Resin printers

So you decided mini’s was your thing, huh? Well you are in the right place.
This is where we will compare information about different resin printers with their pros and cons so you can make a choice which printer you should get.

As with FDM printers it comes down to technical skill, time and of course money.
Most of the extra cost here adds features and resolution (more smooth prints) to the printer. We are going to go into details of what you can expect of the process, address resin concerns and look into different printers at different pricepoints

If you want to support the site and are considering buying the printers/resin/PPE, we do have affiliate links on the site to where you can buy them for no extra cost to you. We are not paid by the manufacturers for the recommendations, but are merely nerds like you.

Process

The process when working with resin printers is a bit more complicated than your regular FDM printer.

Usually with an FDM printer you have following steps to consider:

1. Load filament (with automatic filament sensors you don’t have to worry about running out of filament mid print
2. Bed adhesion – most of the time done with a combination of cleaning the print bed well with isopropyl alcohol and a warm print bed.
3. That’s it. You are done. Most terrain nowadays gets printed without supports so you just pop it off the print bed and you can prime and paint the model.

With resin printers you have more steps and more things to look into:

1. Make sure you have gloves on and a mask – see the concerns under the ventilations subsection underneath here.
2. Load the chamber with resin and make sure you have enough for the print (you can get auto resin fillers but that’s more of a premium feature)
3. Cleaning the model – letting it soak in hot water and a cleaning agent afterwards for a couple of minutes to get rid of excess resin. You can also buy a wash station.
4. Removing supports from the miniature – doing it before the curing gets softer supports which makes it easier to remove
5. Curing – either in a homemade UV box or with a curing station.
6. Ventilating the area around the printer. 
7. Prime and paint. 

Even with the extra steps, the quality you get out of a model is way better for monsters and player characters in your Dungeons and Dragons campaign or your bits for wargames, although when printing terrain its still way cheaper to do on an FDM printer. 

By prepping for all the steps before hitting print, you set yourself up for victory.

Concerns

I’ll go into some of the concerns i hear most of the time when talking about a resin printer.

Printlines

In the early days of resin printing (and even more so in FDM prints) you have people focus on printlines. And it was warranted! When spending many hours painting a model, you want both the experience and the result to be worth it. With newer printers you usually get at least 4k resolution which eliminates most of the printlines and showcases most details. 

Of course the higher resolution of the display emitting the light results in more crisp looking miniatures, but depending on your needs that might now be needed.

If you are a competition painter or are painting for display models, go spend a bit more and get better details, that’s a given. 8K printers today got little to no visible print lines and look close to injection molded models on sprues.

If you instead are a dungeon master in a Dungeons and Dragons campaign and just want some board ready miniatures on the battlemat most of the printlines when painted will be completely invisible 30 cm away from the miniature. Think of your needs as it is easy to spend more money, money that could be spend on more high quality models or more resin.

Ventilation/PPE

Okay, let’s start out with basics.
Resin is toxic. You want to avoid it getting on your skin and in your lungs. You want to wear gloves, you want to wear a mask that’s made specifically for organic vapours (you can find one from M3 by clicking here), and you want to ventilate the area when permitted.

There are two different approaches to handling the printer when its running. Enclosure or seperate room.

Enclosures can be DIY with 2 IKEA Lack tables on top of each other with mounted plexiglass sides, a small computer fan and a pipe leading out of the room to prevent fumes spreading. You just want to make sure both get rid of the fumes, but also keep a consistent temperature to avoid complications with the print. 
You can also get more professional enclosures like this one but you are going to pay for it.

Another alternative is just having a seperate room for it or not use the room when in use. As long as you have a mask you can easily use the room if needed and ventilate after the print is over. But if you are living in an apartment or just got limited space, you definitely want to look into either building an enclosure or buy one.

Ease of use

If you are used to FDM printing, you know things can go wrong. If not, you need to expect things to go wrong. 3D printing is a skill that needs to be trained like anything else. Luckily we got a lot of resources online and we even got a Facebook group as a community with over 25.000 members currently which you can find >>here<<. 

Overall, as long as you go in with an open mind, ready to troubleshoot and make sure you have a workspace that supports your printing, you will be fine.

Now lets look into some printers!