My favorite way to 3D print perfect resin bases for my minis. Something I discovered printing dice?

A really interesting idea I came up with while trying to print perfect dice for the Bloodfields Kickstarter! My new "go to" method for printing my bases! Hope this helps!! And listen I'm not arguing which way is the best or say that anyone else likes to do it is wrong, this is simply my favorite new way to do bases :) THIS CAN ALSO BE HELPFUL FOR OTHER TYPE OF PRINTS IF YOU APPLY IT :)
My intro by Christopher Dick, seriously, hire this guy...great work and very good dude, www.linkedin.com/in/christoph...

[@Voroindo]

This is awesome, bases have been driving me crazy trying to get them perfect. Testing this out today - thank you for the easy to follow video!

[@stowlo]

Love your vids. Wouldn’t have bought a printer without them!

[@kevinbonk2224]

The man, the myth , the legend. Well done sir.

[@rvpuk]

Honestly I've been banging my head against base printing for a few weeks now, failures, lines, deformation. You're my hero, thank you for such a clear demonstration of the theory and practice of achieving this result. Bonus is printing flat is much quicker too as maximum Z value is the rate limiter of these printers! A new subscriber well earned :)

[@MrBizteck]

In 3d builder to quickly line up 2 models. Set the x:y coordinates for both at 0:0 ( the 3rd box on the bottom of the screen) then both models are perfectly centred you only need to adjust the Z height.

[@notahappyrobot]

- just to add, this will only work if there's nothing on the base overhanging the edge

[@maxcn36]

Thank you so much good sir, for sharing your research on these bases. Very helpful , helped me a lot when printing my bases !

[@PK-64427]

I'm starting the hobby very soon and your videos are helping me alot!!!!!

[@ishcolo]

thank you for makeing all your videos ^^ they are easy to go along with and they are very helpful

[@Nealath43]

The intro was fantastic Greg!

[@DrDeepspace]

I have used this technique with bases on my Ender 3. using a smaller 'sub-base' attached to the build plate under the actual mini base allows for easier removal and minimal amount of sanding will remove the extra for a good flat contact across the bottom.

[@joshuakramer3364]

What a great solution, i would have never thought to add that material to the base like that. Thank you for sharing it with us man. That's a like and a sub from me my guy.

[@kilruf]

Thank you for this video! Been trying to solve the issues with printing bases! Thanks again!

[@wm12ga]

I do this quickly with support raft at 80-90% and making the thickness of the raft the same as my bottom layer thickness. Nice video.

[@bluegloves2]

I tried this in chitubox... I was having a problem. How do you do it?

[@3dprintingpro212]

Yes one of my Patrons mentioned this as soon as he saw my video, I'm going to make an update video with that method as well, thanks!

[@wm12ga]

Blue Gloves you’ll have to be more specific on what’s giving you a problem. It’s a pretty straight forward process once you have the settings right. For example, 82% raft size usually and I have 8 bottom layers and print at .05 layer height. As long as my raft is .4 thick I won’t get elephants foot on my model. I use a raft height of 1mm so that I can keep a bevel on the raft making it easier to remove from the build plate.

[@3dprintingpro212]

@@wm12ga only issue there is when a base has an element that hangs over the edge :)

[@wm12ga]

3DPrintingPro True!! I haven’t had any bases that have overhangs yet but they would indeed make the raft extend to those as well. I’ve recently been printing a lot of stuff that’s been modeled to print supportless and I’m quite surprised by the quality.

[@BlackSheepStudios]

Thanks for this Greg! got 2 bases on the printer now, I know you said put one on centre but I got 2 x 50mm bases on for bloodfields and its a 3 hour print so if they come out as well as hoped and at that speed I'm happy for teeny bit of distortion compared to what I get now

[@AlbertNevado]

Awesome! Thank you so much! Do you know if this can be applied to bigger bases? I don't do a lot of minis, but I actually go for bigger statues and so on, and bases have always been a nightmare for me. I kind of rotate them so that they fit in my build plate (they usually are the largest part of the piece), but even though I have lift speed very low and supports and so on, they keep ending up with some lines and inconsistencies. Do you know any tips for bigger bases to be perfectly rounded and flat?

[@S.A.S.H.]

Great idea. Greatly appreciate your sharing this idea.

[@Jonas_Fox]

Thanks for sharing this. I've been avoiding printing bases because I could just tell they wouldn't come out symmetrical without futzing.

[@AllBrainsNoSoul]

Thanks for this! Bases have really been holding me back. Now if only you find a way to do the big bases like with the Manticore. I’ve been thinking some extra dummy material to trim away might be the way to go. Also, do you have any thoughts on adding a void, an open cylinder, in the bottom of the base for adding a magnet?

[@SamuraiAdler]

What I did with a yoda that already comes together with its base is I printed it flat but just added a bunch of well distributed supports bellow and it works wonders. and the sanding is very easy.

[@MAC-ster]

The new intro rocks

[@frankhadicke6805]

This method sounds good, what takes longer making the changes in 3d builder or sanding of the Elefant foot

[@PrintingWargamer]

thanks so much, I've been struggling so badly with base printing too!

[@SkiidMark]

Great helpful videos! I am new but have found adding a chamfer to the bottom of the base negates the foot great with no sanding and you get to retain the texture of the build plate and not add print time. I will give your method a try as some models are tough to add the chamfer to.

[@alvaropinot]

I'm so thankful for you sharing this. It was driving me crazy hahaha. Definitely share your OCD here :P

[@Edi62768]

Great idea. I am thinking on how I can do the same thing for oddly shaped items, too. Just take a slice of the bottom of the item from a duplicate, reduce it to say 95 percent size and take it on like you did. This will greatly help me print some of my custom starship parts I design for my model kits. Thanks Greg, you've done it again!

[@OiDepp]

this is an option but only works with very simple geometric shapes. just imagine doing it with something like the shape of an "8" and you will see the new problem. it has to become a feature in the slicer program, that reduces every single outline (depending from curing time and count of layers) to work in any situation.

[@sshark12]

Interesting idea! I'll try it out, thanks!

[@blueckaym]

I used you idea, to make my perfect (so far) bases :) I noticed that esp. the ~50mm bases take a lot of material esp. when printed pre-supported (at an angle). So (in Lychee) I made mine hollow (with 0.8mm wall), and cut a hole at the bottom as big so that it reaches the side walls. I then export this object to .stl and reimport it in the current project. Then I use Lychee's library to add a cylinder, and modify it to be ~0.8mm thick ~50mm upper diameter & 49mm lower diameter (ie it's a slightly conical). Then I lift the base ~0.75 (to have slight overlap to be sure there're no gaps between them). Now on that bottom I made 3 large opening at 120 degrees of each other. I used the planar-cut several times to cut on each side about 10x14mm rectangle that reaches the edge of the circle so that there's area of ~20mm in the middle of that additional base (lets call it fundament) that's not cut. Since 0.75mm slit isn't enough to properly drain the resin inside the hollowed base I add thin horizontal cylinders again from the library and put them in the middle of each slit to make the drain hole bigger to 1.8~2mm from the build plate (the huge rectangular holes are the bottom are great for IPA cleaning later, but while stuck on the build plate they don't help - only the side slit which is ~0.75mm only). Having 1.8~2mm holes on 3 sides lets it drain well enough. I mark these small library cylinder as holes. Then I use auto-supports to generate the support for inside the hollowed base. There are usually many of them as I'm printing it flat. That's part easy as being on the inside let me not worry about their looks. I make them "mini" ie they're columns and ~1mm thick (I'm sure you can make them thinner as they'll ~3mm long at most and many). The only trick with the supports it that some of them will land on the rectangular cuts I made in the fundament. So I manually pull each of these lower end to land on the nearest fundament, so some of them are very tilted but still support plenty. Of course I export the cut-out fundament to .stl so that I can slap it to how-many bases I want in the future. The bottom line is a pre-supported (tilted) ~50mm base would take ~11.76ml of resin (actually my whole hollowed and supported horse that goes with that base is 5.5ml so it seemed crazy to spend twice as much on the base :)), and my custom base came at 3.37ml ie ~31% of the pre-supported one (& ~61% of the horse it has to carry). Of course being lifted by the slightly narrower fundament hides the elephant foot from the bottom+transition layers. If you want I can send you the ~50mm base fundament .stl as it was tricky and slow to make it initially, but now that I use it it takes me few seconds to slap it under the hollowed base.

[@timhollier6633]

Mate your awesome , such a great idea

[@chucklamb3496]

What a great tip....wow!

[@Nosferatuklown]

Awesome - I always have issues removing the bases from the plate without denting and messing them up from the metal spatula - hopefully this helps, since it has that small gap from the extra "base" on the bottom that's absorbing the elephant foot do you notice or see a gap on the bottom? It seems like it would look like the bases are floating above the ground.

[@ZackThRipper]

Love the video. Curious however: do you use a flex plate on your printer bed, or do you print on the stock bed and just use a metal scraper to remove?

[@vaughanza]

Great video, thanks for sharing, excellent idea

[@sariusmonk]

I'm curious, will the AG pre-supports come with this new method implemented? Would be fun to try out.

[@MinifigureManiacs]

New intro is great!

[@is2scooby]

Awesome intro and content.

[@cidrain]

I've had SO MUCH trouble printing bases. The bottoms always come out uneven and wavy no matter how much I support. Thanks for this video!

[@bluegloves2]

Dang bro!!! new intro!!!

[@matthewmcguinness5538]

This really should be an option in Chitubox. All you would have to do is duplicate the first layer by the number of initial layers and scale it down

[@ericstikes7249]

Agreed. It would be great if some Chitu-programmer spent a few minutes writing that code. For now, I'm going to end up modeling the additional geometry in Sketchup Free.

[@RachitModi]

I love these bases Greg. Where are they from?

[@aaronvining2336]

The way that I do it when printing on an angle is to go in and make sure that all of my support for that very bottom corner are underneath the base but still right on the edge and that way if there is a little bit of damage or pitting from removing the support material it will be on the bottom where no one will see it, but more likely than not I never get any damage on the bottom or edges. I use your light support settings . Sometimes a heavy one or two in the middle if they’re big bases. These seem like they’ll print way faster though

[@OldManRogers]

What are those bases from - the look awesome! I'm literally trying this tonight myself, thank you as always for the tips, tricks and tutorials.

[@Augurkel]

Goosebumps

[@lostcarpark]

Great tip, thanks. I've been trying to print some custom D20s, any ideas to minimise damage to the bottom face?

[@chrisalmich3071]

Try rotating so a vertex is the lowest point and then support on the edges. You'll have to sand off the support marks but I don't know if there's a way to print dice flat without damaging that bottom face.

[@sean1939]

This is very interesting - I wonder if this could resolve printing dragon-tiles without the elephant foot problem and scatter scenery ( I only have a photon at the moment ). I need to do some experimenting I think...

[@hackremixyourlife7706]

I like this idea of printing flat on the base, I've got a large lid for a box and I wanted to print it flat but everyone I talked to said to angle it. I will try to add a square to the bottom to absorb the malformation and if I make it just right it will fit inside the box opening and I won't have to even sand it off. !! Thanks

[@josemisiego]

Oh my goodness man finally a solid solution for elephants foot

[@jessehammil3897]

Pretty slick. Thanks.

[@juliengerard9253]

Hi! Thank you for your video! I always have problems with printing bases flat on the platform, as they come out very...flat. It looks like the scale on the z-axis have been reduced. I guess it comes from the settings i use but it works very well with normally supported models. Do you have an idea to help me?

[@rickbrasche8781]

this works great for larger parts too!

[@kcmwolf4873]

Nothing wrong with geeking out over honing a craft

[@OldManRogers]

Gentleman and scholar!

[@jaanikaapa6925]

Hey. I've been really liking your videos. Once I'm able to, I am getting a large resin printer. One thing I'd like to ask you is if you could actually 3D print resin casts. Basically when you have an object you use a boolean inside a rectangular piece, then split it in two. Then add the pour funnel into the model. When casting you just add the mold chemical so that the poured resin doesn't attach to the mold (whatever that was called). This way you could create a lot of molds for casting?

[@user-cx4lg1wg4s]

Nice intro) How exactly should I place and support dice, assuming it's cubic form? When I place them directly on the plate, I get the "elephant foot" and botched bottom details. When I place them in a parallel plane, or at an angle and support them as usual - they are distorted ((

[@naroe2001]

printing direct base to plate, what method do you use to get part of plate?

[@Disruptii]

I saw this video a day late. Question, can that same shape be used on base shape or would it be best to try to match the shape of the base youre doing?

[@vaughanza]

Hi, I would like to print a Bitcoin and love to see a video or advice on printing a coin with detail on both sides? Love to see which way you recommend doing double-sided coin. Thanks for awesome videos.

[@ericbienvenue7033]

Great video, I was wondering how would you go about to print a mouvement tray, lt say 100mm x 40mm and 100mm x 100mm. Seem that anyway I try is falling I have an Anycubic Photon

[@Atreyu976]

I would love to see how you did the dice you mentioned in the video. But also, how would you support all 6 basic dice? (d4, d6, d8,d10, d12, d20)

[@r.miller8749]

The dice are all d6 with different symbols on them. They are specific to the Bloodfields game. One of the faces of each die is blank, which is why he is able to print flat to the plate and then sand the "support disc." It's not so feasible for traditional polyhedral dice unless they also have a blank face. I suppose you could put the "support disc" over the 1 or something on a d20 and just know if you roll a blank face it's a nat 1. You could carve it back in with a dremel or something too?

[@matthewhorbund8994]

@@r.miller8749 I appreciate your reply! I dont play any games, but I love 3D Printing and fantasy. The models I print I was going to sell, but eventually decided I just enjoy printing :) That said, One of the things I wanted to print was die, but my first attempt was miserable. Chunks of the die pulled out from even the lightest supports. I do like your idea of a "blank" for the 1 so they could rest on the plate. However,I'd have to watch this video first, and make sure I dont have any elephant foot.

[@doctorgorgomel]

Just the video I was looking for.. again! Thanks :) My only question is, if you'd print a larger base, wouldn't the large cross section cause suction problems? Or in case it does, what is the size that would require to angle the base?

[@nipunagunarathne4882]

suction alone isn't the problem, suction vs supports is the problem. since there are no supports here, there's no issue. What I mean is, say you print an upside down pyramid without supports, so basically the tip of the pyramid is a single support point, and the model cross section is gradually increasing. It would print some way fine, but at one point, the suction force from the pyramid would be too much for the point and it would break off onto the fep. similarly, when you print a supported model, it's a constant battle between the supports and the suction. if you don't have enough supports, it'll break off when it comes to a thick part of the model

[@DerOutdoorbear]

Just tried and goes quite well. I have made the substructure 0.5mm. But I will also try it with 0.4mm. And shorten the burn in time so they come off easier. The adhesion does not have to be as strong as for a normal model because of the weight for the base. Need the days more bases, let's see what all is possible👍

[@DrVuud]

Great video! I was wondering how to print Dune Tokens Im doing, this will be perfect. Do you sand before curing or after?

[@3dprintingpro212]

After :)

[@boozebeard9501]

Honestly the elephant foot doesn't bother me that much, looks like it could be part of the base designs even. If you really wanted to have a clean up free solution you could try and shrink the bottom of the base to compensate for the elephant foot assuming it's consistent.

[@ccibinel]

Easy fix anyway - lower your burnin time to 3x normal for printing bases directly on the plate. Ie for original photon / zero about 20 seconds. Use 5x burnin time for more general printing with rafts

[@shawnkratos1347]

so will the AG bases come with the extra material now as an option?

[@g0balot]

Great! thank you for this

[@xevenau]

Did you make a version 2 of this yet? I couldn't find it on your page

[@Dark0Storm]

Did you try playing around with the compensation settings that allow you to grow or shrink the bottom layers (and normal layers if you wanted) by a small amount? My understanding was this is intended to address dimensional changes from printing such as elephants foot.

[@mykiehwood]

How does pledging work exactly? Do you get access to all of the prints they have made in the past as well? Sorry very new to this still and trying to find high quality without breaking the bank!

[@BrinkHouse]

This is really cool! Aren't bases printed flat on the bed like that more susceptible to warping during the curing process though? Mine always seem to when I try them flat on the bed.. :(

[@AllBrainsNoSoul]

Maybe it’s because of the base resin that gets cured for so much longer? I’d imagine that could cause it to curl downward, leaving a gap below. Is that what’s happening?

[@rubensdiniz873]

I was wondering about this recently, what do you think would be the best way to print a big, say 100cm base? Could we apply the same concept?

[@TheMidnightSmith]

For anyone else, content starts around 8 min mark. Also, this only works for minis not on a base, so base has to be separate.

[@marksahlgreen9584]

as a mac user, I don't have access to 3D builder... can you do a video on how to do it in meshmixer?

[@davespray6644]

Thank you for saving my sanity! This ALWAYS bugged me. I would have to print out all my bases on my FDM printer due to this issue on my resin printer.

[@labiq1896]

How about if I want to print something like a spoke rims for diecast ?

[@destrukticus]

I printed a batch that I had previously used supports on and these bottoms are beautifully smooth. They are very difficult to get off the build plate though (took a chip out of 1 in batch of 8 at once) and are .4 mm thinner than my previous batch that had been printed with supports. Do you show how you remove a model when it's flat on the plate in any video? Supported I have no problem with. Also the tops, a cobble stone pattern, isn't cut as deep with this method for some reason. I ran a single to test it and then the batch of 8. Any ideas? Regardless, I might keep this method, if I can remove them from the plate as easy as the supported ones come off. Thanks for sharing.

[@3dprintingpro212]

I just use a razor scraper (metal) as flat as you can get it and the bases just pop off ;)

[@EastwoodFabrication]

This was very helpful. I wanted to replicate the rook that is on the elegoo test file. no elephants foot!

[@andrewfielden5345]

Brilliant! This is something I have been driven mad by. Going to give this a go today. Have a suggestion that it would be ten times easier in Blender to mod the base to add a bottom disc and you would not need to know blender really to do this just follow a few simple steps. Will send a vid if you like

[@chrisallen2335]

I’d like to see that since I am learning blender.

[@Wrathful2000]

I have blender I would be interested in learning how to do this.

[@matth7397]

Clever, thanks

[@mverma81mv]

Hello! I am really interested in learning more about chitubox and how to print small pieces for jewllery as I am a goldsmith is there anyway u can help me?

[@ihopeutubedies]

Can anyone recommend something good to use to do repairs? Something that can be sanded

[@iansharp1543]

This is awesome. It seems so obvious now haha.

[@warriorpriest013]

How do we add extra material 5o print a base that is hollow underneath? I want to print them in clear green.

[@josephlarsen]

you could combine this with the stuff that ec3d was talking about earlier where you add channels to it so it's easier to come off the build plate. It'd be cool to just have all the different designers to just add it to their prints automatically

[@MrBizteck]

Have you the title to that video ? Sounds intresting.

[@GregAtlas]

Lychee now has a feature for its pro version that counteracts/compensates for the elephant's foot effect.

[@aaronr8684]

It's funny to see something that I have used with my FDM printer to negate the elephant's foot on friction fit parts used in resin printing too :D

[@ge2719]

You would think this would be a default option built into slicing software, where it automatically adapt the first layers masks slightly to account for the extra cure time in order to make it so the result is the same as the model....

[@davedogge2280]

Great video. Btw anyone know where I can get some good Ork Scrapyard base STLs from for Warhammer 40k ? paid for or free ?

[@MrBizteck]

I came across a great tutorial for making bases in tinkercad. I know perhaps not the solution you wanted. This is it I think. kzbin.info/www/bejne/qqCYgnuAnZp9gqM

[@Daobobs]

Is there any way to combine this process with annoying bases that have inset logos carved into the bottom of them? I can't stand it but a couple of groups I get files from insist on putting their logo on the bottom of the base. I've tried doing this and then importing into MeshMixer to repair and fill the holes, but no matter what I try I still get a hollow spot and internal islands because of that logo.

[@davesmaginations5222]

it'd be nice to see the bottom of those bases, before, and after you sanded them

[@cthulpiss]

what about positioning minis with built-in bases ?

[@tnasty3619]

Do these have any suction forces?

[@williamwestonn]

you can do a cone and see how big your foot will end up, then you can change the diamter if the inner lower diameter on the base to get no foot at all

[@novinchaos6380]

Unfortunately, this method did not work on my 40mm base. Followed everything to the dot and somehow my base is now stuck on the FEP. Used a basic grey resin with prescribed settings for Elegoo Mars, except for a 40 mm/min lifting speed to retain more details.

[@JeffreyErnst]

A normal factory GW base is hollow. Have you ever considered cutting a cilinder of for example 20mm and3-4mm deep to say on sanding and resin?

[@boozebeard9501]

Well you couldn't print it flat like that, the hollow part would make one big over hang. So then you'd have to tilt it and support it and end up with same problems with support damage on edges.

[@SambagsStockpot]

Sorry to sound thick (as we say in the UK) but if I've got this right, the Z-Height equals Layer Height multiplied by the Bottom Layer Count?

[@_tw300]

what do you mean by the "pull effect"

[@maskedgymnast]

Could this be achieved by putting a basic rest under the base in lychee?

[@Vormulac1]

I've been watching the early videos on support placement and not printing objects flat, and now these are printed flat instead of supported? Is there a size limit beyond which you should avoid printing flat to the plate?

[@3dprintingpro212]

these are printed flat because I've found its the only way to get perfect bases so far. I've done as big as 120mm round in this fashion :)

[@Vormulac1]

@@3dprintingpro212 Thanks for the reply, I'm expecting my first resin printer next week so I'm avidly watching all your videos! :D

[@DarkooKnight]

Holy Shite this makes it so easy.

[@petersolomon3505]

You make some very informative videos, congrats on that. How can I get a hold of you to give you something to test?

[@3dprintingpro212]

Hit my channel there's an email there, or on Facebook :)

[@petersolomon3505]

@@3dprintingpro212 fyi couldnt find email on your youtube info

[@the13th]

@@petersolomon3505 its under the about page

[@scottyk996]

Now I need a video on how to print my custom base with an accuracy of +/- 0.001”

[@MiniaturePlayer]

if you can find a resin that prints 1:1 you can. :D If you find one let me know.