Resin 3D Printing: A New Perspective for a Dwindling Passion

If you are looking at the most detailed product reviews or comparisons in the Phrozen Facebook Group, most likely you have stumbled across one of Maria’s posts. As one of the most active members in the community, she offers a wealth of information regarding resin 3D printing, her artworks, and often a lot of testing observations from the newest products in the market.

A Fresh Start for An Old Passion

Maria's first encounter with resin 3D printing started in the spring of 2020 when her husband introduced her to the world of resin 3D printing. He has previously been printing with an FDM printer for a few years and now they decided to give resin printing a try. As she delved into the process, she quickly discovered her new passion for resin printing and miniature painting. And before long, she had taken over the new resin printer and spent countless hours learning and working on her printing skills.

She has been painting and drawing for years, but her interest in traditional mediums has eventually begun to dwindle. It was only through resin printing that she discovered her new interest in miniature painting. Switching to a 3D canvas provided a fresh perspective and renewed her love for painting.

Below is one of Maria's earliest takes on resin miniature painting.

Although her primary focus in resin 3D printing has always been to create miniatures for display, she also occasionally uses the printer to produce masters for her epoxy-cast silicone molds. And despite the mess resin 3D printing can create at times, working with resin printers still bring her immense joy and satisfaction from time to time.

Reviewing the Sonic Mini 8K S

Earlier this month, Maria finally received her test unit. And of course, like the expert that she is,  she didn’t waste a single minute to start her intense tests. She covers everything from the hardware of the machine all the way to the print results, while also comparing it with its older brother, the original Sonic Mini 8K.

Maria's hardware tests include comparing the strength of the single linear rail in the Sonic Mini 8K S to the dual linear rails in the Sonic Mini 8K, the printers’ light module and resin temperatures, as well as the LED strength, and printing noise. While for test printing, she put emphasis on leveling, exposure time, file format, and of course anti-aliasing.

Overall, she found the Sonic Mini 8K S to offer a fantastic printing quality even without anti-aliasing, despite the slight instability in the z-axis when weighted with uneven loads. The LED module offers a stronger and more efficient light source, leading to a shorter exposure time. And in addition, without the fan in the back of the machine, it is way quieter during printing and provides a slightly higher temperature for the resin—which was in favor of those who are living and printing in colder regions.

Despite the one cm less build height, Maria didn’t find it as a big issue. She printed out a couple of hollowed and solid 75 mm miniatures for the tests. For these larger models she increased the exposure time by 0.1s. This adjustment stemmed from the observation that on previous prints supports had a tendency to detached too easily. While this still worked well for smaller miniatures, her experience showed that it has the potential to be an issue when printing larger models. She found that increasing the exposure time by 0.1 or 0.2 seconds will usualy be enough in cases like these (as long as this does not result in overexposure).

Her only concern would be for those who want to print at a lower layer height or print with fast resins as the machine still doesn’t allow printing with less than one second of exposure despite the settings showing much less. But other than that, it’s definitely a great printer to get regardless of your printing experience.

If you want to read more about her thorough and in-depth review of the Sonic Mini 8K S, make sure to follow her on her social media platform and check out her new website—Cured Creatures. Her blog also includes the all the settings and parameters you need for the printers.

In addition, her new website is a great place to find pretty much everything that she’s currently working on as well as a collection of her painted minis, all displayed in a complete and much nicer layout. The best part yet? Her posts won’t have any word limits and it won’t reduce the pictures' resolution. So if you want to catch more of Maria’s artwork in its best state, make sure to check out her gallery at curedcreatures.com.

Should You Pull the Trigger for the Sonic Mini 8K S?

Definitely.

Just like how resin 3D printing revived Maria's passion for painting, the Sonic Mini 8K S was designed to be a reliable tool that reminds you of your passions to create and keep you going, while offering the greatest details possible.

If you are still unsure of how powerfully good this affordable 3D printer is, take a deep dive into Maria’s review and let it convinces you. You won’t believe how much value you would get from a high-resolution 3D printer at this price point. Not to mention, it is still the highest-resolution resin 3D printer in the consumer market at 22 μm, with the cheapest price for an 8K printer.

The Sonic Mini 8K S pre-order is available until June 07th, 2023. Make sure to secure yours now before the pre-order ends. Wanting to get one of this affordable 3D printer, but have a question that makes you hesitate? Leave them in the comment below and we'll make sure to get back to you asap!

Special thanks to Maria for all the pictures.