We have a UV cure cube, but often I just cure under a $20 amazon desktop UV light.
What is that? Why is it better?
Why it's better is a little complicated and maybe not all one-way.
Definitely there are a lot of difficulties inherent in the way the lcd type has to move the part for every layer and fight a lot of suction every time, damaging a film that needs to stay optically perfect, frothing up the resin with bubbles yet another source of optical defects.
Maybe the laser machines have their own problems but not having to move the part (or move it much less and in a different less violent way) and not having to physically abuse an optical part has to make some difference.
Don't go with Formlabs, support any of the open-platform alternatives.
And also, be aware that these printers require some serious development work (you need solvent to wash away uncured resin (if you ask me, this basically necessitates a chemical hood... Formlabs will happily upsell the "Form Wash" for this for another 699). If uncured resin falls on your floor (which has happened to me a little too many times), boy is it a horror cleaning it up even if you have industrial grade solvents; FDM printers are easier and their "ink" is much, much less expensive by comparison.
My gut would say economically/technologically prohibitive but a low throughput table top recycler seems like a great way to reduce my recyclable garbage.
From a professional perspective, this gives you access to a bunch of different materials that open up all kinds of options for prototyping.
You can even prototype your designs at home with FDM and send the final file to a company to do the resin prints.
That said, I just noticed Costco online has some FDM stuff, which I think is a pretty exciting development, so if I have any money to spend on 3d printing stuff in the near future, I'll probably spend it there. :)
Resin printers, basically, are stereolithographic. They:
- dip the build plate (upside down) into a thin tray of resin
- push it all the way onto onto a screen at the bottom of the tray
- blast that screen with UV through a translucent LCD display that contains a mask image of the current "slice" of the whole plate, enough that the thin layer of resin partly cures
- lift the plate out of the resin so it peels off the screen and the resin replenishes below it
- repeat, with the next slice.
- then the whole model is taken out by hand, washed off, blasted with UV light to completely cure it, and the (more or less inevitable) supports snipped off.
So instead of printing line by line, the entire plate prints layer by layer — a small print takes (approximately) the same time as a full plate.
There are several big differences, notably that it is single-colour, much higher resolution, the various peel/adhesion forces are managed differently, larger parts need to be hollow with a vent so uncured resin drains out, most resin prints are quite brittle, and the whole process is traditionally really rather cytotoxic.
There are eco resins, tough resins, and printers that do a better job of not being chemically evil; this is one.
I've stayed away from it, because it's not the kind of printing I need (for all except one part that I might end up subcontracting) and because it is chemically nastier than b/w darkroom printing, which until now has been about my limit of risk.
The above is a bit of an oversimplification but it covers the main differences I think (happy to have corrections/additional comments)
https://formlabs.com/uk/blog/ultimate-guide-to-stereolithogr...
The accuracy was great. They'd hold up. Printing took a while, but generally pretty solid as we scaled from in-house to full lab setup. They're great as resin printers go.
Pretty cool.
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/formlabs-form-studio-...
Then cure using a UV LED strip (5m w USB plug ~2 EUR) inside an empty can (another 2-5 EUR) and a solar-powered rotating base [2].
The light from the LEDs is cures as well as powers the base. All four will set you back less than 50 EUR.
[1] https://aliexpress.com/item/1005010131053964.html [2] https://aliexpress.com/item/1005012796313088.html
That said, if you do spend the extra for this along with the wash/cure and the voc extractor, the demos are really impressive. It seems like this printer is blazing fast, for single color prints it will print basically anything at better resolution than an FDM in <2 hours, whereas FDM could take anywhere from 4-12+ for a similar part with bigger layer lines.
Resin is extremely toxic and requires a dedicated area and handling and care.
(Not replying to you directly, but generally to this thread)
Just buy an open source version from China that has the necessary hardware in an open format and let Claude adjust the software if there are concerns.
References and links?
There is currently no open source version of the high resolution monochrome LCDs. The LCDs and their drivers lock you into the Chitu ecosystem.
The problem, as Chitu figured out, is that as soon as you cough up the NRE to make the LCDs and make it publicly available, EVERYBODY will copy you and then there will be no profit left to sink the NRE that you just spent.
I don't think that Formlabs locks you into their wash and cure stations. Some of their printers lock you into their resin, but it looks like the Form Studio 1 discussed above and the Form 3, 3L, 4, and 4L let you use resin of your choice, although the Studio 1 does require you to buy a special $80 tray.
I would posit from the the getgo the average joe shouldn't consider resin printers, they should opt for FDM printers, because with FDM printers when the printer finishes printing a part... that's it! You more or less just pick it up from the printbed and there you have it... with resin printers, you -HAVE- to wash away the surrounding uncured resin. So, sure, it doesn't lock you into the wash and cure station, but doing it manually is an absolute chore any which way and chances of getting gooey resin on your hands, your clothes, your furniture goes way up and it is the most profoundly annoying thing when it does.
Try out a resin printer at your local makerspace to see what they're all about and the work that's required to print a part and develop it with solvents; for yourself get an FDM printer, they're plenty good enough for the average joe.
How many months before it develops, on average?
You actually would probably want the wash/cure and VOC extractor upgrades so it's more like 1200$ before it's useful, but if you have the clean room space and ability to handle the toxic resin, functionally resin printing is typically better than fdm for single color prints.
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3D-printed, alcohol-powered, Einstein-Szilard absorption refrigerator https://youtu.be/doZ5e4YVdEs?si=WNiw0_R7efE6M_jM