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Reply To: Printing one of the Titan Forge Patreon minis with supports already done!

April 22, 2020 at 4:12 pm #1516340

blinky465

17028xp

My print plate is scratched up good and proper! I didn’t feel comfortable with the plastic scraper and I’d seen quite a few people had them shatter in use (and the associated photos of injuries put me off being too rough with it!). I’m just using a wallpaper scraper. As @noyjatat says, you can help yourself by printing rafts with sloped sides, which makes getting your removal tool under them easier.

You can top up your tank mid-print easily enough (I’ve had to do it quite a few times after starting a print and forgetting to top up before hitting go – I sometimes do it on a long 6hr+ print too, just to make sure it doesn’t run out mid-print). You can even mix resins that are similar (not so if one needs printing at 6 sec layers and one at 12, but the resins I use print at 9-10sec per layer and I’ve had no problem mixing resins on a 9.5sec/layer print)

The general rule of thumb is you want just enough exposure time to make your resin stable – not so much it “blurs out” the details (over-exposure makes each layer “spread”) and no so little that the supports fail or your print sticks to the FEP instead of the build plate. Every machine is different – you’ll have to find your own settings; lots of people ask online, but resin viscosity is affected by temperature, some machines have slightly stronger LED matrices etc. so you just need to play about and find what works for you.

Once you do, you’ll love it.

Honestly!