Monoprice Mini Out, Anycubic Photon In

As I mentioned in my previous thread, I gave up on the Monoprice Mini, and returned it for credit.  This past Monday, I pulled the trigger on a Photon.  Amazon had it for $299, less $20 instant coupon, and I had 30+ points accumulated on my Amazon card, so the total cost to me, shipped was $246.

Wednesday I got the printer, and got everything set and sent the sample print to it.  It failed, nothing stuck to the platform.  So I dry run, and found that the platform was too far above the screen, so I recalibrated it, this time I brought it down to where it was pressing hard against the paper , then moved it up 0.1mm and zeroed it there.  The paper can be pulled from underneath, but can't be pushed back.

Anyway, the second test run was totally successful, which meant it was time to do a couple of my Warhammer miniature prints. 

The first was a Chaos marine with a Gatling gun.  This is a 32mm scale miniature (total height 41mm)

The next one was a lot more ambitious.  A Custodian guard on a jetbike.  There are a few problems with the model, but not because of the printer, rather lack of support in certain areas.  Yet, it still still came out pretty good.

So far I'm actually pretty impressed with the Photon.  The print quality is excellent, no visible lines and stable prints.  The Photon slicer is not on a par with ChiTu Box. 

Speaking of ChiTu, I found that while it does have the ability hollow out models, when you generate supports, the internal supports are very sparse, and not always in the right place.  So always check the inside of your model if it's hollow, and add supports as necessary.

However, I love the ability to relocate the contact points by editing the support.  This is especially useful when the support is inevitable placed on top of a model surface.  You can move it to a less conspicuous location. 

In the image below, the circled are shows where the original support landed.  The arrows point to support that were edited.  The support that would have fallen in the middle of the surface was moved to the right, and it falls on a rivet, which makes it easy to conceal.the third support was moved slightly toward the tip of the feather, and the other feather supports were moved outward to make sure they clear the model by a good margin.

Anyway, I plan on redoing the Jetbike as some of the feathers got mangled up, as they were not supported, and the detail on the top of the bike and a few other areas got lost because in my eagerness to clean the model, I took it outdoors to clean it, and even though there was no direct sun, some resin that was still coating the model cured almost instantly, obliterating some of the detail on top.  Next time I'll dunk it in IPA as soon as it comes out of the printer.