Sweeeet!
I'm still waiting for my resin printer to ship, so crossing fingers on this front.
On my own behalf, I imported the STL into Blender and started having some fun with digital sculpting.
Yeah I'm trying to work out how to change the shape of the symbol on Astrur's robe (if you find an easy way to do this, pleeeeease let me know). I want to replace all the icons hanging from belts etc with my own craftworld symbol. I would also like to end up replacing the gun barrels on the bikes, sniper and vehicles, they are just to much of the same thing and too blocky for eldar. Even our dark kin like curves
Sooo... here is stuff I wish I knew befor eI started, would have saved me a bunch of resin FEP, time and a bunch of grey hairs
Resin temp matters. It cause me some serious problems as air temps can vary wildly down here. I made a very cheap enclosure and had a mini heater with a temp gauge.
Print the rerf file first, not the test file. This will give you a better idea of where to start. It does not accounts for weight, support, temps, etc, so use it as a guide. I tend to over expose a bit, it minimizes failures, but it is trial and error.
Shake the resin bottom before pouring. At night I actually heat up the resin before pouring too, it gets cold in the garage.
Get a screen protector for the LCD screen, it just a matter of time before something goes wrong and it leaks.
Get Plastic razor, these are great for getting mini's off the build plate and if you do get a leak, they are far less likely to damage the LCD screen.
UVtools, is fantastic.
Always angle your print.
If you have a flat surface you want to print without lines, you need to work out the correct angle for your print and layer height -> check this video
https://youtu.be/Qs2Rb0ExnIMSupports, this guys supports do work ->
https://youtu.be/KjF54SFaMAQ you can use methylated spirits, I think its called denatured alcohol in the states, its waaaay cheaper than Iso and most people say it works better. Down here it comes in a clear plastic bottle. When it starts getting cloudy I put it back in the bottle a leave it in the sun for a few days, the resin solidifies some what and you can strain and reuse.
If you use disposable gloves you will go through a tone of them. I use re-usable gloves, you can find chemical resistant gloves at the hardware store, they will not last for ever, but cost wise its better. I still use them when I'm taking the support off, but some people prefer disposables at this stage, so they can feel the nodules.
Remove supports after washing but before curing. Some people say to let it soak in hot water for a few mins before removing the supports, I've found it doesn't make any real difference, but the video's I've seen have much chunkier supports than I use.
Use angled rafts, they are much easier to get off the build plate.
I'm assuming you went with a mono printer. set the number of bottom layers to 4.
The bigger or more you put on the build plate, the more the bottom layers are likely to pull away, these days this is generally solved by increasing the exposure time. Most people say 20-30, but I've found I have not had to mess around with it when leaving it at 50. So I no longer get the print pulling away from the plate.
Temps affect curing, specifically how strong it will be, so cure during the day. While you can build your own, a cure station is worth it, as most home built cure stations don't have timers. It just makes life easier and more consistent.
If you like warhammer fantasy stuff, import a 20 or 25 mm flat base and line up the models on top, you will be able to see if they will touch each other and need to be scaled down, you can also play around and get the right scale size before printing.
Slicing software - Chitubox, solid option, free. Lyche, free with adds, limits functionality, has an add delay. I'm not a fan of subscription services, but technically speaking it has some better options, but none of them are needed. If you got an Anycubic mono, then Photon Workshop, not as good as chitubox, but free.
My process is to slice it, use uvtools to find any missing islands, go back to the slicer tool and add more etc. Uvtools can also add or remove things at a per pixel bases, so really handy at cleaning wayward things up. Since the free version of lychee has a add that makes you wait every time you slice, I don't like using it. If they had a traditional one off option to buy the software I would consider it.
