The Elephant Foot: A Common Problem in FDM and Resin Printing

When it comes to 3D printing, there are several factors that can affect the quality and accuracy of the final product. One common issue that can arise in both FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) and resin printing is known as the "elephant's foot." This phenomenon occurs when the bottom layers of a print don't cool quickly enough, causing them to spread out and create an uneven surface. In FDMPrinting, it's not uncommon to encounter this issue, especially if the first few layers aren't cooled properly.

In FDM printing, this problem can be more challenging to address than in resin printing. While there are some software features available that allow for compensation, such as adjusting the shrinkage of the bottom layer, it's often still necessary to manually remove the extra material and sand down the affected area. In contrast, resin printing offers a few advantages when it comes to avoiding elephant's feet. Because the resin is cured quickly and precisely, there's less room for error in terms of cooling times.

However, even with resin printing, it's not impossible to encounter an elephant's foot. The problem can arise if the bottom layers are exposed for too long, causing them to cure slightly longer than usual. This can result in a layer that sticks out just a little bit, creating an uneven surface. Fortunately, this issue is relatively easy to fix. With a sanding stick and some patience, it's possible to smooth out even the most imperfect surfaces.

One way to avoid elephant's feet altogether is to use software features that allow for compensation. In particular, Lychee Slicer offers a "pro feature" called elephant foot compensation, which allows users to shrink the bottom layer slightly to compensate for overexposure. This feature can be accessed in advanced settings within the slicer program.

In recent weeks, I've had the opportunity to test out some new resin from the Atlas 3D company, which has partnered with popular 3D modelers like Lord of the Print and Cobra Mode. The Vulcan resin is a high-quality material that prints quickly and precisely, making it ideal for both beginners and experienced printers. One of the standout features of this resin is its ability to flow smoothly onto the build plate, creating a seamless surface finish.

I've also had the chance to test out some water-soluble resins from Atlas 3D, which offer faster print times than their ABS-style counterparts. These resins are particularly well-suited for prints that require high detail and precision, as they allow for faster lifting and descending of the build plate. This results in a more fluid resin flow, which helps to create smooth, even surfaces.

As I continued testing out these new resins, I couldn't help but think about the potential designs and models that could be created with them. The Atlas 3D company has partnered with several popular designers, including Johnny from Hagglethorn Holo, whose prints are available for download on their website. These files offer a range of exciting possibilities for resin printers, from delicate miniatures to intricate sculptures.

If you're interested in getting your hands on some of these designs, I recommend checking out the Atlas 3D Kickstarter campaign. Not only will you get access to a wide range of print files and pre-supports, but you'll also be supporting the development of this innovative new resin technology. With its high-quality prints and user-friendly interface, this material is sure to become a favorite among resin printers in the coming months.

In conclusion, the elephant's foot is a common issue that can arise in both FDM and resin printing. While it may require some manual adjustments or compensation, it's not necessarily a deal-breaker for 3D printing enthusiasts. With the right software features, resins, and designs, it's possible to create beautiful and accurate prints that showcase even the most challenging models.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everyone it's norm from tested and happy friday today i have another 3d printing video for you today and it is time sensitive i want to give a shout out to our friend johnny frazier allen who you may recognize on the site we met him he's an artist sculptor amazing talent out of new zealand working at what a workshop and we first met johnny when we went to new zealand a couple years ago and have kept in touch in fact as you'll see linked in the description below adam got a chat with johnny about his love and obsession of tabletop miniatures and uh sculpting uh landscapes and terrain and buildings entire villages entire universe that he's called hagglethorn hollow for tabletop miniatures one of our favorite videos the best things we've shot when we were in new zealand visiting what a workshop and now there is a way for you to get hagglethorn holo at home if you have a 3d printer that's right so there is a kickstarter campaign going on right now it's wrapping up as you watch this just after the weekends you want to get in on this and it's basically their first set of hagglethorn hollow designs that johnny has sculpted physically sculpted that then have been digitally scanned and then turned into files that you can print on an fdm printer or a resin printer and i had the chance to print out some of these files at home on both my fdm printer and also my resin printer and want to share some of those prints with you so you get a better sense of how this works uh first of all this is like big terrain these are buildings where aspire at 100 size is this big and at the scale you really notice that this originated from a hand sculpted design like a lot of the 3d printed miniatures or trained stuff that you see it's hard edge modeling maybe some digital sculpting but nothing really captures the the randomness and the kind of organic look than a physically sculpted thing that then is turned into a digital design and you can really see that in this lovely spire top and this is just the topper this then fits on top of for example scaled at 50 a uh the tower figure here oop knocked over that topper but the tower right here which is comprised of three pieces so there's a base there's the center piece and then the spire topper and even in the base itself the interiors are all detailed out from staircases to shelving to furniture a combination of stone work that protrudes out to rock to wood just really really incredibly detailed stuff um in the multiple layers as well and i did print this in a couple different ways so we did this in fdm and it's designed really for printing fdm without any extra supports necessary and so it's a really cool thing if you have an fdm printer that has like a flexible removable build bed for easy uh pop-off pieces this literally sits on your your build plate and it just rises up and builds up so something like this obviously very easy to to print no supports needed and then for parts that may need supports the supports do come built in and are very easy to remove as well while most things have a wider base and then print upward on the resin printer that's a little get a little bit more complicated with those same files i typically don't print directly on the build plate with the resin printer because prying it off is a can be a little bit tricky uh but you if you have like a ram plate that's flexible you can also print it there but it does work so i did a couple experiments here for example is their guild hall and it's a great example of the multi-layered design of these buildings so we'll go from the top there's a little bit of a topper these are actually split into two halves so this roof piece is split into two which you join together as well as a main floor level again fully realized interior with windows pantry stairwell and then even a dungeon level as well also with extremely detailed both exterior and interior detailing cannot gush enough i mean you'll see in the close-ups of just the individual stones protruding and that unevenness mixed with the stones blending into the rock even in this flat shaded color you can see it has so much so much you know we say this a lot sculptural detail that's revealed here and this is printed at 50 microns again 50 scaling which can still work great for your scale of of miniatures it's also a modular system so the base here of the skilled hull the dungeon and the main floor level this is their medium size can also be swapped with they're a different topper so this is now the uh the uh the chieftain hall i believe which has more of a uh like uh the the the hatch rooftop um it's not brickwork uh it's a different style but this can easily this be removed and swap back in and so there's a lot of really well thought out design of where you know where the the spires are where the windows are where the the chimney fits relative to the top of the spire you know popping this on top of here and vice versa gives it a lot of fun like playfulness that you can do with this type of set i did try printing a bunch of this right onto the build build bed and so one of the things that you also have to factor in if you're doing resin printing is uh the elephant foot the elephant foot in the room uh in fdm printing you can sometimes actually i was able to avoid it here but the first couple layers if they don't cool fast enough they kind of spread and what you get is this extra stepping on the base layer of your print which if you're trying to have something mesh perfectly together you have to remove that and you can compensate for that on fdm printer but it also pops up on resin prints as well because your bottom layers are typically exposed much longer than your subsequent layers you know 25 to 40 seconds or so on a bottom layer it tends to it tends to expose and cure a little bit extra resin more so than it's normally the layer would be expecting and so you also get an extra stepping of what's called an elephant's foot on your prints and i did come across that with my standard settings and so you can see it's not perfectly fit here because the bottom layer sticks out just a little bit it's very easy to fix after the fact and get a sanding stick and for your resin just make sure you're wearing protection for respiration and and sand away the elephant's foot to get it to perfectly merge or you can actually compensate for that in the software as well if you're using a lychee slicer it's a pro feature but uh in choo choo box it's there uh version i believe 1.8 and newer you go into your advanced settings and you for uh two axes your a and b axes interior and exterior uh you can adjust an elephant foot uh compensation to shrink your bottom layer just a little bit so that the overexposure um actually compensates for that and i was able to find better success with subsequent fits uh prints so that it's better fitted right off of the build plate you can see with the screen grab here my settings for the elegu saturn for the elephant's foot um and i was also using this as a chance to test some new resin as well so i was just sent this vulcan resin by the atlas 3d company their company that do support generation for a lot of the popular um 3d modelers that have patreons like lord of the print in cobra mode which we've talked about on this show before and now they have their own line of resin so they actually just wrapped up a a crowdfunding campaign for this resin that also comes with a bunch of additional models this is very much abs like resin and it printed the tower in both uh the vulcan resin as well as with some water soluble resin water-soluble resin i like as it prints fast with the elegant water-soluble 2.5 second exposure speeds on a mono printer work really well and it makes prints pretty nice but they end up being a little brittle you know i can have to gently handle this if they fall they're more kind of good for lightweight prints if you want something more durable go with abs style resin psoriatec even elgoo they have abs like resins and this one is akin to that the exposure times are a little longer at around 3.8 to 4 seconds on a model printer so adding about fifty percent longer print times but um based on just a few prints on this the quality of this looks really nice it's uh they say it's rated for the vroom settings for the faster lift and uh descending of the build plate uh which means that you know it flows very nicely to cover up and fill in that vat as you raise and lower the uh the prints off the build off the build platform um so it's a very fluid resin it's not you know gunky or sticky and had a pretty good time printing with that so check that out they're bundling this with a bunch of their their uh partner designs as well as some cool designs they've done internally and i'll have a link to where you can find that in the description below as well but this is just a glimpse into hagglethorn holo my recommendation for designers out there johnny if you're watching your team is watching us give us some uh uh files designed for resin printers you know where i can print off access i don't need to print directly onto the build plate um and and to have my own support structure or some pre-support designs for resin printing in mine but it's been really fun to print it this past week and they've met many of their stretch goals if you want to get in on that kickstarter campaign you're going to get a nice bounty of print files to enter johnny's designed world and that's it for this week and a quick look and spotlight on the 3d printing world thank you so much for watching and i will see you next time byehey everyone it's norm from tested and happy friday today i have another 3d printing video for you today and it is time sensitive i want to give a shout out to our friend johnny frazier allen who you may recognize on the site we met him he's an artist sculptor amazing talent out of new zealand working at what a workshop and we first met johnny when we went to new zealand a couple years ago and have kept in touch in fact as you'll see linked in the description below adam got a chat with johnny about his love and obsession of tabletop miniatures and uh sculpting uh landscapes and terrain and buildings entire villages entire universe that he's called hagglethorn hollow for tabletop miniatures one of our favorite videos the best things we've shot when we were in new zealand visiting what a workshop and now there is a way for you to get hagglethorn holo at home if you have a 3d printer that's right so there is a kickstarter campaign going on right now it's wrapping up as you watch this just after the weekends you want to get in on this and it's basically their first set of hagglethorn hollow designs that johnny has sculpted physically sculpted that then have been digitally scanned and then turned into files that you can print on an fdm printer or a resin printer and i had the chance to print out some of these files at home on both my fdm printer and also my resin printer and want to share some of those prints with you so you get a better sense of how this works uh first of all this is like big terrain these are buildings where aspire at 100 size is this big and at the scale you really notice that this originated from a hand sculpted design like a lot of the 3d printed miniatures or trained stuff that you see it's hard edge modeling maybe some digital sculpting but nothing really captures the the randomness and the kind of organic look than a physically sculpted thing that then is turned into a digital design and you can really see that in this lovely spire top and this is just the topper this then fits on top of for example scaled at 50 a uh the tower figure here oop knocked over that topper but the tower right here which is comprised of three pieces so there's a base there's the center piece and then the spire topper and even in the base itself the interiors are all detailed out from staircases to shelving to furniture a combination of stone work that protrudes out to rock to wood just really really incredibly detailed stuff um in the multiple layers as well and i did print this in a couple different ways so we did this in fdm and it's designed really for printing fdm without any extra supports necessary and so it's a really cool thing if you have an fdm printer that has like a flexible removable build bed for easy uh pop-off pieces this literally sits on your your build plate and it just rises up and builds up so something like this obviously very easy to to print no supports needed and then for parts that may need supports the supports do come built in and are very easy to remove as well while most things have a wider base and then print upward on the resin printer that's a little get a little bit more complicated with those same files i typically don't print directly on the build plate with the resin printer because prying it off is a can be a little bit tricky uh but you if you have like a ram plate that's flexible you can also print it there but it does work so i did a couple experiments here for example is their guild hall and it's a great example of the multi-layered design of these buildings so we'll go from the top there's a little bit of a topper these are actually split into two halves so this roof piece is split into two which you join together as well as a main floor level again fully realized interior with windows pantry stairwell and then even a dungeon level as well also with extremely detailed both exterior and interior detailing cannot gush enough i mean you'll see in the close-ups of just the individual stones protruding and that unevenness mixed with the stones blending into the rock even in this flat shaded color you can see it has so much so much you know we say this a lot sculptural detail that's revealed here and this is printed at 50 microns again 50 scaling which can still work great for your scale of of miniatures it's also a modular system so the base here of the skilled hull the dungeon and the main floor level this is their medium size can also be swapped with they're a different topper so this is now the uh the uh the chieftain hall i believe which has more of a uh like uh the the the hatch rooftop um it's not brickwork uh it's a different style but this can easily this be removed and swap back in and so there's a lot of really well thought out design of where you know where the the spires are where the windows are where the the chimney fits relative to the top of the spire you know popping this on top of here and vice versa gives it a lot of fun like playfulness that you can do with this type of set i did try printing a bunch of this right onto the build build bed and so one of the things that you also have to factor in if you're doing resin printing is uh the elephant foot the elephant foot in the room uh in fdm printing you can sometimes actually i was able to avoid it here but the first couple layers if they don't cool fast enough they kind of spread and what you get is this extra stepping on the base layer of your print which if you're trying to have something mesh perfectly together you have to remove that and you can compensate for that on fdm printer but it also pops up on resin prints as well because your bottom layers are typically exposed much longer than your subsequent layers you know 25 to 40 seconds or so on a bottom layer it tends to it tends to expose and cure a little bit extra resin more so than it's normally the layer would be expecting and so you also get an extra stepping of what's called an elephant's foot on your prints and i did come across that with my standard settings and so you can see it's not perfectly fit here because the bottom layer sticks out just a little bit it's very easy to fix after the fact and get a sanding stick and for your resin just make sure you're wearing protection for respiration and and sand away the elephant's foot to get it to perfectly merge or you can actually compensate for that in the software as well if you're using a lychee slicer it's a pro feature but uh in choo choo box it's there uh version i believe 1.8 and newer you go into your advanced settings and you for uh two axes your a and b axes interior and exterior uh you can adjust an elephant foot uh compensation to shrink your bottom layer just a little bit so that the overexposure um actually compensates for that and i was able to find better success with subsequent fits uh prints so that it's better fitted right off of the build plate you can see with the screen grab here my settings for the elegu saturn for the elephant's foot um and i was also using this as a chance to test some new resin as well so i was just sent this vulcan resin by the atlas 3d company their company that do support generation for a lot of the popular um 3d modelers that have patreons like lord of the print in cobra mode which we've talked about on this show before and now they have their own line of resin so they actually just wrapped up a a crowdfunding campaign for this resin that also comes with a bunch of additional models this is very much abs like resin and it printed the tower in both uh the vulcan resin as well as with some water soluble resin water-soluble resin i like as it prints fast with the elegant water-soluble 2.5 second exposure speeds on a mono printer work really well and it makes prints pretty nice but they end up being a little brittle you know i can have to gently handle this if they fall they're more kind of good for lightweight prints if you want something more durable go with abs style resin psoriatec even elgoo they have abs like resins and this one is akin to that the exposure times are a little longer at around 3.8 to 4 seconds on a model printer so adding about fifty percent longer print times but um based on just a few prints on this the quality of this looks really nice it's uh they say it's rated for the vroom settings for the faster lift and uh descending of the build plate uh which means that you know it flows very nicely to cover up and fill in that vat as you raise and lower the uh the prints off the build off the build platform um so it's a very fluid resin it's not you know gunky or sticky and had a pretty good time printing with that so check that out they're bundling this with a bunch of their their uh partner designs as well as some cool designs they've done internally and i'll have a link to where you can find that in the description below as well but this is just a glimpse into hagglethorn holo my recommendation for designers out there johnny if you're watching your team is watching us give us some uh uh files designed for resin printers you know where i can print off access i don't need to print directly onto the build plate um and and to have my own support structure or some pre-support designs for resin printing in mine but it's been really fun to print it this past week and they've met many of their stretch goals if you want to get in on that kickstarter campaign you're going to get a nice bounty of print files to enter johnny's designed world and that's it for this week and a quick look and spotlight on the 3d printing world thank you so much for watching and i will see you next time bye\n"