Anycubic Resin Settings for Best 3D Printing Results + Table

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Martin has a M.Sc. in physics and has gained many years of experience in industry as a lab manager and quality assurance manager. He has now tested dozens of 3D printers and is happy to share the collected experience with each new article.

Anycubic Resin Settings – Table

The values given are a good starting point. From there, you can continue to optimize in small steps.

There are several lines for most of the variants. This is due to the fact that the various setting combinations have each led to a good result.

The settings refer to the Anycubic Photon* and were described by various users as empirical values.

Before starting 3D printing, the container with the resin should always be shaken up. If the resin is not properly mixed, it will not harden – and even perfect print settings will not help. Two minutes of vigorous shaking should be sufficient to ensure that the resin has an acceptable consistency.

Also important: The room temperature should ideally be around 21 °C +/- 1 °C.

Brand	Color	Layer height	Exposure time	Resting time	Bottom exposure	Bottom layers
Anycubic	Aqua Blue*	0.05	9	1	50	8
Anycubic	Black*	0.025	7.5	3.5	90	3
Anycubic	Black	0.05	9	2	55	8
Anycubic	Clear*	0.02	30	6.5	110	8
Anycubic	Clear	0.025	8	1	100	8
Anycubic	Clear	0.1	15	1	60	8
Anycubic	Grey*	0.02	12	6.5	95	8
Anycubic	Grey	0.025	11	3	85	8
Anycubic	Grey	0.035	14	1	90	8
Anycubic	Grey	0.05	18	6.5	115	8
Anycubic	Grey	0.05	18	0	90	8
Anycubic	Green*	0.02	7.5	1.5	40	8
Anycubic	Green	0.04	12	3	80	5
Anycubic	Green	0.05	5.5	1	50	8
Anycubic	Green	0.05	10	1	50	8
Anycubic	Green	0.07	12	1	55	8
Anycubic	Green	0.08	16	3	70	4
Anycubic	Orange*	0.05	15	1	100	7
Anycubic	Yellow Translucent*	0.05	8	6.5	50	8
Anycubic	Maroon*	0.035	14	1	60	8
Anycubic	Maroon	0.05	11	6.5	75	12
Anycubic	Maroon	0.05	20	1	90	10
Anycubic	Red*	0.05	16	1	60	8
Anycubic	Skin*	0.05	10	1	65	8
Anycubic	White*	0.05	15	1	50	8
Anycubic	White	0.05	8	6.5	60	8
Anycubic	White	0.05	15	4	60	4

Source: https://www.scribd.com/document/455703971/photon-resin-setting

How Exactly Does 3D Printing with Resin Work?

Most 3D printers work with filament, a material thread that is liquefied under heat. The printed parts are built up layer by layer from this filament. As the plastic cools, the printed part solidifies until it has completely cooled and hardened.

Resins are photopolymers. They are a series of 3D printable liquids. Resins solidify when exposed to UV light. Resin printing is faster and more accurate than printing with filaments, but it is also much more costly. Resin printers like the Anycubic Photon S* do not use a filament, but rather a tank full of resin. The model is broken down into individual layers in the 3D printing program. Each of these layers is as thin as 0.05 millimeters. Once the program is finished with this task, a plate is lowered into the resin bath (the tank, that is) to the depth at which the bottom layer of the model is to be created.

A UV laser is located above the resin bath. This laser now draws the contours of the model layer by layer on the plate. The resin hardens at the points illuminated by the laser. Layer by layer, the platform is raised, and new material is repeatedly applied to the surface. The component thus grows layer by layer on the plate in the resin bath.

Never Leave Residues in the Tank!

Due to the special way in which resin printers work, it is important that there are never any parts of misprints in the tank during printing. Residues should always be removed. This is because they would impair the printing result. The bottom of the resin tank and the glass plate must be completely free of dirt. If there are scratches on the bottom, this can also affect the printing result. Any scratch, any contamination will deflect the UV laser. If the UV laser is deflected, the resin will cure in the wrong place.

So the requirements are quite high to begin with. Nevertheless, the resin is absolutely impressive in terms of surface quality and attention to detail. On all sides as well as inside the model, high-gloss surfaces are created that are extremely precisely worked. With a layer thickness of 0.05 millimeters, deviations are barely noticeable to the naked eye. Resin does not warp, and shrinkage is a minimum of one to two percent.

However, support structures are also inserted during resin printing. These supports have to be removed manually after printing. This leaves visible traces. Another disadvantage is the material’s sensitivity to UV light: the UV laser causes the epoxy resin to harden, and permanent or high UV radiation causes rapid wear of the components.

Another disadvantage: epoxy resins are toxic. The liquids should be handled with appropriate care. Only when completely cured do resin components become food-safe and non-hazardous.

Slicer: Chitu Box Slicer

Like all other 3D printers, the Anycubic resin 3D printers work with a slicer. This can be the slicer Photon Workshop, but often the freeware Chitu Box Slicer is recommended. The slicer is used to set the individual parameters that make printing possible in the first place:

Layer thickness in millimeters,
Exposure time in seconds,
Timeouts in seconds,
Ground exposures in seconds,
Soil layers (number),
Z Stroke distance in millimeters,
Z Stroke Speed in millimeters per second,
Z Retraction speed in millimeters per second and
Enable AA (numeric after opt-in)

The Settings Depend on the Type of Resin

There is no “one” resin for the 3D printer.

Each brand, each manufacturer has its own mixture of epoxy resin.

And the various colors also differ from one another in terms of their behavior. This is because different shades are produced by adding dyes – and these may change the properties of the resin, even if only minimally. As with all topics relating to 3D printing, this is also the case here: What exactly the settings optimally look like depends on the individual situation.

Anycubic has several resin printers in its range, and the settings produce a different result for each printer. Everything from the humidity in the room to the temperature to the treatment of the resin during transport can affect the printing result.

There is a lot of advice and lists circulating in the respective communities on how you should set up one or the other resin printer. These are guidelines that offer a good start for a beginner or a newcomer to resin printing. Whether the printing results with these values are really optimal, however, depends on other parameters.

In the end, the only thing that helps is what is always crucial in 3D printing: experience. To give you a rough idea of how to approach resin printing for usable results, we’ve compiled a list of various recommendations. As mentioned above, these are just pointers. Try out for yourself whether you can improve the print result by adjusting individual parameters.

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