Resin Printing vs Filament Printing, which is better?

I'm thinking about buying a 3D printer, but had difficulty choosing between filament and resin.
After watching these vids I probably go with filament, and get myself a Creality3D or Bambu Labs mini.
Should have got one years ago, and always wanted one, but the learning part was holding me back.

So damn difficult to choose lol.
Would love to try it all, but have a limited budget.
And I don't want to end up with 3 or 4 3Dprinters...

This is just like starting the drone hobby... no idea what Im doing.
And the more I look around the more confused I get. 
I should just pick a mid-range printer, buy it and see where it goes.

I have decided to get both. 

For what I have in mind I actually need both, can't just pick one or the other.
Resin for the fine detail, and filament to practice and print random stuff.
Not yet decided which ones, still looking around, both will be in the 200-300 range.
Going to cost a bit, but if I can do it, it's going to save me a lot of money also.
And no more visits to the dentist for ever.

Hard to choose being a 3D print noob, and more expensive doesn't necessarily mean better prints, although it can help.

Think this is going to be the one I will be ordering this weekend: Anycubic Photon Mono X 6Ks

Decided I also need a curing machine for best result.

And I started to look around to compare prices at other shops.

Think I'm just going to stick to the plan and not try to save a few bucks.

Going to order these:

Anycubic Photon Mono X 6Ks 3D Printer  249€
Anycubic Wash & Cure 2.0  124€

Not too bad price, really thought it was going to cost way more than filament.

The shoppinglist is complete, but not yet placed the order.
Spent lot of time last night looking at resin toxicity and safety stuff.
Turns out that once cured the resin is almost non toxic, so that's not going to be a big problem.
Also planning to add a layer of acrylic varnish to waterproof and add some extra strength to the printed material.
I'm starting out with waterwashable resin, so I can skip the Isopropanol wash part for now.
Although the waterwashable may not be the best for long term it's cheap and good enough to start with.
No idea how long the dentures will last, going to find that out, but first I have to learn how to print and cure something. 

I have 3 colors of resin on my shopping list: white, beige skincolor and transparent.
Transparent is not only cool, can also see what's going on inside the print.
Almost can't believe I'm getting a 3D resin printer... but it's happening!
Going to place the order tomorrow.

Order is placed, now waiting for the delivery.

From placing the order to receiving it at home took only 12hours.  
Now to find a good spot for it without sunlight and start by making a test print.
But before starting the printing I have to watch some tutorials on how to make a print.
Ofcourse I have a general idea how it works, but still like to mentally prepare a bit more.

While setting up the printer, watching videos like this can help.

While watching this video I felt guilty for lmao.
Shouldn't laugh about an old person having a senior moment, but still... 
And it a serious warning not to get this stuff on the skin.

Have not made a test print yet, only checked to see if the printer works, and so far so good.
I decided that for a test print I might as well start by trying to print something useful.
But for that I need to 3Dmodel some dentures, or find a good model online that I can adjust to make it fit in my mouth.
Have found some premodelled stuff already, so don't have to start from scratch.
But to make the dentures fit I have to bite something soft to copy the shape of my gums.
Then make a 3Dscan or photogrammetry of the impression and merge that with the model.

Not printed anything yet.  
Although it sucks, I´m also okay with it, the more I learn the less chance of screw up or damage.

For example there is this protective film on the LCD, wasn´t sure to peel it off or leave it on.
The installation guide that came with the printer says to peel it off...
But when I look online Anycubic says the printer comes with pre installed protective film, and a spare.
Almost peeled it off dangit.

Still not printed yet, but it's happening any moment now.  
Took a long time deciding where to put the printer and prepare everything.
I have a small house, and had to make a dark corner in a well ventilated area.
In the meantime I learned the entire process; modeling, export to slicer, and print, wash, cure.
Next post will be after I actually printed something.

I AM PRINTING, AND IT IS SMELLY!    

Well the smell could be worse, but it definitely smells not healthy.
The print is about halfway now, and so far everything seems to be working fine.
Will know how it went after it is finished, washed and cured.

Not too bad for the first try.
And now the first print has been made, it will be easier to print more stuff.
With these things I can make an imprint from the inside of my mouth, and use that to make the dentures fit. 


[https://ibb.co/61kDd3m]


[https://ibb.co/XFsLJbC]

Going a bit slow, but making progress.
Finally managed to make a proper imprint after screwing around for a while, also made photos of the imprints to convert into a 3d scan.
Now I have the correct shape and scale of my mouth to modify the 3D model I downloaded of cgtrader to fit myself.

The photogrammetry came out pretty good.
Now I can cut out the parts I need and merge that with the model of the dentures above.


[https://ibb.co/YyPvGW7] , [https://ibb.co/4syfFZh]

Almost done preparing the 3D models for printing.
Ofcourse it wasn't as easy as thought, and more work than expected.
Had to do a lot of repairing and remodelling, but starting to look good.
Have tried to keep everything to scale, but not sure how it will come out of the printer.
Can always rescale a bit and just print another one.

Aaaah lol  

Finally finished modelling and had the slice file ready to print.
But then I had a second look at the slice file and noticed it was full of artifacts.
The artifacts were caused by converting the 3Dmodel back and forth, somehow I screwed up the normals.
Repairing the 3d model is so much work, might as well start from scratch, which I plan on doing anyway.
The wireframe of the model I downloaded is too much of a mess to work with, best to just rebuild it completely.
For now I'm working on repairing the slice file itself, which luckily is not too difficult, just cost a little extra time.
Glad I caught this before starting the print, and that it is fixable.

Yeaaa... Printing!

After repairing the artifacts out of the slice file with UVTools, I am now printing the first prototype.
I am using transparent resin for the first test print, so I will have transparent dentures.(if it works out well, still printing).
Printing the first dentures in 1 piece, for future ones I'm going use color and print the teeth and gums seperate

25% done printing.. so far so good.

Dangit, print failed. Though the part that did print looks pretty good.
Apparently I did not add enough supports, and the print came loose halfway.
At least the vat didn't get punctured, and nothing broken, so no big problem.
Was already wondering if I added enough supports, and even added more supports later on.
Didn't want to overdo the amount of supports, but now I understand how it works I should have add even more.
Small problem during the printing is that you can't see what's happening until it's finished.
Can't see it when a print fails halfway, and stop the printer, it just keeps running till it's done.
Going to add more, a lot more, supports and try again tomorrow.
Maybe the hot weather isn't helpful either, not sure.

Omfg doh! Found out that clear resin needs much longer exposure times.
As the first print went pretty good, I left the exposure time at default, which is good for most resins.
But I read that because clear resin lacks pigment particles, which internally scatter the UV light and so cure the resin faster, it needs longer exposure.
Now running a new print with more supports and longer exposure time.

Succes! More supports and longer exposuretime worked perfect.
It already looks much better than what I got from the dentist, even though it's transparent.
Haven't removed the supports yet, wanted to let it dry properly to prevent warping.
And don't yet know if it fits, but it will be close. May have to rescale a bit to compensate for any shrinkage.

Pictures: