Reply To: 3D Printing… Where do I start?

[blinky465 17028xp 2]

This is a great point – and partly why I have had success with my Photon (and I suspect, where others have fallen foul). I’ve never actually used the Anycubic software that came with the printer – I use Prusa slicer to add supports (learning how to properly angle and support your .stl files is critical to enjoying your printer) and Chitubox to slice.

The one piece of software I wouldn’t be without is the Photon File Validator – it shows you every layer that makes up your print (literally the one-bit bitmap that will be sent to the LCD screen every few seconds). It also looks through every layer and identifies any where there are “stray pixels” (i.e. pixels that aren’t connected to an existing layer). You can even run a quick fix to cure most of the “islands” that it finds.

Even after fixing, there might be an island or two that needs manually correcting; a lot of people just print anyway – very often these little “islands” will get picked up and stuck to a subsequent layer. Sometimes they’re just left floating around in the resin. This is where a lot of the frustration with resin printing comes – if you leave any hardened resin in your vat, the next time you try to print, you’ll crush the hardened bits of cured resin into the screen and create a “dead spot”.

BUT – if you spend half an hour or  so with the file validator before printing, you can manually add (or remove) pixels to either entirely remove any “islands” or glue them to existing supports or shapes. I do this with *every* print. I run the printer about once a week, and haven’t had a failed print since I started using the file validator; I level my bed only every 4-6 months (and then it’s more out of curiosity than necessity).

Good software will make your 3d printing adventure much more enjoyable. But don’t feel you’re stuck with the software your printer ships with. I’ve heard great things about Lychee, but the combination of Prusa + Chitubox and then validating the output has worked just fine for me for nearly two years now.

(on the downside, Anycubic themselves are notoriously poor with support – ebay/Amazon resellers are far better at supporting the hardware, but the online Anycubic community is very good at helping new users and there’s lots of shared knowledge out there).

I’ve heard similarly encouraging reports about Elegoo (with their Mars printer) but it’s the Photon File Validator that swings it for me – no failed prints, no dead spots on the screen, and I can confidently set a print going at night, knowing it’ll be ready and complete in the morning!