What is the groups focus? I moved to Resin a couple of years ago and my filament printer is in the closet gather dust... but I might break it out one day.
Agreed. I think a general 3D printing community should be all inclusive of types of 3D printing. You can always make a community focused on FDM vs SLA, Etc.
Wait until OP finds out about powder bed printers (both the powder+resin and the laser… and the dmsl…) or paste extrusion.
Or my favorite…. The chocolate printers (Okay, so that was basically a modified FDM with an all metal hotnend- instead of filament it took a relatively large rod of said chocolate,)
I have a Mars 2 Pro which was quite cheap when the 3 came out. Excellent, extremely fine detail printing. More brittle than filament, but on the other hand very heat resistant. But a very small build volume.
I also have an Artillery Sidewinder X2. That one can print huge stuff. I upgraded to the all metal extruder, and 0.6mm hardened steel nozzle. That means it can print basically every kind of filament, and with layer lines of up to 0.4mm it can print huge objects really fast. So fast on big stuff, but lower detail quality. Different trade offs making it really good for different tasks. I printed a vase mode bin for my plastic waste last week that used almost the entire build volume in about 9 hours.
But I also have some mods on it - several of which i actually printed on the resin printer !
They are both really good at different types of jobs. If you are getting a first printer though, think about what you want to do and buy the best one. If you want to make jewelry, art of tabletop minis - nothing beats resin. You can't get a solid one for 200 bucks or so (maybe another 50-75 for materials, PPE and a curing chamber).
If you want to build large, functional parts - get an FDM printer.
Oh and resin is actually fantastic for lithophanes, especially if you have a flex plate. Print directly on the plate and your photo will have fantastic quality, and only take about 10m to print because of the whole-layer-at-once printing method.
3D printing encompass FDM and Resin printers. It would make sense that this group is for any form of 3D printing. A group specifically for resin or FDM might exist though.
I started out using school FDM printers, then moved to resin after the Mighty 8k had a price drop. Now I'm planning to get the 12k upgrade kit and make room for my own filament printer, since there are definitely jobs for which FDM is better suited.
I find myself in-between at the moment. I have more experience with resin printers, but I started with a cheap resin printer and a cheap FDM printer. I had a stellar accident with my resin printer this week -- I forgot to bolt down the tray, which got hoisted up and hooked over the build plate, spilling lots of resin everywhere. This particular printer (which will not be named), has a big hole, without a raised edge for the arm that supports the build plate. Of course some of the resin ended up inside the printer. I cleaned what I could see, and even opened the printer to clean inside, but it was insufficient -- the build arm froze on the next print. Currently it's broken into pieces and sitting under a fluorescent light attempting to harden everything. When it's hard, I will disassemble further and attempt to chip all the resin out.
In the mean time, my only fall back is the cheap FDM printer, which has never worked well. I bought cheap printers to experiment with. While I've just effed up badly, I know a lot more about what I need in a printer. I've ordered a larger scale resin printer (Elegoo Jupiter) and have had my eye on Bamboo for FDM. Why both? Each has advantages and disadvantages. Resin handling is a PITA, and fiber has a lot of variety (and easier cleanup).
I haven't upgraded the fiber printer yet. I intend to, but I'd like to recover from this disaster first. ;-)