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<blockquote data-quote="Staffan" data-source="post: 9556283" data-attributes="member: 907">I've been looking into 3d printing, and as far as I can tell there are two main options (with plenty of variants in each category):Filament printers use spools of plastic filament that gets melted in the print head and extruded first on a print bed and then on the previously extruded plastic. If you get a fine needle (0.2 mm) and get the right settings on your printer you can get reasonably good quality but will probably still have some layer lines, and printing things takes a while (hours). There are also issues with printing certain types of minis – you generally don't want things that poke out too much on the side, or with too much &quot;overhang&quot; (think flaring cloaks and such). On the plus side, the resulting print is fairly sturdy.Resin printers use UV light to harden resin dissolved in a fluid. This is a fairly quick process, and it's done in far thinner layers than a filament printer can print. It's a fairly quick process, primarily because each layer gets printed all at once instead of having a needle extruding a &quot;thread&quot; of plastic. I think this also means that printing a lot of figures at the same time, or a single wide figure, doesn't really make the print take longer – print time is proportional to height, not total mass. But resin has its flaws as well. The biggest one is that the chemicals are nasty. You need to wear gloves to deal with them, and you need to wash and cure the minis once they are printed (with the washing usually done with IPA, though I'm told they have water-washable resin now). You also can't just pour the leftover stuff down the drain – you need to store it in a tank or something and take it somewhere where they can handle it. And you need to make sure that the room where you do the stuff is well ventilated, because the fumes can eff you up. In addition, the minis themselves are usually pretty fragile.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Staffan, post: 9556283, member: 907"] I've been looking into 3d printing, and as far as I can tell there are two main options (with plenty of variants in each category): Filament printers use spools of plastic filament that gets melted in the print head and extruded first on a print bed and then on the previously extruded plastic. If you get a fine needle (0.2 mm) and get the right settings on your printer you can get reasonably good quality but will probably still have some layer lines, and printing things takes a while (hours). There are also issues with printing certain types of minis – you generally don't want things that poke out too much on the side, or with too much "overhang" (think flaring cloaks and such). On the plus side, the resulting print is fairly sturdy. Resin printers use UV light to harden resin dissolved in a fluid. This is a fairly quick process, and it's done in far thinner layers than a filament printer can print. It's a fairly quick process, primarily because each layer gets printed all at once instead of having a needle extruding a "thread" of plastic. I think this also means that printing a lot of figures at the same time, or a single wide figure, doesn't really make the print take longer – print time is proportional to height, not total mass. But resin has its flaws as well. The biggest one is that the chemicals are nasty. You need to wear gloves to deal with them, and you need to wash and cure the minis once they are printed (with the washing usually done with IPA, though I'm told they have water-washable resin now). You also can't just pour the leftover stuff down the drain – you need to store it in a tank or something and take it somewhere where they can handle it. And you need to make sure that the room where you do the stuff is well ventilated, because the fumes can eff you up. In addition, the minis themselves are usually pretty fragile. [/QUOTE]

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