3D Printer differences explained: FDM vs DLP vs SLA

After watching the video, I'll toss my 2 cents in.

Regarding toxicity of the resin.  It really depends on the resin formulation.  I looked at the MSDS sheets for most of the resins, and none are "dangerously" toxic.  Some may be a skin irritant to some, and some may have an unpleasant smell.  but most of them are not really problematic.

I run my Formlabs printer almost daily in my room, without proper ventilation, and the resins I commonly use do not give off any kind of weird fumes.  The only resin that has an obnoxious smell is the flexible resin, but the resin I currently use, from ApplyLabWorks, has a very faint smell of detergent, actually it smells a bit like the anti-static sheets you toss in the drier, but nowhere near as strong.  You have to put your nose close to the vat or the bottle to actually smell it.

FormLabs always suggests using gloves to handle the parts or anything that has liquid resin on it, as the resin "may" cause skin irritation, but I almost never do, and I don't have any skin problems.  If I get some on my hands, I simply wash my hands with Dawn dishwashing liquid, and it comes off just fine

On the other hand, IPA, which is used to clean the parts after printing is, can can be a lung and skin irritant.  When you use IPA to clean a wound or a cut you never get enough of it exposed to the air to actually "feel" it.  But when you have a cleaning bucket filled with 2-3 quarts of it, as soon as you open that bucket, you get a serious overpowering whiff of it.  Even short exposure (2-3 minutes) can get you dizzy.

Some people have been using an alternative called Yellow Magic, but I'm still using IPA, as it's easy to find and cheap.

Regarding the time it takes to print a model with FDM vs. DLP vs. SLA.  I can't really speak for DLP since I don't have one, but I can only say this, except for the very first layer which is printed in 4 passes in order to promote adhesion, the only thing that takes time is the peel process (separating the model from the PDMS layer after each layer).  The actual time to "draw" the layer with the laser, is extremely small.  Depending on the complexity of the model, it can take only 3-5 seconds to do each layer, which compared to and FDM is like warp speed.

I have also watched real time videos of DLP printers and they also take about the same amount of time to expose the layer.  So depending on the complexity of the model, the SLA printer can be faster.  On a DLP however, you could have a simple model, or a very complex one, or pack the build surface with dozens of parts, the exposure time is always the same.

As far as the learning curve, I suppose it all depends on the printer and the software that comes with it.  The Form1/Form2 printers come with Preform, which is amazing in that it can do everything with a single click of the button:  position the model, generate supports, and start printing.  It's also extremely fast.  If you ever had to wait for the slicer to do it's thing, you would appreciate the fact that on an average it takes 5-7 seconds to do this process.

Formlabs has gotten their software down to a science, and it just works.  Yes, you can tinker with the orientation and manually editing the supports, but 95% of the time, it just works.  Most of the problems that occur, are usually due to the model itself having lots of errors, but even there, the software offers to fix the mesh as soon as you import it.

I'm not sure how easy or hard to use software from other vendors is, but The FormLabs software is almost worth the high price of admission.