Getting Into Resin 3D Printing in 2021 - Ultimate SLA Beginners Guide

hi it's michael in this video i'm going to show you everything you need to know to get started with resin 3d printing for only a few hundred dollars you can be printing your own stuff like this sabretooth tiger skull i think that's called a smilodon i'm going to cover what it'll cost to get into it all the extra stuff that you might want to buy and touch on how to keep your workspace fairly clean and resin free i've got a lot of info to get through so let's see that main title and get started [Music] so before i get started i want to thank all of you guys i just reached 10 000 subscribers i really appreciate all of your support and i've got a lot of cool videos coming up this year so if you haven't subscribed yet do that now and hit that bell icon that way you won't miss anything okay so the first thing you're going to need is of course a printer we start with an object we want to print for resin printers a very common first object to print is this chest rook if we want to print this we need to slice this into layers pretty much all 3d printers use an additive method and print objects one layer at a time so we use an app called a slicer it literally takes a 3d model of the object and slices it up like a loaf of bread except that the slices are microscopic and each slice is a cross section of what that layer looks like the printer will create these slices one at a time to form your object one thing to learn here is that the thickness of these slices is important and we call this thickness layer height a very standard layer height is 50 microns but usually you can select what height you want to print at some printers can go down as low as 10 microns one micron is one thousandth of a millimeter so 50 microns is 0.05 millimeters and of course a smaller layer height will mean better surface quality but also means that your object will take longer to print because there will be more layers to [Music] print fdm or filament-based printers use a spool of filament that gets injected into a hot end which basically draws the layer out of melted material it sort of works like a robot with a hot glue gun and this is what most people think of when you talk about 3d printing but this video is about getting into resin printing resin based 3d printers are also called sla printers they use a uv light source to cure liquid resin to form each layer laser-based printers like the formlabs form3 use a laser to draw the layer the advantage of that technology is that the outer edge of your part can be very smooth but the trade-off is that those printers are fairly expensive usually a few thousand dollars and with laser-based printers the more surface area you have on the slice the longer it takes to print that slice because it has to draw over that entire surface the more affordable sla printers use a light array below an lcd panel the panel displays the slice and that acts as a mask so that the uv light only cures the liquid resin in a pattern that matches that slice it can be faster than laser-based printers because it exposes the entire slice at once so it takes the same amount of time to print a single item as it does to print lots of items the print time is a function of the height of your print here's an lcd panel from a 3d printer this panel is very similar to the type used in a tablet or an ipad it can display an rgb image a color image and this panel is a monochrome panel it can only display a black and white image and the latest trend in lcd printers is to use monochrome panels the advantage is that with an rgb panel the uv light has to pass through multiple layers of liquid crystal and that causes the light to be dimmed with a mono panel the light only has to pass through one layer of liquid crystal this dims the light much less and therefore the mono panel can cure the resin around three times faster and this results in faster printing but these panels are also a little more expensive therefore printers with mono panels will be a little bit more expensive the last thing you need to know about these panels is that they do break down over time exposure to uv light actually depletes the liquid crystal and so these panels are an expendable item you will have to replace your panel after so many hours of printing so a good question to ask before buying is how long is the panel rated to last how much are the replacement panels how easy are they to get and how easy is it to replace them monochrome panels are currently more expensive than rgb panels but they do last longer so it works out about the same in the long run you'll pay a little more for the mono printer because the panel is more expensive but it will print faster and you'll have to replace the panel less often now that we know about the technology we can pick out a printer lcd resin 3d printers are fairly affordable the price will depend on three things the build size whether it has a mono or rgb panel and the resolution of the panel there are a lot of different manufacturers out there just to name a few lgu any cubic frozen and nova 3d but today we're going to be using a nova 3d elpin 2 mono printer nova 3d is one of the sponsors of this video they provided me with this printer but you can pick it up on amazon i think it retails for 299 which is a really good price my first 3d printer was 1800 let me tell you a couple things i like about this printer first off it's very reasonably priced it looks cool and it's very well made it also has that mono screen so far i've been printing about one and a half seconds per layer where my other printer i'd be printing around eight seconds per layer okay next we need some resin there are a lot of different brands and types of resin the different resins will perform differently in terms of flexibility brittleness toughness temperature resistance and so on they also might require different exposure times and then you can actually mix resins to combine some of these qualities resin can cost anywhere from maybe twenty dollars to well over a hundred dollars for a 500 milliliter bottle when you get deeper into printing you'll find a lot of resins that you want to try out but when you're first getting started you'll want to use a resin that's affordable so it won't hurt so bad if you make mistakes or have print failures today i'm going to be using this resin this is iform 181 from yusu yusu is also a sponsor of this video and they provided me with some resin to try out this resin is very affordable right now on amazon it's going for about 15 16 a bottle if you're a prime member which in my opinion is insanely cheap i think this is the least expensive resin i found and it's also decent stuff and again affiliate links are in the description so i have this printer set up here in my office but before we just start printing we should talk about resin and safety is the resin dangerous to smell or to touch how worried should you be about the safety side well my answer is that you should be moderately concerned and take some basic safety precautions but don't let those concerns keep you from getting into resin printing here's the bottom line a lot of things that you do or even have in your house include safety concerns just an example off the top of my head your kitchen stove is a fire machine capable of burning your hand or even burning down your house but you still use it all the time you just follow basic safety precautions so 100 for sure you do not want to get this stuff in your eye you don't want it to splatter in your eye so for that just wear some cheap safety goggles i think i got these at harbor freight for four dollars what about skin contact well i would just avoid getting it on your skin resin is listed as a skin irritant but this one is also really easy just get some nitrile gloves i buy them a case at a time so i never have to think about running out or the cost of putting a new glove on accidents are going to happen the best thing you can do if you get some on your hands is just to wash them with soap and water what about the fumes well this can be problematic as well my experience is that resin fumes give me headaches so i just avoid smelling the fumes one good thing about this printer is that the lid makes a really tight seal so when that lid is on there when you're printing or when it's not in use the fumes don't really bother me i also have this one set up next to a window so if the lid is off i crack the window to air out the room if the fumes get to you you should wear a mask if you can i recommend setting up your printer in a garage or a dedicated space where you can control the fumes something that is well ventilated i built a room in my garage which is where i do most of my 3d printing i also have heating and cooling in that room but since not everyone can have a dedicated space i'm showing it set up in a space like this one issue i do want to point out since i have this printer set up next to a window is that the window brings a slight challenge and that is uv light uv light is how we cure the resin i like to say that uv light is the enemy of resin 3d printing natural sunlight can ruin your prints so while i do have it set up next to a window i also have blackout shades under here to block the light coming in so you wouldn't want to set up your printer in a bright space with lots of natural light coming in [Music] okay finally i want to avoid getting resin all over everything i don't want it to get on the surface of my desk or pretty much anything else when taking parts off the build plate they sometimes can go flying and you want to contain the mess as much as possible so first i have a plastic sheet that i cut to fit my workbench this is just to catch any spills or splashes the cheapest solution for this is to get a plastic tablecloth from like a party store but i found this stuff on amazon for only five dollars a roll honestly when i found this i bought a couple of rolls because it was so cheap but anyway this is just to catch any spills and to protect my workbench next i use these plastic food trays to help contain the mess even more this one even fits nicely under the edge of the printer these come in a box of 12 so they're a very good value these trays are great we also use them just as food trays so i label the ones that are for resin so we don't get them mixed up and then you're also going to want some paper towels handy i lay paper towels down also to absorb the resin and contain the mess finally here's a list of a few other items you're going to want to have in your body i've got my box of gloves safety glasses a roll of paper towels your printer will come with a scraper but if it comes with a plastic one like this you might want to upgrade it to a metal one and then you need a tub of alcohol for cleaning parts you're going to want a funnel for putting resin back in the bottles and an open trash can with a bag in there so you can toss wet paper towels or gloves in there you don't want to have to open the lid when your gloves are wet and i have links to all the stuff down in the description if you want more ideas on keeping resin from getting all over the place check out my resin handling guide video [Music] there are some printer specific setup tasks that you'll need to do consult your printer manual or youtube for instructions on that stuff but mostly that has to do with leveling and calibrating the build plate different printers have different methods for doing this once that's done toss on your safety glasses and load the printer up with resin okay now it's finally time to print something we start with a 3d print file which is usually an stl file there are some other file formats but that's currently the most common one that's why on 3d printer groups you'll see people asking for the stl file the stl file is opened in the slicer you set up the slicer for whatever printer you have slicer will allow you to place the 3d object on a virtual build plate and do things like resize it add supports and so on personally i do like printing the rook first and any time i have problems with my printer i go back to printing the rook i get that printing okay and then move back to the harder stuff since this is a getting started video i'm not going to go into adding supports and all of that if you want to dive deeper check out my video on why resin prints fail which talks about supports and overhangs to keep things simple i'm printing this right on the build plate then you slice and then you save and when you save you're not saving it as an stl file but in a file format that your printer supports this file will contain the slices as images plus instructions for your specific printer on how to print the file things like how long to expose each layer and how far to move the build plate up between layers i call this file print ready different printers use different file formats for print ready files this nova 3d alphan2 uses a dot cws file again check your documentation to see what your printer needs next we need to upload the file to the printer and print it usually you can move the file to the printer with a usb stick or access the printer remotely and upload it i could start this print remotely from my computer but i prefer to start it at the printer before hitting go you want to make sure that everything is set you don't want anything left on the build plate of course or any solid chunks of resin floating in the vat because that would break your lcd screen when the plate comes down so it's been a few hours and the print is done and ready to remove actually i let it sit overnight giving it a little more time to drip can make the cleanup even easier removing the part is by far the messiest part of the process you'll want to wear a glove on each hand and be wearing the safety glasses and have your tub of alcohol open and ready use the scraper to pop the piece off the build plate i'm using denatured alcohol as a cleaning solution then i use a soft toothbrush and gently scrub the surface and at the end i do rinse with some clean alcohol again make sure you keep that part away from natural uv light until after the cleaning is completed sometimes i even wait to clean until nighttime for more information about cleaning parts i do have a video just on cleaning parts that's coming out soon so be sure to look out for that after the part is cleaned it will need a little post curing i have a uv lamp that i use for that of course you don't want to get any uv spill on your vat of uncured resin so i'll do that in a different room i try not to over post cure i just shine a little light on there for a few minutes and there's our finished part so that's it resin 3d printing is fun and it's pretty easy and you can get into it for only a few hundred dollars before you know it you'll be printing things like this saver tooth tiger skull this is a scan of an actual fossil and is a free file licensed from the idaho virtualization library and it's super cool i also want to thank nova 3d and yusu for sponsoring this video finally be sure to check out the description of this video for more resources and for links to purchase the stuff you saw in here using those links helps support my channel also if you want to dive deeper be sure to check out some of my other videos thanks for watching [Music] you

Channel: Nerdtronic

Views: 178,459

Rating: 4.9410691 out of 5

Keywords: phrozen transform, chitubox, 3d printing, calibration, resin, resin 3d printing, phrozen 3d printer, formlabs, uncle jessie, prints too large, prints too small, phrozen, uncured resin, resin printer, calibration block, resin mess, fumes, resin safety, nerdtronic, resin management, resin handling, printer fumes, ventilation, resin fumes, overhangs, supports, elephant's foot, bulge buster, print failure, casting, molding, chocolates, 3d printed chocolates, nova3d, getting started, elegoo

Id: TuubPMWeQQE

Length: 15min 37sec (937 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 04 2021