Which 3D Printer Should You Get? A COMPLETE Beginner's Guide

hey there i'm danny the 3d printing dm and welcome to 3d printed tabletop a channel where we cover all things 3d printing for your tabletop games today's video is meant to be a resource for newer 3d printers or for folks who are thinking about getting into the hobby it's a guide where i assume no prior knowledge of 3d printing and instead of doing a normal step-by-step guide this would be more like a conversation where we talk about how to research and choose the right 3d printer for you and then how and where to buy it [Music] i want this to feel as if your friend at the local game store who knows i30 print and says hey danny i'm thinking about maybe getting a 3d printer could i ask you a couple of questions big mistake buddy of course you can ask me questions and 30 minutes later you've received the contents of this video in discussion format and i get to have this conversation again today because i've got a friend here with me today come say hi aj aj's here helping me film and edit this video so he'll be right behind the camera and i'm going to talk to him while we film this so if we go off script that's why okay sorry man all right you're stuck with me next half hour bud it's gonna be great i don't know much of anything about 3d printers so what exactly can i 3d print it can make a lot more than just minis in terrain so 3d printing goes so well with so many tabletop games and hobbies and the variety of things that you can print is is awesome uh so here's some examples small minis big minis small terrain big terrain airships boats dungeon tiles collectible statues props buildings paint handles paint racks see what i mean the fun part is 3d printing feels like magic like a real life replicator after a while you get used to it but then you show a print to a friend and they say that is so cool and you remember what it felt like when you just started all over again great so like what do i need to actually get started and start printing stuff yeah you don't need a lot in fact most 3d printers come with everything you need to get started so you just need to be able to follow instructions really well and use an allen wrench that's basically it you don't need a dedicated workbench your fancy tools as long as you have a place where you can keep and use your printer you'll be okay what specific kind of furniture do i buy so you know normally when we're thinking about buying a printer we go to amazon and you take out your phone and search for the highest rated thing with the best reviews uh you know don't do that with the 3d printer because buying a 3d printer is kind of like buying a car you're going to hear me reference that a lot today actually because most of us can relate to this you might need a truck because you need to haul stuff or because you know you live in texas maybe uh you'll need a hatchback because you live in a tightly packed city or a minivan because you need space for a growing family and just like with cars there's a million different 3d printer brands you can choose from but what's more important than the brand and the model is to first know the type of car that you need and it's kind of the same way with 3d printers okay so what are the types of videos there are two main types of 3d printers but it'll be easier if i show you so let me just bring my printers over and take it from there okay so there are a bunch of types of printers but these are the most common ones that we use for printing things for tabletop games so this is a creality ender 3v2 and this is an elegant mars pro 2 and they're pretty common printers right now but i don't want you to focus on the brand i want you to understand how they work so you can start to think about what type of printer you're going to need fdm printers work similar to a hot glue gun you push plastic and 3d printing lingo this is called filament into a tube called a ptfe tube or sometimes directly into the nozzle and then the nozzle heats up and then this motor pushes the filament in little by little while other motors move the nozzle and the bed where they need to go based on what the 3d printing software tells it to do what ends up happening is the printer creates these layers that stack on one another and voila you get prints like this so if you see people talking about layer lines from up close it's because of the way this printer works and how thick the layers usually are resin printers work a bit differently instead of plastic on a spool they use resin which without getting too technical is a liquid that can harden into plastic so please don't drink it even if it's a nice bubble gum color okay i wanted to these resin printers they have lcd screens like the ones in our cell phones google gang baby and they'll flash uv light for each layer hardening those specific parts of each layer so the printer still builds layer on layer of hardened plastic on a build plate but it uses a screen instead of a moving nozzle this sounds kind of complicated but it isn't as difficult as it sounds and you'll see what i mean later once we start printing things okay so we got fdm yeah and we got resin so which one's probably best for me okay that's a good question it depends on what you want to print other factors that might be important to you so both of these types of printers they have different strengths and weaknesses so for looking at printers within the same price range like 200 to 400 which is usually the range people start with right so fdm printers usually have much larger build volume which means you can print much bigger things on them making them a really good choice for like terrain pieces or props cosplay items the flip side is that fdm printers print with thicker layer lines and resin printers so layer lines are definitely more visible and if you're doing things like painting it can be a lot of work to kind of cover the layer line so it isn't as obvious which really bothers some people to be honest and the prints can also take longer but that's partially because you're printing larger things in general now resin printers on the other hand they're made for smaller more intricate things with a lot of detail like jewelry and minis small scatter and even though resin prints are generally better with detail it doesn't mean no layers it just means the layers are much smaller you've really got to look super close to see them 99 of the time so from here not noticeable but under a macro lens you can make some of those layer lines out it's really great for small details but that catch they are a lot smaller so they don't have as much space to print on and with that 200 to 400 price range the difference is really noticeable a lot of terrain won't fit on them but most minion small scatter does usually fit on their build plates and if you want a resin printer that has a bigger build volume they're becoming cheaper every year you're just going to have to pay more than that 200 to 400 range i brought up earlier now most mid-size printers they'll start around the 600 range but i wouldn't be surprised in the next few years we see that price go down so aj give me a summary man okay so fdm is typically for like larger drain pieces and resin is better for kind of smaller miniatures because of the line difference that's basically it i'm nailing it [Music] i do want to add one thing i think it's important so there's potential risks and smell when dealing with resin resin's famous for being stinky needing additional safety precautions glasses and nice raw gloves usually cover it and sometimes i bring in the heavy hitters i've tried a bunch of different resin brands and colors and some are stinkier than others and some people are more sensitive to the smells than others so come here come closer man on a scale of disgusting fart axe body odor and no smell at all how stinky [Music] it's not that bad it's it's kind of like old and old nike you know it's like it's like very rubbery it's very rubbery there you have it very rubbery let me put this back on like i don't know if you've ever ever uh smelled like an electrical fire but it smells a little not like that i'm sorry aj i've never smelled it i'm not like a fire i surrendered as many as no i haven't i'm sorry all right let's focus on we'll we will get there there you go everybody resin also gets everywhere you know i try my best to keep my garage clean but you know i'm simply saying that resin finds a way okay so what if i want to print terrain and minis as well it's always a follow-up always and i wish it was a clear answer but i don't think there is ideally you might have one of each printer you know for different situations like having a minivan for when you need to take the family out and having a truck for when you need to haul something big and if you have to choose one to start with maybe budget is a real limitation or you just want to ease into the hobby we can narrow it down with some follow-up questions so what do you want to print the most of it's minis then i'd lean towards the resin printer and more and more companies are making smaller terrain for us and printers these days too so you still can get a little bit of both if it's terrain i'd lead towards an fdm printer since most terrain pieces are made for fdm and it's just easier to print the larger pieces on them honestly now fdn printers aren't necessarily bad for minis either i don't want to sell them short here i've printed a lot of minis on fdm printers and i'm actually really happy with a lot of them but they're definitely below the quality and smoothness expectations of some people so buying an fdm printer ends up being an acceptable compromise for a lot of people what are you thinking aj so i like the idea of resin it sounds kind of more detail-oriented and finer details but also like i have a cat and a positive she's just gonna want to slurp up the resin yeah so i'm kind of worried about it yeah some people don't want to deal with it because of the smell or the safety things and that's fine you know if you're willing to consider it i just look at your situation honestly and see if it works and maybe consider fdm printer if that's the case but also i'd never work with resin until i got my first resin printer and i learned as long as you're wearing the protective gear and clean up and consider ventilation it's not too bad so i wouldn't necessarily be afraid of it either so how do i know which specific printer i should get so that's like asking which car you should buy right the toyota honda ford hyundai sedans they're very similar in price all the time and they're probably going to work very similar so it's the same with 3d printers there's a lot of vendor 3 clones for example and most of them work pretty similarly so it depends on how particular you are about the exact brand you want or the exact features you want your printer have okay so it doesn't really matter what printer i have then as long as i buy the type i want fdm versus resin yeah that's uh kind of not really okay wait what yeah so i want to make the section future-proof and share like how you can find the right printer regardless of whether it's this year 2023. so a lot of times 3d printing tech doesn't um stay the same forever right it doesn't stay the best choice for too long for example the under 3 the original from 2018 uh it's three years old but now there's another three pro and ender 3v2 you know under five under five plus and i could actually go on right so it doesn't mean that the printer is not going to be good anymore for a few years but if you enjoy it you'll probably want to upgrade over time kind of like people do with their computers or how they buy the new video game systems every couple of years so what i'd suggest is instead of getting too bogged down with analysis paralysis you join a couple of 3d printing communities between facebook discord instagram reddit just be there take it in hang out for a few days at least and when you see one or two prints you like take note of what it was printed on and what settings they used if you start seeing the same printer come up like this over and over and over again that's worth something right a big community of users is generally a good sign you mentioned instagram and read it and all that stuff why not why not youtube i mean whenever i go to buy something big that's like the first place i do when i look at a million reviews i would i would wait for youtube i really would um and partially and i say that as a youtube as a youtuber um because if you just start on youtube and you type in 3d printer reviews you're going to find so many different printers some brands are going to be smaller some will be more popular and it can get really overwhelming very quickly so i'd wait to look at those until you're a bit more familiar with some of the more popular brands printers you know and that comes with time so i wouldn't worry about watching every review and ids into it and i say that again someone who does reviews so little by little what's gonna happen is you're gonna build confidence in a specific printer and then i'd buy it on amazon you just told me not to buy things on amazon i know i know i did and i'm sorry about that but the thing is amazon usually has they have really fast shipping and it's the safest option in case something happens for whatever reason you get a faulty printer you know if your printer has a warped bed or the screen doesn't work any of the things you just happen with bad luck you can return it you don't have to worry about paying for shipping costs and exchange costing extra money or anything like that and even though buying through amazon's usually more expensive than on the company's website i consider it like a form of peace of mind insurance that extra 20 40 it costs on amazon is usually worth it to me in case things don't work out and yeah there's sometimes we live in another country or something where amazon's not really an option and i'd look for a local 3d printing store first you know printers are usually more expensive there too but local stores tend to make up for it in service they're more than willing to answer questions and that's really nice as a beginner and it's good to support your local 3d printing community too the last option i'd consider are websites like aliexpress banggood even local stores like aldi in australia for example you can usually get printers cheaper on these sites but the return process is not always the best in my experience and that peace of mind is pretty important to me okay it's a different question we're in your garage there's a ton of tools in here um do i need any of these like do i need a bunch of stuff to get started it's been three four years of me collecting this stuff and like i mentioned most printers come with everything you need in the box so you know that includes things like allen wrenches and spatulas to remove prints so i suggest getting comfortable with the base printer before moving on to new accessories or upgrades i definitely do think that there are some nice things you can buy like like i mentioned a nice allen wrench set but i don't have a nice allen wrench set and it's been four years so i think you'll be okay to start off now there's there is two exceptions a metal spatula like this one if you buy a resin printer because most of them don't come with it and this is much better for a moving prints than the plastic one that does come with them usually and number two is some kind of cleaning agent for the resin prints the most common is ipa okay so you mentioned upgrades um what do you mean by that upgrades are kind of like with cars right you might want a spoiler you might want rims right um they're optional you might you know in 3d printing world you might get a metal extruder so if i don't have a gold a gold plate a gold grill for mine my 3d printer i could just put that on there but it's really aesthetic it's not it's not neat there are quality of life upgrades the that metal extruder is one of them but yes i guarantee that somebody's put some type of uh gold grill on their 3d printer yeah there's a bunch of videos that are on youtube honestly these days entry level printers they come with a lot of those quality of life printers that folks used to print ad themselves every new generation of printers seems to add more of those features so i wouldn't worry as much about upgrades they can be nice to have but i'd start with following the base instructions carefully and getting comfortable printing a few things first you an instruction follower aj i'm more of a trial by fire kind of guy me too baby that's what i'm talking about uh and i've learned to be a little more instruction oriented uh the hard way you know some people want to start upgrading their printer immediately and that can cause other problems that you might not even realize since you needed 3d printing in general and for reference i've only added two upgrades to my base under threes after three years and i haven't added any to my under 3v2 so i mean it when i say i don't think you need to go overboard most of the time okay so let's stop talking about it we set one up and like get going yeah actually before we get these set up why don't you get started today can be the first day where you embark on your own 3d printing adventure and find the printer that's right for you if you have any follow-up questions i'd love to hear from you so please leave a comment below i do read them all and if i get a lot of the same question i'll do my best to make a follow-up video answering it if you enjoy the content i make and want to support the channel the best way to do so is to pick up a late pledge on our website lostadventures.com our lost adventures volume one collection was made for brand new 3d printing dms just like you if you're not quite ready to pick up some models liking this video and sharing it goes a long ways too thanks again for watching happy printing and happy gaming [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: 3D Printed Tabletop

Views: 110,495

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Id: rkw4cVZ1A5Q

Length: 17min 1sec (1021 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 28 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/MCD10000]

Mdf has less post processing needed, but sla can do more detailing but has to be treated with the correct procedures as the materials uses are classified as hazardous. Sla requires good ventilation (mdf requires this if you are printing any material which produces hazardous materials like ABS which releases styrene gases) or a fume extractor/filter it is in an inclosed space, you then need isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) and a UV source the cure excess resin, and when handling them you need disposable gloves and respiration to safely do this. So I would say MDF is a very starter friendly option over sla but both have different learning curves. (Yes learn more to safety than finished products and cost, like I do with anything cnc or mechatronic)