Picked up a resin printer to start experimenting with. I went with the Anycubic Photon Mono M5s. To start experimenting I picked it up secondhand cheap with a collection of spares and bottles of resin.
I think getting a second hand printer is the best way into the hobby so you can experiment and learn deficiencies before going to something that’s top of the range.
Initial Thoughts
Resin is messy! It gets everywhere, and smells potently. Definitely want to wear gloves when handling it unless you are careful, otherwise it’s sticky and goes everywhere.
The process is very cool, the way it builds by dipping the build plate in the resin then the laser hardening each layer.
The following is my initial prints, where I just did two game models to see how they come out.
First Model
Well it went wrong.
The model said 3 hours and I sorta wanted to see atleast something so I scaled it down… to 30 minutes. Well I misread mm as cm and this was the first result.
Take two!
They are really difficult to get off the plate. I ended up using a paint scraper but will need to look into something better in the future.
End result came out well, though looks a bit “blodgy” in the photo as it was quite wet.
Model two
This time I read the manual. I was using high speed resin. So I could get the print going a lot quicker. The second 3 hour model now takes 30 minutes. I decided to print with the bases as well.
This came out well when cleaned up
Letting them dry
Since they are cured with UV, I let them dry in the sun. They became a bit sharper and I attached them to the bases.
Then painted them black to see if can do them like other models
All in all, happy with the printer and a lot more to come. I still want to try a fillament printer to see the differences and some “cleaner” printer.