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I've just been using Anycubic's "Eco" grey resin, because back when I bought my printer they had a bulk deal on so I got a bundle of it.

That batch is finally coming to an end and I'll need to grab some more, was thinking of trying out something else.

What are peoples' weapon of choice?

I was thinking clear resin makes more sense that opaque resin, because if part of the model is uncured internally then being clear might mean it'd cure after the fact? Of course it'd need to be transparent at UV wavelengths, but the UV used by printers is pretty close to the visible range so I'd guess if the resin lets through blue / purple light it'd probably also let through UV.

Then I was also thinking maybe something tough would be good, because some of my prints with thin parts are almost too brittle for gaming purposes, but then I read there's different compromises to make.

So, yeah, what do you folk use and why do you like it?

I have found both the transparent resins I have used (Elegoo and Anycubic) to be quiet brittle and an absolute pain to clean up, both the models and spills!

Personally been using the Elegoo plant based resin to see if it really is ultra-low odour as they claim, it is definitely less pungent than most others I have used and seem to be good for holding detail, brittleness and crispness. Been printing 1/300 scale stuff and it has been absolutely fine so far.

I mostly use grey because I can actually see a bit of the volumes ^^

I tend towards Elegoo, either ABS-like or water washable, although I'm swapping for a local manufacturer which uses far less toxic components.

 Albertorius wrote:
I mostly use grey because I can actually see a bit of the volumes ^^

I tend towards Elegoo, either ABS-like or water washable, although I'm swapping for a local manufacturer which uses far less toxic components.

Any details on this other company? Always looking for less toxic stuff!

 ingtaer wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:
I mostly use grey because I can actually see a bit of the volumes ^^

I tend towards Elegoo, either ABS-like or water washable, although I'm swapping for a local manufacturer which uses far less toxic components.

Any details on this other company? Always looking for less toxic stuff!

Sure!

https://electrobits.es/

The owner is a spaniard expert in chemicals that created the company as a side hustle, but he's now distributing officially printers from Elegoo and some other stuff.

He's a tinkerer, and the company is refining some special use resins.

As for the one he's selling now as a safer resin, it's branded as "Mf-15" and he maintains that he can use it without respirator or gloves (it's non-cytotoxic, unlike many chinese brands, so it doesn't kill cells, which is something... but I'd still use gloves myself), and that they're still working on safer alternatives.

And honestly, that's what I feel is most needed at this point.

So far I've used Aqua 4K Grey and honestly its performed well for me. Holds good detail and its brittleness I'd say is about on par with resins like cast forgeworld resin.
The only real quirk I've found is that its a little softer/flexible when being printed and this can translate to some long parts flexing during printing on the presupports. This might cause a minor layershift line here and there. Honestly you can fix it with a few light supports just going up the length here and there. A super easy fix that doesn't really leave any lasting marks of any note or difficulty to remove.


I do have a back of Vulcan resin, but as the first batch of that requires pretty long exposures on a phrozen printer (differences in UV wavelength output); I'm "saving" it for the next printer (which will either be a Saturn 2 or a Mighty 8K).
There's also a Vulcan 8K on the market, but not yet in the UK I think, which improves the print times even more.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Albertorius wrote:


As for the one he's selling now as a safer resin, it's branded as "Mf-15" and he maintains that he can use it without respirator or gloves (it's non-cytotoxic, unlike many chinese brands, so it doesn't kill cells, which is something... but I'd still use gloves myself), and that they're still working on safer alternatives.

And honestly, that's what I feel is most needed at this point.

If he can land a good performing resin that really can be that safe it would be an absolute money maker and change resin 3D printing in a big way. However it was my understanding that the light-activated components were basically the same in all 3D printer resins (even the eco ones) and that its them which are the really toxic part. So not sure how he can get around that unless he's coming at it with a very different composition.

Would be super amazing if a safe resin can be found. That said gloves, eyeprotection and facemask are not huge issues once you're setup.

 Overread wrote:
So far I've used Aqua 4K Grey and honestly its performed well for me. Holds good detail and its brittleness I'd say is about on par with resins like cast forgeworld resin.
The only real quirk I've found is that its a little softer/flexible when being printed and this can translate to some long parts flexing during printing on the presupports. This might cause a minor layershift line here and there. Honestly you can fix it with a few light supports just going up the length here and there. A super easy fix that doesn't really leave any lasting marks of any note or difficulty to remove.


I do have a back of Vulcan resin, but as the first batch of that requires pretty long exposures on a phrozen printer (differences in UV wavelength output); I'm "saving" it for the next printer (which will either be a Saturn 2 or a Mighty 8K).
There's also a Vulcan 8K on the market, but not yet in the UK I think, which improves the print times even more.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Albertorius wrote:


As for the one he's selling now as a safer resin, it's branded as "Mf-15" and he maintains that he can use it without respirator or gloves (it's non-cytotoxic, unlike many chinese brands, so it doesn't kill cells, which is something... but I'd still use gloves myself), and that they're still working on safer alternatives.

And honestly, that's what I feel is most needed at this point.

If he can land a good performing resin that really can be that safe it would be an absolute money maker and change resin 3D printing in a big way. However it was my understanding that the light-activated components were basically the same in all 3D printer resins (even the eco ones) and that its them which are the really toxic part. So not sure how he can get around that unless he's coming at it with a very different composition.

Would be super amazing if a safe resin can be found. That said gloves, eyeprotection and facemask are not huge issues once you're setup.

I'll ask around about it, but I believe that an actually safe resin could be an absolute game changer, even moreso if there's no need to IPA for cleaning it.

THAT would remove so many hurdles for people that I honestly think it could lead to a much wider use.

Thanks for the details Albertorius. As you say, if they can develop something that does not require IPA to clean up it would be massive, I do like the water washable stuff from Elegoo for that reason but its still pretty vile stuff to use!

 Albertorius wrote:


I'll ask around about it, but I believe that an actually safe resin could be an absolute game changer, even moreso if there's no need to IPA for cleaning it.

THAT would remove so many hurdles for people that I honestly think it could lead to a much wider use.

You can already get that. It's called Water Washable resin.
However there's a few issues

1) It is more prone to tearing when being printed, especially when printing any hollowed models.

2) Whilst you can wash it with water it is still toxic; however many ads for it encourage the idea that you can just wash the water down the drain which you absolutely cannot do. It still requires cured resin to be safe (as safe as plastics). So Letting the water evaporate off and then curing any residue before disposing in regular waste in the bin. It should NOT be entering the water systems at all.

3) As noted its still as toxic as regular resins so you still need all your PPE and safety measures.

Sadly a lot of WW ads often show them being cleaned under running tap water and whilst they don't show the water going down the drain that's the most likely place it IS going in those videos and the most likely place people will assume is safe.


If anything WW is more a hassle because water doesn't evaporate off as readily as IPA/


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Out of interest where on the site do they give details about the Mf-15 resin? The only page I can find doesn't even have a resin bottle photo

Ok, got this answer (hack translation, but I hope is readable enough):

The composition is very different: regarding resins, European legislation prohibits us to use the most hazardous component of all, it took us a year to substitute it for others that do the same but comply with the legislation. It's not that we wanted to do it, it's just that we HAD to do it.

You can import resin with this component for industrial use, but you cannot import the component for resin manufacturing.

As to toxicity, and by way of example, the SDS for the SUNLU resin states the following health hazards:

Acute toxicity-Oral Category 4
Skin corrosion/irritation Category 2
Serious eye damage/eye irritation Category 1
Skin sensitization Category 1
Reproductive toxicity Category 2
Specific target organ toxicity-Repeated exposure Category 2

Whereas my standard resin has the following, according with EU regulations:

Aquatic Chronic 3: Toxic to aquatic organisms, with lasting nocive effects
Eye irritant 2: Causes serious eye irritation

That's the basis, after that you pour additives like pigments and other components like rubber, etc, that we can use in Europe.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:

 Albertorius wrote:


I'll ask around about it, but I believe that an actually safe resin could be an absolute game changer, even moreso if there's no need to IPA for cleaning it.

THAT would remove so many hurdles for people that I honestly think it could lead to a much wider use.

You can already get that. It's called Water Washable resin.
However there's a few issues

1) It is more prone to tearing when being printed, especially when printing any hollowed models.

2) Whilst you can wash it with water it is still toxic; however many ads for it encourage the idea that you can just wash the water down the drain which you absolutely cannot do. It still requires cured resin to be safe (as safe as plastics). So Letting the water evaporate off and then curing any residue before disposing in regular waste in the bin. It should NOT be entering the water systems at all.

3) As noted its still as toxic as regular resins so you still need all your PPE and safety measures.

Sadly a lot of WW ads often show them being cleaned under running tap water and whilst they don't show the water going down the drain that's the most likely place it IS going in those videos and the most likely place people will assume is safe.


If anything WW is more a hassle because water doesn't evaporate off as readily as IPA/


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Out of interest where on the site do they give details about the Mf-15 resin? The only page I can find doesn't even have a resin bottle photo

Water washable is also as toxic as the regular one (well, more, apparently, which is something I was not actually aware of), and there's more of a change of people disposing it in the sink, which is a big no-no.

As to info on the MF-15 resin, apparently:

As for data, I have not yet been able to write the specifications sheet or anything else.

...so I'll be on the lookout for when he does

Personally, I just do not get consistently good results with the water-based 'Eco' resins. Because they are so susceptible to moisture, even when cured, I often get deformed areas because trying to get all of the moisture out right away on hollow models can be difficult and just a little bit left inside will deform your print.

My go to resin used to be the Siraya Tech simple - that needed a much less alcohol content % to clean, and it performed really well, but still had to make sure no moisture left inside. However, ST raised the price, so I will usually use the Elegoo standard grey.

I use Elegoo water washable just to avoid the need for ipa. I have found it to be great on detail and pretty resilient. Thin elements are slightly flexy and don’t shatter easily. I have dropped a few pieces and they haven’t immediately shattered either. You can’t water cure them as they split, but otherwise, really nice.

Anycubic Basic because it's like 15€/L on sales

It looks nice but shrinks and is brittle. Apparently they're switching to a better formula that has some flex in it by default, I just hope the price doesn't spike.

I haven't fired up my printer in several months since I did a big rearranging of my hobby room and still haven't got everything fully set up. What I was using then was Siraya Tech Fast ABS-Like resin. It worked great for me, will probably keep using it.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Anycubic Basic because it's like 15€/L on sales

It looks nice but shrinks and is brittle. Apparently they're switching to a better formula that has some flex in it by default, I just hope the price doesn't spike.

Yeah, I'm probably going to get a batch of Anycubic because their sales make it much cheaper than other options I've seen in Oz.

Has anyone tried mixing a small amount of tough in with a brittle resin to see if it makes it less brittle? Or is that just likely to cause other problems?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Has anyone tried mixing a small amount of tough in with a brittle resin to see if it makes it less brittle? Or is that just likely to cause other problems?

It's fine, but at the percentage you need (15-20) it's about a wash price wise vs just buying ABS-like from the get go.

Also be smarter than I am. I put some flex in my resin when I printed a large model with thin legs, so they would't break. Now they sag instead.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Has anyone tried mixing a small amount of tough in with a brittle resin to see if it makes it less brittle? Or is that just likely to cause other problems?

It's fine, but at the percentage you need (15-20) it's about a wash price wise vs just buying ABS-like from the get go.

Also be smarter than I am. I put some flex in my resin when I printed a large model with thin legs, so they would't break. Now they sag instead.

Have you tried the ABS-like? It's so hard to decide, so many resins don't have reviews and even the reviews that are available, a large portion are either reviewing from a place of ignorance and/or it feels like an advertisement more than a review.

Then for the people who do detailed reviews, I can pretty much guarantee they review products that aren't available (or cost a fortune to import) where I am located.

I did notice that Anycubic have "Standard+" now, which seems like it replaces their old basic/standard resins, so I've bought some of that to try as they have a buy 2 get 1 free at the moment.

If any Australians can point me to where they buy resin... but it seems to me that direct from Anycubic is just soooo much cheaper than any other options. They almost always have a sale, I just purchased 4.5kg of Anycubic standard+ for basically what I'd pay for 2kg of basic resin anywhere else.

Let us kow how Anycubic Standard+ goes.

I've used Elegoo ABS-like, which is pretty durable but shrinks a lot (same as Anycubic Basic).

I started 10 years ago, with B9 Resins and switched to a Spanish manufacturer Spot-A because of price.
This was the time of DLP printers and a resin for 70 something Euros per litre was very ok.

With the advent of cheap resin printers (compared to the 10k for a "enthusiast" printer in 2013) there was also cheaper Resin available.

I've used EPAX Hard Resin, which printed well, but was very brittle. I switched to a 50/50 mix of esun Plant-Based Pro and 3dPrima Flex. Which was good, but not available from the same source and mixing and bla bla bla. It just wasn't perfect.

I tried Ameralabs TGM7 which has good flex, but is viscose. For that reason I do not like it.
It also shrinks differently. Usually I design with 0.2 mm size difference for holes and pegs and TGM7 needed me to increase that to 0.4mm.

Right now, I use Sunlu ABS-like, which I like surprisingly well. It's neither expensive, nor viscose and I'm back to 0.2mm peg/hole. When you remove the supports (even softened in hot water) it feels a bit brittle, but the finished models are proving to be ok so far. Details are fine.

I just ordered some Sunlu-PA like. More expensive, but should have a bit more flex. Not sure I need that. It's probably more "just in case it's even better" and I like to try it out.