Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi Everyone,

As the title suggests, I have been having a number of issues over the past few weeks that have almost made me cry. I started 3D resin printing last November and there has been a steep learning curve. I thought I could save myself some resin by "hollowing" out the models I was printing off. I spent a number of days and a number of bottles of resin and printed off lots of models over the past few months. Over time, I started to notice models breaking apart and liquid resin pooling on the base and sometimes overflowing. I thought at first it was a one off but it started to happen regularly. In July, I reverted back to printing without "hollowing" and have spent a lot of time reprinting models I have had to throw away. Unfortunately, over the past week, I have had to throw away 20 completely finished models and I feel gutted what with all the time and effort I've put into finishing these. Here's a few examples:



I had finished painting 5 of these Rough Riders and have ended up throwing all of them away :(



I had finished another "Red" Squadron of Rough Riders - I have 2 left. I'm too frightened to put them away as if they crack and leak, its almost impossible to clean up and if liquid resin goes on any other model, I have to throw that away as well :(



I loved painting these Solar Guard replacements but have had to throw away over 20 of these this week. I now have to find the files and reprint them and add them to my painting pile.



Although most of these look ok from afar, when you look at them closely, the jumpsuit has cracked and resin is starting to pour/dribble out of them (like a touch from Nurgle). So before they make a huge mess, I've removed and kept the bases and chucked them in the bin this morning.



This vox operator looks like he is so scared that he's wet himself



These look fine but have started to dribble. They've been de-based and thrown this morning.



Again, these look fine, but liquid resin has started to dribble so they have been flushed out of the nearest airlock.



I loved this model and really enjoyed painting him. I'm gutted that I have to throw him away.



And finally, this model has cracked in 2 places, so had to go.

I'm making light of what has happened but it's really upsetting when things like this happen. I'm trying not to dwell on how much time I have lost on these models and want to take this as a learning experience. I am now in the routine of checking all of my printed 3D resin models every morning to make sure I haven't got another model that needs to be thrown. Unfortunately, my "hollow" resin prints have been cracking over the past 6 months and as I have reprinted replacements, I stupidly put them in with the hollow ones - now I don't know which ones may crack in the future. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can prevent the already printed hollow models from cracking sometime in the future?

Please fell free to share any of your own modelling mishaps on this thread.

While I haven't tried hollowing prints myself I think what your problem is (and i'm sure other more learned folks will either confirm or correct me) that the resin has no avenue of escape. Have you been leaving a small hole somewhere on the model to let the resin pour out from after printing is complete?

I had a similar issue with a couple of pieces I printed previously with Anycubics translucent green resin where it had an air bubble in it that cause it to crack about a week after printing. I'm not sure if that was due to it having uncured resin within it, but I feel you. It's bloody frustrating having bits you can't use.


Edit: The models look fantastic though and your paintjobs are awesome! Really sucks that you had to ditch them all.

Oh boy that first post. Absolute horror story. I cannot imagine getting all the way finished with so many minis and have THAT happen...

I've been pretty fortunate to not have anything major happen, my dog has chewed up a couple of minis though - she was alright fortunately, but the minis not so much...

Oh ouch that's a painful experience in 3D printing!

I can however tell you exactly why its happening.


Uncured resin chemically reacts with cured resin . This reaction can take days, weeks or even months to take place, but it will happen. When it happens it causes the cured resin to weaken and eventually crack open and the wet resin inside spills out.

For this reason any hollowed models MUST have draining holes so that resin inside can be drained out and also washed out with IPA during the washing phase after printing.

You also need to have drain holes big enough to flush properly, tiny ones or just one hole won't flush properly and will leave resin inside which will tear out in the future. If you can't make at least 10mm holes in the model to drain it, I wouldn't bother hollowing. The tiny saving in resin isn't worth the risk of failing and cracking - as you've directly experienced.


I never bother hollowing things like standard horses, infantry or such - the gain in not used resin is tiny compared to the potential fallout mess and there's often little to no space to put good proper drainage holes on. You might get get away with tiny ones, which can then sometimes dribble IPA/resin for ages and even then still crack open.



Another thing with hollowing is that when you hollow you can create voids in the model which aren't connected to the main drained area. These isolated spots either need their own holes or you have to use something like lychee hollow blockers, which basically tell the software to not hollow in those regions (after applying a hollowing setting).












That all said I've had my own 3D print pains including and not limited too

1) Learning all about how important heating and the method of heating! Esp after getting started during a warm patch in autumn and then hitting fail after fail for ages due to temperature.

2) Not having enough lift height - did this one a few days ago on my new printer as I loaded the buildplate up and boom - several parts failed to separate from the FEP and failed ot print. All because my lift height was ok for small prints but not big ones with more pull on the FEP. Raised it by 2mm and all fantastic now.

3) Taking 1 second off my exposure time by accident and then trying to problem solve everything else because of random fails and such. Totally on me, but still wasted a bunch of resin on it.


3D printing is painful because fails can so easily happen and it takes time to learn all the quirks and how to problem solve through the fails to work out what went wrong. Esp as sometimes its not one thing but several things.

If you are printing hollow stuff, consider getting a small UV LED fitted to a battery and stick it inside the hollow to make sure everything inside is cured.

I have a similar experience with some 10mm scale tanks I had printed. Thankfully I take so long to paint stuff that I hadn't gotten that far with them beforeI had to junk them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I would also add that it’s probably not worth hollowing out infantry models. The cavalry maybe, but in my mind it’s better to have a bit of heft rather than trying to be mega efficient with resin.

I'll pitch in with the perennial favorite, taking the minis you just finished painting outside to varnish, and realizing after the first pass you grabbed a rattlecan of primer, not clear varnish....

No experience with them myself, but theoretically clear/transparent resins would allow the middle of prints to be fully cured along with the outsides. You'd probably have to play with your settings for the printing phase, though.

 Vulcan wrote:
I'll pitch in with the perennial favorite, taking the minis you just finished painting outside to varnish, and realizing after the first pass you grabbed a rattlecan of primer, not clear varnish....

I’ve accidentally used blue ink instead of black once. Not as bad, but same idea.

 philmorgan75 wrote:
Hi Everyone,

As the title suggests, I have been having a number of issues over the past few weeks that have almost made me cry. I started 3D resin printing last November and there has been a steep learning curve. I thought I could save myself some resin by "hollowing" out the models I was printing off. I spent a number of days and a number of bottles of resin and printed off lots of models over the past few months. Over time, I started to notice models breaking apart and liquid resin pooling on the base and sometimes overflowing. I thought at first it was a one off but it started to happen regularly. In July, I reverted back to printing without "hollowing" and have spent a lot of time reprinting models I have had to throw away. Unfortunately, over the past week, I have had to throw away 20 completely finished models and I feel gutted what with all the time and effort I've put into finishing these. Here's a few examples:

Spoiler:

I had finished painting 5 of these Rough Riders and have ended up throwing all of them away :(



I had finished another "Red" Squadron of Rough Riders - I have 2 left. I'm too frightened to put them away as if they crack and leak, its almost impossible to clean up and if liquid resin goes on any other model, I have to throw that away as well :(



I loved painting these Solar Guard replacements but have had to throw away over 20 of these this week. I now have to find the files and reprint them and add them to my painting pile.



Although most of these look ok from afar, when you look at them closely, the jumpsuit has cracked and resin is starting to pour/dribble out of them (like a touch from Nurgle). So before they make a huge mess, I've removed and kept the bases and chucked them in the bin this morning.



This vox operator looks like he is so scared that he's wet himself



These look fine but have started to dribble. They've been de-based and thrown this morning.



Again, these look fine, but liquid resin has started to dribble so they have been flushed out of the nearest airlock.



I loved this model and really enjoyed painting him. I'm gutted that I have to throw him away.



And finally, this model has cracked in 2 places, so had to go.

I'm making light of what has happened but it's really upsetting when things like this happen. I'm trying not to dwell on how much time I have lost on these models and want to take this as a learning experience. I am now in the routine of checking all of my printed 3D resin models every morning to make sure I haven't got another model that needs to be thrown. Unfortunately, my "hollow" resin prints have been cracking over the past 6 months and as I have reprinted replacements, I stupidly put them in with the hollow ones - now I don't know which ones may crack in the future. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can prevent the already printed hollow models from cracking sometime in the future?

Please fell free to share any of your own modelling mishaps on this thread.

Wow. I feel your pain...
I just received similar solar guard replacements order from aliexpress, I do not know what resin they used to print em, how they cured them, but now I am a bit worried will these leak overtime too?
So what causes the leakage? And how to avoid it? I remember a warning to keep the models away from the sun light. (something about over curing, long exposure will crack) but leaking?

 Mothsniper wrote:

 philmorgan75 wrote:
Hi Everyone,

As the title suggests, I have been having a number of issues over the past few weeks that have almost made me cry. I started 3D resin printing last November and there has been a steep learning curve. I thought I could save myself some resin by "hollowing" out the models I was printing off. I spent a number of days and a number of bottles of resin and printed off lots of models over the past few months. Over time, I started to notice models breaking apart and liquid resin pooling on the base and sometimes overflowing. I thought at first it was a one off but it started to happen regularly. In July, I reverted back to printing without "hollowing" and have spent a lot of time reprinting models I have had to throw away. Unfortunately, over the past week, I have had to throw away 20 completely finished models and I feel gutted what with all the time and effort I've put into finishing these. Here's a few examples:

Spoiler:

I had finished painting 5 of these Rough Riders and have ended up throwing all of them away :(



I had finished another "Red" Squadron of Rough Riders - I have 2 left. I'm too frightened to put them away as if they crack and leak, its almost impossible to clean up and if liquid resin goes on any other model, I have to throw that away as well :(



I loved painting these Solar Guard replacements but have had to throw away over 20 of these this week. I now have to find the files and reprint them and add them to my painting pile.



Although most of these look ok from afar, when you look at them closely, the jumpsuit has cracked and resin is starting to pour/dribble out of them (like a touch from Nurgle). So before they make a huge mess, I've removed and kept the bases and chucked them in the bin this morning.



This vox operator looks like he is so scared that he's wet himself



These look fine but have started to dribble. They've been de-based and thrown this morning.



Again, these look fine, but liquid resin has started to dribble so they have been flushed out of the nearest airlock.



I loved this model and really enjoyed painting him. I'm gutted that I have to throw him away.



And finally, this model has cracked in 2 places, so had to go.

I'm making light of what has happened but it's really upsetting when things like this happen. I'm trying not to dwell on how much time I have lost on these models and want to take this as a learning experience. I am now in the routine of checking all of my printed 3D resin models every morning to make sure I haven't got another model that needs to be thrown. Unfortunately, my "hollow" resin prints have been cracking over the past 6 months and as I have reprinted replacements, I stupidly put them in with the hollow ones - now I don't know which ones may crack in the future. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can prevent the already printed hollow models from cracking sometime in the future?

Please fell free to share any of your own modelling mishaps on this thread.

Wow. I feel your pain...
I just received similar solar guard replacements order from aliexpress, I do not know what resin they used to print em, how they cured them, but now I am a bit worried will my models will leak overtime too?
So what causes the leakage? And how to avoid it? I remember a warning to keep the models away from the sun light. (something about over curing, long exposure will crack) but leaking?

The leaking is because the OP chose to hollow them, a reputable merchant shouldn't have hollowed those prints so they shouldn't leak.
Check my earlier post for more details.

As for sunlight its not a risk - you CANNOT overcure 3D printed models.
What IS true is that fully cured 3D print resin is often quite brittle (more so than many people appreciate, esp if they come from a background of PVC or GW plastics). Some designs are also honestly not well designed for resin and playable omdels and can feature very thin/fine details that can be impractical/risky in gaming.

 Overread wrote:

 Mothsniper wrote:

 philmorgan75 wrote:
Hi Everyone,

As the title suggests, I have been having a number of issues over the past few weeks that have almost made me cry. I started 3D resin printing last November and there has been a steep learning curve. I thought I could save myself some resin by "hollowing" out the models I was printing off. I spent a number of days and a number of bottles of resin and printed off lots of models over the past few months. Over time, I started to notice models breaking apart and liquid resin pooling on the base and sometimes overflowing. I thought at first it was a one off but it started to happen regularly. In July, I reverted back to printing without "hollowing" and have spent a lot of time reprinting models I have had to throw away. Unfortunately, over the past week, I have had to throw away 20 completely finished models and I feel gutted what with all the time and effort I've put into finishing these. Here's a few examples:

Spoiler:

I had finished painting 5 of these Rough Riders and have ended up throwing all of them away :(



I had finished another "Red" Squadron of Rough Riders - I have 2 left. I'm too frightened to put them away as if they crack and leak, its almost impossible to clean up and if liquid resin goes on any other model, I have to throw that away as well :(



I loved painting these Solar Guard replacements but have had to throw away over 20 of these this week. I now have to find the files and reprint them and add them to my painting pile.



Although most of these look ok from afar, when you look at them closely, the jumpsuit has cracked and resin is starting to pour/dribble out of them (like a touch from Nurgle). So before they make a huge mess, I've removed and kept the bases and chucked them in the bin this morning.



This vox operator looks like he is so scared that he's wet himself



These look fine but have started to dribble. They've been de-based and thrown this morning.



Again, these look fine, but liquid resin has started to dribble so they have been flushed out of the nearest airlock.



I loved this model and really enjoyed painting him. I'm gutted that I have to throw him away.



And finally, this model has cracked in 2 places, so had to go.

I'm making light of what has happened but it's really upsetting when things like this happen. I'm trying not to dwell on how much time I have lost on these models and want to take this as a learning experience. I am now in the routine of checking all of my printed 3D resin models every morning to make sure I haven't got another model that needs to be thrown. Unfortunately, my "hollow" resin prints have been cracking over the past 6 months and as I have reprinted replacements, I stupidly put them in with the hollow ones - now I don't know which ones may crack in the future. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can prevent the already printed hollow models from cracking sometime in the future?

Please fell free to share any of your own modelling mishaps on this thread.

Wow. I feel your pain...
I just received similar solar guard replacements order from aliexpress, I do not know what resin they used to print em, how they cured them, but now I am a bit worried will my models will leak overtime too?
So what causes the leakage? And how to avoid it? I remember a warning to keep the models away from the sun light. (something about over curing, long exposure will crack) but leaking?

The leaking is because the OP chose to hollow them, a reputable merchant shouldn't have hollowed those prints so they shouldn't leak.
Check my earlier post for more details.

As for sunlight its not a risk - you CANNOT overcure 3D printed models.
What IS true is that fully cured 3D print resin is often quite brittle (more so than many people appreciate, esp if they come from a background of PVC or GW plastics). Some designs are also honestly not well designed for resin and playable omdels and can feature very thin/fine details that can be impractical/risky in gaming.

Indeed you wrote about it. Lesson for me to read carefully, and thank you!

Thanks guys for your comments.

Snrub, I've never tried Anycubics Translucent Green resin before as I have only used Elegoo's Water washable Grey resin (the cheapest on Amazon I can find!!)

Shmvo, I'm glad your dog is well. Hopefully they have learnt that models are not snacks!!

Overread, Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience. I've already stopped hollowing out models as I can't face losing anymore completely finished models. As you say, 3D resin printing has a steep learning curve and you only learn from your mistakes. I haven't learnt how to add any drainage holes and as you say, for horses and soldiers, there is no point. I have got a couple of Stationforge vehicles to print off BUT I think my Mars 2 Pro build plate is to small to print of Heavy Battle Tanks and proxy-Valkyries. My settings seem to be dialed in and printing well, so I don't plan on playing around with lift height and exposure. I'm happy to press "print", get on with some painting or modelling and to then come back in a few hours to a (hopefully) perfect print.

Flinty, good idea on the mini UV LED but as above, I don't think my Mars 2 pro build plate is big enough for vehicles. I also have a huge backlog in printed and undercoated resin models - I'm losing around 3 undercoated for every 1 painted model at the moment. I've started to reprint the failed models in solid resin, so hopefully in the future, I won't have this problem again.

Vulcan - Ouch. Hopefully you didn't have to repaint many models before you realised you had a primer and not varnish.

The Power Cosmic, that sounds logical.

Mothsniper, I have bought from Aliexpress and DHGate in the past and as Overread said they have always been solid resin and have never leaked.

Update time:

In the past 2 days, I have thrown out:



The armoury wall section on the right of this photo had leaked but luckily, they hadn't leaked onto any of my completed Kill Team plastic space hulk corridors. Both Armoury sections needed to be thrown. All of my "scatter" medic equipment have been quarantined and stored nowhere near anything else in case they leak in the future.



Arnie's rear left shoulder exploded and he is now wading through liquid resin in the bin :(

I think Mars are great printers to start with, but once you want to print tanks/mechs and such then you want to start considering a 9inch build plate - so the likes of Phrozen Mighty; Elegoo Saturn and similar sized printers which make things like dragons, tanks, titans and such a LOT more practical to print with.

 Overread wrote:
I think Mars are great printers to start with, but once you want to print tanks/mechs and such then you want to start considering a 9inch build plate - so the likes of Phrozen Mighty; Elegoo Saturn and similar sized printers which make things like dragons, tanks, titans and such a LOT more practical to print with.

Thanks Overread. I'd love to have a bigger build plate but unless I win the lottery in the near future, it won't be something I can do.

In the meantime, here's some more leaking resin models I found today and binned:



Starting in the top left, some Lunar Auxilia being crucified, 10 Print Mini Electric Priests and Adeptus Mechanicus like figures, a Stationforge figure, a Red Pilgrim Tallarn Rough Rider and a Print Mini Man and dog.



Starting from the top left, some free models from Cults 3D, some Inquisitor Retinue from Red Pilgrim, multiple Tallarn from Red Pilgrim, a print mini casualty and Papsikel Colonial Marines and Resistance fighters.

I think it's easier (but expensive) to stop painting my resin models for a few months and just print everything out again :(

I think it’s Definately a good idea to take this as a learning experience and start over. I also don’t see any models there that really need to be hollowed. Make life easier for yourself and just print them as solid

Also make sure everything just sits in the sun and gets UV blasted before throwing it out

Jeez, this is heartbreaking - it looks as though you've done a really nice job with the painting on these models, only to see it all ruined. I've had weird things happen with lead figures (like the metal eventually crumbling away under the paint) and plastic figures (like limbs suddenly snapping off because of huge air bubbles inside). 3-D printing seems to have a lot of traps for the unwary.