Small 3D printer? No problem!

[Thenwcp]

Welcome! I’ve been printing for many, many years and while there are decently large 3D printers, none of the ones I can afford are ever big enough. The one I currently use is a resin 3D printer because they capture the most detail and there is a lot less work to finish the print.
The basis of resin printing is that it uses UV light to cure a UV sensitive resin a layer at a time. The resin at this time is not fully cured, and we can use that to our advantage.
I’m working on the Mark V Recon helmet provided here in the Armory section. Here I have two pieces that I was testing quality on and I’m going to show you how to “fuse” them.

First you have to align them, this has to be exactly how you want them.
Then take a cotton swab and and end into some of your resin and dab it on the inside of your seam.
I’m using a different color to highlight what I’m doing here.

Then hit it with a UV light source (mine is from Amazon and I use a Christmas light foot switch to turn it on/off hands free)

You can certainly add more for structural integrity, but as long as any gaps are filled it’s going to be a solid piece.

Make sure you cure both sides, oh and don’t be like me and wear gloves when handling resin. After you’ve pieced it all together you can wash it (with my resin I use isopropyl, but there’s water washable stuff too). Once fully cured with UV light the whole thing is one piece.
Now if you just can’t get the alignment right you can always use some sand paper to get rid of any lines you don’t want.

For FDM printers it’s a bit more work, but instead of resin and UV light you can use an acetone/filament slurry, but it takes more time to dry and contact cement is better used.

If you’d like to see how I take a 3D model and split it up into pieces for printing let me know! Or if you have any other questions.

 

[Thenwcp]

Here’s a little follow up on practicing what I’m teaching here. You can see how some lines are better than others, so taking orientation into consideration is also important for alignment. I’m also using my flat desk to assist in aligning the parts that I know should be flush. Also seen here is how I do layers at a time, this makes the pieces more manageable and allows for some flexing that’s required to fit really big pieces together.
This is the MKV Recon helmet found in the Armory here.
This is an experiment I did with white resin and blue mica powder:

After some sanding I think it’d look amazing, but since resin does scratch pretty easy I would consider a sealing top coat after.

 

[Thenwcp]

Got the pieces together and cut out the visor and neck. Now to use the ol’ rotary tool to put in details/blend seams.

 

[Nimitz]

Some really nice work there! I've had a PRUSA Mark 3 i3S since 2021 and used it to do a Mandalorian build so I know this is doable. However, now that I've embarked on a full MC build I just didn't want to deal with trying to slice and glue together massive armor pieces so I bought a PRUSA XL which arrives in about 2 weeks. Really looking forward to printing entire pieces as single prints!

 

[Thenwcp]

Some really nice work there! I've had a PRUSA Mark 3 i3S since 2021 and used it to do a Mandalorian build so I know this is doable. However, now that I've embarked on a full MC build I just didn't want to deal with trying to slice and glue together massive armor pieces so I bought a PRUSA XL which arrives in about 2 weeks. Really looking forward to printing entire pieces as single prints!

Oh, I used to have an FDM printer as well. I moved to resin with a DLP printer and I never looked back. What I don’t have in variety of material (though recently some manufacturers have made some cool resins) it makes up for in having an end use part with little to no post processing. The best part for me is no glue.
I am waiting to buy a larger format one though, the best sized one I can barely afford right now has a build area of 11x6x11” but I foresee that one going on sale later this year. I’d still have to piece stuff together, but far less pieces.
For my build I plan on doing the rest of the armor with good ol’ eva but may add 3D printed details.

 

[SgtSaint]

> I used to have an FDM printer as well. I moved to resin with a DLP printer and I never looked back.

Personally... I don't see the two technologies as a 'move to' situation. They are complimentary. Some things are better for resin. Some for FDM. Just like learning to weld steel doesn't mean you stop working with wood.

Prusa XL. That's still not a very big printer. Its only 360mm³, right? Or are there multiple models and they have a large format version?
The nice thing about that machine is the 5 toolheads more than the medium build volume. With 5 heads it can do color/material changes in a heartbeat. In some ways like having a 5 color IDEX. SO MUCH FASTER with color than a Bambu with its one head and 90secons per color swap.
If you have a need for 5 heads then yeah, run with it. That thing would bang out items like light boxes so fast. But if your goal is a large print volume there are bigger machines for less money.

 

[Jev]

This is an interesting approach, my go to is usually to just weld the parts together with a soldering iron, body filler, sanding and then coat generously with epoxy resin.
I might try this system on some of my new parts.

 

[Nimitz]

> I used to have an FDM printer as well. I moved to resin with a DLP printer and I never looked back.

Personally... I don't see the two technologies as a 'move to' situation. They are complimentary. Some things are better for resin. Some for FDM. Just like learning to weld steel doesn't mean you stop working with wood.

Prusa XL. That's still not a very big printer. Its only 360mm³, right? Or are there multiple models and they have a large format version?
The nice thing about that machine is the 5 toolheads more than the medium build volume. With 5 heads it can do color/material changes in a heartbeat. In some ways like having a 5 color IDEX. SO MUCH FASTER with color than a Bambu with its one head and 90secons per color swap.
If you have a need for 5 heads then yeah, run with it. That thing would bang out items like light boxes so fast. But if your goal is a large print volume there are bigger machines for less money.

Hmmmm .... the onlyFDM printer I'm aware of with a larger build volume that is not a commercial grade one is 400 x 400 x 500. Lots of choices in the 300 x 300 x 400 size but they are not a PRUSA - lol. I looked at the 400 x 400 x 500 but was advised to stay away from it . PRUSA's 14" x 14" x 14" will print just about everything in one piece except chest armor. It easily does a MC helmet in one piece for example. And the 5 tool head is impressive, it changes filaments in seconds with zero waste so supports in one & model in another is a snap. I agree that FDM & resin printers are for different things. Need extreme detail then a resin is the way to go but for what I do an FDM at .2 mm is perfect. If I need detail the printer will do down to .07. Also there is a lot more involved with resin printing but each has there place

 

[Thenwcp]

> I used to have an FDM printer as well. I moved to resin with a DLP printer and I never looked back.

Personally... I don't see the two technologies as a 'move to' situation. They are complimentary. Some things are better for resin. Some for FDM. Just like learning to weld steel doesn't mean you stop working with wood.

Prusa XL. That's still not a very big printer. Its only 360mm³, right? Or are there multiple models and they have a large format version?
The nice thing about that machine is the 5 toolheads more than the medium build volume. With 5 heads it can do color/material changes in a heartbeat. In some ways like having a 5 color IDEX. SO MUCH FASTER with color than a Bambu with its one head and 90secons per color swap.
If you have a need for 5 heads then yeah, run with it. That thing would bang out items like light boxes so fast. But if your goal is a large print volume there are bigger machines for less money.

I don’t have room for both, and I like the qualities of resin printing better. The parts are more accurate anyway and I use mine for other purposes. So I guess by move I really only meant over not so much a tiered thing. I do agree FDM is great for it’s own purposes.

 

[Nimitz]

Definitely agree that they really serve different purposes. I'm kinda glad I don't need a resin printer ...

 

[Shalidars]

This is seriously impressive and I wish I had even half the patience!

I’m personally printing in ASA, which might actually work really nicely for something like this if your smaller printer is enclosed and capable of getting a hot enough bed.

ASA can be mixed with acetone to create a ‘slurry’ that basically hardens into actual ASA once the acetone evaporates. This makes it extremely good for ‘welding’ together parts with no need for glue, epoxy or the like. The welds you make are actual stronger than the print most of the time, and are just as UV and temperature resistant as the rest of the print.

I mix report back here with some pictures once I start ASA welding parts together.

 

[BHE Photos]

I just ordered an Elegoo Jupiter SE because I'm tired of being limited by my Mono X print size. I'm a sucker for a big build volume (It will sit next to my Neptune 3 Max and 4 Plus). I'm looking forward to adding more resin-printed helmet/armor pieces to my builds, instead of mostly just using my resin printer for greeblies.

Some of the newer FDM Slicers have added the ability to automatically add tab and slot connections to parts that need cutting up. I wonder if you could export those pieces and then bring them into an SLA slicer? Makes alignment way easier, especially if you're dealing with more than 2 parts.

 

[Thenwcp]

Still need to secure the visor, but here’s my “battle damaged” recon helmet.