SLA Printing basics with the Moai

Oh my, well of course I would love one!

Requis the Great

message me an address and I'll send you one

Marco Reps

Wow, that low-poly design of a fennec fox (maybe?) is pure eye candy. Too bad I can't make one for myself :(

Requis the Great

[Reposting, because Patreon seems to have partially eaten my comment! It's showing on the Android app, but not on the website... Go figure!] Sure, here's an album of photos of all of the 0.15mm nozzle ASA Benchies: <a href="https://imgur.com/a/EpzpCKY" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/EpzpCKY</a> - and here's a few photos of a 0.15mm nozzle Benchy printed from Polycarbonate: <a href="https://imgur.com/a/lD4AYRq" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/lD4AYRq</a> The photos aren't brilliant, but since taking those a few weeks back I've learnt how to properly use the Raynox DCR-250 macro attachment I bought to use with my Canon non-DSLR "bridge" camera, so I plan to retake those photos with the macro attachment with a higher depth-of-field and hopefully better detail - I'll try to remember to tag you on Twitter when I upload them! I'll have to get some photos of the 0.15mm nozzle / 0.04mm layers PLA low-poly fox at some point, too!

Andrew

Sure, here's an album of photos of all of the 0.15mm nozzle ASA Benchies: <a href="https://imgur.com/a/EpzpCKY" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/EpzpCKY</a> - and here's a few photos of a 0.15mm nozzle Benchy printed from Polycarbonate: <a href="https://imgur.com/a/lD4AYRq" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://imgur.com/a/lD4AYRq</a> The photos aren't brilliant, but since taking those a few weeks back I've learnt how to properly use the Raynox DCR-250 macro attachment I bought to use with my Canon non-DSLR "bridge" camera, so I plan to retake those photos with the macro attachment with a higher depth-of-field and hopefully better detail - I'll try to remember to tag you on Twitter when I upload them! I'll have to get some photos of the 0.15mm nozzle / 0.04mm layers PLA low-poly fox at some point, too!

Andrew

Hell yes, I need a micromirror board in my life! Got photos of the 10% Benchy? I want to modify at least one Cetus soon, new platform, new extruder, more reliable limit switches and an octoprint-compatible controller. So recommendations like E3D nozzles are very welcome!

Marco Reps

Great video as always - had me giggling away at several points! :) Where did this British idea that Germans have no sense of humour come from? ;) The last time I saw someone with a Moai was Maker's Muse what feels like years ago, and I think he just had a pre-production unit, so it's nice to see how that's come along :) I agree with the other Andrew (Henderson) about it being a horribly messy process, though! My FFF printer lives in my bedroom and it can be bad enough having ABS fumes in here (or, worse, Polycarbonate! I printed a PC Benchy the other week and OMG that smell was foul - it actually gave me a headache and a persistent cough for the next six hours, and I'm not usually one to be affected by random chemicals!), so yeah, I'd hate to have to deal with resin fumes/smells in here - not to mention the risk of spilling resin on the carpet of my rented house! o.o That said, if I did decide to get a resin printer, I'd definitely favour the Moai over LCD-based resin printers (which keep calling themselves "DLP", but at least IMO, DLP should only apply to machines using DMDs - digital micromirror devices; see Tesla500's Twilight Sparkle-referencing DMD video here: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4aUU3-PKQ4" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4aUU3-PKQ4</a> - they're fascinating devices!). The LCD ones keep boldly proclaiming "Full HD!", but 1920x1080 over a ~6" diagonal rectangle honestly doesn't sound like a very impressive resolution to me! My 3-year-old Nexus 6P smartphone has a 2560x1440 5.7" screen (admittedly AMOLED rather than LCD), and something like that would be much more impressive (there is also a smartphone or two with a 4K resolution screen - Sony makes them, IIRC - so maybe if they could get one of *those* in an LCD-based resin printer I'd start to be impressed! ;) I got some seriously impressive results from my FFF printer and one of E3D's 0.15mm nozzles the other week, though. I have a 10% scale Benchy that's only about 6mm long and yet the features are almost all still visible! That was printed with 80µm layers using E3D's ASA filament (PETG is a no-go, and using PLA is risky - I got it to work with PolyAlchemy Elixir, but it's super stringy and bed adhesion was a choice of either "not enough" or "literally fused to the PEI sheet", so removing the print left the first layer fused to the bed and I had to use ethyl acetate to dissolve the PLA off the bed...). I then printed 25%, 50% and finally 100% scale Benchies with that nozzle and still 80µm layers - the full-scale Benchy took *eight hours* to print, but it's the first Benchy I've ever printed where the nameplate on the rear is legible! I also printed a low-poly fox model (not the fennec, just a regular red fox) with that PolyAlchemy Elixir with the 0.15mm nozzle and *40µm* layers, which also took an age, but it's almost impossible to see the layer lines o.o sorry ;)

Andrew

Everything looks like candy, I want to eat it.

Jamie Magin

You built that yet my CR-10 -> CR-10S kit has been sitting in my garage for months and it would take just 30 minutes or so to upgrade. ;) Well the temperature in the garage is the primary reason I've had to hold off. Love the video.

John McCormick

Thank you, glad you like it! I always seem to turn blind towards my own stuff after spending days with it. High chances of boring people with well-known basics in this one ... Yes, it is a pretty demanding process and it stinks. In winter you can't do it outside either, because it needs roomy temperatures ... According to long past latin classes Ceti it is :)

Marco Reps

Great vid. They keep getting better. Sadly this has just convinced me that for my purposes, a resi printer is just too much hassle. I think for your more demanding requirements it'll pay dividends but I am betting you aren't ebaying your Ceti (what's the plural of "Cetus" anyway?) just yet. I like the "print and use" capability of FDM