Strong 3D-print resin: What are the strongest 3D-printing resins available?

During the development of Liqcreate Strong-X resin, we studied all available high strength resins. This way we found out what was missing, so we could develop the strongest resin. In this article we want to share the knowledge we gained during this research. All data is obtained from the official manufacturers datasheet and the source is copied below.

There are a lot of resins available and for users often difficult to identify if a resin is useful for their project. In this article the DLP/SLA/MSLA/LCD resins with the highest flexural strength are listed. It should be noted that there are more properties that could be important for your project. Always look at the full datasheet of the materials to select the right one for your project.

What are the strongest 3D-printing resins?

We searched trough the internet and found strong resins. All resins without a technical data sheet (TDS) were not taken into account. This brought us to the following top strongest resins for 3D-printing anno January 2024. Later in time, Composite-X was developed and added to this list.

• – Liqcreate Composite-X           150 – 170 MPa^[6]
• – Formlabs Rigid 10K             126 – 158 MPa ^[16]
• – 3D-systems Accura HPC       137-157MPa ^[8]
• – 3D-systems Accura Ceramax  137-145 MPa^[1]
• – 3D-systems Accura Bluestone  124-154 MPa ^[9]
• – Stratasys Somos PerFORM            120-146 MPa^[2]
• – 3D-systens Accura Composite PIV 142 MPa ^[7]
• – Carbon3D EPX86FR               140 MPa^[12]
• – Liqcreate Strong-X                  134 – 140 MPa^[3]
• – Henkel Loctite 3955                 138 MPa^[15]
• – Nexa3D xPEEK147                   111 – 134 MPa^[13]
• – Carbon3D CE221                     131 MPa^[4]
• – Carbon3D EPX 82                 130 MPa ^[11]
• – Forward AM RG 3280         129 MPa^[14]
• – Carbon3D EPX 150                123 MPa ^[10]
• – Formlabs Grey Pro                   121 MPa^[5]

Besides a high strength, all resins in the top 5, except the Formlabs Grey Pro resin claim to have an elevated temperature resistance and most can be used as injection molding inserts or as a complete mold for low volume injection molding.

Compatibility of strong 3D-print resin

If we take a closer look at the strongest resins in this list we noticed that there are only a few strong resins which  can be used on open-source 3D-printers. The 3D-systems, Formlabs, Carbon and Stratasys resins are locked within the manufacturers systen. While only pure resin manufacturers as Forward AM, Henkel Loctite and Liqcreate resins are designed for open systems. All Liqcreate resins are are compatible with a wide range of open 385-405 nm SLA, DLP and LCD / MSLA 3D-printers. The following printers and more are  listed as compatible with Liqcreate Strong-X. The complete list and actual settings can be found here.

3D-printer compatibility with Liqcreate Strong-X (January 2024 update) – a strong 3D-print resin