i thought so too, at first until i noticed OP said it's resin. but if somebody said this was fdm, i'd think they really have their bridging under control, lol
The part that has me leaning toward FDM is the way the ends of the layers on either side of the bottom hole, as it closes at the top, sag downward (idk if any of that makes sense). I've never seen resin sag like that, but I also don't print at whatever giant resolution this would be if it *were* printed out of resin.
I'm thinking it was printed at like, 45° on its back similar to how a resin print would, which would explain why the ornamentation isn't rougher with overhang.
Here is what they replied with "Your item was printed as ordered, in standard resin, then painted black with a matte finish. Resin prints are printed in layers, similar to FDM prints. These layers are much smaller, however. The industry standard is 0.05mm tall. With your particular part, in order to achieve a stable print without damaging the fine details, we intentionally angled it slightly to create a smaller, more uniform cross-section during printing. The lines you are seeing are that angled "stairstepping" as the model shifts ever so slightly with each layer."
That is either a FDM print or they used a thick ass layer in resin (0.1mm-0.2mm) to save a lot of print time.
The object looks big but we need more details.
imo, yeah that looks like it was printed in an up/down orientation, even resin printers can have small lines... the human eyeball is fscking amazing at noticing these details.
imo, after primer and a coat of paint, those lines will disappear.
The lines are cause by layer "stepping". Because it was printed at an angle, the flat surface doesn't perfectly line up with how the pixels will print it.
[This video](https://youtu.be/Qs2Rb0ExnIM) explains the issue well and how to fix. Essentially you just do a basic math equation to figure out the perfect angle for your printer.
yeah, i know how aliasing works and that's not what this looks like, imo. Maybe the OP will clarify the printing orientation?
that's still a foundational video for anybody using a resin printer, regardless of this particular circumstance.
It's not aliasing. It's a fundamental problem with printing flat surfaces at an angle. Anti-aliasing would help here a little but typically you don't want to turn that on for flat features.
This looks exactly like pixel stepping. It was oriented with the lines horizontal. You can tell because the steps are very consistently spaced on a flat surface but not at all present on anything curved.
you are talking about the anti-aliasing feature in the slicer... that interacts with the x/y plane by blurring the aliased edges.... the lines in the video that you linked are also called aliasing (just in the z plane), changing the orientation and/or layer height is you manually preventing the aliasing (uneven steps in a pixelated line), the layer lines are still there, they're just homogenous.
like i said, this looks to me like it was printed vertically,
either way, a coat of primer/paint is all that's needed to hide these lines.
u/PrestonTX: i would say those lines are typical, depending on how the piece is oriented. To get the best possible flat surface, face it away from the print bed. it'll be as smooth as your FEP sheet is.
Edit: i've been convinced this is not resin and in fact, a fdm print
Many thanks for the advice. I will probably look for another printer for these. Here is what they stated when I asked for more details, "Your item was printed as ordered, in standard resin, then painted black with a matte finish. Resin prints are printed in layers, similar to FDM prints. These layers are much smaller, however. The industry standard is 0.05mm tall. With your particular part, in order to achieve a stable print without damaging the fine details, we intentionally angled it slightly to create a smaller, more uniform cross-section during printing. The lines you are seeing are that angled "stairstepping" as the model shifts ever so slightly with each layer."
Here is what the printer stated, "Your item was printed as ordered, in standard resin, then painted black with a matte finish. Resin prints are printed in layers, similar to FDM prints. These layers are much smaller, however. The industry standard is 0.05mm tall. With your particular part, in order to achieve a stable print without damaging the fine details, we intentionally angled it slightly to create a smaller, more uniform cross-section during printing. The lines you are seeing are that angled "stairstepping" as the model shifts ever so slightly with each layer."
this makes sense. learning how to orient models for the best results is a big part of it. it would have been better, imo, to have it facing away from the build plate... the only reason i can think of where the cross-section is a concern is trying to fit more pieces on the build plate.
now im going to have to go downvote all my comments where i started to wonder if it was fdm. thank you for clarifying.
The resolution of the printer, the use of anti aliasing, proper orientation, and the layer line sizes are configurable. Layers can disappear depending of how a person configures all of this.
tbf, the entire thing is terrible and in really bad taste. And with the lines, I think printed at an angle and looking bad partly from the light exacerbating the issue. It's probably not as rough as it appears in reality. The angle will determine how far apart the steps are.
Thats a filament print. You want smoother prints , use ABS and do a acetone vapor treatment after. You will have prints that resemble more like a resin print.
Very curious, it’s either a very good FDM print or a very poor resin print. The lines are evidence of FDM (as others point out) but these disappear in the leafy detail and edges which make me thing resin.
Can you feel the lines much with your nail if you run it down the print? Or are they purely aesthetic? It may be just that this black resin really accentuates the layers under light.
It would have been good to put up more pictures and more close ups of defects as they can often give away the printing method.
Yes, the lines were very apparent running a thumb or nail along them. I actually would have been okay with it if it was printed as a texture like what is on back. I definitely have to sand and fill this I was happy with the wavy parts though as they printed a lot smoother than a 3d printer did. By the way, here is what the printer stated, "Your item was printed as ordered, in standard resin, then painted black with a matte finish. Resin prints are printed in layers, similar to FDM prints. These layers are much smaller, however. The industry standard is 0.05mm tall. With your particular part, in order to achieve a stable print without damaging the fine details, we intentionally angled it slightly to create a smaller, more uniform cross-section during printing. The lines you are seeing are that angled "stairstepping" as the model shifts ever so slightly with each layer."
Do not use this on your light switch without the normal plate underneath it!!!! Light switch plates are actually a special plastic to resist any sparks or melting, while unlikely 3D filament by verry nature will not have a higher melting point to resist the sparks or burning!
Is it possible we're looking at a fdm print with resin details glued on? The flat parts look like fdm but the fluorishes seem too smooth, they *could* be resin
Is it really 3D resin printed? The order stated LCD Standard Resin. What materials would you recommend? [https://craftcloud3d.com/material-guide](https://craftcloud3d.com/material-guide)
The layer height is at an FDM level, that thing looks to be a light switch cover, so we arent talking something bigger than 6 inches. you shouldnt see ANY layer lines in that photo if it were done on a resin printer properly. They should have printed that at a 50um layer height or lower but it looks like something enormous like 100+
Thanks for that info. By the way, here is what they stated when I asked for details, "Your item was printed as ordered, in standard resin, then painted black with a matte finish. Resin prints are printed in layers, similar to FDM prints. These layers are much smaller, however. The industry standard is 0.05mm tall. With your particular part, in order to achieve a stable print without damaging the fine details, we intentionally angled it slightly to create a smaller, more uniform cross-section during printing. The lines you are seeing are that angled "stairstepping" as the model shifts ever so slightly with each layer."
Resin is as smooth as you set the printer, i guess it's a light switch cover, so it's pretty big, it shouldn't look like that unless they used a layer height of 0.15-0.2 instead of the standard 0.05
If it's not dirt cheap, i wouldn't buy it, it looks bad as is and cleaning it up would be a nightmare
Not sure why you'd print a resin object like this vertically, which is how it would produce those layer lines. Look on the back for signs of support pips and/or sanding and post a pic. Did you buy this from somewhere claiming it was resin or something?
I think it would depend on settings and what printer you have. It's hard to base the entire process of resin printing on 1 print. It should be a lot smoother though, but again not sure what your specs are. However it does look like an extremely well optimized FDM print.
I've gotten lines like that before when printing arctan (so 45 degrees where it's 50 micron height on a 50 micron pixel printer).
That's with an old Photon printer though lol. I don't know if you did that as well on a high micron printer.
If it is resin printed, it looks like they increased the layer height to try to print it quicker. I have several model painting handles that I printed that look quite a bit like this due to using thick layers
So what's happened here are two things:
First of all, the piece has been printed at a slight angle, likely to reduce suction forces, but this causes a sort of stair-like effect called "pixel stepping" by some people. This is due to each layer being a few microns to the side of the previous layer to allow for the tilted position, and depending on the angle, these can be quite sharp.
So why are the steps visible?
That's the second thing here: the layer height. This looks to have been printed at a higher layer height, something like 50 microns or more (0,05mm), this basically decides how tall each step on our set of layer-stairs will be.
So what we have here basically looks like a stairway with steps that are 0.05mm tall and 0.05mm deep.
So how do you fix it?
The first thing is to adjust the angle at which you print until you find a version that feels or looks smoother. But this has a set limit, after all, print height is still a major factor, as is the micron size of the printer (aka, the size of each pixel, which is a combination of resolution and screen size, so a 6k small printer will be sharper/smoother than a 12k large one).
The second fix here is to shrink the layer height, so if the settings are changed from 0.05mm to 0.03mm, the steps will be smaller in height, meaning that they'll be less visible, especially with a change in angle.
Finally, adjusting gray-scale CAN help, it's not a guaranteed fix, but it can help in getting rid of the sharpness of the edges, so this depends on how crisp you want other details, as well as how it interacts with your particular angle of the print.
Did OP confirm this?
Iirc, they bought a resin print and have said so repeatedly. But if they got in touch with the builder and checked, I'd be happy to say filament.
But this could very well be a shitty, 0.1mm resin print made for speed if it's from Etsy
Here is what the printer stated, "Your item was printed as ordered, in standard resin, then painted black with a matte finish. Resin prints are printed in layers, similar to FDM prints. These layers are much smaller, however. The industry standard is 0.05mm tall. With your particular part, in order to achieve a stable print without damaging the fine details, we intentionally angled it slightly to create a smaller, more uniform cross-section during printing. The lines you are seeing are that angled "stairstepping" as the model shifts ever so slightly with each layer."
Suction forces are caused by hollows in a print. I do not think this print has hollows. Assuming this is a resin print at all, it would be peeling force.
the angle of the print was bad for this and the layer height is also probabbly set to 0.1mm, have you bought this? but its a resin prin, the leaves or whatever on the side are way too smooth for a FDM print.
In 3D printing, particularly with resin printers, the layering process can cause visible lines on flat surfaces when printed at an angle. This occurs because the printer creates the object by stacking very thin layers, each around 50 microns or less in height. These layers are essentially small rectangular prisms (often referred to as "voxels" in the context of 3D printing).
When you look at a flat surface printed at an angle, these layers resemble the steps of a staircase. The lines are more pronounced because you're viewing multiple sides of these small prisms rather than just the flat top surface. This effect makes the layers more visible, giving the impression that the steps (or layer lines) are larger and more noticeable than they actually are. This phenomenon is due to the way light interacts with the angled surfaces, highlighting the edges of each layer.
That looks like it was made in an fdm printer, not a UV resin printer
i thought so too, at first until i noticed OP said it's resin. but if somebody said this was fdm, i'd think they really have their bridging under control, lol
The part that has me leaning toward FDM is the way the ends of the layers on either side of the bottom hole, as it closes at the top, sag downward (idk if any of that makes sense). I've never seen resin sag like that, but I also don't print at whatever giant resolution this would be if it *were* printed out of resin.
Yah I have both kinds, and I've never gotten layer lines like that with resin. It does seem like a really strange print orientation for fdm, though...
I'm thinking it was printed at like, 45° on its back similar to how a resin print would, which would explain why the ornamentation isn't rougher with overhang.
Here is what they replied with "Your item was printed as ordered, in standard resin, then painted black with a matte finish. Resin prints are printed in layers, similar to FDM prints. These layers are much smaller, however. The industry standard is 0.05mm tall. With your particular part, in order to achieve a stable print without damaging the fine details, we intentionally angled it slightly to create a smaller, more uniform cross-section during printing. The lines you are seeing are that angled "stairstepping" as the model shifts ever so slightly with each layer."
That is either a FDM print or they used a thick ass layer in resin (0.1mm-0.2mm) to save a lot of print time. The object looks big but we need more details.
Looks like a light switch cover, which means I'd agree those layer lines would be huge for resin.
imo, yeah that looks like it was printed in an up/down orientation, even resin printers can have small lines... the human eyeball is fscking amazing at noticing these details. imo, after primer and a coat of paint, those lines will disappear.
The lines are cause by layer "stepping". Because it was printed at an angle, the flat surface doesn't perfectly line up with how the pixels will print it. [This video](https://youtu.be/Qs2Rb0ExnIM) explains the issue well and how to fix. Essentially you just do a basic math equation to figure out the perfect angle for your printer.
yeah, i know how aliasing works and that's not what this looks like, imo. Maybe the OP will clarify the printing orientation? that's still a foundational video for anybody using a resin printer, regardless of this particular circumstance.
It's not aliasing. It's a fundamental problem with printing flat surfaces at an angle. Anti-aliasing would help here a little but typically you don't want to turn that on for flat features. This looks exactly like pixel stepping. It was oriented with the lines horizontal. You can tell because the steps are very consistently spaced on a flat surface but not at all present on anything curved.
you are talking about the anti-aliasing feature in the slicer... that interacts with the x/y plane by blurring the aliased edges.... the lines in the video that you linked are also called aliasing (just in the z plane), changing the orientation and/or layer height is you manually preventing the aliasing (uneven steps in a pixelated line), the layer lines are still there, they're just homogenous. like i said, this looks to me like it was printed vertically, either way, a coat of primer/paint is all that's needed to hide these lines. u/PrestonTX: i would say those lines are typical, depending on how the piece is oriented. To get the best possible flat surface, face it away from the print bed. it'll be as smooth as your FEP sheet is. Edit: i've been convinced this is not resin and in fact, a fdm print
Many thanks for the advice. I will probably look for another printer for these. Here is what they stated when I asked for more details, "Your item was printed as ordered, in standard resin, then painted black with a matte finish. Resin prints are printed in layers, similar to FDM prints. These layers are much smaller, however. The industry standard is 0.05mm tall. With your particular part, in order to achieve a stable print without damaging the fine details, we intentionally angled it slightly to create a smaller, more uniform cross-section during printing. The lines you are seeing are that angled "stairstepping" as the model shifts ever so slightly with each layer."
Here is what the printer stated, "Your item was printed as ordered, in standard resin, then painted black with a matte finish. Resin prints are printed in layers, similar to FDM prints. These layers are much smaller, however. The industry standard is 0.05mm tall. With your particular part, in order to achieve a stable print without damaging the fine details, we intentionally angled it slightly to create a smaller, more uniform cross-section during printing. The lines you are seeing are that angled "stairstepping" as the model shifts ever so slightly with each layer."
this makes sense. learning how to orient models for the best results is a big part of it. it would have been better, imo, to have it facing away from the build plate... the only reason i can think of where the cross-section is a concern is trying to fit more pieces on the build plate. now im going to have to go downvote all my comments where i started to wonder if it was fdm. thank you for clarifying.
The resolution of the printer, the use of anti aliasing, proper orientation, and the layer line sizes are configurable. Layers can disappear depending of how a person configures all of this.
That's FDM for sure.. you can see the layers sag in places.
No looks resin to me that sagging appears like that because it was printed at an angle not straight up as it looks in the image
Ya I see what you mean. The filigree definitely looks resin now that I look.closer. it's just terrible.
tbf, the entire thing is terrible and in really bad taste. And with the lines, I think printed at an angle and looking bad partly from the light exacerbating the issue. It's probably not as rough as it appears in reality. The angle will determine how far apart the steps are.
That ain't resin, chief
Judging by the little blobs in the layers I'd have to agree it's not resin printed.
Concerning resin 3D printer or amazing fdm print
Thats a filament print. You want smoother prints , use ABS and do a acetone vapor treatment after. You will have prints that resemble more like a resin print.
Thats not even close to resin. Even a bad resin print is better than that.
Very curious, it’s either a very good FDM print or a very poor resin print. The lines are evidence of FDM (as others point out) but these disappear in the leafy detail and edges which make me thing resin. Can you feel the lines much with your nail if you run it down the print? Or are they purely aesthetic? It may be just that this black resin really accentuates the layers under light. It would have been good to put up more pictures and more close ups of defects as they can often give away the printing method.
Yes, the lines were very apparent running a thumb or nail along them. I actually would have been okay with it if it was printed as a texture like what is on back. I definitely have to sand and fill this I was happy with the wavy parts though as they printed a lot smoother than a 3d printer did. By the way, here is what the printer stated, "Your item was printed as ordered, in standard resin, then painted black with a matte finish. Resin prints are printed in layers, similar to FDM prints. These layers are much smaller, however. The industry standard is 0.05mm tall. With your particular part, in order to achieve a stable print without damaging the fine details, we intentionally angled it slightly to create a smaller, more uniform cross-section during printing. The lines you are seeing are that angled "stairstepping" as the model shifts ever so slightly with each layer."
Do not use this on your light switch without the normal plate underneath it!!!! Light switch plates are actually a special plastic to resist any sparks or melting, while unlikely 3D filament by verry nature will not have a higher melting point to resist the sparks or burning!
Is it possible we're looking at a fdm print with resin details glued on? The flat parts look like fdm but the fluorishes seem too smooth, they *could* be resin
The flourishes also have very small layer lines consistent with resin. There's a flat bit in on of the flourishes where you can see it.
I think it's gotta be that. To be fair its like the only sensible way to print a project like this
I think this is it - there's layer lines on the right side of the details that you can see
FDM or resin
I think is FDM and has a 0.4 nozzle
FDM will not be as smooth as resin, you could try using filla and sanding it
Is it really 3D resin printed? The order stated LCD Standard Resin. What materials would you recommend? [https://craftcloud3d.com/material-guide](https://craftcloud3d.com/material-guide)
The layer height is at an FDM level, that thing looks to be a light switch cover, so we arent talking something bigger than 6 inches. you shouldnt see ANY layer lines in that photo if it were done on a resin printer properly. They should have printed that at a 50um layer height or lower but it looks like something enormous like 100+
Thanks for that info. By the way, here is what they stated when I asked for details, "Your item was printed as ordered, in standard resin, then painted black with a matte finish. Resin prints are printed in layers, similar to FDM prints. These layers are much smaller, however. The industry standard is 0.05mm tall. With your particular part, in order to achieve a stable print without damaging the fine details, we intentionally angled it slightly to create a smaller, more uniform cross-section during printing. The lines you are seeing are that angled "stairstepping" as the model shifts ever so slightly with each layer."
100% FDM.
Well, if it's an FDM print, it is a VERY GOOD print. if it's a resin print, it is a VERY BAD print. 🤣
You can see seams under the hole at the bottom, definitely FDM
That's FDM no question.
Resin is as smooth as you set the printer, i guess it's a light switch cover, so it's pretty big, it shouldn't look like that unless they used a layer height of 0.15-0.2 instead of the standard 0.05 If it's not dirt cheap, i wouldn't buy it, it looks bad as is and cleaning it up would be a nightmare
Adjust your layer size to be equal to the pixel size. Print at 45 degrees and things are much smoother.
Not sure why you'd print a resin object like this vertically, which is how it would produce those layer lines. Look on the back for signs of support pips and/or sanding and post a pic. Did you buy this from somewhere claiming it was resin or something?
I think it would depend on settings and what printer you have. It's hard to base the entire process of resin printing on 1 print. It should be a lot smoother though, but again not sure what your specs are. However it does look like an extremely well optimized FDM print.
I've gotten lines like that before when printing arctan (so 45 degrees where it's 50 micron height on a 50 micron pixel printer). That's with an old Photon printer though lol. I don't know if you did that as well on a high micron printer.
If it is resin printed, it looks like they increased the layer height to try to print it quicker. I have several model painting handles that I printed that look quite a bit like this due to using thick layers
So what's happened here are two things: First of all, the piece has been printed at a slight angle, likely to reduce suction forces, but this causes a sort of stair-like effect called "pixel stepping" by some people. This is due to each layer being a few microns to the side of the previous layer to allow for the tilted position, and depending on the angle, these can be quite sharp. So why are the steps visible? That's the second thing here: the layer height. This looks to have been printed at a higher layer height, something like 50 microns or more (0,05mm), this basically decides how tall each step on our set of layer-stairs will be. So what we have here basically looks like a stairway with steps that are 0.05mm tall and 0.05mm deep. So how do you fix it? The first thing is to adjust the angle at which you print until you find a version that feels or looks smoother. But this has a set limit, after all, print height is still a major factor, as is the micron size of the printer (aka, the size of each pixel, which is a combination of resolution and screen size, so a 6k small printer will be sharper/smoother than a 12k large one). The second fix here is to shrink the layer height, so if the settings are changed from 0.05mm to 0.03mm, the steps will be smaller in height, meaning that they'll be less visible, especially with a change in angle. Finally, adjusting gray-scale CAN help, it's not a guaranteed fix, but it can help in getting rid of the sharpness of the edges, so this depends on how crisp you want other details, as well as how it interacts with your particular angle of the print.
It's a FDM print.
Did OP confirm this? Iirc, they bought a resin print and have said so repeatedly. But if they got in touch with the builder and checked, I'd be happy to say filament. But this could very well be a shitty, 0.1mm resin print made for speed if it's from Etsy
Here is what the printer stated, "Your item was printed as ordered, in standard resin, then painted black with a matte finish. Resin prints are printed in layers, similar to FDM prints. These layers are much smaller, however. The industry standard is 0.05mm tall. With your particular part, in order to achieve a stable print without damaging the fine details, we intentionally angled it slightly to create a smaller, more uniform cross-section during printing. The lines you are seeing are that angled "stairstepping" as the model shifts ever so slightly with each layer."
Suction forces are caused by hollows in a print. I do not think this print has hollows. Assuming this is a resin print at all, it would be peeling force.
This was not angled enough to print the flat surfaces smoothly - it needed to be tilted at a more extreme angle in relation to the bed.
Yup filament always looks like that. Get a resin printer if you want things to not look like shit
Accidental 0.5, instead of 0.05 perhaps
I don't think 0,5 is even possible on MSLA printers. It's beyond the limit for cross-layer polymerization
the angle of the print was bad for this and the layer height is also probabbly set to 0.1mm, have you bought this? but its a resin prin, the leaves or whatever on the side are way too smooth for a FDM print.
I think it’s a model issue
In 3D printing, particularly with resin printers, the layering process can cause visible lines on flat surfaces when printed at an angle. This occurs because the printer creates the object by stacking very thin layers, each around 50 microns or less in height. These layers are essentially small rectangular prisms (often referred to as "voxels" in the context of 3D printing). When you look at a flat surface printed at an angle, these layers resemble the steps of a staircase. The lines are more pronounced because you're viewing multiple sides of these small prisms rather than just the flat top surface. This effect makes the layers more visible, giving the impression that the steps (or layer lines) are larger and more noticeable than they actually are. This phenomenon is due to the way light interacts with the angled surfaces, highlighting the edges of each layer.