To 3D Print or Not to 3D Print Part II

The first post was just a warm up, here are a few more details from my experience for your education and enjoyment.

Once your printer is ready you need to find some files to print.  I wont go into details on the different file types, again there are much better sources than me on this topic.  There are a few great sites for free files and there are a couple to purchase files.  Here are a few free sites:

Cults 3d   https://cults3d.com/

Thingiverse  https://www.thingiverse.com/

Hmmm, what to print?  I always kicked myself for not buying any of the Citadel Dalek and Cybermen boxed sets that were produced back in the day so I was very chuffed that I found several free files online for the Daleks.  I grabbed a couple and set about getting them printed.

Some basics here.  Once you have a file, an STL in my case, you have to have software to get it printed.  With my Halot 1 I also received their in-house built printing software Halot Box.  It is very basic with minimal manipulation options.  Most of the time it is sufficient but the big seller is it’s ease of use.  There is also generic software called Chitubox with both a free version and an upgraded purchase version.  It is also easy to use and has a few more manipulation functions that the Creality product doesn’t have like a mirror object option.  I defaulted to the Halot Box just because I know it will work with the printer. 

For those that want even more power there is Blender which is a very powerful digital image tool.  To be honest it is a little too advanced for me given the amount of time I want to invest in learning the software.  I’m sure that if I dedicated the time, I would be an amazing tool. 

Once I got the file opened in Halot Box I was able to get it ready to print. 

 First step is to get it supported.  Given the resin printing process, you occasionally must put in additional objects to support the print and ensure that it actually prints. 

Again if you do a search, you can get some very in-depth information on this whole process.  There was a bit of a learning curve, but it wasn’t horrible.

Once it is supported and you are ready to print, you then have to “slice” the file.  Essentially cutting in into hundreds of layers that the printer then stacks on top of each other during the printing process.  Here is the model at the middle of the sliced pieces.

Then you send the sliced file over to the printer, in my case I slap it on a thumb drive and physically transfer it.

For what is considered a low-end, entry-level resin printer I was blown away with the results.  The details were great, I’m looking forward to putting some paint on them.  Some insights from my printing, the biggest drawback for my printer is time.  Depending on size it can take hours to get things printed. 

There are clearly faster printers out there so depending on how much you want to spend you can impact this time sink.  Mine was less than $200 so I wasn’t expecting much.

To 3D Print or Not to 3D Print Part I

Should I buy a 3d printer?  I have asked myself this question dozens of times, usually after I saw some amazing project on the web.  I debated this internally for quite some time.  My biggest hurdle was would I use it enough to justify the investment?  I struggled with this for a very long time, to the point that my amazing wife got tired of my relentless debating and bought me one for my birthday a couple of years ago.  I truly don’t deserve her!  I thought I would relate my experiences so far. 

Now I’m no Luddite but I’ve also never dealt with anything like this before.  I have a Creality Halot 1 which is a lower end entry level type of resin printer.  I think that they have a higher resolution one out now that is less than what I spent on the Halot 1.  Assembly and preparation was a piece of cake, there was very little for me to do.  I followed the directions and did the adjustments and got it ready to fire up.  I got some resin along with the gift, so I poured it in and found a file to print.  I thought I was ready but after the first of many failed prints I realized I needed to educate myself.

I wont go into a lot of detail because there are much better sources than me for information on 3d printing.  A quick google search will get you plenty.  Everything I looked at was very helpful.  The most important thing that I picked up was you need to dial in your printer to your resin by adjusting exposure times.  I used TableFlip Foundry’s cones of calibration here

 https://www.tableflipfoundry.com/download/the-cones-of-calibration

This is version 3 of the test print and it has great supporting documentation, better than their version 2 that I used initially to do my tuning.  I had roughly a 75% fail rate initially.  Once I got the printer in tune with my resin my fail rate dropped to about 1% of the time and I honestly think that the recent failures are related to my film wearing out or poor support structures.

Getting set up and educated wasn’t difficult at all and I would suggest that anyone who is interested should give it a try.  It has been loads of fun. More details of my journey coming.