Instead of doing an unboxing video which there’s a ton of I figured I would just outline my experience with the Elegoo Mars SLA Printer that I received on Sunday and was able to get going on Monday when the resin arrived.
All in all it was great, I ordered the printer and curing thingy together as a bundle on Amazon here along with three bottles of Anycubic resin:
The printer arrived well packaged and setup was so simple it’s stupid. I’m not sure I will ever purchase another FDM printer again after this.
So once the resin got here and I watched a few more videos on YouTube about setting up and printing, I got started on the Elegoo Rook which is the torture test that comes on the included Jumpdrive. After that printed without issue I moved onto printing something for a friend who wants some 1:100 scale armour for the Team Yankee game. Check both prints out:
I’m totally impressed with the level of detail this thing cranks out. I’ve also learned how to get rid of the white stuff… that was me just not rinsing the parts enough before tossing them into the curing station. Check back for more pics in other posts as I print stuff for myself and my friends this week.
Using the base settings and not tweaking anything, the Rooks took 4 hours to print and the chassis for the tank took 9 hours printed vertically to minimize the need for support material which leaves a much cleaner model when it’s finished.
Print time for the SLA printers is based on two factors I’ve learned. The first being exposure time for each layer, this means how long the layer is exposed to the UV light before the build plate is retracted and reset for the next layer. The second being the overall height of the object being printed, the taller the object, the more time it takes.
One very neat aspect of the SLA printer is that you can place as many items on the bed as you want ( so long as they fit in the bounding box ) and the print time will be the same based on the tallest object. So if you have 1 object that takes 5 hours to print and four objects that take 4 hours to print, you can toss all 5 of them on the print bed and in 5 hours they will be finished.
The software is called Chitubox and it’s also crazy stupid to use, generating the supports if a breeze and even allows for custom supports to be added which makes it great for ensuring you don’t screw up a print.
All in all I am VERY pleased with this purchase and in the next couple of weeks it will pay for itself and I might be looking to get another one to increase productivity.
If you have any questions about this feel free to email me or hit me up on Facebook through the workshop page and I’ll do my best to answer them.
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