If you have followed me for any time, you know I am big into the 3d printing hobby, with a Prusa i3MK3s FDM printer. I use it extensively, for pretty much anything quick that I need to either print or design. I have featured more than a few large builds, including terrain, star ships, and dungeon tiles. In the past, I have also tried to fine tune it for gaming miniatures, but honestly have never been satisfied. The level of tweaking and adjustments, and the print times involved, just make FDM impractical for fine detail at the scale needed for miniatures.
Of course, the answer over the last few years has been Resin Printers, for which the resolution and detail starts at the level a FDM printer stops. Unfortunately, resin printers bring a whole new list of challenges and processes, not the least of which is a strong smell of fumes, and toxic materials, plus the added costs of supplies. As a result, I was reluctant to dive into the resin pool for quite a long time.
As of yesterday, that has changed, with a brand new Elegoo Mars 2 Pro printer in my hands. Since the various materials arrived, I wasted no time to setting it up and starting my first prints. Although I certainly have a learning curve to work thru, thus far I have been very happy with the results. The demo models of course printed flawlessly – they are professionally curated to work exactly as intended. But even my first attempts at custom miniatures was very successful – although I did have some challenges with both bed adhesion and “mutated” models. And they are delicate enough that I ended up breaking a few of the pieces, or mangling the miniature bases most of the time. But the detail is definitely there, and easily surpasses what I had managed to do in the past with FDM.
The hazards are still present, but I had done my research and am taking the process carefully. Safety glasses, gloves, and lots of paper towels, on top of a plastic sheet covering the work surface. So far, the only chemical spill has been IPA, which wasnt bad, but I expect it is just a matter of time until I spill resin. My process is fairly simple, print the models, then transfer the entire print arm and bed into the washing station. Wash for a bit, then separate the model, and wash again. Let it air dry, then time in the UV cooker. Total processing time, given various other distractions, is perhaps an hour in total.
I am rather happy that I made the jump – I can now experiment with a whole new field, and the speed of printing is rather impressive for the results.
