Sorry to necro this thread so severely, but I've recently been offered a Mars 3 (Non-pro) for around £100, along with some Resin and spare LCDs. As far as I know this is strictly "Worth the money", but I am wondering how accurate the Mars 3 can be. I'm hoping to use it for printing miniatures for myself, so I'm hoping that it's high-fidelity enough that I'll be able to print to whatever detail level I'd like.
I've seen reviews that talk about the pixel density of the LCD, but I'm not sure how that actually translates in practice to the quality of my prints. Any advice?
Thanks.
There is never a wrong time to necro good threads. Not really an expert on Resin printers, but that sounds like a great deal and should work for your purposes.
The pixel density is important because the resin gets hardened by the light of the LCD (or rather the light the LCD lets through),
so every pixel creates a tiny block of hardened resin that together make up the print, kinda like how voxels work in video games. Just
really tiny.
Afaik the Mars 3 should work very well for tiny details as each of these "blocks" will be around 35 microns or 0.035mm (0,00137 Inch)
By comparison, the average fingerprint groove is 0.2-0.8mm. A human hair is around 0.07mm. The nozzle of a standard FDM printer is 0.4mm.
At that point the thickness of whatever paint and primer you use will become more detail limiting than the printer.
Also, since you seem like a beginner, let me give you some basic extra tips to get started:
Keep in mind you also need some kinda curing and washing set-up, since the freshly "printed" prints will be covered in resin and soft/fragile until washed and "cured".
Curing is basically just a UV lamp that blasts the print so that it is properly hardened all the way through.
There are
kits for this that are somewhat pricey but less annoying than DIY solutions.
That being said, DIY seems to work just fine if you are careful and is way cheaper since you basically only need a tub of isoprop alcohol and a UV lamp.
This tutorial goes into some DIY methods for post-print work. As you can probably imagine, there are many ways to deal with this.
Also, some notes on safety:
Get at least gloves and possibly some basic safety glasses and work cleanly.
Most resins are pretty nasty chemicals and certainly very unhealthy to have on your skin. Wash any off
immediately if it does happen.
And be careful fucking around with UV light as this stuff is kinda cancer causing and eye-damaging.
Also, a tub of isoprop and the fumes it produces are/is highly flammable and should be handled with care.
This is more of a general beginner guide, but also worth watching to get a good overview on what this hobby entails.
Altogether resin stuff is not the end of the world, but a bit more involved than the "Pull of buildplate and done" that you may know from FDM printers.
