Awesome. What resin did you order?

I ordered ELEGOO Photopolymer Resin, 405nm, through Amazon, gray and black. Its what I saw the guy using on Youtube and his prints came out great.

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Nice! I really need to use my resin printer more; just hate the hassle of cleanup - I'm lazy that way. Can't wait to see some of your prints!

Been experimenting today first with some guitars I scaled too small to be of use, about 35 minutes to print. Then I printed the ELEGOO torture test rook that took about 4 hours and surprised the kiddos with the Hyrule shields that printed while we ate supper. I'm really impressed with the print quality although the clean up of the printed parts is a mess. I haven't yet used the small amount of resin that I poured in the beginning. Going to keep experimenting with files from thingiverse before I get into printing my own designs.

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AVE and MarkM : can you talk a little about the clean up of the prints and the printer after using it?

between clean up/mess and smell - those are the worst things i'm worried about moving to a resin printer -

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The prints are wet after printing and need an alcohol bath and warm water rinse. Then some time in sunlight to fully cure from what I understand. I can't speak on clean up since I'm still on my maiden voyage but the resin sits in a reservoir and any loquid left over will have to be removed and the reservoir cleaned. Warm soapy water seems to do the trick.

The smell is noticeable but not overwhelming. And with the cover on during printing, I don't even smell the resin. It's just when pouring the resin and when you remove the cover after printing.

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AVE is right - an alcohol bath/rinse then a warm water rinse, then a final cure with some good ol' UV, either from the sun or a curing box built with UV lights. There is also resin that's supposedly all water cleanup but I haven't used any of it. If the parts still feel tacky, you didn't rinse them well enough and need to rinse more. Nitrile gloves will become your favoritest thing because the resin is nasty if you get it on your hands. Also, if you get it on you and it gets hit with UV light, it gets really warm, really fast - ask me how I know.

It took a little over 30 minutes to tear down and clean everything after printing all afternoon. Cleaned everything that touched resin, the reservoir, print bed, and 2 scrapers with alcohol and warm water.

I managed two rook torture test pieces, 4 undersized guitars, 4 approx. 1/18th scale guitars, 4 Hyrule keychains, and a failed batch of swords (layout error, not print error), all on the initial pour recommendation of 1/3 depth resin with about 2 oz. left over. The resin is more costly than the plastic spool but it really goes a long way on smaller prints. My print bed is only about postcard sized and can go about 6 inches tall so I won't be able to make any of the larger vehicles and stuff.

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So, if you pour the leftover resin back into the container (i assume it's still 'good' ?) - how do you dispose of the alcohol/water waste? From a video I watched, I thought the guy said that it's actually industrial waste and needs to be treated as such?

TIME TO PRINT ALL THE HEADS, CHICKMAGNET

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The printer came with some filter/funnels and I've read that you could put the filtered resin back into the original container but my stuff said not to do that. I filtered the leftover and put it in a Rubbermaid container and placed that in a cardboard box to keep out unwanted uv light. I'll try to re use it and see what happens.

Calling it industrial waste is a CYA statement in my opinion. I used the same small amount of alcohol, 2-3 oz, to bath all of my prints in yesterday. I've sent more alcohol down the sink disinfecting exacto knife cuts.

FYI, Hazardous Materials teams have to be called in if a milk truck wrecks and spills its load. Anything can be considered hazardous to the environment in large amounts.

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And this is exactly what I want to do but finding good models is hard and designing organic stuff in 3d is very time consuming and difficult for me. Geometric designs and mechanics I'm okay with, its kind of what I do for a living.

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Look at daz3d. It is kind of cheesy but you can get some good stuff for printing from it. Also check out makehuman.

Is anyone here using something other than alcohol to clean their non water washable prints? I'm using Mr. Clean (or will be when i stop using water washable) but i'm curious as to what others are using here.

I've only used the alcohol. That's part of the reason my resin printer doesn't get as much use as my FDM -- the clean-up is such a mess and the alcohol is a pain to work with. I'm curious to hear how the Mr. Clean works for you.

Due to the lack of availability of 91% I started looking into other methods too. I found this video:



I'm using Simple Green. Cleaned my build plate and vat today with it but haven't tried it on any prints. Seemed to clean up pretty good. It has more of a cleaning smell vs the over powering alcohol fumes. And non flammable too, so that's a plus. I think the ultrasonic cleaner is the key but I set up a couple wash basins with homemade strainers. The first is pure Simple Green and the second is a warm water with Dawn rinse. Warm rinse in the sink to get rid of suds and drip dry. I'll get a picture posted from my phone soon.

BTW, some of what I've seen on an Elegoo Facebook group says that if you can clean the prints good enough then they won't need UV curing and won't be as brittle. I've got more Resin coming so hopefully I'll be back to experimenting.

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