B9 3d printer

Anyone have the B9 Core 550 printing machine? Pros and Cons?

We’ve got a good handful of 3D printers at my shop, ranging from a couple SolidScape MM2, to an RTM 2020 (as far as we know, it’s the only operating one in the world), to an ever growing collection of resin printers.
We had the original B9 creator, and it was…not great. Some people had a fair bit of success with it, but we couldn’t ever get a decent print from it.
As far as the B9 Core series, I think they are waaaaay too damn expensive, especially given how cheap and reliably you can get good resin printers nowadays.

We’ve got an Elegoo Mars 2 ($300), an Anycubic Photon Mono SE ($450), and recently picked up a FormLabs Form3 ($3500).

The Form3 produces wonderfully detailed prints, and we use it when we have a particularly detailed piece we need to produce.
For pretty much everything else, the Anycubic is our workhorse. It produces really good quality prints, and really quickly.
There are a very wide variety of castable resins available, but the one we use the most is ‘PowerResins Wax’; it burns out at a low temperature (we do a lot of stone-in-place casting), with little to no ash.

The primary difference between all these printers is the curing method. The Anycubic and Elegoo use an LCD screen to cure each layer, the Form3 uses a laser, and the B9 uses a projector (DLP).
DLP printers can achieve some incredible detail, so in my opinion, they are the best.
That being said, the B9 is far too expensive, and doesn’t offer anything over these less expensive printers.
Speaking of DLP printers, Anycubic currently has a kickstarter for their own DLP printer (The Anycubic Photon Ultra), and you can get $100 off if you pledge, and pick it up for $499 (as of 10/4/2021, there are only 10 days left in this kickstarter, then the price will go up to $599). This is a fantastic price, and I would highly recommend thinking about picking one up (we definitely are).

So, to answer your question more directly: don’t get the B9 unless you just have 12 grand burning a hole in your pocket. I don’t know how much experience you have in 3D printing jewelry, but if it’s not much, then most definitely pick up an Anycubic first and play around with it.

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions. I’ve got almost 15 years experience in 3D printing jewelry, so hopefully I’ve learned enough to answer any questions you have. Cheers!

1 Like

AurumArcanum, I just opened a thread about castable resins, but I just read your post and figured I’d just ask you.

Do you know what the differences are between castable dental resin and castable jewelry resin? Does the dental resin need a higher temperature during the burnout to eliminate all of the resin? We have our hands on some dental resin and made some prints with our Elegoo Mars 2. We typically max out our burnout at 1350F.

I haven’t really had any experience trying to cast or print with dental resins. But, I don’t see why they would be much different than the jewelry specific resins, aside from maybe aspects like detail retention, shrinkage, and post-curing processes.
Most of the castable resins I’ve used prefer a burnout at 1350, with a couple performing quite well at 1000 (the max temp we use for stone-in-place). So I don’t see why the dental resins would be different from that. The big difference comes from ramp rates and hold times. At the lower temps we hold for a lot longer to ensure the ash gets thoroughly burned out.
What brand is your resin? Theoretically they should have a burnout schedule out there somewhere (although I’ve noticed that some companies really bury that information for some reason).

The dental resin was a bust. There wasn’t a complete burnout, and it left porosity everywhere. I posted pics in the other thread, the Louisiana state pendant.

The resin needed to reach a temperature way past our top burnout temp to completely burnout. I believe since it’s intended for base metal dental castings that cast as such a high temp, the investment used also has a high temp burnout and is incredibly strong. This would explain why the dental resin didn’t burnout all the way at 1350F, even with holding the temp at it’s peak for more than the required time. I also believe that it may have interacted with the investment we were using.

Either way, I’m ditching the dental resin, and sticking with the castable resin intended for jewelry.

I do in house CAD/CAM casting, clean up and setting. I have a B9 v1.2 using cherry resin. I get excellent print results @ 30 micron slice for about 30 hrs of print time per freshly coated vat. Curing has been the issue when casting. I make RTV mold when possible. I have found after printing and cleaning print and post cure in light box I give as much time in sunlight as possible. I do my own casting using Prestige Optima using their burnout cycle modified to a 2hr hold @ 1542 with acceptable results. When I have to retire the B9 next printer will be a Form 3. My suggestion to any considering CAD/CAM is to get a printer ASAP to verify your CAD model can be produced. Also Stuller has tolerances for models they will produce.
Cheers
Franz