Does it make sense to print any part using resing printer insted FDM

Hi,
Just going to build High-resolution version. I have only prusa mk3s printer, but have access to resin printer. I wonder if i should print let say gears, or any other parts using resin printer to make microscope works better.
Thank you in advance
Kris

The microscope is designed to be printed using fused filament 3D printers like yours. It will not really add any performance to print any parts using a resin printer.

Someone on the Forum here has investigated printing the entire microscope using a resin printer. They needed to make a semi-flexible resin mix for the actuation to work.

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Thank you very much.
Kris

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Hey, I am the guy who actually printed the microscope entirely off of resin :sweat:, cuz I only had a resin printer. But if you have a FDM, would recommend to stick with it for most things. Gears are fine, but print them flat on some flexible build.
The microscope is really not supposed to be printed with resin. To achieve it, It needs to be printed flat on the build plate, and specific supports need to be added manually, very carefully at very specific places so as to support all the essential mechanisms properly (as printing parallel to build plate with resin is always a recipe for failure, but here it needs to be this way), but to not overdo it to hinder any movement.
Your build plate and volume needs to be atleast as equivalent to that of Elegoo Saturn 2 (as it fits exactly in its width when placed flat).
Normal resin won’t work as its too fragile, flexures would just snap during normal operations. And even normal ABS won’t work. But you cant use elastic resins like the Tenacious as they won’t hold the form. Therefore, a very balanced resin needs to be prepared that should produce very solid, sturdy and hard parts but which are still flexible enough to allow for the range of motion required. This would require some experimentation. If you need my exact recipe, there were 2 actually: Anycubic White Standard plus (60%) + Anycubic White ABS pro (35%) + Esun elastic pro (5%), and another mix of Jamghe nebula Grey Standard plus (50%) + jamghe grey abs like (40%) + esun elastic pro (10%). All percentages are very crude approximations.

The reason for printing flat is cuz if printed at an angle, almost every single mechanism needs to be supported, but the mechanisms won’t perform well if they have those bumps or defects that supports inadvertently leave. And the would probably break anyways while removing the supports. But the main problem is that the whole print would always be a tiny bit skewed in the Z direction of printing. But absolutely flat surfaces are required for a lot of precise mountings, so it won’t work at all.

The most resin printable parts I think are: The wire casings (cable tidies), The slide holders, the illuminator dovetail, the large gears, the actuator feets and the illuminator thumscrews. Literally everything else would be less painful to make on a FDM printer. But not impossible! I really had no alternatives xd

But resin printed microscopes doo look fantastic! Here are two of my microscopes I built.

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thx, I will stay with PLA printing :slight_smile: