FDM vs SLA 3D printed bolts and nuts (PLA vs Resin) 

I believe the most common SLA resins are just for show, not strength, though I do believe you can get resins that are stronger. Some commercial resins are hard like a really dense and smooth concrete. :) If you end up experimenting with stronger resins it would be cool to see PLA+ or other strong versions. I love your tests, keep up the great work!

This is actually an incredibly professional and scientific approach, I'm very impressed. I did not expect such a high quality experiment.

You could try "tough resins" and it would be interesting to see the performance of enhanced PLAs like PLA 870.

Very interesting test.I simply could not imagine PLA screws having this strength.

Nice video and great testing but as you also hinted to at the end there is a big problem with the comparability here. On the one side is PLA and while there are also many types here, that is a specific material. On the other side you just have a generic resin that is not intended to be used in physically demanding tasks. Of course there is a point here, that the cheapest material for FDM (pla) is much stronger than cheap resin but that is just the way it is. Resin printers exist in the first place because of the great quality and accuracy. If you want high performance in SLA you need to get specialized resin, just as you would get specialized filament for FDM if you wanted to get the best possible quality prints.

What I expected. I've used epoxy resin a lot and while it is awesome when combined with glass or carbon fibres, on its own it's very weak.

Would be nice if you tested “tough resin”. There is also a optimal printing tempts for sla. I believe it to be 30c at least.

Also keep in mind that resin also has layer lines what weaken it so those should have been printed in same format as pla bolts however I still think resign is going to be weaker by far it’s just to brittle needs to be abs like resin or a tough resin.

You have done a very nice job of comparing the two materials with quantitative analysis. I'm impressed. I love your hoist setup to test tensile strength. Then you did a very nice job of gathering all the information into the spreadsheet for quick comparison of the data. You put a lot of time and effort into making the setup for the tests. I make and post videos under another account (which is why you won't find any videos associated with this account) and nothing I do is nearly as good as what you've done here. Thank you for the time and effort to make and post this video. I am considering purchasing a 3D printer and this information was very helpful to me in trying to choose between FDM and resin printing.

Doing this with standard resin was a complete waste. Take some Elegoo ABS like or some Siraya tech blu next time, please. Another underrepresented flaw is creeping, the deformation under pressure/stress over time. Maybe a video on this topic could be worth it.

I have been a bit jealous of the nice details of the resin printers, but as most of my projects are functional and not only esthetic I’m happy I choose a FDM one. Thanks for sharing 👍🏻

Why SLA bolts have been printer in vertical position and PLA horizontal? Should be the same for tests :) But anyway thanks a lot for this :) Ah didn't watch to the end :) Let's see with prints the same position.

Can you please print the bold in resin also 45° 90° version and test this. I think that the 90° version will be very strong.

Print orientation matters on SLA too, it would have never popped of the head if it was printed through the lenght

WOW - thanks. I like tests like this and it's great that you have a summary page. I look forward to seeing the future tests you do. I subscribed to your channel. I am surprised they have elephant foot. A service that prints things should know that you print these things off the build plate and use supports. They should have been printed at an angle too. You really need to retest with a better resin print. I hope you have time to do that. (Assuming you already haven't.)

Love your Hungarian accent. Instantly signals intelligence 😁

Pla is brittle, but it still has one of the highest tensile strengths of "non engineering" materials, I believe PC is the "PLA" of high temp stuff, Polycarbonate is suuper strong, you should try it if you can

very nice testing, good engineering, this is how a real reviewing and testing should be done. respect!

I use Siraya Tech resins and get great results with strength. I mix my own resins with combos of Tenacious and Elegoo, Sculpt, Build, and a few others. Strength can be obtained with SLA, it just takes some playing around. And orientation DOES matter, you still have layers. Great video though, thanks!

You can avoid the elephant foot by adding a chamfer to the model in the effected areas.

I love using 3d printer for practical uses, for my opinion printing figures and nice stuf is useless

I Use a Formlabs with a strong resin. I try the same Test. No Oversize and the Test says 168Kg But..............................yes........."But" I use my SLA for very small Things and not for Printing Screws os similar. For the most things i use a PLA with various Materials (Depend on Use) What you here done is......................Apples vs. Bananas

As others have pointed out, water washable resin is actually pretty weak compared to standard resin and only really used for models. You can also get tough, engineering, and abs like resins which are much more durable.

SLA has no shearing ability. That's why it split. I expected as much.... The second I saw the tests, I knew the answer. FDM great structural, SLA great detail. Even though you can use both, the obvious features don't change.

water washable resin is the worst to test ... I use SuperPP from 3DMaterials resin to print industrial mechanical parts , and it's way more solid than pla, and most importantly, don't have weak direction, same strenght in every direction

I just don't see why you would 3D print plastic screws if the point is to hold up a lot of weight. I can see the point when making complicated shapes or prototyping things ... but not for actual use. I have some plans for printing some parts for small force applications like smaller robot parts where again the time to prototype, time to re-make time to test again is what matters not the strength of the end product.

Tests are resonably sound for typical uses, but materials are questionable. Another couple of parameters are required. But gives us some idea. Thank you for sharing.

Sintering the parts after printing improves strength. Maybe you could try it! Like Stefan at Cnc Kitchen: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DyAKtS1b3SQ.html

I solved the elephants food on my resin printer (Anycubic) by lowering the exposure of the first layer. All resins are different so you'll need to figure this out by trial and error. And for the tight nut threads, I adjusted the tolerances on Chitubox by trial and error. My nuts and bolts fit perfectly straight out of the print and also fit their matching metal fasteners no problem. I just print them standing up with no supports too. Hope that helps anyone.

Great video! It was exactly what I was looking for.

I had to replace a kitchen sink screw few years ago with a printed one. The PLA one hold up the job for few weeks until boiling water was drained. Next one I printed in ABS and 3 years later it is still going strong, no leak no problem with boiling water being drained. BTW I had to print this bolt nut combination as the sink was old and no spare parts were available.

So resin is for toys and model’s pla is good for engineering projects. Cool.

Resin is weak, even is yuo print horizontal, really the resin its only good static models or for casting models (that yuo use for metal casting, or mold imjection)

You should try with Elegoo ABS like resin, that is a fair competition. If you want I can send you a few for you to test.

I'm wondering if it is possible to print sealed structures from flexible resin?

Nice tests and not surprising. What I got from this video is that if I need a bolt with good tensile and shear strength, I should use a metal one. 😂😝

I see people saying you should have used "tough resin", if it's a strongest vs strongest, then you would need to use ABS vs tough resin. This test, as he says in the beginning, is the "most common" FDM vs resin, aka popular basic vs popular basic. I would like to see an ABS vs Tough resin test though. I've made some ABS items that are pretty much indestructible, but am just getting into SLA printing so personally, I can't say.

Slight problem, you did not print the sla bolts. Hear me out, because the process was outsourced you had no control over print orientation, cure time, etc. Based on the footage, it looks like they used an elegoo water washable resin, which is just a cheap hobby resin with terrible mechanical properties. While people consider PLA to be a cheap hobby filament, it still has some industrial uses. If you were to use an ABS like resin, or an ABS like resin with Syriatech Tough in an 80/20 mix it would have far better mechanical properties. There are also engineering resins that can be printed on a standard sla printer, where as more specific equipment is required to use engineering filaments. Good video though, I liked your setup, just wished they had sent you better parts XD

PLA parts deform in the heat, don't leave them in a car trunk! so really, PLA is good for quick check parts, but can you really count on them for engineering applications? Regarding the resin, if you were using resin for an engineering application, you wouldn't use a non-engineering grade resin, but perhaps this is a great comparison with the most readily available materials used in a mechanically demanding environment, so for that situation, this video is great: FDM PLA is clearly much better than DLP Resin. Thank you!

Im not sure how much it differance it would make but the SLA print have a other print direction. By that i mean FDM ist printed horizontal while the SLA is printed vertical. When you print FDM vertical it would only hold 1/2 of that what you showed. How much stronger SLA would be if it would be printed horizontal i dont know.

I'm very disappointed with the resin printer. I've made some retaining clipses for van door panels which are outside. It was strong at the beginning, but after 3 weeks it just dropped on the floor. I was able to crush them in my bare hands.

That certainly defied my expectations; not having much experience with either, I assumed the resin would have been much stronger.

But there is a flaw. The SLA printed bolts was printed in upright position and PLA in laying position. SLA also has layers, just like filament printing. A real comparison would have been printing in same direction.

Why do people print fasteners that cost a DIME?! I love the video and I think the strength tests were very well done. Don't print fasteners, though, people. That's silly.

Haven’t watched the video yet but I say resin takes it, but not by much.

You cant compare a vertical SLA printed nut to a horizontal printed PLA one... SLA ist layer printed as well. If you print the SLA nut horizontal it would bei much stronger..

He printed the resin bolt vertically so if printed horizontally they would be able to take much pulling force rather than pulling apart the layers of the resin... e.I print fdm bolts vertical also and they will break faster same with resin

this is the first video of yours that I have watched, and I want to say that I loved it. Thank you so much for the information - it was very useful. I will be subscribing to your channel

To be fair, I think you should print the resin bolt in horizontal orientation rather than vertical.

You did probably say it in the video but i am having some issues with the accent so i shall ask here. Was the resin and filament aprox in the same price and quality range? To make the test fair i mean :)

wont be making car parts out of resin its too weak.

Resin once cured is a lot more brittle than PLA. PLA on the other hand don't take static stress over time as well as resin does. It permanently deforms after a while where resiin will stay in shape.

If you really want strong Resin prints you should really go with something transparent. Siraya Tech Build is one of the best.

i think the reason why pla is stronger than resin is because of the way the material was made. PLA is extruded in a mesh like pattern while resin is made whole. If we look at it as rope vs a single thread "WITH THE SAME THICKNESS" emphasis on same thickness, the rope would win because of the gaps and twining. the gaps and twining of the rope does a better job of dispersing force like a sponge, whereas a whole material doesn't. Another example is how folded iron is stronger than molded iron. this is due to the grain structure hold it together.

Well I see there have been some comments already about the resin product, you were using a rigid resin developed for prototyping, the advantage of this resin is that it is cheap the disadvantage is that it has very limited mechanical properties. If you want to test resin materials you will need to get hold of something a lot more industrial, look at Henkel their Loctite 3D resins have a number of different properties from elastomeric to tough and rigid ... The results you will get will be vastly different. PS I personally do not like the idea of a water washable resin, there is a tendency for people to think that the uncured resins are not bio hazardous, the truth is that the dirty water after washing those resins is hazardous - and dirty water is far more dangerous to the environment than dirty solvent. Something to think about.

Wow!!!! And I was thinking to go Resin printer, but not for what I make as they need to be tough. thankyou very much

Very good engineering video. I think resin its better for models or pieces that doesn't need mechanical strength because you can print almost finished parts. FDM it's cheaper and much more faster to print and much stronger

try this with strong-x by liqcreate and then we'll see

Could you maybe test the high end resin from formlabs with your sla printer? Formlabs says that their resin is strong enough like Pa6. You can also use the resin with elegoo or anycubic dlp printer because both printer are still working with 405nm light wave.

You can eliminate elephant foot by printing them on sprus

So you're telling me i SHOULDN'T 3d print my rock climbing equipment? Ok got it.

I have seen actual fibre core strand carbon, kevlar or fibreglass filament. I can't see how it would stop and start though without a cutter at head to allow breaks. Impressive tests! pla is tougher than thought. I just got me a Anycube X as treat for lockdown cabin fever. LOL!

I suscribe just for the last boxing joke its funny

What resin? There isn't just one. There's FormLabs Tough 2000 and Tough 1500. There's Siraya Blu and Tenacious. Were the resin bolts cured at 60 degrees C?

thank you. now i know what i need.

i think the orientation of how you print it will also affect the strength. i thing horizontal printing is stronger than vertical printing..

Common Resin is very fractile, its like glass or worse.. I hope you can some day share Thoug Resin tests! :) It has more like ABS style properties, there are also yeas resins calls "abs-like resin" but I prefer what I know; Siraya Blu could suit much better than standart resin or maybe even better than that PLA

Resins are great for modeling but not for practical use like FDM printers. That was what I found in my research before purchasing my 3D printer. Thank you for this, as this helps many of us know the limitations of PLA prints without spending the time on the research. Keep up the great work/videos!

Blue is Filament. Grey is Resin. In case, like for me, that wasn't clear for you.

Wouldn’t it make sense to also print the resin bolts sideways? I feel the test is a bit inaccurate due to this

kind of a useless test seeing how PLA was horizontal and resin was vertically printed.

I wonder how it would differ if the sla bolts were printed horizontally

Formlabs has a Form2 printer that I've printed from for over 2 years. I prefer and recommend anyone that wants to get into SLA printing to invest in this specific printer first. No it isn't their newest one (the Form3), and yes it is more expensive than other ones. But compared to something cheaper (and a pain in the butt IMHO) like the Anycubic Photon, *_it is a pleasure to work with,_* and I can literally print the exact same things the Form3 can - it's just a tad bit slower is all. I've only ever had 1 minor issue printing with it in 2 years and that was when I was printing PEEP Valves for University of Texas Dallas during lockdown in April/May 2020 (didn't affect my prints - I was just printing 24/7 and the machine needed a break after job 25 haha). *TL;DR* If you got yourself a Form2, you'll bee able to print with their commercial-grade resins (requires~92-99% IPA wash), like their biocompatible *_Surgical Guide_* resin and tough engineering resin - heck even their clear resin is strong as long as you print at 50-100µm!! *Honestly, I think you'd do this experiment justice if you decided to run this experiment again using a higher quality printer like the Form2 and the right kind of resin (especially their Surgical Guide!)

Great job, thank you from Siberia!

Water washable resin has the lowest strength out of all the resins, its weak because of the additives that makes it water washable. You need to try a more common one like the ones labeled ABS-like, or even better ones that are labeled Tough (ie Siraya Tech BLU). Every resin is different from each other. They are also very dependent on temperature and cure time and takes a bit more skill to print a part with proper strength. For most people SLA prints are just "get a good looking object" and that is the minimum requirement.

PLA nut and bolt should perform better than pairing them with metal, because it should increase friction and potentially bond the two parts.

Don't really get the point of the shear test, bolts should never be exposed to shearing force, the friction of the plates which is generated with the bolt should carry the force...

You can avoid elephant feet by adding a small chamfer.

We see lots of our users recommending our Blu and Tenacious resins. We are happy to supply if you are interested to test it out. I believe it would give PLA and PETG a serious run for their money

thanks for this very informative video sir.

Nice video. Was really wondering this myself. I like your new test setup, though i miss seeing you dangle from the PLA bolts.

First off ...wonderful job on the comparison test. The info you provided was I guess surprising to me. I typically print with abs. Reason is it holds up better to heat outdoor elements etc. pla in my mind is great for making things like toys and such, but is not great for applications outside comfortable environments. Am I working about that? I wonder if I’m working on an outdated opinion here. I would love to see some more comparisons test like you have done using other materials. Obviously the Resin is not the champ for Durability, but I also believe that PLA is not a good example of durability as well because it’s easily affected by our environment we live in. Please correct me I’m very curious on what you have done and what you know.

Great job of stress testing and backing up evidences with spreadsheets. Also the used of video evidence is helpful. Sounds like fdm augmented with other materials can exceed the current capabilities of resin. Now if resin or sla can be augmented that would provide additional capability that is not currently available. Thanks again.

Standard SLA resin is not meant for that kind of structural stability, though there are ways to improve the durability of these kinds of parts such as stronger resins, longer cure times and printing it at a 45 degree angle.

Very interesting results. I would have never thought that resin was so brittle.

Try tenacious resin. That water washable crap is super weak and cheap.

Nice video. Was interesting. Btw you can make your bolts even stronger if you tweak the 3D printer profile.. may be? :D

Resin prints have a similar layer structure, and probably should have been printed horizontal as well, its now as big a factor as it is for PLA, but for comparison it would be better to print in same orientation

Interesting test ! On resin, you have different kind of resin ("ABS like" resin exist and have a better resistance) I'll going to see your orientation resistance test !! Thank you !

Comparison of PLA FDM parts with SLA part sounds like comparison of casted aluminium part and milled part. Author just take weakest and worst possible (but not the cheapest) material for SLA printer and compared to one of the most common material for FDM printer. Very predictable results if you know this little detail. But looks like author doesn't...

i had no idea small pla bolts would be so tuff i was surprised.

what about to test pc (polycarbonate) filament would it be any better results though?

Thank you for doing these tests. I remember about a year ago your other video on PDM strength bolts/nuts really helped me too.

Great test Thanks for sharing :-)

The resin is still amply strong just so long as care is taken to use it in situations where it's weaknesses are not exposed and its strengths are taken advantage of. For example, I needed a new very large nut that is 66mm in diameter and 21mm thick - it is used in the thrust plane and not the rotational plane to limit the amount of turns a worm gear shaft that drives it can make (the nut hits stoppers either end of it when it travels along the worm gear shaft). What matters for this particular part is a smooth finish and resistance to cracking and delamination versus outright strength and in any case it is designed to be a sacrificial part - meaning it is supposed to deliberately wear so that the components it interfaces with do not. It works extremely well. The resin they used still has a shore D hardness of 85 and is 50 MPa so it is pretty robust.

Hello, It was interesting to test a good mecanical resin, not a fragile one. There is lot of ABS like or nylon like resine. They are very more solid.

I'm curious about SLA resin bolts out of a proper strong resin and printed horizontally, the layers going through the whole bolt should change the result. Also, water wash resins seem to be the most brittle of the bunch. Anycubic Tough Resin Ultra may be a good resin to try. I now see this is an old video, time to go watch the other tests.

In summary, don't use SLA resin machines for engineering projects. Resin printers are superior for artistic projects, because the prints don't need to endure any punishment. Resin just shatters under any kind of applied force, pressure or torque, and it always does so in the same place.

excellent presentation simple logical and very intuitive.

quite unfair test, I have to say! Different PLAs have more or less the same mechanical properties, but resins, well that's another story! You should try some tough resins not some general, modeling resins.