Last SLA printer I touched was the original Anycubic Photon with Anycubic cure & wash with Anycubic tough resin. Looking at all the current options I am lost what I should buy. Resin heating, pressure detection, vat tilting and all of this wasn’t a thing back than.

With the past experience in mind what printer, curing staton & resin should I get?

for the printer:

First three points have to be fullfiled. The others aspects are more nice to have.

  • relaible!!! I want to start a print and return once it is done. Not worrying about print failures
  • Works with a good slicer. Back in the day I used PrusaSlicer with UV-tools to convert it to Anycubic fileformat.
  • resin vat mixing (vat tilting is good enough) to prevent resins from seperating during long prints
  • decently sealed print volume: reducing the vapours/“smell”
  • “speed”: should be faster than the original Anycubic photon
  • build volume: at least 127×80×150 mm. Larger is better (ideally upto 160x160 mm parts)
  • network connectivity instead of USB-sticks or SD-card.
  • budget approx. 500€.

cure and washing:

  • easy to keep clean
  • at least two washing containers (first stage dirty IPA, second stage “clean” IPA)
  • good solution to let the resin and washing fluid drip off the print
  • smooth rotation. Had to modify the Anycubic cure and wash because prints kept falling
  • uniform curing. This includes curing the top and bottom of prints
  • I noticed none of the printers have magnetic/spring metal build platforms. Are they outdated/no longer required?
  • budget depends but for a good solution, I would spend approx. 300€.

cleaning liquid: Is isopropanol alcohol (IPA) still the goto?

resin:

  • Will be used for structural parts meaning impact resistance paired with decent rigidity is important. In Detail impact resistance on paar with Anycubic though resin. Ideally slightly more rigid. Some wear resistance is a benefit (e.g. gears).

  • Decorative clear resin that won’t yellow

  • “low cost”. Would pref an under 30€/kg resin with a budget of upto 50€/kg (approx. 5kg order volume/lot size)

What am I considering at the moment?

  • used Prusa SL1S with CW1 for approx. 800€: Last experience with Prusa firmware was outstandingly bad. The Prusa mini had constant crashes/required reboots and had even to be removed before turning the printer on as otherwise it wouldn’t show firmware errors/wouldn’t start. Hardware on the other hand was pretty reliable so I hope that the SL1S is reliable, has bugfree firmware, and native prusaslicer support. Replacement parts should also be available for years to come which is great.

  • elegoo saturn 4 ultra 16K: This printer got me thinking. Cost a fraction of the Prusa, is larger, has modern features and appears to be reliable. I remember that a while ago chitobox added DRM so I am not sure if I want to buy this if I am stuck with chitubox slicer.

  • Anycubic Photon Mono M7 pro Instead of tilting they use a pump for resin circulation. How big of a pain is it to clean this? Anycubic slicer last time was uselss and I have no clue if Anycubic also pushed DRM meaning I couldn’t just switch to a good slicer. I really like the pressure detection to detect print failures.

Cure and wash?

No idea. all the solutions I have looked at seem to be still similar to the old anycubic cure and wash. The Prusa CW1 on the other hand looks like a well-thought-out solution.

Resin?

No idea.

  • kensandEnglish
    2·
    2 days ago

    I have an Elegoo Saturn 4 Ultra. I hate that it’s proprietary, but in the resin printing world the only non-proprietary option is Prusa, and it was just too small and expensive to justify. My Elegoo doesnt get network connectivity (so no risk of unapproved updates), and I use prusa slicer to slice and then uvtools to convert to the “encrypted” chitubox format. Since the printer isn’t allowed to update, I’m not worried about ever being forced into using chitubox.

    I don’t really care about network connectivity for it; the built in camera is useless for me. I just have a rpi zero with a webcam on it for monitoring, and I also have an IOT switch controlled by that pi via a lan-only http server with a toggle button to control its power. If I see a print is failing via the webcam, I just cut power to the whole printer to stop it remotely. This works even outside my LAN via VPN.

    I do still have to start prints the old fashioned way using a usb stick. This doesn’t bug me much, since I have to go check on resin levels, make sure there’s no crap in the tank, etc before starting a print anyways. I have a short usb extender cable to avoid wearing out the usb port on the printer itself as well. I have mucked about with using the rpi as a dummy usb drive where I can just upload files to the rpi and then the printer reads off of it via the usb port, but I couldn’t get it working :/

    I’m happy enough with the printer itself - it’s fast, reliable (so far) and produces some high quality prints. The price was very reasonable at the time (iirc $450 for the printer, $250 for wash and cure station), all things considered. If someone ever produced a mainboard that supported an open-source firmware for it, I would buy and install it in a heartbeat.

    • EmilieEvans@lemmy.mlOPEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      Great to hear you like it and that UV-tools work with it. What I hated about anycubic photon workshop was that the support generation was 100% manual (automatically created unusable results). PrusaSlicer was so much easier to work with.

      The nice aspect of network connectivity is comfortably moving files to it and receiving a notification once the print is done.

      I keep misplacing USB-sticks or it is a pain to first walk to the printer, picking up the stick, returing to the PC, and walking once more to the printer.