In the reported gearbox test, the PLA gears lasted better: they showed little wear, while the resin gears eventually broke teeth and jammed. A stronger resin improved the resin gearbox’s early performance, but it still failed shortly after running for more than 500 cycles. That result applies to the particular materials and test setup—not to every resin and PLA gear.
What the gearbox test found
Hackaday’s 2022 report describes Michael Rechtin’s comparison of compound planetary gearboxes designed for a NEMA-17 motor with an 80:1 reduction. The PLA gearbox was made on a Creality CR10S FDM printer; the resin gearbox was made on a Creality LD02-H resin printer. A 100 mm arm pressed against a 20 kg load cell, and a closed-loop controller loaded each gearbox up to the stepper motor’s stall torque before switching to the other motor. Read Hackaday’s account of the test.
The first resin gearbox failed relatively quickly, with inspection suggesting that internal gears had failed. Rechtin then tried a stronger resin. In that retest, both gearboxes ran for more than 500 cycles without issues, but the resin gearbox failed shortly afterward: disassembly revealed broken teeth and powdery resin. The PLA gearbox showed very little wear.
How broadly does that result apply?
It is evidence about those particular gearboxes, materials, and loading conditions—not a controlled ranking of all resin and PLA formulations. The report does not give a complete standardized material specification, resin cure protocol, print settings, gear geometry, or service-life curve. Differences in those factors can change how a printed gear behaves, so the result does not establish that PLA is always tougher than resin.
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A 2024 study, “Surface Durability of 3D-Printed Polymer Gears,” found that its tested FDM PLA gear had the best wear behavior among gears made from photosensitive resin, polyamide, PLA, and ABS. That supports the direction of the gearbox result, but it remains specific to the study’s samples, manufacturing methods, and test rig. See the 2024 study.
A separate 2024 study of ABS, PLA, and annealed PLA gears reported better wear resistance for ABS and a modest durability improvement from annealing PLA. The findings reinforce that gear wear is not captured by one generic material-strength label. See the study of ABS, PLA, and annealed PLA gears.
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What “tougher” means for a gear
For a working gear, toughness is practical: can its teeth survive repeated contact and torque without cracking, deforming, wearing enough to disrupt the mesh, or causing the gearbox to bind? Impact resistance or tensile strength alone cannot answer that. Wear, fatigue, temperature, print orientation, dimensional accuracy, and process quality can all matter alongside the material itself.
“Resin” also covers different formulations. Formlabs describes its Tough 1000 Resin as ductile and impact-resistant and provides a gear assembly sample made from it. Those are manufacturer claims about that product, not independent evidence that it would outlast the PLA gearbox in Rechtin’s test. See Formlabs’ Tough 1000 Resin information.
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How to choose or test gears for your application
- Match the load: Consider the torque, speed, and number of cycles the gear will actually face. A result under one loading method may not predict performance under another.
- Compare specific materials: Identify the resin formulation or PLA filament, rather than treating “resin” and “PLA” as uniform categories.
- Account for the print process: Orientation, settings, resin post-cure, and overall print quality affect the finished part.
- Check the gear itself: Geometry, fit, and mesh influence tooth loading and wear.
- Consider operating conditions: Temperature and speed may change how a gear holds up in use.
- Test the intended setup: For loaded mechanisms, compare wear and failure under representative operating conditions. Do not assume a generic material claim predicts service life.
The available studies do not provide one standardized resin-versus-PLA comparison across all of these variables, so they cannot support a precise percentage difference in strength or service life.
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