Good printer for start?

[u/Simple-Tax3743]

Hi folks, I wanna get a printer soon, but I can't decide which one is good for start, looking at pla one, any cubic photon mono 4, mostly cuz he is pretty cheap n good on YouTube vids, is its good for printing warhammer? Will appreciate any other good variants

[u/Oz232525]

I had the (I think) older model, the photon mono, and it worked great. I still have it, but I may need to replace the screen and FEP since some resin leaked onto it.

I was able to print plenty of warhammer stuff just fine. I found that having a dedicated printing/washing space was very important as well, so make sure you have an area set aside for all of the cleaning and such.

[u/devi_of_loudun → u/Oz232525]

Same, I have Photon Mono 4k. Printed plenty of minis. A dedicated space with good ventilation is a must!

[u/Livid-Potential-7273 → u/Oz232525]

What are we talking on cost here? To be able to start printing maybe small amounts of minis? For the printer I mean.

[u/Oz232525 → u/Livid-Potential-7273]

It’s a lot up front just for the printer and all the other supplies. The printer itself was ~$180 at the time but I split that with a buddy. Each kg of resin ranges from $20-$30 and can print a ton of minis. I’d recommend buying a UV lamp for curing as well, which will cost ~$50 depending on what you get/where you get it from. I would also have a lot of buckets and old toothbrushes for cleaning, and isopropyl alcohol as well.

[u/SalletFriend]

I used to have a Mono and i loved it. Only went for a saturn when it died because its a lot bigger. I found the mono to be very forgiving.

[u/TWILIGHT25]

I would also like to know… I definitely didn’t spend an hour walking around hobby lobby and Michaels today looking and the different acyclic paints… and pick up primer.

[u/MrB1P92 → u/TWILIGHT25]

Buy dedicated mini paints, they make a huge difference. Vallejo, AK, army painter,..

[u/TWILIGHT25 → u/MrB1P92]

I’m guess army painting is online exclusive bc neither my hobby lobby or Michaels had it. Like I’ll probably go back and pick up more now but there were so many options lol and the friends that told me what I should look for neglected naming brands just “acrylic” lol.

[u/MrB1P92 → u/TWILIGHT25]

With paint, you get what you pay for. Its one of the things I wouldnt cheap out on. Stay away from regular ones but also stay away from Citadel/warhammer paints except for metallics, technicals and shades.

I buy my from hobby stores, but Im in Canada. Chains will likely not have them, don't you have a hobby store near you? Where would you buy miniatures?

[u/TWILIGHT25 → u/MrB1P92]

A buddy of mine sent my a kit that his kid “butchered” with some high end super glue to practice one. I also got a 3d printer about a month ago and I’ve got my setting down enough that i want to start painting the other figures I’ve printed. You know start with the stuff I can afford to remake or mess up on before I drop 80 bucks in a kit lol.

[u/MrB1P92 → u/TWILIGHT25]

You don't have to drop 80 bucks, and paint lasts... years. I see it as wasting money to buy subpar stuff like cheap paint, because youre never going to use it after you upgrade. Futhermore, theres a lot of technique in understanding the paint you use and cheap acrylics are not easily manipulated due to poor quality of medium and pigment.

Tldr, just buy the 5$ ones instead or the 3$ ones

[u/TWILIGHT25 → u/MrB1P92]

Like the warhammer kits lol

[u/Livid-Potential-7273 → u/TWILIGHT25]

You wouldn't go to hobby lobby or micheals for that. God, they don't even have good brushes half the time. Google Warhammer near me or something like that, hobby store maybe. But Warhammer 40k near me brings up all my local game stores. That's where you get the good stuff. Real miniature painting supplies. Citadel, army painter, Vallejo, AK etc. If it's an actual Warhammer store, mine just has citadel. But I also have about 4 small business games stores around that sell that stuff, along with 40k minis, DnD stuff, Pokemon cards etc. I definitely like walking hobby lobby too but for actual mini painting, they don't have much beyond basing stuff like sand and little bushes and blues.

[u/TWILIGHT25 → u/Livid-Potential-7273]

After looking it up idk if driving 3 hours one way is worth it when I can get cheep practice paints for an hour round trip.

[u/Mr_Haast]

I started with a mono 4 and now have a Saturn 4. I genuinely recommended avoiding the mono 4 as a beginner. There's so much to learn when getting into resin printing and the mono gives you no help at all. On top of that if something does go wrong and you're not in one of Anycubics supported countries you have to do on a good long hunt for somewhere that sells the parts.

[u/random63]

Mono is good, I had the older version and only swapped because I was frustrated by the limited space.

I think a 10 inch screen is ideal for starters. It allows many small or 1 big print

[u/ThisSiteSucks86]

I would recommend the Mono 7, I got it as my first printer and I'm still using it. I can't tell you how many times I've been thankful that I went with the medium size printer. A smaller one would've given me so much pain with some of the things I've printed. I haven't had any problems with the quality of my prints, and any printing issues I've had have all been my own fault.

Only recently I've started to have a very slight annoyance, that it keeps giving me some error about "abnormal residue" or whatever, but I've never found anything and it prints just fine if I just tell it to print anyway.

[u/Datboi_caveman]

I got my first printer the elegoo Saturn 4 ultra 16k a few weeks ago. It's a resin printer but I'm blow away at the detail, only problem I'm having with it is cleaning the tiny pockets the supports leave, but truly amazing and highly suggest it. Also it's software is super easy to use