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See title. I'm at least somewhat interested in getting a 3D printer, but...

1) How much does a decent one cost?
1a) How much does the printing material cost?

2) How much space do they take up?

3) How tough are they to use?

4) Can I use Blender with them?
4a) And any Blender tips for better modeling?

5) Anything else I should know?

Thanks all in advance for your responses!

What do.you want to print?

Scenery and big stuff would suggest an FDM printer that uses filament, smaller stuff, such as 32mm scale infantry and smaller really needs a resin printer.

You can get both types of printer for £200 or less. I have a £700 Prusa FDM and an Anycubic Mono resin printer (I got it cheaper on launch but I think it's about £200 now).

A kg of decent filament is currently £25 around here, but I think Brexit or covid is causing supply issues because it was £15 last year. 1kg of filament got me this



Or a whole carrier bag of these


A litre of decent resin is between £35 and £50. I got all of the following 10mm scale tanks, plus a few failed prints and all associated supports, out of 1l. Ignore the buildings, they are off the Prusa.



The prusa sits easily on an IKEA lack side table and needs very little further space other than storage of filament spools. The anycubic printer itself doesnt need much space, but does need a decent size space to do all the post printing work, such as rinsing off the unused resin and scraping the prints off the print bed. It's quite messy. The draining board of a kitchen sink is big enough, but resin is toxic and stinky, so best not to do it in the kitchen as such.

Mono setup here, with all the associated gubbinz for post processing.


I have found them very easy to use. However i deliberately bought a more expensive FDM printer for ease of use. Cheaper FDM printers seem to be something of a hobby in and of themselves in order to get the right settings. The Prusa started giving me great prints straight off and has been really robust.

The tanks i posted up above were my first try using resin and the default printer settings gave me great results. If you check out this board you will find other experiences.

I've never used blender. Anything that can create a 3d file could probably be used. There a few threads here about software.

Regarding resin printers:

1) Depends on how large you want, but the Phrozen Sonic Mini 4K, which has one of the highest resolutions currently available on a MSLA printer, though a smallish build area, is about 400 USD list. You can also get much bigger areas like the Elegoo Saturn or Anycubic Mono XL for 500-900.

1a) Around 40 USD per liter. Which can print quite a lot actually.

2) Again depends on which model you get, but 2-3ft cubed.

3) Resin printers are a little messy, and may need some fiddling with, but generally the latest generation isn't too difficult to use.

4) You can use any sculpting program that you can output STL or OBJ generally. Typically you'll then import that file into a slicing program for your printer (some use proprietary software, many use Chitubox).

4a) Dunno.

5) You will need a few other things handy for resin printers. Nitrelle gloves, goggles, LOTS of paper towels and IPA or denatured alcohol for cleaning. You probably will also need some kind of curing lamp for final finishing (UV nail curers or special built machines or even DIY). Liquid resin is not the safest stuff, and disposal will need some special care (generally, cure it; once solid it's ok to toss in trash).

No joke about the LOTS of PAPER TOWEL.

I mean, you might as well invest in a paper towel company.

Zero jokes there. You use tons of em.

Resin printing is a fastidious affair. Resins are not "that" bad chemically, but they can smell bad and its not the best thing to breath for extended periods.

Rather than a mask I just run my Air Purifier on high with an Organic filter in it (Organic in this case means solvents, VOCs, etc). It does a great job of cleaning the air.

Some of the newest of the FDM printers (filament) can do great stuff. It is kissing the lowest levels of Resin Printing. Cheap FDM will produce inferior product, modern FDMs will be in the tenths of a MM per layer vs the hundredths of a mm for Resin printers. For say 28mm models, that's pretty big differnence. But for say, a tank, a building, an aircraft, etc the FDM will be nearly identical, esp because Resin Printers struggle with Dimensional and Flat objects while FDM does not do so badly with keeping things dimensioned (sized correctly).

FDM is less fiddly. Resin can be VERY fiddly. Also you can get BAD resin. Yeah, kiss that 40 buck bottle goodby after waiting hours for a print and having it fail over and over again eventually you figure out to test another bottle you have on hand and it works fine.

As other people have said, the first question you probably need to answer is filament or resin. Filament / FDM works great for bigger stuff like vehicles and buildings, but struggles with tiny details. Resin works for those tiny details, but tends to have smaller limits on object size and is much more chemically messy. Don't go with resin unless you're willing to wear disposable gloves and a mask most of the time you're around the printer.

FDM sounds like what I want.

Also, located in the US, so all your euro talk confuses me.

Thank you all!

I would go for FDM first, far easier introduction to the world of 3d printing.

Even if you do get a more expensive printer for ease of use, still take the time to learn about the different parts of the machine and how they work, it will help a lot when something goes wrong (it will, eventually, but fixing things is usually pretty quick with the right knowledge).

The ability to print an entire, dense terrain board for around £40 of filament is amazing, I backed this kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1173449368/ruins-of-generica) recently and, while it will take a month to get it all printed at a good quality, I'll have a whole 3x3 board of large, high-quality frostgrave terrain at the end of it. Something that would have easily cost £400+ if purchased pre-made, so in value terms, I see this one print project as my Prusa Mini paying for itself.

How much they cost is kind of a hard question, like asking how much a computer or a car costs. The range can be pretty big from low-end to high-end. Maybe look at a list like this, try to figure out where you want to look?

https://all3dp.com/1/best-3d-printer-reviews-top-3d-printers-home-3-d-printer-3d/

In terms of size, it depends but a 2 foot by 2 foot space is probably plenty.

I have an Ender 3 Pro (FDM) and an Elegoo Mars (resin) and both are at the sub $200 mark and both of these, IMHO, are the best out there at the price range. Don't be skeerd!!

yeah, my 200$ investment in october has way way way way more than paid for itself at this point, I'm incredibly pleased with my photon mono.

...I have spent 120$ on resin, but I've gotten a huge AT collection, a whole 15mm ww2 army, a 1000pt emperors children army, and several squads of eldar aspect warriors out of it. Easily 500+$ of stuff if i'd bought from GW.

And, I will add I MUCH prefer the steps to resin printing over FDM. FDM seems to take way more fiddling to set printing and FDM supports can be the bane of your existence. I have had many, many more failures on FDM prints than on resin and having a failure 12 hours in on FDM can be brutal vs. a 3 hour total print on resin. Resin post clean and curing is nothing to be scared of either. You will get it down to a routine and I still prefer it over the babysitting you need to do with FDM.

However, they are meant for totally different things - big terrain for FDM, mini figs on Resin.

 meatybtz wrote:
No joke about the LOTS of PAPER TOWEL.

I mean, you might as well invest in a paper towel company.

Zero jokes there. You use tons of em.

Lol. You're absolutely right.

I'm enjoying my Elegoo Mars immensely, and I'm considering an Ender 3 Pro so I can print bigger terrain pieces the resin build plates aren't suited for.

Could anyone with an Ender 3 Pro point me towards a good preparatory/tutorial video to help me figure out what I'll need to minimize the print striations on larger terrain pieces? I'm willing to do the research myself, but I thought it might save me some time if I ask the community here.

I have an Ender 3 Pro and I had not used it in almost a year, as my Mars was doing double duty. I got the latest version of Cura and the Ender 3 defaults seem a bit weird, so just started the huge print and it is humming along perfectly. Here are my settings at what is called the 'Dynamic' quality (layer height 1.6), which seemed a bit thick, but works great for terrain.

-Keep most all defaults, so wall count at 4, top and bottom layers at 6.
-Infill at 10%-15%, maybe go up to 20%, but that is really pushing it.
-Speed is super relative to the detail of the print. I keep it at 30, maybe 40 when slicing, but will override on the machine to 110%-130% if I think I can speed it up without causing problems .
-Retraction distance 5 and retraction speed 50.
-Build plate adhesion I use Brim and 10 count, this seems to work great for me.
-I have watched some tutorials on the support settings to get them to break away easier, but never really had much luck in making them super easy. They will always be the bane of your existence with FDM. The settings I have, which seem fairly good are angle: 55, pattern: lines, Density: 2, support line distance: 22.0

Also, the magnetic build plate is so great, but some filaments seem to have an issue sticking, so I just put some wide painter's tape on the flex plate and I never have any adhesion issues.

The print issues you see from some prints are mainly caused by improper retraction (stringing), running the machine too fast (slower makes much better quality) and actually trying to print in layers too thick so it all prints faster. Set it up and let it go with a check every now and then. If it takes a hour or two longer to get a better quality you will be glad you did not rush it.

Also to add: There are some great videos regarding simple upgrades you can do for your printer, some of which are almost mandatory. One item you will see is to get stronger springs for the print bed so it holds the level setting better, but a packet of washers and put a couple on each corner to compress the existing spring a bit more works perfectly and a packet of small washers is about $1.50. Other upgrades include printing a small sliding tray to store stuff in the empty spot under the build palte, a back cover for the control screen, filament guide, aluminum upgrade to the filament feed, cable and cover to make inserting the SD cards much easier and you may find conflicting reports on whether smoothers for the steppers is needed on the Pro, but I swear it made my prints much better and they are fairly cheep. You really only need to add to the X & Y motors and super easy to install.