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As with pretty much everything in life there is a learning curve to 3d printing, if you could go back in time and tell your youngerself some tips and tricks that you have learnt, what would they be?

I am just looking at getting into printing myself and would love to know some tips, tricks and pitfalls to avoid and am sure many people are in the same boat!

Great thread idea . All of mine apply mostly to liquid resin printers:

1. Put your parts out in the sun for a day to finish curing, or in a UV sterilizer for just 10 minutes or so to accomplish the same thing, before removing supports.

2. Sanding can do wonders for cleaning up support points! I snip them with hobby clippers, trying to get flush or even leave material at the joint rather than gouge into the part. Then use WET sandpaper of varying grits to get a nice smooth finish. You can get variety packs of sandpaper to try it out, you really don't need much grit at all.

3. You may need to replace your resin tray often. In the case of the Form2, it's basically with every new liter of resin, you need a new tray, too. I wish I'd known this to start, I get so much better results treating the tray as a disposable that must be replaced along with resin.

That's it for now, but it's amazing how you can get a printer with as good of resolution as the Form2 for a tiny fraction of the cost now, with the Anycubic Photon and Elegoo Mars. Definitely an awesome time to think about getting one as it's really hitting the sweet spot on price-to-value now.

The main thing? How many hours of your life you'll lose scrolling through Thingiverse, Cults 3D and MyMiniFactory for STLs...

Beyond that, my big learning curve for FDM printing has been the first layer, almost all of the issues I've had have been tied to that, be it an unlevel bed. too thin or cool a first layer or, in the very early days, not setting a temperature for the bed at all... So yeah, the big thing I wish I knew is how critical the first layer was, how many things affect it, and what it in turn affects in terms of print quality.

If you're going the FDM route, I can't recommend Tomb of 3D Printed Horrors on Youtube enough, especially if you're using an Ender machine. Great videos for both beginner and more technical stuff, clearly presented and very well explained.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5Lbnd97HV3rU98gcwHklzQ

 RiTides wrote:
Great thread idea . All of mine apply mostly to liquid resin printers:

1. Put your parts out in the sun for a day to finish curing, or in a UV sterilizer for just 10 minutes or so to accomplish the same thing, before removing supports.

3. You may need to replace your resin tray often. In the case of the Form2, it's basically with every new liter of resin, you need a new tray, too. I wish I'd known this to start, I get so much better results treating the tray as a disposable that must be replaced along with resin.

1. Supports are WAY easier to remove before curing the resin and will lead to much less surface damage to the models where the supports connect. They're designed to snap off with minimal force when the resin is still soft. Made extra easy if you have something like an ultrasonic cleaner that cleans and warms the parts. Most of the supports should basically fall off once warmed since the contact points are so thin. Curing and then removing supports is a good way to have supports that cannot be removed or lots of scarring on the model.

3. If that's the case for the Form2, yikes! With care and not failing too many prints the FEP should last a long time.

Move the Trash can closer to the printer . With all the supports and little bits that come off you'll make a mess.

Once you have your settings keyed in good, Write them down. As soon as you have it you'll make a few changes or have a corrupt file that will delete everything and you'll wish you had it saved on paper and not just on your computer.

Get more storage. You'll need more storage for all the electronic files you download to slice and print. No matter how much you print there's always more to do.

If your going to order a spool of filament (or bottle of resin) order two, you might get a discount.

If your going to order two bottles of resin or two spools of filament, order 4 for the same reason as above.

If your going to order 4, you'll need a second printer and a divorce attorney, but you can print a new house and a new spouse who won
t nag you except to ask when you are finally going to paint her .

Prometheum, that's really interesting about the supports as it's definitely the opposite of my experience! What are you printing on? I've experimented with everything and waiting to remove supports after a full cure gives me so much better results... but perhaps this is more specific to the Formlabs printers, as well.

 RiTides wrote:
Prometheum, that's really interesting about the supports as it's definitely the opposite of my experience! What are you printing on? I've experimented with everything and waiting to remove supports after a full cure gives me so much better results... but perhaps this is more specific to the Formlabs printers, as well.

I've got a Phrozen Sonic Mini. I'm not a resin expert, but I have seen pretty consistent recommended workflows like I described. If your process works for you that's obviously awesome, just surprising. I'm way more of an FDM expert with ABS on my Afinias, trying to figure out what I can contribute here. I was one of the early pioneers of using acetone vapor with ABS to get smooth prints, but with newer printers it seems like most people use PLA with a finer layer height and consider it good enough.

I think I might see the difference - I no longer snap off the supports, as I always get a divot somewhere on the part. I carefully clip them with the goal of never having one take a chunk out of my print, so I go flush or leave a little nub. Then I sand with water, progressing to a really fine grit to almost polish the part.

If I was snapping off the supports, I think you may very well be right! I just can't stand getting a blemish on a day long print from a support taking a bit of the print with it. And with my setup that was more often the case than not

 RiTides wrote:
Prometheum, that's really interesting about the supports as it's definitely the opposite of my experience! What are you printing on? I've experimented with everything and waiting to remove supports after a full cure gives me so much better results... but perhaps this is more specific to the Formlabs printers, as well.

Best way I've found so far to remove supports is removing them before UV curing and after sumberging them in very hot water. That softens them and you can mostly tear them off alomst without a mark. The rest of the cleanup is easy then.

For these I just yanked the supports off, for example... it's not perfect, but it is pretty good:




(I should have done a little bit more of cleanup, but I got in a rush xD)

As to the FEP, well... the Elegoo Mars still has the original one, and I bought it a year and a bit ago, so...

Well they look fantastic . I can see on the leftmost figure in the second pic a few examples of what I'm talking about though - small divots from the connection points on the back. Your supports were placed really well so not much of an issue here!

I have found the only way to fully prevent it is to rely on sanding. Much easier to leave a nub and take it down, then to need to fill in! But always open to easier ways for sure

The reason this was one of the first things I mentioned I wish I knew, is because cleanup of parts is such a critical part of 3D printing that I'd never thought about before starting. One of the first things I printed was a chess knight for my Dad, and it has one smooth side and one marred by supports, which stood out when painted. Now that I know more about support removal and sanding I get a lot better results than when I started!

.

I wish I had known how easy it easy to rewrite and install the g-code for my Elegoo Mars to only have the fan turn on while printing. Now it shuts off when done, which is great for those prints you let go for the night - the fan turns off when done printing and does not stay on until you turn it off in the morning.

I had been living with that fan running for almost an entire year!

I should have started way earlier with learning Blender. Now I'm too annoyed with the high learning curve and too set in my ways with SketchUp.

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