As well as CNC-machined parts, I have incorporated 3D printing into most of my model trucks. UPDATE.......Recent investment into Formlabs Form4 system.
Formlabs Form4 Printer, Form Wash & Form Cure
UPDATE - January 2026
I decided to invest in one of the world's best resin 3D printers. The Formlabs Form4 system includes the printer, wash station and cure unit.
Formlabs systems are very rarely selected by hobbyists or infrequent users, due to the (very) high price. This high price also relates to their resins, and other brands cannot be used. That said, the Form4 has an unmatched 98.7% print success, compared to between 13.8% and 25.3% for the much cheaper 'domestic' printers.
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I was experiencing a very high printing failure rate with previous printer brands, even after countless recalibrations. Hence the reason to invest in Formlabs.
Form4 is a UV photocuring LCD type device, using resin as the printing medium and a large build volume of 200mm x 125 mm x 210mm, the 4k screen resolution produces incredibly detailed parts. The detail obtained by this machine is truly remarkable. More recently, I added a second resin tank, which eases swapping of resin types/colours.
To compliment the Form4 printer, the 'complete' package I chose includes the Form Wash v5 and the Form Cure v2, shown in the image above. The Wash v5 is in the centre, whilst the Cure v2 is on the right.
Creality FDM printer
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The Creality CR-10 is one of the world's most popular 3D printers. This FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) machine uses plastic filament as it's medium which is heated and extruded from a fine nozzle. Think of it as a very precise hot-melt glue gun! The filaments come in a variety of materials including the popular ones of PLA (Polylactic Acid), ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene) and PETG (Polyethylene Terephthalate). I tend to use PLA, as these seem to be the easiest to print, for me at least! Again, parts are produced in a 3D CAD program, saved as an STL file and then opened in a splicer program. The splicing program I use for this printer is Simplify 3D. The build volume for this machine is much larger than the Mars resin printer, at 300mm x 300mm x 400mm but rarely all of this is utilised. The resolution of low-cost FDM printers is not as high as UV photocurable machines but some perfectly acceptable results are achievable.
This 3D printer is used mainly for producing jigs, templates and modelling aids in the workshop but not for the actual models. This is due to the lower resolution of FDM printers, which often have visible layer lines in the parts.
