- If you get resin in your eye pouring it in, you're quite talented.
(glove snaps) Wanna go to space? This won't actually take you to space,
but this is a really cool 3D printer. It's not like the Prusas of old,
this is a resin printer. It's called an MSLA printer or masked SLA printer,
and it prints using light. But first we gotta get it out of the box.
Resin printers aren't as mechanically strong or resin printed parts rather,
but they get much higher detail than FDM or fused deposition modeling prints.
Up first, we have the AstroFab getting started guide.
We've got a QR code that I'm definitely going to scan. And safety.
It's actually really important to read these. The thing with resin printing is the resins themselves
will go through your hands and you can have really bad allergic reactions,
so always wear gloves.
Okay, this paper can be used for leveling. It's probably literally just paper,
but you essentially want just a little bit of a gap between where the build plate starts in the print,
so there's a thin film of resin underneath it. So this is our build platform.
It's about two and a half inches by four inches, something like that, aluminum.
We've got the four point hinged alignment mechanism.
This is our build vat. So this holds our liquid resin
and on the bottom is what we call a FEP.
It's a thin sheet of plastic that will let you cure your part onto it
and then you pull up and you'll hear it go, (Colin clicks) and the part will release,
a fresh layer of resin will go down and the build plate will go back into it.
It's also got a neat little spout here, so when you do wanna change resins, it's actually not so bad to pour.
This is another neat feature of this particular printer, is its HEPA filter.
So it has a particulate and a charcoal filter on the back here to try and reduce the fumes.
Power supplies. Now, this machine only uses 50 watts. It's little, you can run it off a little wall wart.
A scraper. Okay, we've got a three Allen keys,
quality inspection that I'm sure wasn't mass produced and just shoved in every bag.
This is a resin squeegee. So this you would use in the vat.
If you have a part that fails, you wanna scrape all the solid parts off.
And that's what this is for and it won't damage your FEP. This guy is for scraping off your parts
from your build plate. Different squeegees, don't mix 'em up.
I wanna see the actual printer 'cause this thing is kinda cool.
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using the link in the video description below. I'm gonna put this on the ground and lift it up.
(Colin vocalizing) Tada!
Look at that spaceman. - [David] Wow! That's actually really cool.
- Does this chin drop down? Oh, that does come out. Okay, so we have a 2.8 inch touchscreen display.
We've got a six inch, 2K monitor. We got the LED array underneath it
and then we just have one moving part, this Z-axis. So our bed will slide on something like this.
Let's get this thing plugged in and see what it's like to actually work with,
and then we're gonna figure out how to change this visor. Yellow, we got green.
Orange, feel like Matt Damon. Actually looks to be somewhat tool-free.
(printer beeps) Oh, it comes pre-switched on, that's not great.
There's our display. We've got print, system and tools,
so we can move our Z-axis. (Z-axis hums)
This isn't super great. In here, there's just a big,
can you see this? Big old glob of grease.
I'm just gonna spread that like they intended. - [David] Oh wow, that's a lot.
- Jono, could you grab me a paper towel? So this is a visor detect.
So it can detect when the hood is open or close. That's somewhat of a safety feature,
but it'll also automatically pause when you lift the helmet up.
Boop. Okay. That's easy enough.
(helmet clanks) There we go.
So back here is clearly where the HEPA filter goes.
Now this is sealed in a bag because carbon filters,
they kinda decompose after awhile. Now that it's out of the bag, cat's out of the bag,
it will be active. And they do need to be changed regularly.
So, we have a linear rail here, so it has recirculating ball bearings
that keep it rigid in all other axes except one.
Got a screw to drive it. Down here, we have a little hall effect sensor
that detects when the platform's at its bottom. So our first step will be to calibrate it,
bring the platform down with a piece of paper under it,
set it to be level, tighten it up, raise it up, fill it with resin and then we can start printing
with this thing and see what it can do. I don't know what that is, but cool.
It's the sort of thing that I would say is not great. And that's a hair or some sort of manufacturing gunk
stuck under the FEP. Now, the biggest cause of failures in resin 3D printers
is when the FEP fails and all of a sudden you have 250 milliliters of resin
pour into your machine, and then it starts to harden and everything is hooped.
So I do have some problems with this printer on price alone.
This printer is based on an Anycubic Photon Mono,
and that printer is 200 bucks. So what do you get for your extra money?
Well, you get the space manhood, (helmet swishing)
you get the hood detection
and you get a HEPA filter. Is that worth 130 bucks? - [Jono] Maybe?
- Jono's wrong. So we're gonna helm it, and it should come down,
touch and then raise up a little bit, and that's where we're gonna lock it.
Little switch will come down, it'll detect it. There we go, it didn't crash.
This good. This just ensures you don't like crank on it
and then have it torque it at a alignment.
Perfect. Okay, we'll go raise it up. (Z-axis humming)
Okay, that is tight.
Definitely remember to tighten the vat in, don't ask me how I know.
Gonna pull this out for a minute. Then we get to pick a resin.
Resin! You want green? Okay, we do green just for you.
I just love the design of these bottles.
Is that not the cutest thing? I kinda wanna get 'em all out.
There we go, look at the little guys. Isn't that cute?
Now, I can actually show you how the light works before we pour resin in it,
which you won't be able to see through. So, we have the screen under here
and we're gonna blast light up. Now, if you have a failed print and you need to clean your bed,
normally you'd run a whole screen's worth, so essentially no pixels covering the light,
and you'd cure a whole layer of resin.
And then you would peel that up and it comes with all the leftovers that have settled to the bottom of the tank.
So, close it for safety, start.
(soft bright music) - [David] There it is. - [Jono] There it is. - [Colin] Yeah, you see it?
I can't see anything through this orange. - [David] I see the purple. - We're going green.
I'm gonna make sure not to get this in my eyes.
We're not gonna fill it up to max 'cause we're not gonna use a ton of it.
Oh yeah, there's some smell. (soft upbeat music)
Not horrible. And what are we gonna print here?
- [Jono] Giraffe. - You want a giraffe? - [Jono] Yeah.
- So print. So what's happening is it's going to cure
for about two seconds, give or take. It'll sit for another second or two, then it's gonna peel.
You'll see it lift and it'll, (Colin clicks) we should hear a pop if everything's going correctly.
The first layer often will cure longer, nine to 12 seconds,
so you get a good adhesion to the elemental plate.
(Z-axis humming) Hear the? (Colin clicking) Yeah, so that's peeling off of the FEP.
(upbeat music)
We're back. It's been a day, or rather a night, and our print has completed.
So let's get this guy out,
try and drip off any of this resin, and there we are. So now this is uncured resin.
So it's done a soft cure, but we need to wash it,
which we'll do in this water bath, and then we can cure it,
either outside in the sun or we have a curing chamber that we'll go use in a minute here.
It's kinda cute. If we look at the chamber,
because we had the hood open and lights on, you can see we've got like a solid chunk that formed.
So that's garbage. But that's why we have this UV filtering hood,
is to prevent that from happening. Okay, let's try water washing this.
This is where I was really curious.
Now, admittedly, I'm not a great resin printer.
If you wanna see resin printing content, look at Uncle Jessy on YouTube, he's pretty great.
This is always the hardest part.
I, oh, hey, that was easy. There's your little guy.
It is soft. So we'll go stick this in the curing chamber.
We're in the shop now and I can show off our enormous Phrozen Sonic Mega.
That is a large resin printer. You can print like whole helmets and stuff in this.
But we're not using this guy, we're using the curing chamber,
which I haven't used before. And we just pop our print in,
(Colin clicks) shut the door and press play.
UV LEDs came on, the bed'll spin and it'll cure our part.
In 10 minutes, we'll have like an actually hard part.
(upbeat music) It's been 10 minutes.
Now that it's cured, I can touch it with my hands.
And from here, you can paint it, do whatever, but it's made.
Does it print? Sure does. Is it the best value for your money?
I don't think so. I think you can do a little better. But it's got a cool little gimmick.
That much as nice. And if you liked this video, get subscribed to ShortCircuit.
And why don't you go hop on over to LTT and check out my cheapest 3D printer video.
That thing was tiny and pretty crappy, but it did sorta print.
See you later.