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RE: Designing and printing an alternative pommel design.
Very interesting.
Now let's see if any makers show up saying they tried to use UV nail-polish in their printers hehe.
Are UV resins cheap ? I always wonder if the industries are trying to make a new "printer toner" market with 3d filaments and UV resins.
I believe most filament has escaped the "overpriced product" principle, but have no idea about resins.
it is a bit like the inkjet printer situation. Most printer-makers have their own resin which is usually more expensive but is tuned to work with the printer, and then there is a lot of alternative resins which are cheaper(although usually not exactly cheap.) My printer is pretty "open" in that they support a number of different 3rd party resin in their slicer. I think it is quite obvious that the 3d printer industry is closely related to the maker community in that opensource is fairly widely used, in the accompanying software and 3rd party stuff is usually also pretty easy to come by. it is not only the resin that is a consumable. the bottom of the resin vat is made from a flexible plastic (drumskin) which will go opaque over time and so must be changed every half year or so depending on how much you use the printer.
As with filament the standard stuff is ok in price (compared to how much is used) at app 60 euro pr. liter while specialized resin like printable is double the prize or more. Since I use mine for small prints it is not really an issue for me, but it is not exactly cheap, if you compare it to the printer costing around 5-600 euros
Let's hope the community in general keeps it open-source as much as possible :)
There's more research to be done in terms of creating cheap resin printers too, that I'm sure of.