Elegoo Saturn 3 Ultra Review - WAIT! ACF is Good Now?

so I don't know what to say well all right I do know what to say because I've got a script but I'm not really sure how to say it because the Saturn 3 Ultra has left me a bit stumped in fact it's left me bewildered because it's done the exact opposite to what I've come to expect from printers that use ACF film this seems to defy the laws of nature physics and everything I've seen before so if you've watched my previous videos and you know the spec of this printer you may know what to expect from this one or at least you'll think you do anyway you would expect me to say blah blah great printer just like the normal Saturn 3 but ACF the release film which increases speed but diffuses print edges and makes the surfaces look cross-hatched and terrible well no not at all really and I know I'm eating my own hat with this video based on what I've said before but I can only tell you about what I see with my own eyes after thoroughly testing these printers so hi I'm Ross and this is Pho Hammer videos the word Ultra is not an understatement with this printer being marketed as a superior model to the base Saturn 3 you may be surprised a little to find that you should expect the print quality to be a little worse you see the ultra is one of these new printers that has come out pushing speed metrics in recent history with the M5 the Hallett Mage Pro and even the Mars 4 ultra I've seen that I should air on the side of caution when it comes to fast printers because in those examples what allows that amazing speed typically reduces quality quite a bit but like I said the Saturn 3s left me stumped in that regard and I'll be honest with reviews I normally just print a few things on each review just enough to form a conclusion about performance but with this even after I'd cemented my opinion I couldn't help just printing more and more models and being more and more amazed each time but I'll come back to that for now let's look at what this printer is for those people coming into this model with fresh eyes the Saturn 3 is a 10 inch 12K printer but just like with LCD TVs that K designation is little more than marketing what's more important when determining a printer's quality is the size of the individual pixels on the screen the smaller they are the higher the quality generally speaking there's also things like the light sources and light refracting lenses that determine sharpness too but again I'm going to come back to that in the case of this printer the pixel size is odd because the pixels aren't square with a resolution of 11 520 by 5120 and a print area of approximately 219 by 123 millimeters the pixels are 19 microns on the x-axis and 24 on the y-axis people have commented on previous videos to suggest that rectangular pixels could cause resolution or even scaling issues but the truth is that with only a 5 Micron difference between the axes it really doesn't even matter so for Simplicity let's just call this a 24 Micron printer and that's the number you should be comparing when you Baseline quality on other printers now the write-up of this printer says it has a 9h tempered glass screen protector but unless this is directly integrated to the LCD panel I can't see one just like my mouse 4 Ultra review where I mistakenly said it hasn't got one so I can only assume it's integrated into the panel which makes it a little bit harder if not impossible to replace it should any damage occur the printer's build volume is the just mentioned build area of 219 by 123 millimeters but it's got a build height of 260 millimeters that's one centimeter more than the base Saturn three and six centimeters More Than This printer's current direct competitor the any cubic M5 like all elegu printers lately it comes well packed with more foam in the Box than printer and you can easily just slide this out of the box onto the worktop the right way up one of the first upgrade features here is that the chassis is all metal which adds no tangible value but it's nice to immediately see that you're getting more for the extra this costs you over the base Saturn 3. the lids had elegoo's classic red color scheme replaced with black so I think Batman would approve of this model this also comes with a vent hole for the Mars mate which I now have and I've got it connected up to test but that's for a completely separate review but form wise this isn't just a carbon copy of the Saturn 3 but in metal with a black lid in the case of this printer the power socket has been moved to the right side of the chassis along with the Wi-Fi antenna and the USB port just in front of that and this is quite annoying placement for all of these parts to be honest and I always like to do a little song and dance whinge about these things being on the side it would be much tidier to shift the power and Wi-Fi to the back and put the USB port on the front and you may not agree with this but for those people out there who are limited to horizontal desk space you might want to put something like your wash and cure up close to this and these components prevent that somewhat it's bad enough when this is a USB port but yeah you can solve that with a cheap USB extension cable however the power socket and Wi-Fi antenna being here are absolute blockers but that's really all the negatives the build quality of the whole machine is absolutely excellent and is once again a refined version of what elegu have released before yeah it's not significantly different but that's good Lagoon know what works and have focused on making that better but the quality shows best in relation to how it prints and for that you've got dual linear rails and a ball screw instead of a traditional lead screw this greatly improves the stability of the plate and ensures a much smoother motion the benefit to you is fewer print issues like layer shifts and whilst it's a tiny thing this printer has little rubber feet which keeps it sturdy on the worktop the VA as previously mentioned comes pre-installed with ACF release film this Frosty film is designed to allow resin to release 30 easier than traditional clear PFA or nfap whatever you use and whatever it's called and I will come back to this and talk more about it in the print quality section because I've previously declared war on this stuff but the Saturn 3 Ultra seems to be the Redeemer though when it comes to the vat I do wish this were a little bit taller since this is a large printer and we'd frequently print larger things it would be better if we could fit at least a full liter of resin in here at a time and the new build plate style has the same finish as the Saturn 3 along with the Mars 4 and the Mars 4 ultra and this new style of plate makes it so much easier to get prints off while still being super strong and holding them in place during a print the Saturn 3 Ultra comes with the usual box of accessories and the yellow goo extras you get your typical masks gloves paper funnel both plastic and metal scrapers along with a super cheap USB drive and once again grab yourself a SanDisk replacement if you plan to use one and I do need to hand it to elegu still because the metal scraper they give you with their printers is far better and more comfortable than the rubbish you get from any other brand it's a tiny thing it matters a little but it's different and better so thanks alagu but the main extra you get in all eligue printers is the integrated carbon filter this internally USB powered device certainly reduces smells but but whether it reduces the vocs or not I don't know but I have recently spent over 100 pound on a device that will let me start testing this soon just as soon as I learn how to properly use it but with the Saturn 3 Ultra you actually have space to plug in two of these filters if you wish the extra one would need to be purchased separately or maybe you already have one from an older printer but it can take two at once now if you just thought of an innuendo there that's on you not me this is a family-friendly Channel as briefly mentioned before the printer has Wi-Fi and you can easily connect your printer to your local network using the on-screen UI Which is far simpler than how I've had to do it with other brands using some crazy phone app that only works half the time but once this is done when you choose Network printing Chitto box at the end of a slicing process you should see your Saturn 3 available just choose it and your print will travel to the printer wirelessly and you can even start it remotely too just make sure the bed's clear before you click Start and you do need to remember to manually delete the files from the internal memory occasionally using the UI and you have to do them one at a time just seriously I'll go one button to clear all the internal memory would be really useful here if you could code that in that'd be great but the Wi-Fi is such a handy and easy to use feature and other than copying the files from it to my PC and filming this video I never use the USB drive once for this entire review and speaking of things I didn't use I also never used voxel dance tango either I've already had enough issues from it to bother trying to go back to it for a while just moving parts around the build plate is tiresome in that program so I stuck with Chitto box for everything but no matter what slicer you use I need to have a crack at elegoo's dot goo format for 3D printers and yeah this is still new and elegue we're still developing it but I've had issues with this before like crazy large file sizes which in reflection seem to only be a problem when enabling anti-aliasing and additionally as pointed out in this excellent video by snarky Arts anti-aliasing doesn't actually even work when using the dot goo format anyway this new format still is in its infancy and has some issues for eligu to work out and it seems that elugu is aware of this and agrees because when cherrybox sends files to the printer wirelessly it does so in the Old Dot CTB format not goo though no matter which Saturn you've got if you want to save to USB instead thankfully you can choose the file format you want to save as in chituvox which helps avoid that non-working anti-aliasing issue too though this doesn't currently work for Mars printers anyway coming back to the UI just like the Mars 4 ultra this is a significant improvement over the basic UI that elegu have given us before on previous printers which is incredibly basic and kind of makes alagu look a bit behind the curve this new Ultra UI is a HD interface with numerous options it's got great depth everything is laid out intuitively and you can even adjust some exposure and speed settings mid print and this is the UI that elegu needs on all of their printers going forward when it comes to leveling on the Ultras eligue has replaced their usual ball joint with the four point screw fixture I've always said I found this mechanism to be sturdier and since elego have now included it on their premium range of printers I guess that proves the point that this is a better method to actually do the leveling you just loosen the four screws lower the plate to home hold the plate down as you tighten the four screws but make sure you do alternating Corners go back out of the movement menu and press Z equals zero though honestly illagu that button could really do with being in the previous menu screen where you're actually moving the plate up and down I'm sure you can find room for it somewhere right we are halfway and with all that it's already I think you'll agree very easy to see where your extra money goes if you're considering this over the original Saturn 3 but I will do a more in-depth and thorough breakdown in a separate video comparing both printers also if you are considering buying this printer or any of the printers based on our reviews it would really help us out if you'd click our affiliate links down below the video in the description and the top comment before making a purchase thank you for that right then the meaty part what about print quality because let's be honest that's what matters most so I didn't get any resin to test with this printer High detail resin no special fast resin so I decided to just use my own wargamer resin which is incredibly sharp detail but also smooth where it needs to be and it's been described by other users as the closest thing they've ever felt to store-bought plastic models yay if you want to have a go at this stuff down in the comments feel free but all I ask is that you try it first and try and find a resin that's more balanced for miniatures if you're looking for high quality plastic-like Miniatures from your printer this is the stuff anyway I printed out the same exposure Rangefinder that I always print and I use the same exposure settings I already had for this resin from my satin 2 and I was quite happy to find that I got a perfectly acceptable print first try and this was at 1.5 seconds for 30 Micron layers and if you want to know how to easily set up and dial in any printer and resin combo please check out my video guide which is linked above and in the description below I genuinely don't mean to sound arrogant but I'm yet to find the person who's new to 3D printing where this video has failed them it's helped so many people and if you're new to 3D printing want to set up a random printer and resin combo that you've picked yourself that video will get you started I promise you so anyway other than printing it I thought very little of this exposure test at the time other than it's balanced enough for a decent exposure and I just got on with printing models and the first thing I printed like always is the same Wolverine bus that I always like to print and this came out really nice in fact I was very impressed I was actually reviewing the 18 Micron Mars 4 at the same time and it honestly took me a while to remember which print was which because I'd wash them both at the same time and got them mixed up in my cleaner so yeah even with an ACF film I'm mixing up prints from the Saturn 3 Ultra with an 18 Micron printer without ACF so okay hold on so I then went and printed some Miniatures because these would easily show any significant quality loss I printed some Miniatures from Creature Caster first which are some of the most detailed Miniatures out there but once again the details on them were super sharp and for these I'd even enabled anti-aliasing and two times image blur to soften any visible layer and voxel lines and I also printed out a dredge marine by mezgike these have more smooth surfaces but mainly because I just love all things bioshocky and these models are just awesome but once again though I had an incredibly sharp and detailed print without any significant layer lines or voxelization either it was still there under the light at some angles but it wasn't significant and I could certainly paint over this without being able to see them now are these the sharpest prints I've ever had well I honestly don't know we've kind of already passed the threshold of print quality being visually distinctive on many printers and we did that a while ago so the fact that I can't tell is it's really saying something especially considering that this printer uses ACF and all the while I was checking the smooth flat surfaces of my models to find those usual cross hatch lines you typically get from ACF films but I honestly couldn't see them now the surfaces did have a very soft texture almost a matte effect but nothing is significant as what I'd seen before and it is hard to show you what I mean because it's hard to even see but if you could look at two prints up close to each other you would be able to tell once you knew what you were looking for the difference is that minimal I honestly wondered what was happening and even put out a video to my channel members asking what other tests that you think I could do just in order to verify my findings but nobody could suggest anything which would push this further it's quite conclusive and so as I said in the intro I just kept printing I printed this bust of chibs or Tommy Flanagan which is one of the Sons of Anarchy characters sculpted by Sydney and this is absolutely Flawless just just look at the zip teeth on the jacket so that's the print quality you can get from this but what about speed because this is advertised as a fast printer well just like quality I've said several times that print speed like quality is determined by the resin and not the printer if you print too fast some harder resins will just tear away from the build plate or the previous layers now since I hadn't put this wargamer resin through its Paces yet in terms of speed I was still lifting at the default 60 millimeters a minute or one millimeter a second but when I decided to reprint this model of corrupt engine from black Forge games I started upping the speed and I needed to reprint this because the one I printed for my mono x6k video got dropped and kind of broke a little bit so I figured I'd up the speed to a silly number just to see it fail at first and then slow it down until I can get a successful result so I sped it up to five times my usual print speed and tried 300 millimeters a minute or five millimeters a second and to my genuine surprise this was a complete success so I pushed it twice as hard and doubled this to 600 millimeters a minute or 10 millimeters a second and that worked too so I pushed it half again up to 900 millimeters a minute or 15 millimeters a second and it was still a clear success and I don't even know if the printer can move that fast but it's still below the default second stage lift that I got in the original settings but this with success at this sharpness is insane so yeah as was initially promised with ACF I am getting comparable quality to fep Prints but with lift speeds around 15 times faster I honestly still don't believe this based on what ACF has shown me previously but now a print that would have taken me over a day was completed in just over four hours and to stop any questions or negative comments I did double check this and I went back to my basic satin 3 and printed the exposure test out using the wargamer resin because I previously used the very brittle 8K resin from Frozen and whilst the Saturn 3 without ACF using nfep is slightly sharper it's only slight significantly less than any other ACF comparison I've done before and yes I've tested the Mars 4 and the Mars 4 ultra using the same resin so how is this even possible on the Saturn 3 Ultra especially when all my other ACF printer tests have shown to be so different well it was only when going back over the spec of this printer to write my script for the video that I noticed the light source of this printer is different to the basic satin 3 and the aforementioned Mars is so whilst the Mars 4 ultra and basic Saturn 3 have a funeral collimating light source this has something called a refractive light source I have no idea what that is or what that means yeah and I know what refraction is but the description here explains nothing after all a funeral lens refracts light too so I assume this is some kind of custom funeral lens which results in incredible sharpness and I do know from earlier reviews that a funeral lens does a ton to make 3D printers sharper by directing light in more of a straight line and the intention is to make LCD printers operate more like DLP printers by controlling light Direction so if this is something other than that I can only infer that elegoo have designed something proprietary and better because the results truly speak for themselves you don't need to listen to me you just need to look at what the printer can do so yeah in summary up to this point this is an incredibly fast printer that uses an ACF film yet the results are so close to a print without an ACF film now I'd probably slow it down when going back and printing minis just to ensure the support survive but I'm honestly considering not even replacing it like I've suggested people do in the past with other printers and whilst people have complained that I don't just replace these films in in my reviews immediately to test them I prefer to keep them in place until I get the alternate version printer and do a separate comparison video hopefully now you can see the value in me keeping a plate with ACF and another with nfap because more tests are needed still so elegu have either done something super special with that light source or they could have used a different type or brand of ACF from other printers including their own Mars 4 ultra which I said in that review is heavily impacted by the ACF film but I genuinely can't believe this printer has changed my opinion on this stuff because the slight ACF diffusion here is enough that it even helps to reduce layer lines but without a significant loss to detail at least not as much as I've seen on any other ACF printer but I do want to cement my conclusion and I will do more testing including a comparison video where I put the ACF VAT on my Saturn 3 and the NFL on my Saturn 3 Ultra because I need to see if I get the difference I expect when using ACF without this special refracting light source so watch out for that video and make sure you subscribe so you don't miss it so to finish should you buy this printer well as I think about that I'm looking back to Vox video review where the thumbnail states too much for too little and well in terms of overall output I do agree with that to a good degree for anyone who has a satin 2 or equivalent you aren't getting significantly better print quality with this model but it is what's under the surface that matters you're getting so many improvements over the last generation this printer has actually realized the vision of what ACF promised and yeah I am saying that nervously because I'm still bewildered as to how I've got this experience with this printer that uses ACF where I've had so many tear horrible experiences before that I'm not just talking about it I've shown people is it like the silicone Lottery where I just happen to have got a good ACF sheet with this printer I genuinely don't know and this isn't something elegu sent me I ordered this printer on the first day it went up for pre-order I paid for it so even if you are super skeptical it's not like alagu will have known to have had any interference with this printer because it wasn't sent to me direct from them they don't know which one I got but anyway back to the value of what you get here the printer also has Wi-Fi dual carbon filters if you get a second one an improved UI a much more stable z-axis and a better build plate that holds models better while still making them easier to remove now I wouldn't rush out and upgrade if you've got an earlier printer in the similar sort of generation but if you are upgrading I'd say right now get this over any other elegue printer the Saturn 3 is good but to me the extras here are easily worth more than the difference in price between these two models because eligue have absolutely nailed it I want to say thank you for watching and thanks to our members please make sure to subscribe so you can watch our other comparison videos of both printers and what they do when given each other's job I'll also be doing direct comparisons between this and the any cubic M5 series I hope this has helped you decide what printer you want or even just validated an existing purchase if it's either of these then please click that like button and drop a comment to feed the YouTube algorithm and help others if you are buying wouldn't you kindly click our affiliate links below before making a purchase until next time make good choices faux hammer out [Music] thank you

Channel: FauxHammer

Views: 71,755

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Id: IbM9izgLfd4

Length: 23min 39sec (1419 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 29 2023