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.

Howdy folks,

Finally got around to 3D printing my first thing on my new Mono SE.

The reason I say "hopefully not last" is because the fumes were a real issue. I used Anycubic's eco resin, the Mono SE has filters in it, and I did it in a pretty large room next to an open window with the fan blowing the fumes out and it still got to me, making me feel nauseous while sitting on the other side of the room. So I'm going to need to figure out the fumes, maybe build a large box / small room outside the house or some sort of enclosure, not sure at this point! So I won't be printing again until I have that sorted out.

I did have a few issues, I wonder if you guys can give some thoughts. This is what I printed...





So a few issues that came up...

1. I printed directly on the print bed, as that's how the models were provided and the creator recommended. But I noticed near the build plate the model looks bent, as you can kind of see in the 2nd image highlighted by red lines (the model was in 3 pieces and the 3 sections don't quite line up). Should I be using a platform to above the build plate? Is this normal when printing directly on the build plate, or do I have a setup issue? It was actually super easy to remove from the built plate because the edges had lifted a fraction of a millimeter from the build plate, enough for me to get a spatula under it and it just popped off.

2. I got the typical "elephant foot" thing happening, though it was much worse than I was expecting, is my bottom layer exposure too high or is that just typical? Also it's worse on one side than the other, it almost looks as though something shifted because the first few layers are curved.

3. In the first image I put an arrow pointing to one of 6 beams under the roof, that should have been a square beam but the bottom is cropped off at an angle, does that mean the beam needs an extra support? The beam was ever so slightly canted upwards, so there was no "island", but none the less it didn't print properly. A few of the window ledges are similar, having a sharper angle than was in the original STL like they didn't print properly.

4. Because of the above (bits not printing as per the STL) should I drain and filter the resin before printing something else in case there's something floating around in the vat? Or is it generally fine to start another print?

5. Some people said to post cure the resin for as long as as necessary to make the model no longer tacky, but that took quite a long time, I think I cured it for 15 to 20 minutes in the end (using the Wash and Cure 2.0 station), turning it over every few minutes. The area that was touching the build plate especially remained tacky for a long time, and even now it's still giving off a resin-like smell, does that indicate it's not fully cured? I heard some people talking about curing models in a glass of water, maybe that'd be better?

Cheers!

Great job and you will learn as you go. Here are my experiences...

1. You will find what print angle works best and I hardly ever print directly on the bed. Maybe if I had a flex plate I would feel differently, but if you use the angled skate support bases you can get right underneath easy and pry off. This eliminates the elephants foot, just need to use a combo of light/medium and heavy supports, as needed. Under normal prints if you did not have a slightly lifted corner you would have gone mad trying to get it off of the plate. Since it did lift, I might recommend lengthening the exposure time of the first few layers that adhere to the plate - sure that will increase your elephant's foot, but normally you are not building directly on the plate (unless it works for you!) As far as the other issue, make totally sure your plate is levelled. I found when I would pry off pieces while holding the plate handle would shift it just enough to get an uneven print on the next run, or a failed print entirely. Once I started to hold the plate itself when scraping I found I almost never need to relevel.
2. Learn supports and how they attach to the plate and the model. You want to rely on your own supports and not pre-supported stuff that will invariably not work perfectly for you.
3. One trick I learned long ago for my Mars and my Saturn was to turn off the fan when it was not actively printing. Even with filters, the fan blowing always when the machine is on will force out some fumes. There is a really easy code fix for Elegoo machines to only have the fan running when it is printing, not continually when the machine is on and it was a big help for me, but not sure about the Anycubic.
4. I found the Anycubic resin among the worst smelling, but that was not their eco resin. Experiment with some others and I found the Siraya Tech Simple about the best in this regard and was very sad to see the price go up dramatically over the past few months.
5. After each print it is a good idea to lightly scrape the vat with your plastic spatula to see if anything is stuck. If so, or you see some broken parts from your print, then a quick pour of the resin through a paper filter strainer back into the bottle is usually all that is needed. I will keep the same resin in the vat for a while if doing various jobs and give a good stir with the plastic spatula before running a job. I made a thin plastic sheet to cover the vat between prints and unless you already have a vat cover that you can use, cut anything out of cardboard or whatever to cover your vat between runs and no need to empty out after each print. In your example above, it might be good to strain your vat, since you may have an odd piece floating around if the print did not come out with pieces and edges exactly as planned.
6. Make sure to do a print exposure test for each resin you use - it will make sure you are curing adequately during the run. Your post cure time will depend on the power of the UV lights you have. If your model is overly sticky before final cure, then one of two things - It was not properly cleaned in IPA, or is was under cured during printing and the print exposure time needs to be lengthened. After you wash your parts in IPA and allow to try, they should NOT be tacky, but only slightly soft to the touch - there should not be any 'shine' to the piece. Cure as long as you need to get a proper finished piece, and again that depends on your UV lights - mine is a 60w array of 9 lights in a foil lined container and takes about 2-3 minutes per side. The cured piece might have only a super slight smell, but no longer of resin - they should end up very inert and hard. If a trace of scent lingers I have washed in warm soap and water and that removes any lingering smell. If you still have an odor, the curing was not done fully.
7. Also make sure to use hollow and drain holes to save on resin. You can save the drilled hole if needed to plug the hole, if desired, or put at the bottom/hidden spot on the piece. Be sure to rinse out in IPA all of the resin inside or you will get a continual leak and smell.

You will have a blast and I genuinely wish you luck and fun!

Long post incoming (but its chock full of neat information and links and stuff )


1) Exposure Settings.
https://atlas3dss.com/learn

Head to the Atlas site, scroll down a little and download the Amerlabs Town print. Open it up, leave it as is and slice it then print it. When printed, get it off the build plate (it tends to stick quite well) and then wash it and then let it dry. Do NOT cure it. Keep your gloves on when handling anything in an uncured state.

Take a photo of all 4 sides and the top. The link above has a video that can help you start reading it and posting the photos in any good 3D printer forum/facebook/discord should have people able to give further advice. Remember to post your settings, printer and resin alongside the photos of course.

2) Base/bottom exposure settings. These are typically 10X your regular exposure time and the number of layers you need depends on your layer height and the thickness of the raft for your supports. Essentially you need at least 0.2mm in depth of base/bottom/burn layers and then make up the rest of the depth of your raft, plus a little bit more, in transitional layers. That's the rough theory for getting decent bottom layers setup.

As you can see a thicker raft or thinner layer height would result in more layers. The transitional layers help ease the resin from the long bottom time to the regular short exposure time and save your screen a bit of lifespan over just using all one base layer exposure.

As you can see this is setup for the idea of a raft (rafts typically being between around 0.3 and 0.5mm thick). I've less experience setting up for printing directly on the build plate.


2) Elephants Foot Calibration. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rEUyR9yoBI&t=586s

That video details how you can calibrate your printer to deal with the elephants foot issue and it can get to very accurate compensation values. Of course I would recommend getting yourself setup for regular printing first and getting your core settings calibrated (step 1) before moving on.

3) MDSW mentions scraping the bottom of the FEP every time you print to make sure nothing is on there. Personally I'd only do that if I've had a failure on the print and even then I'd not bother with that today as it doesn't generally do the fep any good. Instead watch this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKzkQZOczVI

If you get a fail basically use that method to clean the VAT and FEP in one quick and easy go. It's a LOT less hassle and faff than having to drain out the resin and peel stuff off the fep manually. You will hardly use any resin with this method and its so quick and easy and just makes things ever so much easier. Esp when you are getting started and might well have more failures than normal.

3) The sagging you identify is something that I'd resolve with some light/medium supports under the structure, if you keep to the orientation you're showing. The issue you've got there is a big flat surface in parallel with the build plate and FEP. That generally is where you'll get the most pulling forces and thus the greatest chance of things being pulled out of shape or pulled off the build plate entirely. That's why many people will angle prints to avoid a big flat surface.

4) With regard to cooling I agree - blast it with UV until it is cured. In general it will lose its tacky feeling and own't scratch to a knife edge easily and then its cured. There is a "de gasing" phase though which is often overlooked. I know that my own prints I'm certainly looking at similar curing times to what you've experienced and then I tend to leave them on the windowsill for a day or so.

Note that you cannot over-cure resin*. What happens is that resin cures to its final stable solid state; its just that its also brittle in that state and some people try to under-cure a bit to reduce that effect. Technically this isn't good because they are then handling uncured resin

5) I'll put this in as you've started with buildings - if you want too hollow any model do NOT hollow unless you can put at least a 5mm hole into it. You need two holes minimum for draining and one hole has to be early in the print to counter the suction forces generated by a hollow area on the FEP. However if you can't get at least 5mm holes its not worth it. Smaller holes won't drain out well if at all; they won't flush out resin and IPA during washing and they won't let you get any light up inside. That means you'll have uncured resin inside which will eventually react with the cured resin and crack the model open. If you can't get big enough holes in chances are whatever you are saving in resin by hollowing is just such a tiny amount its not worth it (and asides if the tiny drain holes fail that means you've got a wasted print so that's the entire print wasted for trying to save a tiny bit of resin).

6) For fumes an enclosure does fantastic work at containing them. Resin fumes are nasty things and you want at least a half face mask (covers mouth and nose) rated to filter organic particles. If you feel worse then a full face mask.

7) For enclosures you can make or buy one - I'd recommend whatever you do make an insulated enclosure to lock in both fumes and heat. If you enclose the printer you can then also put air filters into it (Elegoo make a pair of air filters that work pretty well) and you can also put a duct pipe on to duct the air out of the printer and enclosure and into the outside world. So that can really help cut down on dangerous fumes from the printer.

8) Get yourself at least one, if not two, digital thermometers that record both current temp and log the min and max temps over time. They aren't too expensive and they mean that you can monitor your printing environment over long periods of time. One thing people have issues with is temperature, resins need at least 20C to work well (some need more but they often state it on the package/site). Any lower and things start to fail. So monitoring temps is important, esp overnight or if you duct the printer to an outside environment (esp if you put a little fan in the duct to help blow the air from the printer to the outside).

Have a read here if you have issues with things getting too cold.
https://printhunter.org/2021/12/20/resin-3d-printing-and-temperature/


If things get too hot (I see you are in Australia) then things can also start failing, so if you've got a normal resin (ergo min 20C) chances are things will start failing/having issues once you push past 30C or so (again varies a bit resin to resin)



*ok technically you can because eventually UV degradation would set in, but you are going into vast extremes there.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh and just a point on eco resins and such - because the marketing does not make mention of it and its often glossed over.


ANY kind of resin is bad for you/the environment when in its uncured state. If its liquid or part cured its bad. That means wearing your ppe (nitrile gloves; facemask; eye protection) when working with liquid and uncured models. It means any materials (towels, surfaces, etc....) that come into contact with resin in that state requires curing before disposal (leave it in the sun).

IT also means any liquids also need proper disposal. Even Water Washable resins require the contaminated water to be processed before disposal. Typically just leaving the water in the sunlight to evaporate off and then the residue can be left to be cured before disposing.
Regular resins washed with IPA are the same, with the bonus that IPA evaporates much faster.

Many eco resins make a lot of boasting about being low odour but that doesn't mean they aren't giving off dangerous fumes just because you can't smell them