3D Printing

3D Printing, etc.

We recently bought three 3D Resin Printers to upgrade our filament printer. Around the year 2015, we eagerly purchased a Flashforge Creator Pro 3D Printer from Amazon. This printer uses filament to make ABS, PLA, etc models, and it works by pushing melted filament through a 0.4 mm nozzle. I quickly discovered that this type of printer doesn't print the tiny details that I designed in my jewelry...at all. Now enter the 3D Resin Printers in late 2020.

The first printer we purchased is a Qidi Technology Shadow 6.0. We picked it up from Amazon in October. Around the same time we ordered an Anycubic Photon Mono SE directly from the manufacturer. This printer didn't arrive until November, so we really got our training on the Shadow. Right now Amazon has this 3D on sale for less than $200...less than what I paid for it in October.

Now that we have gotten started printing items and casting them in Sterling Silver, we had a few problems with the Anycubic Mono SE. This printer was supposed to be an upgrade to the Shadow 6, but we accidentally scratched the LCD screen; not to mention, we experienced layer lines in our prints. I ordered a new screen from Alibaba, but it doesn't come in for months!
So, in steps a new printer.
Based on research using Google and YouTube, we pulled the trigger on the Phrozen Sonic 4K Mini.

Glad we did too. This machine is awesome! I'm pretty sure the Sonic's 35um X-Y resolution is the finest resolution of any sub-$450 printer on the market. By the way, we printed and casted these rings and parts last night using a combination of MakerJuice Waxcast resin and BlueCast X10 with Sharpenizer.