Saturn 3 Ultra Review #review #3dprinter

k3d Tech here and in this review for the Saturn 3 Ultra sorry about the long wait I first want to talk about the M3 premium at very transcending printer and what went wrong and how I see that might be happening again with this printer when the M3 premium hit the market it really was poised to set a new industry standard for build quality especially about 620 us a few features this printer has is the light engine which is fantastic it's actually better than the ultra which the ultra is best of the current generation of printers the next thing it has is this massive vat which is just fantastic after using it it's gonna be hard to go to anything else mixing resin it won't Splash as your printer is printing it won't Splash you can fit more than a liter of resin there at a time it has this dual z-screw which is just fantastic it actually has the same screw on this one and the same rails which are fantastic kind of best in class and it's nice to see they both share the same features the next this printer has is this really amazing Tower this Tower is chunky it is heavy it is thick I can't show you on the video but maybe some b-roll in there but it is a big tower this Tower by comparison is like a toy well the tower is good it actually keeps the printer from bending because as the printer pulls from the fep or pushes into fep the tower can actually Bend back and forth this printer is actually does a pretty good job at not bending which is a huge improvement over the Saturn II which would bend as it prints this printer doesn't Bend at all it is incredibly solid but it also has to do with the uh the top plate this top plate on this one is significantly thicker and heavier than this one although this one is still quite an upgrade from some of the other elegu printers the other part that's quite nice about it is going back to the screw is that this screw is actually supported by a nice chunky piece of metal and a ball bearing inside of it this one is also supported but with a piece of plastic and the bearing inside of it is actually loose so it's not necessarily a full support like this one is now that does make the printer run a little bit noisier but it does definitely make sure there's going to be no wobble in the screw which is going to prevent any layer lines not really prevent layer lines because there's a couple ways they can happen but it's going to mitigate where you can get layer lines based on a screw that could be either bent or a bit wobbly looking further into these two printers look at the top plate if you ever have an M3 premium or you ever get to see one in person you'll know what I'm talking about but the way this thing is milled on the top is just amazing what they've done here is they've actually milled out a space around the vat and around the tape and the LCD what this does is make sure that the vat LCA LCD and tape are perfectly lined up so there's no bulging or pushing on the Fab this makes it for a very consistent fat pull and also make sure that as you're printing you're as close to the LCD as you can which is which is going to give you the best resolution now you may wonder why in a review about the Saturn 3 Ultra I'm going on and on and on about the M3 premium well that's because despite the fact this printer is less than a year old you actually can't buy it anymore it's been discontinued because nobody bought it and I think nobody bought it because it was just priced a little bit too expensive and I don't think a lot of people really knew what it was and what makes this printer great a lot of those features are to be found in this printer so with that I'm going to focus on talking about why this printer is good and possibly why you should consider it I'm not even going to get into the ACF film this thing ships with I did a few prints on it and I got some comparisons and I'll show those comparisons but for the most part foul Hammer did a very very good review sorry if I said that wrong and I'm just going to link his review about these films because I share his opinion perfectly one thing I will say about it real quick is if you really want to make use of this 12K LCD this things comes with replace that ACF film with nfib the second you get it if you really want to test it buy a second vat and then keep the film on the one put nfep on the other so you can do your side by side comparisons but for the most part you're going to end up with the nfep in the end so what makes this printer better than the current competition better than the Saturn 3 the Saturn 2 or even some of the other any cubic printers that are out right now well one big thing is actually the fact they moved to the four bolt system I know there's some data about this one some people really like the ball joint I don't and the fact that on their premium line they've gone to the four bolts I think kind of proves that point as well the ball joints are harder to level they move out of Level A little bit faster and I have tested this on a micro scale they do actually rotate a little bit during the print especially if you have more prints on one side or the other this can cause some layer lines now the one thing about this particular design and the four posts that is a little bit less than perfect is how low it is what I found on this particular printer it is incredibly difficult to level it and going into the forms I found a lot of people having the exact same issue some people said this printer is just absolute garbage they couldn't get it to work until I showed them the workaround I had for it at which point it pretty much started pretty beautiful for everybody so I've got a calibration part which is my build plate calibration which will allow you to test your level and set the Z offset if you do that on this printer it's going to print beautifully but I think due to the way the light engine works on this one if you don't do that you're going to struggle a little bit you have a lot of fill prints they either don't even start or they fall off the build plate a common theme we're seeing with a lot of these printers is the included filter which I've tested these things on and off running not running to honest I haven't seen a difference whether there's two three or four of them but if it's an idea you like this printer does come with one of them and the ability to put in two if you've used a lot of printers before using this one's not going to fill really any different most everything is pretty much standard at this point for 3D printers or resin printers especially within this price range but there's some butts and this is one thing I don't like I wish manufacturers would do a better job to eliminate butts even some more interaction with the community because there's a few things with this printer that could have been completely avoided and I wouldn't have to give you it's a great printer but and it is a great printer but there's a few things the first thing is this thing is really short and I've dropped it a few times and I almost dropped it just then taking it off it is barely long enough to clear this so it's tight if you get enough to get tight enough it wants to fall off again um the next thing is the UI the UI on this is not great it's better than their previous yes but it's barely better in my opinion the biggest issue is how many clicks it takes for me to get to adjust the Z height after a print's done and the fact that the Z equals zero or the reset your zero of your printer is right there and I almost hit it all the time which would create a lot of work for me I haven't yet and I hope I never do but I might and that will suck the next thing about it is I do like a printer that lifts it up all the way when it's done this one doesn't maybe lift it up a tiny bit but it leaves it kind of where it was the reason why I like it to go up all the way is that when I remove the build plate I want to drain it out a little bit first because I don't want resin all over the place or all over my printer and so generally what I do when I take it off is I'll kind of pull it off and do it at an angle and this allows the resin to drip inside the vat and nuddle down the front of the printer the other big got you about this printer is the speed limit there's actually a lower and an upper speed limit because of this some individuals think the tsmc just doesn't work it does work just not on the way you think it's going to work because well that minimum speed limit so for me I like to print at 45 millimeters a minute going up for a little bit and I'll speed up but anything lower than 120 millimeters a minute won't be accepted on the top end it's actually really fast at 500 millimeters a minute most printers are going to do like 250 300 this guy's cruising at 500 so if you want to print fast yeah this is the printer for you it's it's kind of built for it with a you know thicker bigger top plate thicker bigger um Tower the rails everything like that I'd say this printer definitely is poised for being a fast printer but if you replace that ACS with nfap and you slow it down where it can and calibrate it in I've gotten this printer to print as good and as accurate as the mini 8ks which is a very accurate printer and this one keeps up right with it so it can do both and at that point I guess it's very versatile but if they can replace that firmware with maybe some updates and get rid of those speed limits move some of the options around so they're a little easier you know give us some data we need then at that point this printer is going to be mostly free of any Bots it's going to be a very good printer you know maybe ship with a long screw and then it's pretty much free of antibods it's just a really good printer at that point and I have tested that speed limit on the dot goo file format which is new for this printer and the dot CTB file format it's the same across the board however I did notice that even though the speed limits are technically the same meaning if I drop it or raise it any more or less I see no increase or decrease in speed the dot CTB format is about two percent faster than the dot goo format I don't know why that is more investigation probably find out but yeah it's just changing the format actually changes how fast this printer goes by a very small percentage the absolutely beautiful model I used for this review is Hawkgirl by Wicked I absolutely recommend you check them out I do want to point out that the i o on this is an very good position I love it when they put the USB towards the front easy to get to the power button and the power and all that stuff is right there I do wish the antenna was on the back instead of the front that would be easier to flip the power switch on and off I keep my printers kind of somewhat close and I also keep them off when I'm not using them but overall really good placement to really understand this printer I ran quite a few calibration tests I did them using the ACI film it ships with and with the nfep and I also ran quite a number of other calibration tests I really just kind of wanted to get to know this printer I ran some of these little balls that are about 1.5 millimeter between the inner Cheryl and the outer shell I did some anti-listing tests as well which is just a modification from Denny's Wings test these fun little cubes which are just really high detail of course my boxes of calibration and but the most important test for this printer is these little flat plates and I'll have a link in the description on how to use these but basically there's five of them on the build plate you measure them and making sure that they are your build plate is level and your Z offset is set correctly is very important for this printer doing this turns this printer from something that's rather hard to use something that's quite fun and enjoyable to use all of the prints you see in this video were done using lychee slicer except for when I did the speed limit tests I used choo choo box and lychee slicer for consistency and at the time of making this video lychee slicer does not yet support sending files remotely over the Wi-Fi however that option will be coming very soon so I like to ask you a question what is more important to you features or build quality consider what happened to the M3 premium and what might happen if the Saturn 3 Ultra shares the same fate I want you to think about that when you interact with a business as large or before you make your next purchase and as always thank you for watching and have a good day this was a print that I did from Wicked This is a Hawkgirl Hawkgirl she's hot too

Channel: J3D Tech

Views: 17,300

Keywords: resin printing, 3D Printing, mini8ks, Calibration, Guide, 3d Printing guide, 3D Printing Help, Printer, Mini, minatures, 3D Minatures, resin, Elegoo, Satun 3, Satun 3 ultra, Ultra, Review, anycubic, M3

Id: SJS45-I5kfY

Length: 11min 35sec (695 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 25 2023