Yeah, resin is a cool looking technology and all. I enjoy watching resin printing content. But in the real world when you have to deal with toxic chemicals, respirators, gloves, spills and hazardous waste it's a deal breaker for me. I'll stick to FDM, the detail is plenty good enough for me.
I will use my Saturn 3 for all the precious stuff, but as soon as my Bambu arrives i will print most things with FDM. As you said, its not fun to print with resin, even if the results are godlike. And for me the best thing about fdm is: You see if the first layer fails or not. With Resin i always have to wait until he is far enough out of the tank, in that time he already baked a nice layer of resin on the FPE for me to scrape off.
See with resin people are aware it’s “hazardous” so they take precautions with FDM people are unaware and don’t. FDM still emit VOCs and particulates. The air from a FDM printer should be filtered and you should still wear a respirator. I’d rather people be careful with something because they think it’s hazardous than be flippant with something they don’t that is still hazardous because they don’t think it is.
@@MaheerKibria that‘s just misinformation, if you are talking about bpa. Yes, there are fumes, and i personally wouldn’t sleep in a room with a printing printer. But our company tested the latest printers we use for rapid prototyping, and Voc (as particles) were well below our expectations. Every one of our work halls where people grind, weld and do other stuff has way worse air quality, even with active airflow. Adding there are amateur printers like the x1 carbon, that additionally reduces air pollution. ABS and stuff is a whole other story, but an fdm with bpa is just on another level compared to a resin printer if you are talking about exposure to toxic materials and such..
@@MaheerKibria You can see that people tend to mod their printers with filtered ventilators more and more (also, a lot of enclosed printer already come with filters), and even use respirators at least when using ABS or ASA. What I actually worry about is that I tend to see a lot of prints that will have contact with food, without thinking about bacteria settling in between layers
I stopped FDM printing around 2 years ago and only did Resin printing but now after getting my Bambu Lab printer, I am back doing FDM. Thing have change a lot in the last number of years and much cheaper and easier. Thanks for awesome video. Need to get a 0.20 Nozzel.
You can just change the line width with the 0.4mm nozzle. Believe it or not you can undersize it and get 0.25mm line width for the outer layer and quality comes out really good. Plus you get the benefit of thicker inside layers for strength.
@@dudea3378 I tried this. Even without adjusting the line width, the CURA slicer can fill in details smaller than the nozzle. My favorite test is printing a 0.4 module gear. The result was quite good, but it is much better if I do it with a 0.2 mm nozzle. Another reason is that, based on my experience, the quality of the layers is better if I use a layer thickness of 1/3-1/4 of the nozzle diameter.
I want to also mention that the matte style bambu pla (PLA Matte vs the PLA Basic you are using in your video) really hides layer lines, and they have some really lovely earth tone matte colors that would work super well in a TTRPG setting. I use the matte filaments with big nozzles to print functional parts like shop dividers and shelf brackets and such, and the big layers on those are masked by the matte filament. I bet the results on a mini printed at 0.2 with a matte filament would be amazing (and eliminate that "plastic sheen" you mention).
I think an ultimate comparison test for minis is to paint them and then have a look. Undercoats, and some contrast paints for a typical quick paint scenario.
I'm not into minifigures but I think the easy swap nozzles are a greater improvements compared to other printers than the AMS. I have my A1 for a bit over a week and I've been swapping between 0.2, 0.4 and 0.6 depending on whether I wand details or speed. I've hesitated so often with my Prusa Mini to swap nozzles because of how much work in involved.
I know what you mean. Changing nozzles on the Neptune 4 Plus is a combination of removing tiny screws, fiddling with wires and whipping out the pliers and socket screwdriver.
I'm not into minifigures but I think the easy swap nozzles are a greater improvements compared to other printers than the AMS. I have my A1 for a bit over a week and I've been swapping between 0.2, 0.4 and 0.6 depending on whether I wand details or speed. I've hesitated so often with my Prusa Mini to swap nozzles because of how much work in involved.
I would very much like to see a similar workup on the FlashForge Adventurer 5m .25mm nozzle. I've had some pretty good results with mine and would be very interested in seeing how it goes in your hands. As far as the poo pooing of FDM vs. Resin in some of the posts on here... chill guys. FIGURE makes it pretty clear that he is not saying that FDM is "as good" as Resin, but i still think these results are quite impressive. It really depends on what the miniatures are going to be used for and what your expectations are for the particular piece. No... you're likely not going to win a painting comp with an FDM produced model, but these make great pieces for tabletop games and even decorative pieces in many cases. There are trade-offs with every process, including resin printing. The differences are definitely noticeable, but i think calling them massive is a bit hyperbolic depending on the use.
Just got my A1 combo a week ago. I started printing a Wicked model on it and so far at 0.08 layer height on a 0.4mm nozzle i'm impressed. After printing on Ender 3 Pro for a couple years its such a difference. Seeing this printed on 0.2mm nozzle is insane. The detail and quality of that Wonder Woman is honestly insane. I really want to try on an 0.2mm nozzle now. Great video!
Thanks for doing a follow up video. Really interesting to see the side by side comparisons. The nice thing to see is that for those of us who only have an FDM machine and only want to print the occasional miniature or figurine it might be a much better (and cheaper) option to get a 0.2mm nozzle instead of forking out the cash for a resin printer. That Wonder Woman figure is amazing...
Looks like for me, the 0.2 nozzle is really good for player character minis, statues that are going to be a display, or like showstoppers. For my D&D group I’d use it for the player characters and for like the big bad. Everything else… probably 0.4. For when I don’t wanna use a resin printer. And honestly sometimes I just don’t wanna bother with resin.
I don’t have a 3d printing channel but I watch a lot and you’ve been coming up in my recommended. Keep up the good work! Also a suggestion is to add more b-roll in the videos
I have x1c and print minis at 0.2. I want a resin printer, but i know i don't really need it for minis. Also with arachne on 0.4 you can get very similar quality and increase it even more on 0.2
I've used other printers with 0.2mm nozzles with varying results. The Bambu A1 Mini is the first printer that just works well, every time, with this small a nozzle. It's great for HO scale stuff, although figures in HO scale is pushing my luck :-) Nicely done video, thanks for the very good comparisons. Now that they are shipping again an A1 is in the cards.
I think you convinced me to use the 0.2mm nozzle for terrain. However, I think you picked poor models for a comparison with resin. Your minis have hardly any detail and overhangs. FDM is much more of a PITA to post-process supports than Resin as well which you do not mention. I have a X1C and a Concepts3D Athena Resin Printer, the difference between the two in print quality is like night and day. I will be using my X1C for terrain, statues, and larger vehicle models, but even with a 0.2mm nozzle I wouldnt use it for minis. You simply cannot beat resin in speed and print quality. If you lack the ability to ventilate your workspace and dont have proper PPE, I would say you are better off with FDM though, it certainly has cheaper consumables.
I've been priniting with the 0.2 nozzle for a bit now, and they are truly amazing. Sure it takes a bit of time, but it's not like you have to stay at the printer while it finishes. The beauty of the A1 is that is just works - without micro management.
It's interesting how resin is slightly better than 0.2mm FDM in parts, but there are actually other parts of the resin figure's details got lost while 0.2mm FDM retained them
Thanks for doing this video! I was about to buy a .2 mm nozzle and didn't know how quality would look. You did the work for me! I have a resin printer and an A1, so I don't mind not going to .2 mm in FDM and just print it on resin printer.
Cheers, this was the video I was looking for. Who needs all the risk of resin? It's not THAT much better. For educators and workshops, don't stuff around with fumes. I see so many studios with bad venting.
This video convinced me to purchase the Bambu Lab A1. Maybe I missed it, but can you tell me which Filament you've been using for each of the prints? Especially the Wonder Woman Statue
Dude, the algorithm has been kind to me lately. I've had a few of your videos suggested to me and I am super impressed by your style. You appear to be an actual human being and it's not a question as to whether or not I'm actually just watching a commercial. It's hard not to identify resin once you're familiar with it. It has a very unique translucent quality, and right angles are very sharp. But FDM just kinda feels "warm". Like playing Nintendo on a high quality CRT versus running an emulator to an HD monitor. Sometimes the "inferior" option just feels nicer. Plus it has some tooth for paint adhesion. I just got a Bambu printer and it looks like I'm headed back to Micro Center for nozzles.
Resin is cool, in these close-up photos you can definitely tell which is which. Photos is not real life though, a photo is magnifying things to an extreme degree so photos and youtube videos can never really show how it would look to you in real life. I would personally never go with Resin due to its toxicity, handling it, protection measures.
As an additional note you didn't mention, in resin, that terrain print would run perhaps 1 hour or 1.25 hours as opposed to 8 hours. I'm guessing each Wonder Woman segment would run about 4.5 hours. If you can squeeze them all onto the same print plate, it would be a 4.5 hour total print. Your two positions at 13:30, "Is the statue inferior (resolution/quality) because it wasn't printed in resin?" and "That looks really good FOR FDM and will look great painted," are not mutually exclusive. You even added the qualifier "for FDM" to the judging criteria. Is the resolution inferior compared to many resin printers on the market? Yes. Will it look great anyway after it is cleaned up, filled, and painted? Yes. Even in your "Resin vs PLA" video from 1 year ago you can tell immediately that the resin Batman bust is unquestionably a higher resolution than this Wonder Woman. Not to say at all that the model is bad or that FDM is worthless, but scrutinizing the models 8" from your face and saying, "trying to find the layer lines on this model is near impossible" rings a bit hollow. When I can clearly see the telltale lines and texture of FDM in the video on this 8" model through my phone screen (1440p, not even 2K) and my experience, just from your own video presentation, is at odds with what you are stating on-screen, it kind of gives off shill vibes, which is really unfortunate. You can advocate and celebrate great advancements in FDM tech without pretending it doesn't have trade-offs or cranking up the disbelief in the scripting to 11. 😕
Hi, Thank you so much for this pair of reviews. I have a couple of questions. I noticed the Wonder Woman arm wasn't aligning properly, was that a failure or just the way it's been put together? Secondly, being in the UK, energy prices are ridiculous. How costly is this running at 15 hours at a time? Thank you
I'd love to see a vid on smaller layer heights. As a wargaming hobbyist, 3D printing is a godsend, resin will reign superior it's also nasty and annoying to handle (takes up quite some space as well). Getting the best quality out of a FDM machine would be great. I'd argue that for that purpose, print speed isn't too important. (I have enough grey plastic, I don't need to create buckets more every day). On a sidenote, if you'd do a vid on that, I'd suggest different models with a higher resolution, where differences (or hopefully) similarities to resin come across a bit better. Thanks for the effort regardless!
Hello, i would highly appreciate some advice. How long does it take to print such a larger figure? Because i am planning on getting a 3d printer, mainly to print only figures in that size. Now i checked out the bambu slicer-> did you use the automatic support system? If so: is it normal that a head can take around 12 hours and just the upper body without the arms can take a whole DAY + 11 hours = so 35 hours? Since i read that the bambu gets super hot = is there a risk on burning my apartment/since its an open printer? Like are those things normal or is that too long and should i do some adjustments? I would be extremely thankful for any advice or a whole video on printing larger figures with the 0.2 mm nozzle on the bambu A1!
So in your opinion is it better to just purchase the nozzle or complete hotend if I want to get a .2mm for the figures I have sculpted? I HAVE THE X1C.
I know when it comes to ease of use, FDM printing is catching up to resin (as far as handling the printers themselves), but they're just too slow to do serious miniature printing. I can do a whole plate of figures (anywhere between 8 and 12) in a couple of hours. If you're printing armies for wargames, I would go crazy waiting for an FDM printer. That's not to say I don't want to get this printer for terrain. It's on my near-future purchases now that it looks like I don't have to spend hours leveling the build plate or tinkering with the settings. I personally love resin printing though. It makes me feel like a mad scientist. =:^D However, it's true that you have to take precautions when printing in resin, but once you get used to it, you're curing workflow will be a simple and safe affair. As a quick tip, non-stick cookie sheets do wonders for containing spills of all kinds. Oh, and shop towels are great for wiping up minor resin spills and workspace cleanup.
@Figure Feedback are you please able to do the community a solid and share your Bambu Lab profile settings for your amazing mini prints with the 0.2mm nozzle? You could upload something to Makerworld or similar and a lot of people would benefit from it.
I'm just about frustrated enough with my 2 anycubic mega S and Chiron printer that i'm gonna throw them in the garbage and order a A1 with multi color ... Just tired of the constant hassle. Got many resin printer too (use to sell the prints, but there's no money to make anymore on etsy with that) and I don't see any reason to continue resin printing with the results you're showing here. Especially considering how fragile resin printed minis are ! Great review, clear information ! :)
I have a resin printer and I want to swap to a fdm printer. I don't like how much work it is with resin... and even if I got a biodegradable resin, it is still toxic in his liquid form... Now I am looking forward to get the Bamboo Lab A1
If you want even finer detail with the small nozzle you can enable variable layer height, it isn't enabled by default. Also, for large things like the wonder woman, lightning infill will reduce print time by some amount though the finer the layers the more diminishing returns you'll get on that. The prints can also be filled with something like plaster if you are worried about structural strength with the lightning infill.
Thanks for the video! I have already purchased the 0.2 hotend, but this is a nice confirmation and when I visit friends in the UK next month, I know I can gift them some nice minis.
Its hard to see the diff until you paint the statue. Im a resin user but I'm thinking of buying a Bambu Lab printer, for me the strong point of FDM printer is the rigidness of the prints, you can do that in resin "I think" but it will cost a lot. Resin stands out with print quality but its brittle as hell, you drop it and you break it.
Do you have an prints using a darker filament? I know you said you liked white, it's just that the white models are reflecting too much of the light which makes it harder to inspect
i got an A1 mini last week, i was using a mars 2 pro , even if i havent got the setttings just right , im already very impressed , got some string collapse issues but i think its because the nozzle temp is too high , im sure i can fix it in my next prints. so far im very impressed with the result ;)
Any idea how the p1s vs the a1 is for printing minis? I was wondering if the p1s was faster since it is a core xy, or if it cannot really go faster anyways since there are lots of direction changes for minis. Also if the A1 has more ringing because it is a bed slinger.
I found this few comments below: @FigureFeedback I used 0.08 for the 0.4 nozzle and 0.06 for the 0.2 nozzle. I wanted to test them both at their highest quality to compare.
Thank a democrat for this mess. This should have never have happened. The weak system has failed either by design or other means. Soft on crime doesn't help either
Nice video! I havent tried my .2mm nozzle on my x1c yet. I dont do many things that need that detail. But good to know the detail will be good when i do!
I've been thinking about getting a fdm printer for larger masks as my resin printer isn't big enough for some of the things I want to do. Been thinking eitherthe a1 ot maybe something a little bigger.
NERD ALERT!!!.... just kidding. Great video! Great comparison. Appreciate your take. Sold me on the A1 with 0.2. I won't give resin a second thought now. I don't care about miniatures, but I hate layer lines and I don't mind waiting for better results. Sub.
This is a great video. You answered a lot of nagging questions I have had as I don't have a 0.2 nozzle. Also that Wonder Woman statue is darn near resin level. Please keep up the great work!
I had high hopes for my 0.2 nozzle on the A1 Mini but first layers were awful. The z-offset didn't properly compensate for the thinner layer lines so after about 20 failed prints I finally managed to get a first layer by setting the first layer flow to 200% but overall it was a disappointing experience after 0.4 just worked.
Sorry to hear that. The experience was seamless for me. Did you change to the 0.2 profile in Bambu Studio and change the nozzle to 0.2 in the printer parts section of the slicer?
I might have missed it, as I'm multitasking while watching/listening to this, but how does the nozzle size affect the printing speed? I would assume that it would make your prints take longer, right? Great comparison, by the way!
Think 8 bit vs 16 and so on. More lines take longer to print. A .4 can put down a .2 line. So a .2 nozzle can put down a .1 line. Poke back if that is clear for you. FYI other factors come into play as well. Ironing, outside in, ZTE jump, print speed, wet filament, crap filament.....
would be interesting to see a comparison between the a1 and a similar priced resin printer like the saturn 4 ultra i mean that thing is a gamechanger 12k display automatic bed leveling and exposure sensor that thing is near automatic and with the tilting vat it prints a layer in under 6 seconds at 0.05 layer height . its an absolute beast plus the obviously added benefit that you can fill up the whole build plate with models and it still prints at the same speed like with any resin printer it is a figure printing factory at from what i have seen almost games workshop quality level which is insane
Thanks for the comparison, but I think I will(someday in the future)bite the bullet, and get a resin printer. The difference is too much like day and night.
I'm getting rid of my resin printer (anycubic photon x 6k s) because they're such a pain to use and post process etc. For what I need I'm going to add this Bambu A1 to my Kobra 2 Neo. I won't need anything else.
You should have set the layer height for the 0.4 mm nozzle the same as for the 0.2 mm so you can see what difference the actual nozzle diameter makes. In this comparison you don't know which improvements you got from the small nozzle and which you got from the smaller layer height.
Not possible in this scenario. The goal was to print them at the lowest layer height possible with the highest quality profile for each specific nozzle to see the differences. The 0.4 can't go as low as the 0.2.
Hi, have you taken the two small minis and painted them already? if not could you basecoat them black and drybrush them white? I would like to see if the layers are there then and at that point you could tell if speed/contrast paints would be a poor effect on the model. Nothing more. Good work on the video.
I haven't painted them. But I highly recommend checking out this video on painting FDM minis. He's a far better painter than me. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-UllwYXc1lMA.htmlsi=ApRmzxgTUzd07pbR
Where'd you get your Top Mount to hold your AMS above the printer? I want it. I just ordered an A1 Printer, and I'm looking for space-saving options like the one you have on yours. I saw a couple solutions elsewhere, but your mount looks much more solid than those.
Never seen your channel before, and I'm only 2 minutes in. Very professional, thanks for your review. I'll be back in future. Honestly, the detail change is there, but depending on the importance of the figure and how many you need, the 0.4mm actually does an amazing job.
Please don't get me wrong, Jeremy has a very pleasant voice, speaks simple English (as a German with a low-level education, I can easily follow), and also seems super friendly. But someone who adds 5 kg of vibrating mass to the top of their FDM printer-well, I just can't trust them by principle. How do people even come up with such ideas?
I didn't come up with this design. Bambu Lab did. I've never had an issue with the AMS on top and my prints come out consistently great. So I guess they know what they're doing more than most.
@@FigureFeedback while the filament holder design on top of the portal FDM printer might be from the manufacturer, I believe it’s more about saving space rather than improving print quality. Having the filament mounted above reduces the overall footprint of the machine, but it doesn’t necessarily help with the vibrations. In fact, the weight of five kilograms up there could worsen print quality by amplifying the vibrations during operation.
I have a 0.2 nozzle and finally desist to make a multicolor Vault Boy (from Fallout) figure. I tried 4 o 5 times and always I got extrusor tangle filament and another hand I had 0 problems with 0.4 nozzle instead. Maybay the problem it's the constants filament change, i don't know. I will try again the 0.2 nozzle with another smaller and one color figure
Thank you for doing this excellent, detailed comparison. I only have FDM printers (Including a Bambu P1X which is the CoreXY version of that A1 you have there) and typically do functional parts, so I'm using a 0.6 or even 0.8 nozzle most of the time. Even though I play D&D and would love being able to print miniatures, I've never even tried because I had it in my head that the quality, even with a small nozzle, would be dramatically inferior to resin and simply not worth the time investment. Your video has just shown me that I was mistaken, and I just ordered a 0.2 nozzle for my Bambu P1 (really).
Thank you for the video. It has totally convinced me that I should go with resin, I've been curious about the FDM and heard great things, but as a mini painter (first and foremost) lines are totally unacceptable and I was starting to believe FDM might do. I do agree that the FDM looks great for what it is, sadly I need nearly perfect.
I use a standard 0.4 nozzle for all of my printing, in the slicer I change the nozzle width to 0.2 with a layer height of 0.05 and get immaculate results. Every nozzle can handle a 50% reduction in nozzle width., and I have also seen somebody else on RU-vid use a 1 mm nozzle to print a 7 mm line width. I don’t understand why people don’t know that they can reduce the width in the slicer and it will get you the same results. The only place where it won’t is the first layer, the printer will struggle to use a bigger nozzle to make a smaller first layer, but then after the first layer every layer can be printed perfectly. So what I tend to do is print a normal 0.4 first layer with a layer height of 0.2 and then for every layer after I will use a 0.2 mm line width with a 0.05 height. Tbh, 0.4 nozzle can handle a 0.05 height perfectly fine, I print my lithophanes with these settings. I only use a 0.2 line width when extreme detail is needed, such as small writing
