I'm thinking about getting an SLA printer. I'm more likely to be making more functional things than decorative (think Raspberry Pi case rather than figurine).
Does anyone have a view on them? Are they worth the trouble, smell and mess? I can't justify spending the sort of money for a Formlabs one, so any recommendation for the more budget versions - e.g. Anycubic Photon, Wanhao D7?
Well, I'm very impressed with the Anycubic Photon so far. Great detail and it wasn't quite as smelly or messy as I'd been let to believe. I suppose that's more that I had low expectations!…
Well, I snapped up an Anycubic Photon on eBay for £350 new. I guess I'll be answering my own questions soon enough!
Hi David,
That's very interesting! The printed result very detailed. How is the material, is it like a plastic, soft or brittle?
How large are the objects in the photo?
Well, I'm very impressed with the Anycubic Photon so far. Great detail and it wasn't quite as smelly or messy as I'd been let to believe. I suppose that's more that I had low expectations!
After the Anycubic lattice cube test print I decided to try this herringbone gear bearing that I've printed on my FDM printer before. Whilst the detail on it was amazing, it seems that the printer is not great for making multiple pieces that are next to each other. The bearing looked like it would run really well - much finer than the FDm printer. However, the gears were fused together enough that the outer ring shattered as I used a fair bit of force to free it up. When giving the pieces a final UV blast with a lamp, the broken ring actually welded itself back together again!
I've not measured dimensional accuracy, but it seem to be better than a FDM printer. As with all tools it's great for certain jobs and not for others.
