RESIN PRINTING VS FILAMENT PRINTING | WHICH IS BETTER?

After experiencing both Resin and FDM printers, these are the PROs and CONs of both printers!

[pat]

You just talked me out of this completely. 😂

[justintime]

I enjoy painting busts and miniatures so resin was an easy choice. I have seen some pretty incredible quality from FDM printers but they are at best slightly worse than the worst resin printer and the amount of black magic you have to do to get those kinds of results is intense. With a resin printer you pretty much level your build plate one time and then you don't have to do it again unless you replace your fep or drop the plate on the ground. The mess is real with resin though. You need to have your work space dialed in quite well and there are a lot of random things that you didn't think you needed that you end up having to buy. My mars 2 pro was about $250 but I ended up spending close to $650 with all of the other random shit I had to buy.... funnels, trays, washing station, IPA, microfiber cloths, squeegees, strainers for the resin, gloves, photochemical bottles to store mixes of resin, spray bottles... etc. Its a lot of stuff! And some of these things are recurring costs as mentioned in the video. Gloves, Resin and IPA specifically are the three big ones.

Resin has some pretty unfortunate mechanical properties too. Its much more brittle than PLA although I found some sunlu nilon-like resin that is incredible... but still nowhere near the flexibility and durability of PLA... making mechanical parts out of resin is much more difficult simply because of those material properties. So I would say if you're interested in making mechanisms or parts that are going to have to take a lot of punishment and you don't need crazy detail then you should go with a filament printer. If you are making art pieces then resin is a no brainer.

Edit: one thing I didn't mention is the size constraints. Even the smallest fdm printers have larger build volume than the majority of resin printers. This has actually been a big deal for me over the years. I upgraded my mars 2 pro to a Saturn S just to get that bigger build space. Fdm has resin beat in this regard by a long shot. There were many times when looking at cool stuff to print with my mars 2 pro that I ran into the issue of not enough build space. This is also something you should consider when you're weighing your options.

It seems like in this entire post I've seemed to be shitting on resin printers quite a bit. That's probably true... Let's talk about the pros of resin printers.

The first I've already talked about which is the print quality. It's way better by a long way....
Second is print time. Even the largest items (or multiple items) are going to top out around 9-12 hours depending on your settings with a resin printer. A build plate full of 12 miniatures on my Saturn S is going to take around 3 hours.

Third is failures. Both Fdm and resin printers fail frequently. Anyone who's used an Fdm printer has come home to a spaghetti mess of filament. Resin failures are much less catastrophic. Because of the way resin printers work you're not going to be wasting a bunch of material when a print fails. Of course the already printed material will be a right off but you won't be burning half a spool on a failure. It's actually way more forgiving with resin.

Fourth is setup. Once you have your machine calibrated for your resin of choice there's very little tweaking necessary from one print to another.

[BabyJesus]

Resin printing is not nearly as bad as he makes it out to be. Plus you can get a wash and cure station that makes cleaning way easy. I literally put a part directly from the build plate into the wash and cure, and wash it for 1.5mins, then take it out dry it, cure it for 3 minutes and it's done. It takes maybe 6 minutes to do the entire process from when I open the 3d printer lid to having my part done. You don't need to sand parts unless you put tons of supports or need something perfect. 99% of the time I don't sand anything and it's fine. Any spot that doesn't have supports generally looks perfect straight out of the printer. As long as you put the supports on the back of your prints you'll never need to sand. It's not that messy either, wear gloves and put a mat down on your work area that you can wipe off resin if it drips and you're fine. This video will turn people off from resin printing when it's not hard to do at all once you get a rhythm.

[shelbygates]

This video really makes me want to get one now!!! I love your videos, I wish the algorithm wasn’t the way it is.

[kylecrowder]

Dude I love that "ART IS NOT A CRIME" poster back there. Really hits home with me because my passion is making sports art (can't sell it sadly) so pretty much for free fun at this point.

[Janovich]

4:20
"you can cause damage to your skin"

It is much more nefarious than that. That stuff can damage your nervous system and can lead to serious disorders.

[GoldBeast]

Right to the point! Glad to see good quality content is still on YouTube. And not some robot lady reading a comparison list.

[SaHaRaSquad]

FDM printers can be pretty precise, especially with very thin layers. The problem is the print time, which explodes as shown in the video. I still think I'll go for a Prusa i3 next (and maybe a budget SLA later for some miniatures) - those things are pretty straightforward and not as messy, and I still have more than enough filament lying around.

[lindsaynie]

Thank you for this! You answered all the questions I had about UV resin printing. I want one, but I don't have the time... so for now my fillament will have to continue to do the job.

[raginggamer]

I just bought a UV resin printer before i saw this video, but i really do not mind all the work involved. It makes you closer to the item you are creating since you have several steps after its made.

[joshd]

I’m ready to pull the trigger on my first set up and I’m so glad to have watched this. THANKYOU.

For my needs a filament printer will be sufficient. Was about to commit to an entry level resin printer on Amazon.

[withinloki]

That was everything I wanted to know PLUS the stuff I needed to know, without being previously aware I needed to know it. Thanks so much!

[charliec]

Bro I wait every day and check back while I’m watching ur house vids over and over or watching old vids I look to see if you have uploaded I makes my day

[ajdexter]

Can we just appreciate how well Dan presents and talks to us, so professional and I feel like a friend is talking to me.
Wow Dan I want to have presentation skills like this.

[salemcripple]

I have both. Love resin printing for it's detail. Hate it for it's cost per size (to even approach the size of an fdm printer, you're spending 10x as much money). And (i know this is a personal problem), i live in an RV. No way in hell i could use a resin printer in here! So it stays in the garage at the other end of the property (2 acres away). Where as my fdm can sit quite happily right on my desk in the rv. PLA, and PETG are both non-toxic to print indoors. Plus the FDM printer is just fun to watch! I like being able to modify my machines to make them more unique, or better functioning. This is something you can't really do to a resin printer. But again, like i said, i love the AMAZING detail of the resin printer.

[loopyslop]

I highly recommend the semiclear Eco Resin, it doesnt really smell much at all and with the Green Translucent resin Ive had a lot of really great success... the clear Resin, not so much, but oh well...

[nerdfatha]

Just got started with FDM printing. I'm still currently amazed at the quality and details of the minis I have printed and I'm not even doing it on crazy tight settings yet. I also like that I can print stuff that has practical applications. I haven't seen too many shelf supports made out of resin yet.

[CameronLisney]

About to get a printer for my son's birthday. This video has been so so helpful in making my decision! Thank you so much!

[Shamanteng]

Cheers for the insights! I was pondering if I could enter this hobby but it seems too complicated (as in the process + timing) for me right now. I didn't know resin required all these extra steps!

[alderonsabbet]

Thank you sir. I am just getting into 3D printing to mod my warhammer miniatures and this video definitely helped answer several of my questions and helped me choose what 3D printer to go with.