3D Resin Printing

Intro

I recently purchased a 3D resin printer for D&D miniature printing.

I had quite an interest in 3D printing for some years now and have seen the topic as a somewhat useless hobby with no actual real-world usability for me directly.

Of course one is able to create anything you can imagin (and print when it comes to size) like replacement parts for oldschool consoles or simple shapes like a hanger for your headset for example but I did not see any use in it, especially since all the small things I could imagine would already exist for purchase or my hobbies would not require special parts like mentioned above.

Some people I knew would purchase a printer and from now tried to print everything they would deem fitting, if they need it or not, if it is useful or not, this simply put me off.

When it comes to miniatures though you do not have much of a chace to “buy them for cheap” and especially “in the colors” or equipment layout as you imagin - this is a custom creation.

Resources

There are many “top 10 3d-printing resources” blog posts out there which is why I suggest you look around for that somewhere but I want to name some nonetheless.

For me the most relevant are the following:

Thingiverse: you might even have heard of that, there are so many minis and other DnD resources on there

https://www.thingiverse.com

Eldritch Foundry: custom mini creation with a major downer for me -> they do not accept PayPal, so keep that in mind

https://eldritch-foundry.com

Model

I have an Anycubic Photon Mono SE bundle with the Wash & Cure Machine 2.0.

Using the Wash & Cure Machine made it much easier cleaning the prints.

I have never used a toothbrush or something to clean prints yet, can only recommend getting this thing.

For resin, I used the ANYCUBIC UV resin 405nm in gray, just to get started for now.

I am using ANYCUBIC’s slicing software as well.

Observations, Problems & Tips

always check for (recommended) exposure times on the resin bottle - for first layers as well as upper layers
- some prints failed being torn apart mid-print
- some prints did not “stick to the printing plate” - kept sticking to the resin tank which resultet in a thick, hard to remove solid resin layer on the FEP
buy paper towels and silicon gloves, you will need them, many and soon
think about buying a plastic layer (“table-cloth” made of plastic) for your table, resin will eventually go everywhere
- especially when removing prints from the printing table you might spill enclosed resin somewhere around
- also dripping parts (from punches) as well as enclosed between printing plate and print
- also, forcefully removing prints is going to splash resin around
get a 5L canister of bioethanol (or similar, it’s on you to decide) - I recommend reading this article on “ethanol vs. isopropyl” for more on alcohol
get a funnel for filling the resin back into it’s bottle
- also get paint filters (dirt cheap, like 7€/100pcs) to filter alcohol as well as resin when filling back into their canisters/bottles
cover your resin tank - there are .stl tank-covers for this printer in particular while my girlfriend sewed a cover for the complete printer to be on while printing to prevent any light from accidental, pre-mature hardening
the resin I got seems to work good, but it also seems to be brittle, I guess try some different resins as well