Anycubic Mono X

So turns out Afterpay loves me and they increased my spending allowance and lengthened my time to pay… So just now (with permission from the minister of war and finance((wifey)) I purchased the Anycubic Mono X 3D printer and a Wash & Cure station! Very excited to say the least, I have only ever used 2 3D printers in my life and they were the ones that you put the roll of filament on so this is going to be completely different.

If anyone has any tip or comments I would love to hear from you! :wink:

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Hhahahah - that made me chuckle ^

I’ve got an anycubic. I’ve got the old style Photon. They are lovely bits of kit. My recommendation is to immerse yourself in youtube to learn how to use your machine. My printer came with virtually no instructions and it was a steep (but short) learning curve.

A good person to talk to is @MichaelX . Have you seen his hobby blog? The guy Prints more in a month than I’d manage in a year!!! I’m
Sure he’s got some insights and advice if issues arrive :smiley:

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@Oxymandias you are too kind (although i print waaaay faster then i paint and i do paint rather fast when i paint…)

@Deebo Let me know if you have any questions, i currently have 3 FDM printers and 1 SLA printer. I’ve been printing since 2014 or so.

(uhg… i should stop saying how long i’m doing stuff… the '90 are still only 10 years ago, right? RIGHT?)

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If you have never printed in SLA these are some tips i can think of.

  • Wear gloves! resin is nasty when liquid
  • Print in a ventilated room if possible, where you dont spend too much time when printing. Your printer has a filter, buuut…
  • Clean up any spilled resin immediatly since it will cure from sunlight and cured resin is a pain to remove.
  • Make sure to properly set up the printer before trying to print (the build platform should be level and at the correct z height)
  • Learn to do supports! The auto support feature of almost all slicers sucks. Prusa slicer has the best one but it is still lacking. If you are a perfectionist look for 3DPrintingPro in youtube, LOTS OF TUTORIALS.
  • If your supports stick to the build platform but the model itself sticks to the FEP sheet you are probably underexposing
  • If you have a failed print, ALWAYS clean the resin tank completely and filter the resin. If a small piece of cured resin remains it can damage the LCD very easily.
  • After printing, take the prints off the build platform WITH supports and wash in IPA (or alternative, no experience there)
  • This is a great one → Remove the supports under hot water… This makes your life a lot easier and leaves less scars.
  • After removing supports you can cure the prints. If they are still somewhat tacky after curing, just leave them in a room near a window for a few days/weeks… this removes all stickyness.

That is all i can think of right now…

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Hot water support removal tip @MichaelX - wish I’d known that one earlier. It really helps.

I’d like to add one more. If you are printing in a garage or shed or something keep an eye on temperature- extreme cold can cause failures as the resin gets thick and doesn’t work as well.

And don’t do what I did on my first ever print. Take the components outside on a hot sunny day to clean them because I wanted to see what I was doing better! All that light reactive resin went solid in seconds and I turned a small cleanup job into a massive one! Hah!

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Right… always forget temperature…

Yeah… the resin also produces a lot of heat when curing. Found that out the hard way…

Another tip… thin and small parts can be assembled with a little uncured resin and a uv torch. Large parts with superglue but only when completely cured (not sticky)

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Thanks heaps @Oxymandias & @MichaelX That’s alot of tips that will likely save me heaps of heart ache. I have never even seen this style of printer in the flesh before and it seems to be chalk and cheese to the other ones I used in the past and they were painful enough to try and figure out.

I feel much better knowing you guys have good experience and are willing to help out, thank you.
If you guys don’t mind I may come back with questions once it arrives and I get started

Mate I feel that on a deep level… turning 40 in Feb and not sure how that happened, I could have sworn I was still in my 20’s…

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I’m the big birthday behind you @Deebo - just turned 30. Feeling every year of it though haha! Still growing old is mandatory, growing up is a choice :stuck_out_tongue:

Happy if I can help with advice although I’m a bit of a noob too. Maybe we can learn together (or just ask Michael together) haha

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ROFLMFAO!! This is going to be my new motto!!

I am so looking forward to learning all about this thing and printing lots and lots of awesome stuff

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@Oxymandias, @Deebo , @Others Ask away :smiley:

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Don’t envy those of you that have taken the plunge into resin printing. My innate laziness makes all the effort that’s required for it deter me from getting into it myself - so much easier to just pay someone else to print stuff for me when I’ll need it, even if that’ll be more costly in the long run. :laughing:

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It’s a second hobby to be fair @Lord_of_Uzkulak and a deep rabbit hole to fall down. It’s very cool having your own Star Trek next generation replicator haha

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much more costly in the long run*

but its not that hard @Lord_of_Uzkulak, at least if you are able to figure out why something doesn’t work by the proces of elimination and basic troubleshooting skills.

Resin printing is much simpler then FDM printing.
To start with thers only 1 axis (up/down) and its rigid (no belts like on the X/Y axis on FDM printers) so thats pretty stable. The biggest issue i have with it is the amount of work it takes to decently support models. Thats why i try to get pre supported models where possible :smiley:

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don’t forget addictive…

I meant more along the lines of I’m too lazy to bother with the safety measures of handling the resin and the post print clean up and the curing process, etc; so much easier to get someone else to do that. ;). I’m a lazy git at heart, lol. :laughing:

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It’s not addictive at all? Oh what that? Don’t mind me just printing a unit of Roman legionaries…

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Should print them in Testudo formation - no need for supports then as you can just print a solid block.

:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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True, that can get messy. I guess it depends on how much you plan to print. The sheer volume of what i have printed since 2015 or so would probably cost the same as a small print farm if i had to pay someone else to print it for me.

Atm I’m in the neighborhood of 20-30 kg of pla and 7 or 8 liters of resin…

Haha you joke @Lord_of_Uzkulak but something I have been considering is printing a butt load of shields and enough models to be on the outside and making a big old testudo for kings of war that represents 40 men but only needs about 20 to pull it off haha

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I’ve seen people print 2 layers of models. Like what you have, with a whole second layer on top… as if there aren’t enough things to think about when printing…

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