I managed to repair a 3d printer I was given and have been playing with it. It's an elegoo mars 2 and it prints quite well now. Anyone else do any 3d printing? I've had some luck with this one so far but it's always great to compare notes and figure out tricks to help make every print a success. I already have a line of people asking about figurines and models due to the resolution this printer is capable of and I thought it would be neat to see if anyone else here had any experience in the hobby I've recently adopted.

Oh wow, that's a fancy piece of kit. It's resin, right?

I've got a Prusa Mini, a filament printer. I'd say I've dabbled in 3D printing a bit. I even designed a (very simple) shinto shrine that's up on Thingiverse. I've pretty much only made knicknacks and some toys for birthday gifts.

I have a heavily modded Ender 5 in an insulated cabinet. It’s a great hobby!

It is a resin printer, yes. I've got it printing at 2 seconds a layer so far. It looks like someone tried to clean some spilled resin off of thee LCD with a scraper and put some heavy scratches in it so I need to check into a replacement. I was given a couple and got this one one working first. The other is a filament printer but I haven't looked at it much. I think it's also been super modded as it has a lot of extra stuff zip tied to it. Before that though I am going to work on a UV curing box. A friend gave me a thumb drive with a few thousand models from a few different popular role playing games and I need to sort through those as well.

It's amazing how much time you can burn out just playing in the slicing software and trying to get the supports all right. The elegoo doesn't like to print directly on the plate, I learned that so far, and it doesn't seem to like the models printed at the suggested 30ish degrees as a lot of videos have recommend for resin printers. The best thing I learned so far though was shake up the resin very well. When you think it's mixed enough, shake it for several more minutes anyhow. And warm up said resin.

I left mine in Russia, when I migrated out of it.

Was a pretty old kit, and plans to build a better one were interrupted by certain insane dictator and my job leaving the country.

(sigh)

Glad you were able to get out.

And I've been thinking about getting resin specifically for making RPG and wargame minis; at GW's current prices it legit will save you money, depending on how much you play. But I live in an apartment, so that's not ideal...

No kidding about the GW prices. I have a somewhat good library of models now so if there's anything specific you're looking for drop me a line. A lot of decoration stuff too from the various sites around for creators to give things away. Printed a few things for some local friends today and it has me missing our old days nerding around with D&D. Not sure how much fun it would be now, but we all used to enjoy it. Might see if I can find a group online still playing where I can join in.

I did get my curing chamber finished but think I may have been a little over-cautious when it comes to protection from the UV light as the metal container I made it out of weighs about sixty pounds. I'm planning to look for a plastic container I can move it into instead. And my pickle container showed up to help make washing the prints so much easier. Talked the local small town hardware shop into ordering 99% IPA for me, which is nice, but they had no interest in carrying replacement LCDs or UV resin. Can't blame me for trying!

I occasionally use the UV resin to smooth out problem areas on my FDM prints. Just brush it on and hit it with a UV light. Just make sure you don’t have any liquid resin on you when the light comes on or it will burn you! Best to avoid it getting on skin anyways because you can develop a serious allergy to the stuff to where you can’t even be in the same room with the resin.

I managed to get my hands on a Voxelab Proxima 6.0 last Christmas. I'm not skilled at printing anything yet, but I'm getting there...

Thorbear (imported) wrote: Sat Jul 23, 2022 3:44 pm I did get my curing chamber finished but think I may have been a little over-cautious when it comes to protection from the UV light as the metal container I made it out of weighs about sixty pounds. I'm planning to look for a plastic container I can move it into instead.

UV curing light is relatively low power - unless you look into it or try to tan under it - you should be safeish. IPA and resin on skin does more damage.

You should protect your eyes, though.