Brumbaer / 3D Printing / Equipment

What people usually interest most is what printer I use.

I use a B9 Creator. In contrast to the common hobby printers which use layers of plastic sausages to built up the model, this printer uses liquid resin, that is cured with light to be more exact the blue and uv spectrum of light.

This allows for smoother surfaces and smaller detail. The drawback is that the build area is quite limited. Because the printer uses a video projector as an light source the build area will change with the size of detail. When the horizontal resolution is set to 100µm (1/10 of a mm) the build area is 102.4mm x 76.8mm. If the horizontal resolution is set to 50µm (1/20th of mm) it is 51.2mm x 38.4mm. The vertical size is resolution independent 206.4mm. The vertical resolution can be set as low as 6.35µm (1/157th of a mm).

I usually print with a horizontal resolution of 50µm and a vertical resolution of 25µm.

Whether the printer is really able to create an object with that resolution depends very much on the resin.

B9Creator offers two types, but there are others on the market. I use "Spot-HT for the B9Creator" which gives great detail, at the mentioned settings.

Besides the printer and the resin, you will need paper towels, for cleaning tools, printer fingers and I don't know what.

Two UV-harderners (with removable floor) as used for drying finger nails and a mini-turntable, to cure the model - which means to harden the resin.

The model will be put on the turntable and that will be placed between the two hardeners. The turntable is powered by a solar cell, so it will start automatically once the hardeners are switched on. 

Some people tape the hardeners together, but I don't, because I fear that the setup will overheat if taped together.

There is a comprehensive list of other things that make life easier on the B9 Creator website.

Distilled water is not  needed.

My personal addition would be a bubble level, some shims as used for furniture and an ultra sonic-cleaner.

The spatula mentioned in the list should in fact be 2. One like a painters knife to remove parts from supports and the build platform, and a silicone one (cooking utensil, should have at least one straight corner) for cleaning and stirring purposes.

And of course paper towels.

Other things that come in handy, but which you might probably have at home anyway, are a bin with lid, some plastic cups, micro-fibre cloth and some dish cleaning detergent. 

And not to forget paper towels.

On the software side I use Cinema 4D for creating the 3D models.

Cinema 4D supports parametric design in a way, which fits my design process quite nicely.

The model will be exported in stl format and the B9 Creator software will convert it to something the printer can work with.

The B9 Creator software is also used to control the printer which is connected via USB with the computer.

The software runs on PCs, Macs and Linux.

Because of the smell of the resin, I have put the printer in a different room and an old MacBook controls the printer. The MacBook is connected via Ethernet with my work Mac and I can remote control the MacBook from my work Mac. Preparing jobs on may work machine and than transferring them to the MacBook for printing.