How Much Can 1L Resin 3D Print? (With Calculator) (2024)

Key Takeaways

• Depends on usage: More printing hours and larger prints use up resin faster.
• Average estimate: at 6.7 ml resin used per hour a 1L bottle will last 149 hours per liter, which is around 3-4 months for the average user.
• What can you print? 830 small miniatures, 30 keychains, 645 towns, 66 chess pieces, or 12 figurines.
• Tips to conserve resin: Optimize supports, drip excess resin, filter used resin, and hollow out models.

You may be confused: how many miniatures, or larger resin prints, can you get out of a bottle of resin?

Well, it depends.

But, I’ve created a calculator to help you estimate, and I’ve also gotten a fairly accurate estimate by averaging out a number of sample resin models and how much resin they used per hour, to help you estimate how many prints you’ll get.

This article helps you calculate exactly how long a 500ml, 1L, and 2L resin bottle will last, exactly how many of each type of resin print you’ll get, and some tips and tricks to make your resin bottles last longer.

How Long Does 1 Liter of Resin Last?

Based on an average resin STL printer usage of 6.7 ml per hour, a 1 liter bottle of resin will last a little over 149 hours, or just under a week of continuous use.

For an average user printing 10 hours a week, a 1 liter bottle of resin could last up to 15 weeks, or 3-4 months.

If you want a more precise estimate, you can use our calculator below. Just add your estimated print time per week, your bottle size, and your amount of resin used per hour:

• A 1-liter bottle of resin will last around 149 hours, so if you use your 3D printer for 4 hours per week, this will last around 37 weeks, or 8-9 months.
• A 2-liter bottle will last 298 hours or just under 2 weeks of continuous usage, 6-8 months at 10 hours per week, and 16-18 months at 4 hours per week.
• As for a 500 ml bottle of resin, these fall to 74.5 continuous hours (or roughly 3 days), 1-2 months at 10 hours per week, and 4-5 months at 4 hours per week.

However, this depends largely on how often the 3D printer is used, what’s being printed, the size of the prints, and the settings dialed into during the printing process.

Furthermore, resin printing is different to FDM printing in that it cures entire layers at a time. So, for example, batch printing 15 minis consuming 18 ml overall (1.20ml each) takes as long as printing a single one of the same mini. This drastically increases the resin used, but maximizes print time so you end up with more of the finished product.

Nevertheless, an average gives a good idea of how far you can stretch a single 1 liter bottle of resin.

To obtain an average of 6.7 ml per hour, we fired up several popular prints in Lychee Slicer to get their estimated resin consumption and print time using default, standard settings:

Taking the average ml/hour of all five models gives us 6.7 ml/hour.

Again, this is a generalization, and only a broad estimate.

Your resin consumption will likely change depending on the printer mode, settings like resolution and print speed, how many errors and failed prints you may have to tackle.

But, based on these estimates, you would use up the following amounts of resin over time:

• 1 hour of printing uses 6.7 ml on average.
• 10 hours of uninterrupted printing uses 67 ml on average.
• 24 hours of uninterrupted printing uses 160.8 ml on average.
• 100 hours of uninterrupted printing uses 670 ml on average.
• 1 week of uninterrupted printing uses 1125.6 ml on average.

Taking all this into account, a 1-liter bottle of resin will last you anywhere from a week to 9 months, depending on the size of the prints, frequency of printing, and settings.

Larger prints, such as large figurines, and batch prints, will consume far more ml/hour than smaller prints like individual miniatures.

How Much Can You Print With 1 L of Resin

Using 5 example resin STL files found online, you can print the between 12 of the largest model, to 830 of the smallest resin models:

With 1L of resin, you can print roughly 830 miniatures (if we take the Triarii mini mentioned above as a reference, using approx 1.2ml resin), 30 Death Trooper keychains, 645 AmeraLabs calibration towns, 66 chess bishop pieces, or 12 large Ranni figurines.

Generally, you will more likely get 150-250 28mm miniatures from a liter of resin, as this miniature we used for the example is probably smaller than average.

It’s important also to allow some leeway for errors caused by adhesion issues, poor slicing, and other issues that cause failed prints. As such, we recommend being conservative with your estimates.

Taking a different perspective, a single 1L bottle of resin can give you around 149 hours of uninterrupted printing, barring no print failures, spills, or otherwise wasted resin.

A 500 ml bottle of resin will last roughly 74 hours of consistent printing, while a 2 l bottle pushes this up to just shy of 300 hours.

It’s crucial to stress that these figures aren’t set in stone – usage will vary quite considerably depending on the printer, settings, print speed, and whether you’re using supports. However, it gives us a general idea of what to expect from a 1L, 500 ml, and 2L bottle of resin.

Factors That Affect How Long 3D Printer Resin Lasts

1. Optimize Supports
2. Let Resin Drip Off the Print/Plate Before Cleaning
3. Filter and Reuse Resin
4. Hollow Prints
5. Work Slowly and Methodically to Avoid Waste
6. How Much Resin Should I Use for a Print?

Now that we’ve established how much you can theoretically print from a bottle of resin, how do you make resin last longer?

Here’s some factors you can optimize to get more resin prints out of each bottle.

1. Optimize Supports

Although supports are crucial, you can optimize them to save resin.

Print orientation is one key component of this. Slicing a model upright requires more supports, so try to angle it to only generate supports where needed.

Many makers swear by a 45° angle for supports, though you may need to experiment to find a balance that saves resin, but retains enough support to prevent failed prints.

2. Let Resin Drip Off the Print/Plate Before Cleaning

With a freshly finished print sitting on the build plate, it can be tempting to scrape it off immediately to clean it in preparation for curing.

But, it’s worth letting it sit for a few minutes to allow excess resin stuck to the print and plate to drip off back into the vat, then using a silicone spatula to remove as much as you can.

Though you won’t get a huge amount of resin this way, it adds up over time, especially if you’re a heavy user.

3. Filter and Reuse Resin

After a print is finished and you’re returning used resin to the bottle, run it through a reusable mesh filter (these are cheap and available on sites like Amazon).

These will filter out any residual semi-cured resin that could potentially cause issues when you reuse the resin for your next print. It’s also worth gently scraping the vat film to remove any semi-cured resin.

As long as the used resin is free of residue, it’s as viable as bottle-fresh resin, so take these small steps to maximize how many prints you get from each bottle.

4. Hollow Prints

Always hollow out your models in your slicing software before printing. The interiors of models don’t need to be 100% filled with resin, especially as most resin prints are decorative.

Doing so will save vast amounts of resin over time. This won’t work for all types of prints, though.

For smaller models, the savings tend to be minimal, and parts will benefit from the added structural integrity afforded by a filled-out interior, especially if they have thin peripheral walls and shells. In the same vein, it’s worth including holes in your prints to allow excess resin to run out, which, over time, saves resin.

5. Work Slowly and Methodically to Avoid Waste

Resin printing is messy, but you can avoid wasting resin by working slowly and methodically. Much of this comes down to having an appropriate workspace and not rushing through each step of the printing process.

For example, something very common is to underestimate how fast resin flows, despite its viscosity, which can lead to spillages when you return resin to the bottle or pour it into the vat. The resin lost to overflows and splashes builds up over time, but if avoided, can stretch a 1L bottle of resin quite a bit further.

6. Use The Correct Amount of Resin Per Print

We recommend slicing your model and then checking the estimated resin the model will take to print.

From here, we recommend doubling or even quadrupling that amount to understand how much resin you’ll want to compensate for it moving about and shifting as the plate lifts and lowers.

It’s always better to use more than not enough. As long as you’re not filling the vat tray to the brim, there’s really no harm to adding too much resin. Any unused resin can be filtered and reused so you’re not wasting any.

We recommend filling up the vat tank about halfway for smaller prints, and to the maximum limit marked on the inside of the tray for larger prints. If the tank is looking a little empty halfway through a print, you can always pour in more resin.

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• Best Budget-friendly Large Resin 3D Printers Today!
• ABS-Like / Tough Resins: Best Brands Reviewed
• The Top Glues For Resin Models
• How much can you 3D print per kilo of filament?
• Resin prints sticking to FEP instead of build plate: Fixes