EASY Resin Quality on Modern FDM Printers? (following your tips!)

[@Painted4Combat]

FAQ: What printer am I using: Elegoo Neptune 3 Pro (Love this thing!) What Filament am I using: Elegoo PLA (standard) Love the matte finish and slight flex, just gotta have good cooling or parts curl. Where can you get my print proile or settings??: Im new to Orca Slicer so just figuring out the few issues then ill do a follow up video with my settings!

[@tobiaskieslich1001]

Wait, wait wait ... 😅

[@etalon11]

I can barely wait for it 😁

[@mitchodell4993]

I am very curious on your settings

[@markbrener1259]

Hi Painted4Combat! Just wanted to ask if you have posted your settings yet. Thanks!

[@exodus2oo]

Have you tried printing anything bigger since? Like 10cm

[@felixbreidenstein2950]

One nitpick I have is that you switched the nozzle size and the slicer together so we (and you probably also) don't know how much of the improvement is caused by which of these changes. The nozzle probably did most of the work for the improved quality, but printing the same mini with both nozzles and both slicers would be really interesting.

[@claws61821]

More than that, he doesn't specify whether the settings were the same between slicers, and if they weren't then that adds another very major set of factors to your previous point.

[@Painted4Combat]

Looking to cover this when I do a more "complete" breakdown. I got significant improvements from swapping to Orca alone (retaining the 0.4 nozzle) this was due to it having much nicer supports as well as some built in calibration tools (and some other minor stuff). and then the addition of the 0.2 nozzle helped to bump that quality further again. - but again, hoping to go more in depth once ive some more time in the software!

[@Painted4Combat]

@@claws61821 I had much more success with the default settings for my printer in Orca than I did with the defaults Prusa gave me (besides Orca's bizarre travel), I then went through and matched some of my settings to my old Prusa profile where I thought they would improve it. So my settings are different, but only because I had much more success from the get go with Orca. - I'll be doing a future video where I hope to go more in depth once ive had more time in Orca and will discuss all that there!

[@bruderdasisteinschwerermangel]

I'm not sure how much of a difference orcaslicer really makes here, since it's based on prusaslicer in the end

[@Hlilii]

​@Painted4Combat hi, on your faq post, i noticed you have the same printer as me i was wondering where i could find the settings you changed

[@MB-THX1138]

I like the way the layer lines orientation, make the cape look like fabric

[@dannydeeds3755]

u could also get a soldering station, it has very precise iron ends that can be heated up to an exact temperature. So instead of gluing parts together you can melt them together, also you can smooth out certain areas by melting those layer lines. some soldering stations also have heat blower guns, but I havent found any use for mine yet in 3d printing. It's awesome that you listen to your community, way to go!

[@Painted4Combat]

Good point & Great Tip! Heat guns can be suuuuper useful for blasting any super fine stringing and makes it way easier to flick off with a hobby knife!

[@SneakyJoeRu]

I've been printing fdm minis for 2 years now, started on old jgmaker a3s bedslinger. 0.2mm, 0.06mm layers. Now printing those at bambulab a1m and it works wonders. Glad more people are catching up on that.

[@DozenDeuce]

Are you using the settings Tomb of 3D Printed Horrors (Fat Dragon Games) released for the A1M, or did you come up with your own? I just picked up one myself so I’m trying to find some good ones to start.

[@MrCai01]

Fantastic result. Going to have to give a smaller nozzle a try myself now.

[@Smokinjoewhite]

For .2 nozzles I printed out a small washer .3mm thick and the exact diameter of 1.75 filament out of TPU and stuck it to the top of my extruder, this stopped dust getting in and while it does need replacing every couple of months or so, it won't deteriorate like sponge or felt that can crumble/wear and cause a jam itself.

[@Izemalt]

Another great video, im so glad that there are people like you willing to experiment around and sharing the discoveries with the community.

[@Painted4Combat]

Thank you!

[@Izemalt]

@@Painted4Combat By the way, wanted to ask if you can make a video going more in-depth about Orca Slicer and nozzle settings

[@emmdeeDM]

@@Izemalt ​ @Painted4Combat Yes please we all would appreciate it

[@SirLANsalot]

Yup with a .2 nozzle and a .05 or .03 layer height will give you that resin quality look. The quality will be at the level of an Elegoo Mars 2 in detail level, no it won't be 4k or 90k detail level but for little table top minis, its perfectly sufficient. The reason for this is with the smaller nozzle, details that are smaller then the Nozzle Width will not be ignored, even with Arachne enabled. I have been printing Grey Knights myself with a .4 nozzle, and am quite surprised at seeing the Rune details on the shoulders of the Terminators, actually coming through. The multi part model for Drago didn't really come out that well, so when my .2 nozzle comes I will re-try him again, if all else fails he might have to wait till I get a resin printer again.

[@Daniel.F-3dart]

One of the best videos I have seen on printing minis or figures in Filament. I am a digital sculptor and 3D modeler, it has been almost a year since I acquired my first printer, an Elegoo Neptun 4, obviously not all of us can afford a resin printer and despite what they say, I am managing to print my figures in 12cm, with tremendous quality in a layer height of 0.08. Not all of them are minis in life, there are also figures of those sizes, and I am really very happy with the quality and clarity with which my characters printed in PLA come out, without worrying about the toxicity of the resin, and everything that comes with a resin print. But here you show that you can go much further, and you can practically compete with a resin one by having the appropriate configurations in a 0.2 nozzle.

[@Fmntn]

Would you be so kind to share your settings?

[@nunyabeeswax4588]

Damn, it's nice to see FDM is close to my model standards. Not quite there yet, a bit too many layer lines for me still, but WOW it's neat to see how far it's come in 2 years.

[@jackuait3636]

You should try printing bigger models on FDM they look just great, but 50 mm do still look kinda bad, yeah. But'll see how things will change in another two years :)

[@nunyabeeswax4588]

@@jackuait3636 I print terrain on my FDM printer at 0.1 layer height, it works great for that kind of stuff

[@jackuait3636]

@@nunyabeeswax4588 Oh, yeah, I'm totally with you on this! Terrain on FDM almost looks better than in real life. I tend to print it at a 0.08 mm layer height when using a 0.4 mm nozzle and at a 0.04 mm layer height when using a 0.2 mm nozzle. Maybe I should try a 0.1 mm layer height for the times when I print terrain only

[@Baitboy]

I would like to see you talk about how you set up your supports. Tree supports always seem to wrap around details on the mini and are imposible to remove.

[@dustinroberson1865]

This is the same issue I always have when using tree supports. Tried printing a D2 Butcher for a friend to test the limits and the tree supports created a full "model" around my print. Removing was a nightmare. I'm assuming slicing the model into pieces and printing separate might be how he fixes this.

[@DozenDeuce]

@@dustinroberson1865Just picked up an A1 mini with the AMS to test out supports with a different type of filament, since PLA & PETG don’t stick together

[@DerUnbbekante]

I would have a look at "Ultimate Bambu Studio Support Tutorial | Basic & Advanced Settings Plus Support Painting" from BA 3D printing. Even if you don't use Bambu Studio, most preprocessors are very similar. I would guess between paint supports / support blockers, maximum bridging distance and tree support branch distance is a lot of variety to optimize FDM supports.

[@Janovich]

this would be amazing usecase for multimaterial where the supports are petg

[@lepreseanaz]

Adaptive layer height will make these even better

Awesome! I already use the Orca slicer and managed to print some 10mm marines and 6mm Necrons on my Bambu A1 Mini with the 0.2 nozzle. The later break rather easily and are hard to clean but dangling filament remains and damaged parts fit well for Necrons anyways and not much is lost if I have to throw a couple of them in the bin. 😁 Please make a video about propper suppor placement and maybe one about slicing miniature up in a program like Meshmixer for better prints!

[@Slurgical_3D_Terrain_Channel]

I do plastic soldering when it’s needed. Great videos, absolutely love your channel. I haven’t jumped to Orca slicer yet. I’m at a too critical place on my channel as I am about to launch my patreon for terrain in January. I can’t risk toasting my printer or having a printer down.

[@TheAmishStig]

This is so very validating to watch...4-ish years ago I'd put a ton of time into pushing just how far my Ender 5 could go, as much to spite the 'FDM is garbage' crowd as because I got it to print terrain and all they wanted to bag on was its ability to do minis. Managed to get it producing 0.04mm layers out of a 0.3mm nozzle [like you experienced, the 0.2 clogged too much and I had my fill of it real fast]. Ended up walking it back a bit after I picked up a resin printer to go with it...the print times just weren't worth it once there was a Saturn on the desk that could do better Z resolutions faster...though now this makes me want to get back to tinkering.

[@DalePoole]

I started using Orca because the default Creality slicer didn't allow me access to a lot of the settings that other mini printers were using. It knocked about 10 - 15 minutes off a lot of my prints and printed with a better quality. I'm still using the .4 nozzle although I did buy some .2, but really haven't felt the need for them since I started using Orca. If find that using models from a decent sculptor is a bigger key to successful minis than any particular Slicer settings. Printing minis has never been better!

[@Slurgical_3D_Terrain_Channel]

One thing I find with cleaning support on really thin spots like a motorcycle mirror arm (I have a video on my channel with that) is squeezing gently the support at different spots and indirectly it snaps out on its own from the 1mm or less lol mirror.

[@ccwebs]

Really appreciated the video comparing results between a 0.4 and 0.2 nozzles. Been considering a new nozzle to upgrade my Anycubic Kobra 2. This won't replace my resin printer any time soon, because a good resin printer can throughput an entire squad in less time than a single high quality FDM miniature. But it would be a great option individual miniatures, or for hobbyists looking for high quality results but don't have a safe/ventilated space for a resin printer. I mostly print terrain and scenic bases on my FDM, and even with a .4 nozzle always have to weigh the trade offs between finer detail and the time it takes to print. It is interesting that, in the future, we may speak of resin not as being the higher detail option but as the faster option.

[@SpottedHares]

As some one who has been using a Kobra 2 for miniatures the buggiest hurled has been getting bed adhesion as the 0.2 nozzle puts so little down the z retraction has full on pulled a brim supported model off the plate just from retraction. once you get that down you will be surprised how good of a model you can get.

[@paulyates443]

I would love to see how 10mm minis look with this technique!

[@YesThats3DPrinted]

That looks much better than I expected

[@jacobmurray3621]

ONLY thing to note and it probably got fixed already. But prusa slicer seems to handle overhangs better than orca since there was a bug that treated overhangs like bridges that was fixed after bambu labs slicer was forked.

[@jammywesty91]

This is really impressive stuff. I might consider finally investing in an FDM machine now. The quality is still way off for figures IMO and I don't think FDM tech will ever close the gap but I'm actually considering one for terrain.

[@ccwebs]

I have an FDM printer for terrain and I have been able to get good results even without fine tuning. I also print scenic bases with it.

[@maninalift]

Wow. This is great. I'd be happy with that quality. It's not perfect but it's good enough for tabletop for sure and without the hassle and cost of resin. My only concern is that it's taking 9h for one mini and two minis would take take twice as long, while a resin printer can print out a whole plate at a time without going any slower. I'd be interested in comparing the experience of printing out and cleaning up 10-20 models and and a tank resin vs doing the same in FDM. That's a larger project, I don't know whether you'd want to do something like that.

[@Yehnsei]

To be fair, some of us spend that amount of time painting a mini, works out! xD

[@DozenDeuce]

I like to start long prints right before dinner. It allows me to check that everything’s going well before bed and it’s usually done either in the morning or when I get home from work

[@dammitanothername]

Thanks! I'm a total newb. Just bought a 3d printer. I've made quite a few mistakes. Which is how I learn best. Aim for something, try, miss, adjust factors for the miss, try again. Once I get a lay of the land, and understand it better, then I go back and do proper study. TIme for proper study. Liked and subscribed.

[@peterhendriks1972]

Super fun video and certainly educational, I look forward to your next one. Greetings from Holland

[@Painted4Combat]

Thanks 😊

[@muuubiee]

I used to do 0.04mm height, on 0.2mm nozzle with thinner walls (of 0,17mm?), with zero stringing (and I mean zero). At that height layer lines don't exist, the ony thing that can't be printed are super thin spikes, because you can't really blob out stuff like that with fdm. That was on a ender 3, with bowden tube... After a while I couldn't do it anymore, and I've realized that it's probably because the bowden tube has started sliding on retracts and pushes (sometimes pops out now).

[@TheEchoscapes]

Great to see an arbiter miniature here. I'm a resin printer but due to the amazing supportless sculpts that Theis does and the fantastic results the Arbiter community is getting I'm very close to converted!

[@Painted4Combat]

Yep! He's very quickly become one of my fav sculptors (fdm or otherwise!)

[@TsuiIzumi]

This will probably get me into 3D printing. I wanted to print models for my TRPG games, but the more I looked into resin, the more I was discouraged, you have to take a lot of preparation with resin. I'm glad FDM printers caught up.

[@krash22mini72]

I'm new to printing and if you're on the fence about it just do it my Bambu lab A1 might be the best thing I've ever purchased it's just so fun and if you have a laptop a phone and some free time you can make your own stuff I'm currently learning how to use Nomad Sculpt and it's so easy not to sound like an infomercial but I'm just genuinely enjoying printing stuff

[@vernonalbayeros4719]

Please go to a maker lab and try to print one of these on an FDM before purchasing one. FDM minis look absolutely horrible

[@krash22mini72]

@@vernonalbayeros4719 they definitely don't lol you just have to do it right there are plenty of videos on it

[@tartatovsky]

@@vernonalbayeros4719 wrong lol You either never actually set up your gear properly or you're just bad at printing stuff.

[@00wolfer00]

​@@vernonalbayeros4719they look fine. You can literally see it in this video.

[@knowwherefamous9067]

I use an Ankermake M5 with 2mm nozzle! Absolutely love the results super easy to use

[@SpottedHares]

Not sure if some one made this recommendation. I get less scaring on models that come In parts if the parts are the initial layer line and one print layer. It seems that at this small scale their more globs produce on the lower layers when the nozzle retracts.

[@MartinDubuque]

Really curious how these would look painted, if the layer lines become more visible or if it's still negligible.

[@Painted4Combat]

Stay tuned! working on that video now

[@MartinDubuque]

@@Painted4Combat I'm also wondering if there's a way to get the print time down at all, not that it's a big deal, I need to get my own printer haha

[@Painted4Combat]

Of course! depends on the printer i suppose, these are the speeds I have found give me the best quality on the neptune 3 pro. you could loose some walls and change some speeds to decrease print time but you might sacrifice quality. Also, these are printed with a 0.2 nozzle, and I found I have to lower my speeds by 30ish-percent to be able to get correct flow through the nozzle, so a 0.4 nozzle would be faster but worse quality etc.

[@odisy64]

the layer/resolution lines need to be smaller than 30 microns in order for paint to start hiding the voxel lines with light paint, so even resin printers need high resolution to have a smooth enough surface.

[@ericksanchez98]

just got my first 3d printer and you video is so helpfull for me. would like to see a video for models bigger than 180mm. have some dragon models i really want to print.

[@xyonblade]

I just got done printing a rhino on my A1 mini, using only the default 0.4mm nozzle and it looks great

[@jesuscabrita5815]

BRO i appreciated your tips, my minis look awesome after i see your video thx

[@Hardcover_Pilot]

I'm actually looking at getting into FDM printing now with a Bambu A1 Mini. Resin has been a non-starter for me; I have a tiny house, pets, and a roommate with some significant chemical allergies.

[@Painted4Combat]

Yeah im the same, Resin just aint an option. The A1 seems like the way to go at the moment, great pick!

[@wilhemfaust250]

Impressive I might have to look into getting an FDM printer one of these days maybe for Christmas...

[@aaronabel4756]

Looking good! You can use a bit of tape to clean up the stringing. Better than vaporizing it into the air you breath.

[@Painted4Combat]

Thats a great tip! Will have to try that out

[@euansmith3699]

If only the official Space Marine minis looked as cool as Stompyboots McMassivehammer. He looks awesome.

[@nonamenoname1133]

I'm doing some test helmets on my 0.2 nozzle and 0.1 layers, easing down the layer height as I dial the settings in, and the cooling tower tip really helped. While I'd normally print multi-object plates object by object, I instead did them layer by layer and put each helmet a bit far away from the other. Same effect. So, oddly enough, if you have two models you want to print that have about the same height, they work as fine cooling towers against each other.

[@ChrisBeaven]

Most printers have 0.04 steppers so 0.12 or 0.08 are probably better options for layer height

[@maxbean1245]

Can you go into more detail for supports? I have tried chitu lychee and a few other FDM slicers and I just cannot get any decent supports like I do with resin. Would love to see that in more detail when you do the setting vid

[@peter_isthewolf]

I'm pretty sure the results would be even more impressive on a Bambu A1 (mini). I also had the printer you used for these minis and the Bambu Lab printers are no doubt an improvement.

[@Taematoe]

Ha! I just printed that hammer marine. He's a cool one. Those look great!

[@peggle09]

Swapping my nozzle on my bambu x1c makes great minis.

[@bluefyr22]

I want that 2h hammer dude stl :P looks so cool!

[@argy8141]

The only issue you have with FDM rather than resin is time. For health reasons, I can't have a resin printer so I do everything via FDM. I know from getting mates do some resin for me, they can get a squad of 12 done in a day. I'm looking at 4 days given downtime. Now safeguarding my health is important and so is printing all year round. I'm interested in how you progress. I'm still doing terrain so haven't swapped out the 0.6 for the 0.2 but it will be soon.

[@Annihilo]

Are you allergic to resin? Ya it’s so fast I can do 20 krieg in about 1.5 hrs. It’s wild.

[@argy8141]

@@Annihilo Hyper sensitive to it, yes.

[@SirPoppy]

Thanks for the advice! I'm probably gonna get a 0.2mm nozzle in the future now for by brothers models It would be interesting to see the print time differences and qualities between different printers (I have a p1s)

[@chuckweb66]

I have a resin printer for printing Battletech miniatures. I hate the clean up and prints that fail. I have wanted an FDM printer but told that the lines were too visible and don’t sand well. This looks like a game changer. Have you noticed any lines in your prints? Thank You.

[@therangerronin4221]

I have a k1c I switched to a .2 nozzle but there isn't a .2 profile for k1c on Orca slicer. Any suggested where to start?

[@Painted4Combat]

I had the same issue for the Neptune 3 pro. All i did was the following; - - Printer Settings - - Nozzle Diameter = 0.2 - - Print Profile - - Quality = change ALL my "line width" settings to half the default value used for the 0.4mm nozzle Walls = 4 (i use 3 walls on my 0.4mm nozzle, but found that 4 or higher is much better idea for a 0.2) so really all i had to do was just tell it I was using a 0.2mm nozzle. nothing too fancy! the rest of my 0.4 settings worked great for the 0.2. If you find your printer is struggling to push out filament try increasing the temperature by 5-10 degrees and slow down your speeds by 20-25% Hope this helps!

[@eastoforion]

whats the best way to get rid of the fuzz? quick pass with a heat gun?

[@Painted4Combat]

Yeah! if you cant just nick it off with a hobby knife a heatgun is the go-to

[@scottturner864]

Where are you getting your STLs and what are your setting? Thanks!

[@maartjevancaspel]

Would love to see the profile that you used for these! 😊

[@Cheetohead24]

I love your videos, and used your last slicer/settings video to increase the quality on my FDM Ender 3 printer. Would you make a video on the settings for the new slicer your using and what settings?

[@Painted4Combat]

Yes yes! just figuring out my last few bits and bobs since im new to Orca Slicer, but once im locked in ill share my new profile and settings in another video!

[@Cheetohead24]

@@Painted4Combat Thank you so very much! I'm not very tech savvy with the 3d printing, so you are awesome for sharing your work! I love your videos and look forward to your D&D campaign as well!

[@unproven8825]

subbed. cant wait to see these minis painted

[@Painted4Combat]

Thank you! 🙌

[@TheWuzyy]

what are your line widths on the 0.2mm nozzle? whats the max speeds?

[@JunkboxSP]

One small thing I really loved was how the layer lines across the cloak on that first mini added so much texture to it and kind of gave it a fabric grain! I genuinely think soon folks might start finding ways to integrate layer lines into the aesthetics of prints, much in the same way we look back fondly on CRTs and how they display images.

[@Thee_Lord_of_Darkness]

I would maybe put the mini in a short acetone vapor bath just to smooth out the lines slightly, I do see a bit of stringing but nothing major might want to adjust the heat slightly. Other wise this is looking good.

[@Painted4Combat]

Yeah! Haven't adjusted my retraction fully since swapping from 0.4 to 0.2 so stringing is still a bit wild. Acetone might be a nice way to polish these off if I'm seeing to many layer lines after Primer.

[@jamieclarke321]

Did you know you can use a 0.6mm nozzle and set it to 0.36mm line width and still get awesome results. Basically you can set line width to be 60% of the nozzle diameter and it still works well.

[@Fmntn]

Hi! after i edit a file and save it in .gcode format, my neptune 4 doesn't recognize it! it sees the file but it behaves like it's an empty one! Any idea what can i do? Thanks!

[@somerandomperson8282]

Dude we need the Orca slicer settings for minis and support asap please! :?

[@Painted4Combat]

'Tis coming sooner than you might think! 😉

[@legionact1]

Fantastic 🎉❤ thank you for sharing this

[@SpoonTaco]

So .2mm nozzel will make the prints way better?

[@vincentpisano6440]

do you think there will be a quality improvement with Elegoo 4 series?

[@Painted4Combat]

The Neptune 4 series made a few quality of life improvements from the 3 series, but nothing major in terms of anything that would bump quality. Main note with the 4 series is that they can print faster by default, but that's not something that you'd be looking for for printing minis anyways ~ does make them more tempting if you also print terrain and such though!

[@burgerdad5681]

Any idea if the p1s is as good as the a1 for minis?

[@Painted4Combat]

From a "spectators view" the A1 seems like the way to go; I would recommend checking out these videos to help with your choice! kzbin.info/www/bejne/i5XJZ3ueaJ12etU kzbin.info/www/bejne/gZelkIaVftp5lZo

[@nofarius]

Would be interested to know if printing using 0.4mm nozzle sliced with orca produces better results than the same mini printed slicing with prusaslicer. Have a k1c and did some tests comparing a 0.4 nozzle and 0.2 nozzle both sliced with orca and the 0.2mm nozzle produced only very slightly better results than the 0.4, not enough of an improvement to warrant the extra time. So I'm wondering if the big improvement you saw was due to the slicer rather than the nozzle?

[@Painted4Combat]

Good plan! Will try and do a proper comparison in the future!

[@GhostFS]

Yes I have made quite a bit of Miniatures with my older Cr10-Mini and plan to star egain with my new Bambulab P1. 0.2mm nozzle an 0.1 step is the way. Along with much patience as speed limitation and the often required support are unavoidable. Unless you whant all the miniature to have their hands in the air like in a 90 disco many poses are tricky to print

[@nassozeebo]

Im printing my 28mm miniatures (space marine like, OPR models etc) on my bambu A1 with a .2 mm nozzle and the 0.08mm high quality setting. Have made tweaks to supports(and brims) but nothing else. Supports and mostly the only issues i have run into. But...my prints are taking two hours, tops. I dont get how these can take 8 or 9 hours...per model!

[@polycrystallinecandy]

Most printers can print down to 0.04 layer height. But probably turn on variable layer height to reduce print time if you go that low

[@Painted4Combat]

Yeah, the only downside of the Neptune 3 pro is that its minimum height is 0.08 - ive tried going lower but it does casue issues, so im assuming the 0.08 is accurately its minimum. Good call though!

[@Rolman3D]

I’ve been printing since 2017 from using a CR-10 to the K1 MAX and many people wouldn’t stop talking about 0.4 nozzles for their speed however at that time there weren’t Core XY printers so I’ll look into 0.2mm nozzles thanks to your video. I wonder if you used ironing for these prints

[@Painted4Combat]

No ironing on these!

[@Rolman3D]

@@Painted4Combat damn, that’s really impressive

[@1orael]

This looks very good and i am glad one can get nice minis without needing to deal with resin. I am curious though: is the quality heavily dependent on the model suiting fdm (chunky space marines seem easier than fragile elves) or can you get pretty much any model in this quality with a bit of fiddeling. Gotta say, especially for people who are 10% hobbyist and 90% gamer, this is it!

[@Painted4Combat]

Yeah - it might limit your STL selection to 80-90% of what available, super thin minis are difficult but I've been printing Hero Forge minis with no issue if that's a good point of comparison for ya! Anything that's Heroic scale or that isn't to "realisticly" proportioned should be fine (in my experience so far).

[@MarcBantolina]

I'm looking for some Space Marines to print. Can you recommend somewhere to get them?

[@Painted4Combat]

Artel W Miniatures has some great sculpts! Also check out the Space Bears by TabletopTime, very cool range!

[@gtster9744]

I’m looking for somewhere to download Space Marines stl’s or similar too, any links would be a great help

[@inmoraa7613]

Curiors question, I have not gotten into the 3D printing scene yet, I mean I do have a few peice of things by friends, but what I am curious is, I play Battletech, and was curious to has anyone used FDM to do BT minis before and how they turn out.

[@OtakuNoShitpost]

Last time I looked at printing minis with FDM, a cooling tower was recommended to avoid blobbing and disfigurements on thin parts of the mini... Is that still the case?

[@Painted4Combat]

If your just printing one mini, a single piece model, it will definitely help!

[@bassbeats92]

Yeeeah, thanks for trying! I knew you would love it

[@etalon11]

Can you please tell what fdm printer you are using? I saw that it is an elegoo?

[@Painted4Combat]

Elegoo Neptune 3 Pro & using Elegoo PLA Filament (nice 'n' cheap, great filament)

[@claytonretallack4043]

Can you share the settings you used in Orca Slicer?

[@Painted4Combat]

Still figuring out a few final tweaks to my settings then i'll do a follow up video in a few weeks with a User Profile 🙌

[@RedChaosScrungle]

Small suggestion but once the prints are done hit them with a hair dryer to get rid of the wispy strings on them.

[@SalivaYOUTUBE]

I was checking the price of the elegoo nep 3 pro and saw the nep 4 pro is only like $50 more, so you think it is a good enough upgrade over the 3 to spend the extra money on? I don't know anything about printers, just getting in to it

[@Painted4Combat]

I haven't been hands on with the 4, apparently it a few very minor "upgrades" and comes with Klipper by default which lets the 4 series printers print faster (not sure if this has quality drawbacks or not). I would recommend just looking at the youtuber 'Uncle Jessy', pretty sure he has videos on both printers, and go from there!

[@tobiasweyer5063]

first of all, great video. Question related to the "strings" of filament on the models, how do you clean those?

[@Painted4Combat]

Yeah! your probably talking about the Orc and Mephit shown at the end, I did very little cleanup on those. Usually its easy enough to run the back of a hobby knife along those areas (same way i'd go about removing sprue lines from a plastic model). - otherwise blasting them with some heat (heatgun or superheated hairdryer) will cause them to curl up into little blobs that can be flicked off easily with a knife.

[@tobiasweyer5063]

@@Painted4Combatcool thanks for explaining. Did you ever try to „polish“ the minis to smooth some of the layer lines, e.g. with a dremel tool?

[@anibalismo]

Could you please share where to get the hammer marine? You helped me discover myminifactory and now I'm a fan

[@Painted4Combat]

Just search for "Bloody Magpie Captain STL" he should pop up if he's currently available

[@wilrip78]

Have you tried doing a direct one for one? Using 4mm on orca vs prusa? I'd be curious to see if the software side aline will increase the quality.

[@Painted4Combat]

Might be something I look into for the future ~ the main notable difference in Orca Slicer for me is the tree supports being easier to remove and leaving less scarring but a full on comparison might be a good topic for a later video

[@georgeonderko5273]

How durable are things like spears and swords with FDM?

[@Painted4Combat]

Depends on their thickness. As long as they have some thickness to them (like the weapons shown here) my personal experience is that they're more likely to survive being dropped than a resin print, but still not has durable as a plastic model kit from a sprue.

[@Philtopy]

Great video! Printer noob here. I am thinking of getting a Bamboo A1 next year but I wondered: Can I print any STL file or does it have to be a specific type of file? Im scared that I wont find many good files to do warhammer prints. thanks in advance

[@Painted4Combat]

A1 is a great choice! any STL's you can find on Websites like Cults3d, MyMiniFactory, CGtrader, just have to keep an eye out. and STL is just the most common format, sometimes youll get OBJs or other file types but most slicers can handle those just fine! Many "warhammer" models come and go, so just make sure you grab files when you see them, especially if they are close proxies for GW models, they get taken down pretty fast xD

[@SteadyFishingSG]

This is an awesome print, able to share your print profile to try out

[@Painted4Combat]

Still figuring out a few final tweaks to my settings then i'll do a follow up video in a few weeks with a User Profile 🙌

[@dustinroberson1865]

While I have some .2mm nozzles and would love to test this out. I don't think my Ender 3V2 would be up to the task. When I upgrade to a better 3d printer, maybe I will jump down that rabbit hole with the ender 3 and try to dedicate it to .2mm nozzle

[@VaudevilleTrash]

Not your fault on the first marine, It's that model. I had to resize it in creality print to fit right

[@Painted4Combat]

Good to know 😆

[@tabletopmika4349]

That are some amazing results that you have achieved with your FDM printer, but they are still not on the same level of quality as resin prints. Also, the print time of 9.5 hours for a single infantry model is insane. Just imagine if you had to print a whole army of them. For comparison, on my resin printer I could print 20+ of these models in about 3 hours total and get a much better print quality. It's the simple case of using the right tool for the right task. Printing 28mm models with a FDM printer feels a bit like splitting logs with a pocket knife. 😉

[@GaniSowie]

why dont you use a quick lighter pass to burn away the strings ?

[@Painted4Combat]

partially because I wanted to show the raw prints in this video ~ and partially because my lighter died (and I haven't gotten a new one yet, cuz I don't usually get much stringing)

[@blectorn3478]

Where can I find the STLs?

[@noxylophone]

Uhhh say you forgot to uncheck the "Emit limites to G-code" box.... what do?

[@Painted4Combat]

If you leave it checked the acceleration/movement speed settings of the file you slice will overwrite the printers default speeds once you load the file. so if the print is set to travel slowly (which Orca does by default) it will make ALL future movements of the printer slow (even after the print finishes)

[@noxylophone]

@@Painted4Combat Right but how do you get the default speeds back? Factory reset?

[@Brumakh]

in both situation, with both printing tchnology, you can have issue that "ruins" the final product. Deal with aliasing with resin isn't always that easy.

[@miguellopez3392]

Aliasing is no longer really an issue as resolution of resin 3d printers has near quadruple in 5 years while speeds have trippled.

[@rbaileyrb]

Can I ask where you got the stl from please?

[@RageAgainstLP]

What real difference does the Orca Slice actually offer?

[@Painted4Combat]

One of the main reasons i only use orca now is It has significantly better supports that work very well for miniatures.

[@scottturner864]

Awesome, what's the link for the STL? Thanks

[@terraxcell]

I still have trouble sometimes removing supports on thin parts and weapons etc. Also where did you get the marines files?

[@Painted4Combat]

Artel W Miniatures for the main showcase one, the one featured is a free sample model the other one is a Space Bear by Tabletop Time!

[@Gryfang451]

A quick hit with a heat gun (a smaller one) will clean up with stringing almost instantly. Another tip that a lot of people don't use is to make sure your outer walls are printing first. Overhangs can have issues with this, but the outside walls of the model become so much smoother. Also, if you're doing anything above about 60 on your outside walls, slow down a little. It's not a race, it's about making something really good.

[@Painted4Combat]

Will give the Outside walls first a try for sure! Thanks for the tip.

[@DonutV8]

I don't have a heat gun but a quick pass over with a light works to 👍

[@ColonelSandersLite]

@@DonutV8 I wouldn't be at all surprised if a quick pass with a flame improved paint and glue adhesion too. This is a trick that works wonders on granny grating.

[@blastbuilder2430]

Main drawback is speed. With 0.2 nozzle it slows down print speed exponentially.

[@Painted4Combat]

Definitley! the prints sure take their time 😅

[@loppen297]

Really good videos with fdm showcasing! , how did the changing the 0.2 nozzle on the elegoo machine go? heard it was a big hazzle and might wanted to just buy a whole new head so you can switch around instead of replacing?, when you say "perfect out of box" is that in terms of slicer settings? ive only been using orca and love it. or did u change the standart orca settings, for some of the things you talked about in this and earlier videoes?

[@Painted4Combat]

By 'perfect out of the box' I meant I just had adjust my current settings for the 0.2 nozzle (orca doesn't have a default 0.2 for the neptune 3) but I had dialed in some of those settings beforehand. As for swapping the nozzle I quite literally just removed the silicon shoe on the printhead and I was able to unscrew the 0.4 and screw in the 0.2 without any hassle of pulling anything apart.

[@loppen297]

@@Painted4Combat what about the speeds? Is orca slicer set to the same speeds etc. as the other slicer you show in your other video?

[@phoenixrogers]

The quality of FDM printers have definitely improved. However there is still noticeable loss of detail in the figures. I feel my gen 1 elegoo mars does a better job and I can print an entire plate in the same time as one or two of these. I do however appreciate the tip with the slicer and nozzle this will be a game changer for terrain.