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Hi, I have got a bit of money lying around, and try to decide what to spend it on before the global economy collapses. I have long dreamed of owning a plastic printer, with which to turn my digital phantasies into playable miniatures, so now may be the time.
But I am not sure what model I actually want or need to print minis, not even with what materal to print best.
Has anyone printed some models with success, and can give some insights into what material (and what software) I should be looking for, or on the other hand if there is some stuff I should avoid?
If you menton specific models, it would be also nice to hear whether you would range them nearer to the economy- or the goldbrand- side of the spectrum.

My brother started with an Alta, and then switched to the AnyCubic Photon-S. Been quite impressive with both, but they definitely also have their limitations. The Alta is fairly cheap for a 3D printer, and the Photon-S is cheap for a SLA printer, but quite expensive compared to a FDM printer.

First thing to consider is what you fancy printing - is it big terrain pieces, or tiny epic/BFG scale vehicles?

There are bigger filament printers (FDM) that can do pretty large models (like a Marauder bomber) once it's split into a few sub assemblies, however this would be a lot of time and resin to use a light cured resin printer (a method called SLA) and some parts might not easily be possible.

However the FDM printers are not as good at the really fine detail that the SLA printers can do - but the feedstock they use is a lot cheaper than the photosensitive resin and a lot easier to handle (the resin smells, and is a skin irritant until cured under UV light - you'll need gloves to handle them). The printers themselves are generally a fair bit cheaper as well and require less maintenance.

That said, both can be pretty temperamental in my (second hand) experience.

Also designing your own miniatures is an entirely different question to the actual printing, as far as software goes. You wouldn't normally use the same software for both - the printing software just takes an existing shape and adapts it for printing, they're not really designed to sculpt with.

I've got an Ender 3 (FDM or filament printer) and an Anycubic Photon (resin printer) As @Tastyfish has said, the resin printers can currently get down to 0.01mm layer heights so are ideal for printing miniatures and there are a lot of Patreon subscriptions from model studios offering new minis to print. For the bigger stuff, FDM printers can get down to 0.1mm layer heights (they can go smaller but you need to replace parts and mess with settings) so are ideal for terrain and vehicles.

It really does depend on what you are looking to achieve as both have a reasonably sharp learning curve to get best results.

Photon Print 0.05mm layer height (apologies about the flash but it's allowed more details to be shown). Oh yeah, the right foot is also an Oops on my part. Printed this too close to another model on the base plate and the two models merged. So I've had to remove the offending part and replace with a Necron spare foot I had

I have a thread right here my stuff and my impressions:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/777911.page

OK, thank you both very, very much for your answers.
Can I bother you with several more questions:
1. I got rather thin walls in my flat. How much will my neighbors hate me? Also, about the resin smell: is it enough to open a window when I am done, or will it turn the fire alarm on and stink up the hallway for days?
2. Looking for prices, I saw there is a whole range of available accessories for those printers. Any tips of which of those I should get immediately/ get eventually/ strongly consider /skip past unless I am a weirdo?
3. About the learning curve: Are the two types at least similar enough to each other, that it is basically one curve, or is each a whole different art on ts own?

1) Sound is not a problem for FDM (no worse than having a TV on) and the Photon is almost silent. Resin can smell depending on the manbufacturer (Elegoo resin is less pongy than Anycubic), and the clean up is also a bit meh (a 30 second bath in Isopropyl Alcohol to remove the uncured resin) so an open window is good. There are new plant-based resins from Anycubic that are supposed to remove the smell but they're a lot dearer than regular stuff so I can't say if they work or not.

2) The Ender 3 and Photon work out of the box and shouldn't need accessories. All you may need are some tools and a healthy supply of either filament or resin.

3) The thing to realise about FDM and Resin printing is that they use different methods to generate the models. FDM melts a plastic rod then lays it down in a specific pattern to generate a layer. The nozzle then moves up and lays down another layer until you have your final model. Resin printers use a UV plate under the resin vat to harden the resin in a particular pattern. The base plate then moves up, the plate lights up, cures another layer and so on. These different processes require different settings in your preparation application (called a slicer) so there are different slicers for different methods of printing. Once the printer settings are done, putting your model into the slicer, adding support material if needed and generating the final code for the printer to work on is the same. Put the model on a SD card or USB stick depending on your printer and you are ready to go.

The learning curve is all about initial setup (leveling your base plate or bed is the biggest cause for frustration with newcomers) and then messing with the settings to get your perfect setup, which may be different to the next persons.

Hope this helps,

HM

AuntHerbert wrote:
OK, thank you both very, very much for your answers.
Can I bother you with several more questions:
1. I got rather thin walls in my flat. How much will my neighbors hate me? Also, about the resin smell: is it enough to open a window when I am done, or will it turn the fire alarm on and stink up the hallway for days?
2. Looking for prices, I saw there is a whole range of available accessories for those printers. Any tips of which of those I should get immediately/ get eventually/ strongly consider /skip past unless I am a weirdo?
3. About the learning curve: Are the two types at least similar enough to each other, that it is basically one curve, or is each a whole different art on ts own?

1.Sounds like a printer at worst. The smell from the SLA resin however, in a small flat you'll notice but if you can put a few doors between you and it you probably won't (it's not as bad as latex moulds). Think of it as a cat litter tray, you'll stop noticing it if you can smell it but people coming to your house may notice it instantly even if you hide it away. The resin is an irritant/caustic too, so make sure you protect and clean surfaces after using it. If you've done stuff previously with latex/silicon and resins, then you've got the wrong frame of reference for this stuff. It's not light curing resin, it's a mild solidifying bleach - it needs a contained area to do this stuff in that you're not going to want for basic living tasks. I've overselling things a bit, but just a little wary if you're doing this in a flat with a lot of shared space. If you can keep a painting area clear and clean, you'll be fine. And this is just SLA printers. The filament ones are fine.

2. Photon-S is fine out of the box, but it includes a few options that the earlier models didn't come with. 3D printing, at least at home, is still at the stage where it's early adopters taking it up - regardless of the model you buy, it's still kind of a prototype. New models are going to come out fast, and because of the flexibility, they will probably do something you can't. As long as you are happy with having a machine that can do what you want, and you know what you want, you'll be fine. If you just think it'd be cool to have one, then a cooler one is probably around the corner that does something else you think you can use - so just accept that rather than feeling buyers remorse. Likewise, at the other end of the spectrum they are also going to get more user friendly and cheap.

3. Some stuff is shared, but really they are different things with different requirements. Both can be really finicky with temperature and humidity, to the point of needing extra to add fans and adjusting settings you see online to your local conditions (for FDM). We've had prints that worked in May in the UK, fail in November. The software will do a lot of heavy lifting but most files are not designed for either printer or designed for the wrong so might need a bit of fiddling. You might recognise problems that are shared, but they're different systems and have their own ways of breaking and optimising designs.

I don't want to put you off, we've had some really cool Aeronautica Imperialis scaled necron aircraft come out beautifully. And at the same time, maybe 10 out of 60 scarabs a print be usable.
Consider if a learning curve as if you decided that you wanted to cast your own minis in resin (FDM) or metal (SLA). Assuming someone has given you a master (or STL file), it's not that hard to make minis out of it and people do this for a living and for fun.
Just don't expect to plug it into your PC and then start making armies and heroes off the bat. You're going to spend a fair amount of time and money working out what it can do and how to make it do those things for you.

Basically that. Resin printers only really have one single moving part, namely the vertical axis, and that sounds almost nothing, and usually one or two regular computer fans.

FDM printers, though, can and do vary a lot. For example, I've had an Anycubic Mega and an Artillery Sidewinder. The Mega did sound quite a bit, relatively (as Tastyfish says, kind of like a printer), but the Sidewinder makes almost less noise than the resin ones.

Smell: yes, resin does smell, but as you say you can open a window. The vapours of the fused materials from the fdm printer are usually more harmful, though.

I picked up a Prusa i3 MK3S and it is godlike. So reliable. Costs a bit more certainly, but it's just so easy to use.

Some examples for scenery and scatter.