Comparison
Anycubic Wash & Cure Station vs Resin Cleanup & IPA Wash Kit: Which Should You Buy? (2026)
| At a glance | Anycubic Wash & Cure Station | Resin Cleanup & IPA Wash Kit |
|---|---|---|
| Rating | ★★★★⯨ 4.6/5 | ★★★★★ 4.3/5 |
| Price | $70-110 | $20-35 |
| Best for | Anyone with a resin printer — buy it at the same time. | Every resin printer owner — buy with your first bottle. |
| Guarantee | Amazon return policy applies | Amazon return policy applies |
| Check Today's Price → | Check Today's Price → |
Let's clear something up before you agonize over this choice: these two products aren't actually competitors. The Anycubic Wash & Cure Station is a machine — it agitates your print in alcohol, then rotates it under UV light until it reaches full hardness. The Resin Cleanup & IPA Wash Kit is supplies — nitrile gloves, funnels, filters, and wash tubs, the stuff that keeps uncured resin off your skin and out of your workspace. One automates the job. The other makes the job safe to do at all.
The real question, then, isn't "which is better." It's "which do I order first with the budget I have left after buying a resin printer." That question has a clear answer, and it's probably not the one the price tags suggest.
The two boxes
Anycubic Wash & Cure Station
If you print resin, this is not optional — it automates wash and UV cure.
$70-110 · Amazon return policy applies
At $70–110 with a 4.6 rating, the station earns its keep by taking over the two most tedious steps in resin printing. Every print comes off the build plate coated in liquid resin that has to be washed away, and every print is soft and slightly tacky until it's UV-cured. You can do both by hand — swirl a container, leave the part on a sunny windowsill — but hand-washing is inconsistent and sun-curing is a gamble on the weather. The station washes evenly and cures evenly, and that consistency shows up directly in surface finish and part strength. The honest downsides: it's useless for filament printing, it claims permanent bench space, and you need to check that the size matches your printer, since it fits most Mars and Photon-class prints but not everything.
Resin Cleanup & IPA Wash Kit
Gloves, filters, and wash tubs — the safety kit resin printing requires.
$20-35 · Amazon return policy applies
The kit is the unglamorous half of resin printing, and at $20–35 it's the least optional purchase in the hobby. Gloves matter more than most beginners realize: uncured resin is a skin irritant, and sensitivity tends to build with repeated exposure, so bare-handed "just this once" handling is how people develop reactions that end the hobby for them. The funnels and filters earn their spot too — filtering cured debris out of your vat before it torpedoes the next print can pay for the kit by itself in saved resin. The 4.3 rating reflects real gripes: bundle quality varies piece to piece, and the gloves are a consumable you'll be rebuying forever.
The order to buy them in
Kit first. Always. You can wash prints perfectly well in a cheap lidded container using the kit's tubs and fresh IPA — thousands of people ran resin printers that way before wash stations existed. What you can't do is safely pour, handle, or clean up resin without gloves and filters for even one session. Safety gear before convenience gear.
Then buy the station the moment printing becomes regular rather than occasional. Hand-washing is tolerable for a print a week; it gets old fast beyond that, and rushed manual cleanup is exactly when spills and skipped gloves happen. The station is also the better gift-to-yourself if your prints are miniatures or display pieces, where even curing genuinely improves the result.
Skip both if you print filament only — nothing here touches FDM. And skip the station (for now) if the printer purchase already stretched the budget; a cheap kit plus patience beats a cure station you paired with bare hands.
Bottom line
This is a "both, in the right order" situation dressed up as a versus. The kit is mandatory equipment priced like an accessory. The station is a genuine quality-of-life upgrade priced fairly for what it automates. Order the kit with your printer, add the station when the hobby sticks.