I have recently obtained a friend’s old Formlabs Form 2 SLA printer. I I am an absolute beginner to printing, but I am pretty excited to get into it.

However, the only place that I would realistically be able to put it is on my desk in my bedroom. From everything I’ve read, I need a better ventilated space with more tolerance for a mess than I could possibly provide.

I think that the right call is to just sell it and save up for some FDM printer, but at the end of the day, I have the SLA printer in hand.

I am asking whether these concerns about resin printers are really that bad and if I am actually fine to start learning printing with what I have in my bedroom.

  • @SzethFriendOfNimiEnglish
    3•2 months ago

    I will say for ABS this can be mitigated with the following:

    • An enclosure (I use a comgrow grow tent)
    • Not opening the printer enclosure for at least 20 minutes (so the airborne particulates settle down)
    • A replaceable carbon filter (I built a Nevermore duo and bought some activated Charcoal to refill it with)

    After doing the above I don’t smell fumes at all. In fact I run the Nevermore even with PLA just to capture any micro particles since the charcoal is easy enough to replace.

    Even so, as cool as Resin looks, I’m not having that stuff inside my house with my family. If I did it would have to be in a garage that’s vented but I have a carport and there’s no way I can regulate the environment (temp, humidity) for decent prints. So for now I’m just going with FDM

    • @[email protected]English
      2•2 months ago

      Styrol isn’t a particle that settles down like dust. It is a liquid with a significant enough vapor pressure to be problematic.

      An activated carbon filter can get rid of the vapor.