3D Resin Printing for Beginners - Common & Uncommon Tools You Need

Hi, this is Naomi with Sword and Steel and I got a 3D printer without getting out of these things and learned pretty quickly that I could get nowhere. Now, if you don't want to listen to why I think you should use all of these items, then you can just check them out for yourself in the description below. I have them all there with timestamps. All right, first things first, access to fresh air. I have got to say this because back in the winter when I got my Mars 3 from Elegoo, they gave me water-based resin as well because I hadn't had any resin printing experience before and they thought that would be easier for me since you can rinse your prints in water instead of in alcohol, but I found that even using a mask, even having ventilators, the water-based resin was too smelly. It just got in my hair, it got in my clothes. I felt nauseous. I could not continue in the middle of winter. I wanted to open my big window and let some of it out, but the resin, any of the kinds of resin for the 3D printing it seems, only works in 20 to 25 degree weather, which means even if I was okay wearing a winter jacket and opening that window behind me, I could not because the resin wouldn't have worked. I decided to wait until summertime to continue so I could open that window behind me and they sent me instead a plant-based resin which has to be washed with alcohol, but the fumes do not make one nauseous. You can barely smell it. I still use the mask and I keep my window wide open as well as air purifiers and a fan, but I find it a lot easier to use. So, fresh air. I cannot stress it enough. Make certain you're prepared because you need it. That's why it's number one. Number two, you have to rinse your resin models. If you're using the water-based resin, then all you need is water, but if you're using this plant-based resin, you're going to need isopropyl alcohol, 99%. This is a 500 ml bottle and I grabbed four of these and I think four is a great starting point, so two liters. It's quite cheap, so this definitely shouldn't be the reason for you not to go into the alcohol washable resins. Otherwise, there will be excess resin on it and when you go ahead and cure, which I'm going to get to shortly, when you go ahead and cure your resin models, you can just have... It's like putting too much paint on a model. It's not going to work. You need to rinse them off and you rinse them off with the alcohol, which brings me to the next thing that you need. Glass containers for your baths. You could use jewelry cleaners. I have my own jewelry cleaner over there. I like the jewelry cleaner because it shakes it about yourself, but use something to clean your models. You're going to need something, and I would suggest glass, then the alcohol isn't going to do anything to it, or the resin. You use glass containers. It's better that they're deep rather than wide, or at least for, like, if you have a small blue built plate like mine, it's just easier if you have a deep rather than wide, because you're going to have all the small models in there, and it means that you require less of this. We'll also want to seal the container so that it doesn't evaporate. And then number four are the tongs. Nice silicone tipped tongs. Number five is a freezer. When you are printing models with your 3D resin printer, you may find that you can't get it off the build plate. So far, I haven't been able to get most every model off the build plate by myself. So thankfully, a patron who was paying attention to my woes when I was chatting with them on our discord, suggested putting your build plate in its entirety into a freezer and letting it freeze, and that will allow you to take the models off your build plate. And that has worked for me, so you're going to need a freezer. Now, I happen to have a freezer that doesn't have any food or drink or anything in it, but most people wouldn't. So what I would suggest is getting freezer bags to put your build plate into so there's no fumes of the resin, right, wandering around your freezer. That probably wasn't good. So freezer bags, put your build plate with the models where you can't get off of it into the freezer bag, zip it up, put it into the freezer overnight, come back, and they may actually be off all by themselves. Or you'll at least have an easier time getting it off that build plate. I did double check with Elegoo whether their build plate could tolerate that kind of cold and the resin could tolerate that kind of cold, and they have assured me that that won't be a problem. So that is what I suggest if, when, not if, but when, you have trouble getting your models off a build plate. Of course, you're going to need some gloves. It was suggested to me to use nitrile gloves, N-I-T-R-I-L-E gloves. At some point, you're going to have to put any excess resin back into the bottle. You're going to have to use a funnel or you should probably grab a funnel. Could make your own funnel. I did so by taking a plastic bottle and cutting it off and then the little filter fits into the plastic bottle and you're perfectly fine. But you're going to need to protect your fingers and your hands from the resin at some point, particularly if you have to take the resin plate off and take fails off the bottom of that zip. And you don't want the resin, which is a toxic chemical, on your hands soon. So one of the most important things is a UV light curing station. You can purchase those. And really, all you want to make certain is that you have a source of UV light and something that spins your miniature around while it's under the UV light. And Elegoo says that no matter the size of your model, three to five minutes under UV light will do it. You can put it out under the sun, technically speaking. That will work for anyone who's in a sunny place, I suppose. For anyone who's in the cloudy all the time place, never know how long it's going to take. I followed this very handy guide, which I'll put in the description below. Hickory created it as per his instructions with this light. If anyone does try the sunlight and they are quite happy with it, you should let us know in the comments below. That is what you need. Now, there is one other thing. The Mars 3 printer that Elegoo sent me came with a USB drive and on that USB drive came the Chitubox software. I believe it's just free to get online. It was available on the USB, but I'm pretty certain it's free to get online, download that, and it is user friendly. Just like the printer is quite new user friendly, so is this software. But you do need to figure out how to use it because that is where you will scale your models, rotate models, place it in a particular area so that the printer knows where to print your models. Slice your models, hollow out your models, and put supports onto your models to print with if your STL files didn't come with supports already added to the model. And that should be all the tools that you need to turn your STL file into a 3D printed model. Quick tip, print something small more as you're learning rather than something big. Being printed upside down, you'll get better faster to start off with small models. Learn from experience and that is what the next video about 3D printing will be about. Quick little tips to make it easier your first, I don't know, 24 hours printing. What to avoid in the first 24 hours in printing because I probably did all the mistakes, so you don't have to. I will catch you in the next video. I hope you found this useful. Make sure to like and subscribe if you did find it useful. I will not be printing all the time because I honestly just prefer using other people's models. And it is a simple process, but I find it a bit tedious. However, it is absolutely a tool that I will be using in the future because custom models are definitely a great idea. And I'm a dungeon master, so if I could print out the exact model that I needed, I will absolutely be doing that. So you will be seeing it in the future. And make certain if you had any questions whatsoever about 3D printing, comment below so I can answer them in future videos. If you are a 3D printing pro and you're laughing at me right now, the horrors that I am going through that you probably went through as well, make certain to comment below and make everyone's life a little bit easier with your knowledge. Catch you in the next video. Bye.