My Creality Halot One is nifty.

If you’re not ready to handle the mess and challenges of resin, you may be much happier with a filament printer. Unless you are doing it for the figurines.

What do you want to make? This will have a large impact on what is best for you.

It’s very much down to what you want to make. If you want to do models and miniatures, anything with very high detail, SLA is a must.

If like me you want larger more practical applications, looking for strength over aesthetics FDM is the way to go. I’m not saying you can’t get nice looking prints from FDM you can but you can’t get that same level of detail in intricacies.

Now as for what’s a good one? we really need to see you budget before answering that.

Not many resin peeps here.

Try r/resinprinting

Elegoo Mars or Saturn

Rule 3

Good and cheap printer is anycubic photon mono. It is reliable, easy to use and has great looking prints.

If you want extra detail, you can search for some printer with 4k monochromatic display.

Monochromatic display is big plus for SLA printer because it cures resin quicker and generates less heat. You will get longer lifetime of your printer and more prints in shorter time than with colour display.

Try JLC3DP, maybe they will give you a better price.

Hobbiest SLS printers exist and I'm surprised some of y'all haven't gotten them yet seeing hous y'all spend thousands of dollars on parts. Adam Savage from mythbusters has a lot of videos on his nylon SLS printers on TESTED. It's incredible.

I actually just saw someone in the Nylaug chats had the parts printed in SLS. They looked incredible.

Don’t wanna share the video on his behalf, but geez I’m jealous of people with access to SLS as an option.

Sovol SV04 is an option.

Its an IDEX, so you have two independantly moving hotends.

You cant mix colors, but you can use two different colors or even materials without having to waste a ton of material while purging.

You can also print two items at once, mirrored or copied, build volume is 30/*30/*40cm, comes with a leveling probe and works fine and reliable if you set it up correctly.

That beeing said, getting both toolheads to perfectly align and everything to be tuned takes some time but its rewarding as hell.

I think also an advantage is that you can switch between different material types more easily, like using both TPU and PLA in a single print.

Costs like 300-400 bucks, the firmware is also a bit tricky.

If you have an engineer mindset think about trying it, if not id definetly stay away from it and go for a bambu printer(though theire more expensive and have other pros/cons)

Creality's K2 has a 300mm bed size and I've heard good reviews.

If you go 250mm Anycubic Kobra S1 was less than $1000 with their AMS.

If you are looking to not overspend, going from a 25cm cube to a 30cm cube basically doubles the price.

Bambu Lab H2D checks all those boxes.

Hard to answer without more details here:

• What budget do you have
• What materials are you printing
• What build size do you need
• Which features are important for you

There's only 2 Creality resin printers and they are pretty similar in size and price, just that the expensive one is a mono screen and is slightly larger in build area. Are you sure you will be able to print what you want in the build size of either?

The 500g bottle of resin that came with my Anycubic Photon was absolutely horrible. Prints sticking to the FEP all the time, supports snapping of models mid-print, delaminated layers,...

I tried every trick in the book. Some improved things a little bit, but nothing fixed the problem...until I started running low on resin and got a new one. Suddenly all the issues just vanished.

If I knew it was the resin I probably wouldn't buy another Anycubic bottle again. But I did and it worked pretty fine. Not sure what was up with the first one. The one thing I can identify for sure is that it's a lot thicker than any other resin I've had. Maybe a bad batch, maybe it was improperly stored. Or maybe just old - unlike all the other bottles I've had since, that one doesn't have any manufacturing/best before dates.

​

Besides the fail in a bottle I've tried Anycubic grey, Siraya Fast grey, Elegoo grey.

The Siraya one can do normal layers in 5-6 seconds no problem. Very support friendly - even very thin ones don't snap easily. A bit more work with cleaning for sure, but worth the pretty much nonexistent scarring. The downside is that it's not as good at doing tiny angular details as the others. It tends to round edges a little bit. Also is quite a bit more expensive

Anycubic is a bit of an opposite. Very thin supports tend to fail, requires thicker ones. Also longer curing times. On the other hand even those are super easy to clean. Most times all I have to do is pull on the mini and it comes right off. Well, the resin is quite fragile. So supports sometimes snap off during print too...and gotta be careful with thin parts. Amazing with angular details and vey cheap.

Elegoo came as a major surprise after trying those two. That thing has no business being so good while so cheap. Combines most advantages of both the previous. Quick curing times, works with thin supports. Not as fragile as Anycubic, but slightly more than Siraya. Does angular details perfectly and the lowest increase in print size (compared to the digital 3D model). Haven't experienced with temperatures, but the bottle says 20-25 Celsius is best. Both the others state 25-30. Summer's ending so the lower temperature requirement will come in handy.

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Other resins with very promising ratings and experiences of friends I'd like to try - Siraya Sculpt, Siraya Blu, Ameralabs AMD-3 LED, Phrozen Model resin.

I just switched from Elegoo Rapid Resin to Siraya Fast and have been very impressed. The smell isn’t as bad and (the reason I switched) it isn’t nearly as brittle so my minis don’t break as easy.

Siraya also has Sculpt which is supposed to be good for detail and Blu which is for strength. I buy mine off Amazon.

I just bought anycubic soy based resin and it was surprisingly good. Less smell, very good result.

Siraya tech has been good to me at least.

If you can afford it, siraya blu is one of the best in my opinion!

Phrozen sonic mini with metal vat and improved buildplate, no doubt.

r/resinprinting

Also, comparing a .047 XY-res screen to a .062mm XY-res print: https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/ghd4gw/fhd_1080_vs_2k_resolution_lcd_screen_3d_print/

Sonic Mini is cool for some things, but if you're printing miniatures go with something like the Mars so you don't have to do much post sanding.

My must-haves:

A ventilated enclosure for the printer. A cheap pop-up one from Amazon will work great. Resin fumes are nasty.

Silicone mats for the floor and your work-surface. Incredibly easy cleaning in the inevitable event of a spill or unwanted drippage.

A bunch of cheap, clear containers for storing dirty IPA from cleaning. Let the mixture settle, then leave it outside for the sun to cure the resin, then strain to reclaim some of the alcohol. Will save you major money over time.

A solid hex-driver set. You will eventually have to replace the film on your vat, and it can be really tedious and frustrating without good tools.

If you're setting up in a cool area, some kind of heating element to keep the resin flowing. I use a little heat band intended for home beer brewing that goes around the outside of the vat. It keeps the resin warm-ish but not hot.

U/maybeonename hit all the big ones but here are a couple more from my experience:

Ok so this is pretty basic but I'm amazed how many people skip out on them, Gloves.

Nitrile or neoprene not latex. Resin can be seriously nasty stuff and it makes you more sensitive to it the more you come in contact with it.

Some little droppers like you would find in a highschool science room: Fill one with alcohol and you can blast out the hollows on your print or any nooks the bath is struggling with over a container.

wish I had friends like yours, no one has ever gifted me a 3d printer! I use Lychee Slicer btw, I think it's great