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I'm shopping for a new bottle of resin, and both Elegoo and Anycubic offer plant-based resins that are only a few dollars more than the normal stuff. For those with experience, any issues with the plant-based stuff? Is it good enough or "not ready for primetime?" Any reason other than the cost to not use the plant-based stuff?

benefits of plant based resin:

1) lower smell. Definitely noticeable in terms of not as stinky.

2) generally lower toxicity levels. still toxic, but will take more of a dose to actually require medical attention, should you mess up and injest some somehow.

That's about the difference. Having used both standard and plant based resin, I buy plant based purely for the smell being less. Pretty simple stuff. Just dont be like "i've bought plant based, therefore I dont need gloves or to be careful at all, i'll just suck the spare resin off this figure and save the wash and cure step!"

Wait a minute… are you trying to say that we can’t use the plant based resin to print food? I thought that was where all these non-animal based burgers were coming from Oopsy!

 the_scotsman wrote:
benefits of plant based resin:

1) lower smell. Definitely noticeable in terms of not as stinky.

2) generally lower toxicity levels. still toxic, but will take more of a dose to actually require medical attention, should you mess up and injest some somehow.

That's about the difference. Having used both standard and plant based resin, I buy plant based purely for the smell being less. Pretty simple stuff. Just dont be like "i've bought plant based, therefore I dont need gloves or to be careful at all, i'll just suck the spare resin off this figure and save the wash and cure step!"

That's not actually true, it's every bit as toxic as the regular ones. If you go to the resins' SDS (Security Data Sheet) you'll see that they're made in a 90% of exactly the same as the regular resins, and that only that other 10% is plant-based stuff.

So you should treat them exactly as any other resin.

The thing about plant based resin that only the "filler" is plant-based. This will reduce the toxicity and bio-degradability of the cured resin, but does not really help with uncured resin. So all precautions and waste removal procedures have to stay in place. Cured resin is quite safe anyway. Having said that. The resins I normally use print very well, but smell. The smell lingers a day or two, even with windows wide open. And all of them gave me headaches when too long in the same room. I just bought some Anycubic plant based and use it for a week now. I use the same procedures as before. The smell is much less, no headaches. This does not mean it's safer, but at least my body reacts differently to it - I might still die from it, but without headaches Quality wise it's close to the others as far as I can say with my limited experience. More brittle than shown on the web, but that might be post processing. No long term experiences. Price it's real cheap at the moment. Usually I pay between 50€ and 70€ per kg for the other resins, depending on manufacturer. The Anycubic plant based costs 30€ per kg and there is a 3 for 2 promotion, so it's 20€ per kg in the end - unbelievable - I still wait for the shoe to drop, there must be a caveat.

There is definitely a big difference in brands on how much they smell. I have found my favorite resin for very low-odor and great results with easy clean up is the Siraya Tech Simple. I use the smoky black, which is semi-translucent, so I add a touch of Elegoo grey to make it a deep, opaque grey color and it is excellent. Another benefit is the claim to only need 15% IPA to clean, and while I do not go that diluted, it does clean up so much easier.

I have not tried any 'plant' based resins, but do agree with the posters above that it is only slightly/marginally better than standard resin, so all normal precautions need to be made. Kind of like the Burger King normal meat and their 'impossible' meat - have you looked at the nutrition stats? You would think it is super healthier than normal meat, but it is really not.

Also, I have found the Anycubic resins among the strongest smelling.

Well, thanks for the input, everyone. If the plant-based stuff is basically normal resin with some soybean oil added, then it's really not worth the trouble.

I've used only Elegoo standard gray and had no issues with smell, so I guess I'll keep going with that.

Anycubic bio-resin holds detail well enough, and the odour is low. But it's brittle. You'll want to mix in Siraya or something.

eSun plant based is the better variant. Higher viscosity (aka more liquid) and less brittle.

brumbaer wrote:
The thing about plant based resin that only the "filler" is plant-based. This will reduce the toxicity and bio-degradability of the cured resin, but does not really help with uncured resin. So all precautions and waste removal procedures have to stay in place. Cured resin is quite safe anyway. Having said that. The resins I normally use print very well, but smell. The smell lingers a day or two, even with windows wide open. And all of them gave me headaches when too long in the same room. I just bought some Anycubic plant based and use it for a week now. I use the same procedures as before. The smell is much less, no headaches. This does not mean it's safer, but at least my body reacts differently to it - I might still die from it, but without headaches Quality wise it's close to the others as far as I can say with my limited experience. More brittle than shown on the web, but that might be post processing. No long term experiences. Price it's real cheap at the moment. Usually I pay between 50€ and 70€ per kg for the other resins, depending on manufacturer. The Anycubic plant based costs 30€ per kg and there is a 3 for 2 promotion, so it's 20€ per kg in the end - unbelievable - I still wait for the shoe to drop, there must be a caveat.

Um, sorry to ask an annoying FNG question, but you said that plant based resin is less biodegradable? I'm sorry but that seems completely out of whack to me, i;'d expect at first thought plant based resins to be more biodegradable that other kinds. Can you explain this?

Sorry should be „and improve biodegradability“
Well spotted