The fine print
August 24, 2019
So, in a moment of wild enthusiasm I went and ordered an Anycubic Photon! I’ve been looking to get into 3D printing for quite a while now, but it has always seemed like too much of a hassle: hours and hours of tinkering for results that have never quite matched my standards. Make no mistake, I’ve seen some wonderful results from 3D printing, but a lot of the stuff displayed online has a lot of striation, and for 28mm minis in particular that won’t do.
Now, the Anycubic Photon is a DLP resin printer, which means that rather than extruding plastic filament, it builds up a model by curing thin layers of resin with UV light. If you want a more thorough explanation, you could do far worse than spending 9 minutes on the following video:
The quality of a resin printer is quite enough for 28mm work, so it’ll be possible to print my own minis and other detailed pieces. The price of resin printers has come down a lot, and the Photon set me back about 300 EUR including a litre of resin.
Now, after looking at a ton of discussions, joining various online groups and going through video tutorials, resin printing isn’t always easy work: there are resin fumes, the hardware and software can be finicky, prints will fail and so on. However, I’m super excited about this thing! There’s something awesome about the idea of not only being able to print a huge variety of stuff other people have designed, but also to maybe one day designing my own pieces – provided I’m willing to take the time and tackle the learning curve.
I already have a ton of miniatures and scatter terrain, so what do I need a 3D printer for? To be honest, I don’t need it for anything, any more than I need any of the miniatures stuff in my cupboards and on my desks. It’s something that’s somewhat hard to rationalize, as these things often are. Maybe it’s the above mentioned potential for limitless creations, or the joy of tinkering? Those definitely play a part. The possibility of using something like Hero Forge for creating custom miniature designs is another thing. Then there’s also the option of creating things that are not miniatures-related. For something to print, I got in on the Depths of Savage Atoll Kickstarter, which features a ton of suitable stuff for my piratical needs.
Whether this will be a fun expansion of my hobby horizons or a failed experiment (looking at you, Mr. Soon To Be Sold Airbrush) remains to be seen. The printer will arrive in the next week or two, and I’ll be sure to let you know all about it!
Picture from the Anycubic Photon website.
Dawn of the Lead 
Welcome to the addiction! I never thought I would own a 3D printer, now I have two Filament printers, neither super expensive or especially able to turn out the quality needed to print miniatures, but I find projects from time to time and print like a madman, then they sit.
At this moment, one is down for major repairs, thus the “need” for a second.
Agian, congrats on the new dimension to your hobby!!
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Cheers Eric! Your blog has been an inspiration on this front 🙂
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Looking forward to following this thread of your modelling work!:-)
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Thanks John, hope it doesn’t turn out to be a car crash!
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So are you still happy with your choice of resin over filament? I ask, as that maybe my next step. Even with said step at least a year away!
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Super happy! The quality is amazing and it’s been much less of a hassle than I expected 🙂
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Cool!! Good luck with it mate – watching with interest 😊
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Thanks Alex! It’s a mixture of excitement and dread at the moment 😀
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Good luck – I know you will be building full pirate galleons before long.
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[…] is called a Photonster, as I’m completely hooked on the Anycubic Photon I mentioned in my previous post. I’m really not exaggerating when I say the printer has been running almost day and night […]
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[…] people were producing some wonderful pieces on their printers. My enthusiasm sparked, I bought an Anycubic Photon which turned out to be a great idea. Before I knew it, I was down the 3d printing rabbit hole. It […]
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