[delecti]

SLA printers are considerably faster and quieter, but the resins used are also much less safe than a spool of PLA (noxious fumes, gloves requried), and the post processing is more of a hurdle. I think FDM is already incredibly fast though, considering the achievable quality, precision, and ease of creating a single instance of something.

[sircastor]

I think a novel resin that was safe for humans and safely disposable/biodegradable would be huge transformationally for home 3D printing. That might get the speed to a point where the average person would tolerate one.

[derekp7]

The printers also need to get less fiddly for the average person. Things like setting the bed temperature, print head temp, fan speed, etc and watching the first couple layers to make sure they don't curl up on you. And those settings change with different brands of filament, and it is hard to tell which one to change and in which direction.

[TaylorAlexander]

They sell printers which “solve” that problem by locking you in to one type of filament.

I would love to see automatic print failure detection (with a camera, even a micro camera at the nozzle).

Figuring out the correct settings for unknown plastic seems like it would be hard to solve, but perhaps there’s some base material properties that could be determined automatically which might help. I’ve noticed that the Prusa 3D printer software has a sizable database of filament brands in its material settings section. I’d be curious how foolproof those settings all are for each brand of filament. But of course a manufacturer could change formulation at any time...

I solve this problem by only buying one of two brands and keeping custom settings for them.

I started my career in CNC machining. People always thought that meant software did everything for me, but no I had to choose tool sizes, spindle RPM, feed rates, depth of cut, etc. The CNC is not a magic machine that makes parts for you, it’s a tool. So I guess I’m a bit biased for thinking that current 3D printers are super useful tools that require a certain amount of operator competency. You cannot put any random filament in and expect good results, and actually that might be a hard problem to solve on the back end. Much easier to pay attention to what brand you order and feed in good quality stuff.

But idk. You’re right that they’re fiddly AF and I’m just used to it. If they could solve those problems it would surely help adoption.

[garblegarble]

>I would love to see automatic print failure detection (with a camera, even a micro camera at the nozzle).

You probably already know about it, but Spaghetti Detective is pretty decent at detecting print failures - although as you say it'd be great to have this built in (and more reliable...)

[TaylorAlexander]

Hey I didn’t know about that! Seems interesting. Thanks!

[8note]

This feels like the filament should come with a barcode that tells the printer all the requirements

[TaylorAlexander]

There’s some printer-specific factors that affect ideal temperature settings. Hot end geometry varies by printer and can affect ideal print temperature. Also they used to often have inaccurate temperature sensing, though that is fixable and perhaps things have improved there. I don’t know how much these factors would affect things, but if the variance across products is too great, filament manufacturers couldn’t solve the problem with pre defined settings.

Other factors that affect print quality are: filament diameter consistency (must be very precise), absolute filament diameter (must be known), nozzle wear (changes over time), environmental humidity and air temperature, and air flow. Michigan, Florida, and Arizona might require different settings. And then part geometry matters a lot. Someone up the comment thread mentioned curling. This can happen even with perfect temperature settings if part geometry is not ideal. Once I was totally unable to print a large rectangular part without curling until I replaced the 0.4mm nozzle with a 0.8mm nozzle. The thicker layers eliminated layer delamination that allowed the curling.

It really takes a bit of learning and experimentation to get things working sometimes. It’s not a perfect process by any means.

[TaylorAlexander]

Body safe resins exist, but they’re $200/liter. I don’t know anything about the chemistry but I remember they said they were “monomer free”.

https://www.3dresyns.com/

But yes, a cheap undeniably safe resin (there’s no MSDS on cheap resins) would be a boon! The sticky toxic mess my SLA printer leaves behind is a real issue.

[double0jimb0]

There are tons of human-safe SLA resins, the dental industry has been doing this for years. Maybe I misunderstood your point.

[floatboth]

That currently usually means safe after curing, you still have to handle the resin printing process with gloves and (?) ventilation.

[bazooka_penguin]

Theyre generally safe post cure and finishing. But in liquid state and while printing they're not (the curing reaction can give you serious burns if left uncleaned) and the fumes are noxious