Reply To: HUGE project…what would you recommend?

[blinky465 17028xp 3]

Support free terrain is a joy to print. Support free miniatures – well, they all tend to be a bit arms-down-mono-pose. Looking at that kickstarter, the minis are not support free.

(TLDR: you’ll need to choose between minis or terrain: For minis, Phrozen Sonic Mini or AnyCubic Photon. For terrain, any Prusa-based FDM machine since an Ultimaker would be far too spendy.)

 

I got a cheapo Tronxy X3 a few years ago just to have a go at printing terrain. For just over a hundred quid, I wasn’t expecting much, but the quality was surprisingly good. Sure, it helps if you know what you’re doing and you’re not afraid to fiddle around experimenting (most 3d printers are just a frame, three stepper motors and a hot block though I can understand if you’ve just dropped £2k on an Ultimaker, you’re less likely to risk “breaking” the machine than if you’d put it together yourself).

I’m still quite happy with my Tronxy for structural work – I’ve produced terrain on an Ultimaker 2+ and it did look incredibly good – *almost* zero layer lines, but they still showed up after a coat of paint and especially after some dry brushing.

My AnyCubic Photon has been amazing for churning out minis, terrain, scatter terrain etc. I’ve had two failures in all the print runs I’ve done (one was expected, as it was only just above zero in the workshop when I left it printing overnight and forgot to leave the heating on). But I do spend a lot of time fully preparing my minis before printing.

@warzan has both AnyCubic Photon and Elegoo Mars and says they’re pretty comparable (after all, they’re essentially the same device – a screen, a tank and a stepper motor). From the reviews I’ve seen, if I was buying today, I’d go for a Phrozen Sonic Mini – it has a dedicated mono screen, which means much faster curing times (typically from 8-9 sec per layer on the Photon to 2-3 sec per layer on the Sonic Mini). The details are also just that little bit crisper on the Sonic Mini too (Greg the 3dprintingpro put a review up on his site a few weeks ago).

So there you go – if it’s the terrain mostly that excites you, a decent FDM printer would require quite a bit of setting up at the start (to get your settings “dialled in” for your choice of filament) but if you get one with an auto-bed levelling sensor, after that you should just press print; any Prusa-based machine (or clone) should be good enough. FDM printing produces very good tolerances, which means your inter-connected pieces should fit together perfectly.

If it’s the minis you’re more interested in, I’d go resin all the way. If you can find one at a decent price, a Phrozen Sonic Mini. Otherwise I can only recommend AnyCubic Photon (not the S- model, the original).

Don’t even bother trying to print such detailed minis on FDM! Although you *can* print terrain on a resin machine, because of suction forces during printing, and because they generally has large, flat areas (something resin printers don’t handle well) pieces can come out a little distorted – certainly enough to make pegs no longer fit into holes and things. Resin also shrinks slightly during curing; I’ve only printed a couple of multi-part minis and almost always end up filing down the little pegs as they never fit (I now assemble multi-part minis in MeshMixer and print them as one piece). I imagine that multi-part terrain pieces might be a challenge on a resin printer?

For your budget I guess you need to decide between terrain or minis, and buy accordingly.

Especially for this Kickstarter, I’d go for a prusa-based FDM for terrain.I’d expect to pick up a decent clone with bed levelling sensor for £150-£200. That leaves you a few quid to buy decent quality filament (seriously, filament makes a massive difference to how easy your printing becomes – don’t skimp on cheap filament!) and some pritt sticks (they just make your first layer sticking soooo much easier!)

If it’s the minis that got you excited, and you can wait for the terrain, you can still get AnyCubic Photon for about £230 (UK seller) and with the additional bits and bobs (resin, IPA, UV lamp etc) you’ll be pushing close to £300. If I could find one at the much-fabled $200 mark, I’d get a Phrozen Sonic Mini, but to date the best price I’ve seen in Europe worked out at about £350 which is probably just outside your budget, once you account for the extras.