
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