I have been doing a lot of FDM for the past 10 years, but a few years ago, for FOMO reasons, I got really hyped up about resin printing. I got an Elegoo Mars and a very large expensive Chinese resin printer that I never got to work.
I ran into three problems that I was not able to overcome, even after tons of trial and error:
- Warping. With ABS, a heated chamber, ABS slurry, heated glass bed, completely solved all warping. With resin, I was unable to predict or fix warping issues.
- Model not sticking to the bed. Behaviour was inconsistent. With a good printer like the Form, that is probably not a problem. With FDM, having an all metal printer, with a glass bed and a good Z probe solved this for good.
- Mechanical performance was garbage. Very brittle.
- Always needing supports. With FDM, if you fully control the design process, you can completely eliminate supports (at least in my case, of course this imposes design constraints). With resin, you always need supports. The supports are more complex and harder to remove.
I still think resin may be the future, because the level of detail with resin is just amazing.
I ran into three problems that I was not able to overcome, even after tons of trial and error:
- Warping. With ABS, a heated chamber, ABS slurry, heated glass bed, completely solved all warping. With resin, I was unable to predict or fix warping issues.
- Model not sticking to the bed. Behaviour was inconsistent. With a good printer like the Form, that is probably not a problem. With FDM, having an all metal printer, with a glass bed and a good Z probe solved this for good.
- Mechanical performance was garbage. Very brittle.
- Always needing supports. With FDM, if you fully control the design process, you can completely eliminate supports (at least in my case, of course this imposes design constraints). With resin, you always need supports. The supports are more complex and harder to remove.
I still think resin may be the future, because the level of detail with resin is just amazing.