Finally switched to DLP.

[bbussey]

Test fit of the D2 prints of the customer’s design. I’m gonna love this machine.

You're really going to love it when you see how crisp the relief is on those parts after you prime them.  The detail is visible on the gray Craftsman but it really pops after priming.  The white Craftsman is really hard to see the relief but it's there.  The black Craftsman is the easiest to see relief and is much more opaque than all previous black resins.

I'm redoing the bodies of my six RBB&B ex-hospital cars.  I've had the bodies printed for close to a year, and I've completed only Ad Car #1.  But the difference between the Mono-printed body and the D2-printed body is night and day.  I kept the current floor/underframes because they serve the purpose and I didn't want to redo all of the stirrups and details.  The better body print, coupled with updated decals and better windows has resulted in a far superior model to the first version.

Same with the NH County cars, I printed them nearly a year ago and just recently felt motivated to finish them.  I still have one Amtrak version to complete.  And the observation deck railings on the Conrail OCS cars definitely would not render as well as they do on the D2.

[robert3985]

So after too may print failures on my Mono X, I bought an AC D2. As @bbussey has said, I am now very impressed too. So much so that I am going to restart Keystone Details product, starting with a print to order speaker boxes and simple stuff.

@Lemosteam - This is very good news!  I know these parts might not be high on your to-do list, but your UP Outside Swinghanger caboose trucks would be high on my want list...particularly the sleeve-bearing version, but with integral, printed torque arms this time.

When your volume increases, you'll want a bigger machine, but, the Anycubic D2 is an excellent choice for small-volume detail work...but not for large volume. Luckily, the technology continues to improve and when you're ready for higher production capacity, I'm sure that there will be newer machines than the D2 with equal or better print quality, but much better speed and features such as a heated resin vat, sensors and algorithms to optimize and improve print speed, and maybe even a larger capacity DLP machine...maybe.

I'm impressed with your results, and I am pretty sure the quality of your new parts will noticeably improve from the previous Shapeways products.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[Chris333]

Another question... DLP does not use Chitu systems, it is Texas Instruments. All the DLP printers I can find do not come with Chitubox. Can they be used with Chitubox?

[ednadolski]

Does DLP use the same resin as 'ordinary' printers, or is it its own beast?

I wonder how that would work to print things like diesel steps and hopper walkways in N scale.

Ed

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Is DLP what @Mark4 Design was using like... 20 years ago? I remember him talking about how his machine was like $10k. It's impressive how far this has come.

@Robbman , you were involved with that. You still around these days?

[Lemosteam]

Another question... DLP does not use Chitu systems, it is Texas Instruments. All the DLP printers I can find do not come with Chitubox. Can they be used with Chitubox?

Bryan and Scott Lupia use version 1.9.x. Which I will be installing soon too.

[rodsup9000]

Does DLP use the same resin as 'ordinary' printers, or is it its own beast?

I wonder how that would work to print things like diesel steps and hopper walkways in N scale.

Ed

Ed, Yes it uses the same resin, but as you can see, the AC Craftsman resin is much more supior than the others

[Lemosteam]

@Lemosteam - This is very good news!  I know these parts might not be high on your to-do list, but your UP Outside Swinghanger caboose trucks would be high on my want list...particularly the sleeve-bearing version, but with integral, printed torque arms this time.

When your volume increases, you'll want a bigger machine, but, the Anycubic D2 is an excellent choice for small-volume detail work...but not for large volume. Luckily, the technology continues to improve and when you're ready for higher production capacity, I'm sure that there will be newer machines than the D2 with equal or better print quality, but much better speed and features such as a heated resin vat, sensors and algorithms to optimize and improve print speed, and maybe even a larger capacity DLP machine...maybe.

I'm impressed with your results, and I am pretty sure the quality of your new parts will noticeably improve from the previous Shapeways products.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

The goal is to restore as many designs as I can, but it will take a while to reconfigure the designs for resin printing. I will start with “high volume” (lol) sales product first, like my speaker boxes, etc. As mentioned earlier, there may be some design fees involved or direct Stl file sales, as the profit margins are minimal, especially designs I have no need for.

[Lemosteam]

Ed, Yes it uses the same resin, but as you can see, the AC Craftsman resin is much more supior than the others

Agree, and Chis has stated that he is also using it in his LCD printer. I have also seen mention on Facebook of folks using 8k resins in DLP machines, but I think the AC formula is better.

[Lemosteam]

The one on the left was the one of the first quick (just added some supports) prints I did on the D2.  Small parts like the muffler that broke off was brittle. By adding a little "AC tough resin",to the DLP craftsman resin helps a lot so that these small pieces don't break

 The one on the right was printed on 8K printer with ABS like resin.

I saw these in your original post, another bullet into my Mono. I might have printed a small hole and used some phosphor bronze wire for the pipe. I try to reduce or eliminate breakable designs, especially when selling them.

[Chris333]

I'm using 1.9.5 any higher and I have problems.

Just glad you're back to printing. You can design circle around me and I just figured you be 3D printing like crazy.

[bbussey]

Is DLP what @Mark4 Design was using like... 20 years ago? I remember him talking about how his machine was like $10k. It's impressive how far this has come.

@Robbman , you were involved with that. You still around these days?

I was around back then. It wasn’t DLP, but I don’t remember at the moment what the tech was. The results weren’t as crisp as today’s DLP renderings.

[Chris333]

I still have an clear orange resin dump truck body from M4D.

[bbussey]

Profactory. We'd have to Google to confirm the technology.

Google says that circa 2010 Perfactory was SLA technology, although they are DLP today.

[rodsup9000]

I was involved a little with this DLP printer, developed by Ron Light back in 2012.  Ron at the time had about 5 built when he tried a kickstarter campaign that failed. I would have bought one from him then, but the resin was about $100 a liter and the DLP projector was another $500.

https://www.3ders.org/articles/20120624-low-cost-open-source-3d-dlp-printer-on-kickstarter.html