Elegoo 8K Grey Resin Review

 7.6/10

ELEGOO’s 8K greyy resin has delivered some of the most visually stunning resin 3D prints we’ve ever seen. The resin’s remarkable ability to capture intricate details and its matte grey finish contribute to an overall impressive appearance.

However, this exceptional print quality comes with a trade-off: extreme fragility. Our prints often snapped with minimal handling. For this reason, we cannot recommend ELEGOO’s 8K resin for tabletop games or other applications where frequent human interaction is expected. But we definitely can recommend it for figures and statues that are intended for display.

 7.6/10

Manufacturer: ELEGOO

The Pros

The Cons

Paul Chow

Co-Founder & CTO

Published on September 15, 2023

Amazon.com Disclosure: As Amazon Associates, we earn from qualifying purchases.

IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE: PLEASE READ BEFORE PROCEEDING
This review features the 3D printer, which has been kindly provided to us by the manufacturer for the purpose of this review. While the manufacturer has supported us by supplying the printer, they have not influenced the content of this review in any way. Our assessments and observations are entirely our own, and we have conducted our usual thorough testing to ensure we provide an accurate evaluation of the product. At 3DGearZone, we are committed to transparency and honesty, ensuring that our audience can trust the content we produce.

ELEGOO is primarily known for their affordable and highly reviewed FDM and resin 3D printers. However, they are also a manufacturer of FDM filaments and resin, which gives them an advantage with their printers and materials being vertically integrated. In fact, ELEGOO has a pretty good selection of consumer resins that pair well with their printers, such as their 8K grey resin.

ELEGOO’s 8K grey resin focuses on detail reproduction and allows users to print some of the most intricate models that rival injection molding. But with resin printers already achieving great print quality, is there something special about ELEGOO’s 8K resin formula that will make it stand out? In this in-depth review, we will take a deep dive into its detailed reproduction capabilities, evaluate its user-friendliness, assess its durability, check its availability, and more!

76

Overall Score

Learn more about our resin review methodology.

Price and Availability

ELEGOO’s 8K grey resin is available for purchase on their website at $29.99/L. This positions it squarely in the middle of the affordability spectrum for 3D printing resins. However, its true value hinges on whether it can deliver superior detail reproduction compared to other resins. If it lives up to this promise, users stand to gain exceptional print quality at no additional cost.

ELEGOO does offer its resins stateside on retailers like Amazon, too. This makes it a great choice for users needing their resins the following day. Anyway, ELEGOO does not offer bulk discounts for their resins when purchased directly from them, unlike many other manufacturers.

Packaging

ELEGOO’s resin arrives in a black cardboard box with black and white labeling indicating what resin is contained in the box. The resin bottle itself is tightly packed in bubble wrap, ensuring that its contents are well protected over the long overseas voyage to our office.

The bottle itself is a simple cylindrical design with labeling. While there is nothing wrong with the packaging, it is considerably more plain compared to other manufacturers like Sunlu.

Ease of Use

Upon inspection, it’s clear that ELEGOO’s 8K resin has a notably thicker and more viscous consistency compared to its competitors. ELEGOO recommends an optimal printing temperature range of 25°C to 35°C. However, since our office is on the cooler side at 22°C, we took the precaution of heating the resin using a spare FDM heated bed for 15 minutes before transferring it to our test resin vat. Despite the thickness, it’s important to note that this didn’t cause any printing issues.

Another thing we needed to keep in mind is that the grey pigment in the 8K resin has a tendency to separate over time. Thus, we had to vigorously shake the resin bottle before each print.

Smell

Similar to most 3D printing resins, ELEGOO’s 8K grey resin does have an odor due to the chemicals it contains. However, during our testing, we noticed that this resin has a slightly more “sour” smell compared to many others we’ve tested. While our test printer features a charcoal filter designed to remove odors, we could still detect it in our office. Therefore, we strongly recommend that users only print with this resin in a well-ventilated room.

Cleanup & Post Processing

When it comes to post-processing in resin printing, ELEGOO’s 8K grey resin follows the common path. Just like most 3D printing resins, it requires the use of a solvent, such as isopropyl alcohol (IPA), to clean and remove the uncured resin from your prints. We ourselves used a fresh batch of IPA with an ultrasonic cleaner to ensure our test prints had the best chance of cleaning success.

However, one thing to note is that this resin tended to “clog” our IPA and make it dirty faster compared to other resins we’ve tested. Despite this, the overall cleaning time (which was around five minutes) falls within the average range for resin cleaning.

Resins then needed to be cured with an external light source to ensure that they were safe to handle. In our tests, we employed a 60-watt UV lamp. We found that ELEGOO’s 8K resin needed about five minutes of UV exposure before it was safe to handle.

Detail Reproduction

Many users opt for resin printers because of their exceptional ability to resolve details that FDM printers cannot come close to replicating. This makes resin printing especially appealing to tabletop miniature creators, dentists, and jewelry makers. To test for these use cases, we printed a dragon dust, a 28mm tabletop miniature, and a large house model.

ELEGOO’s 8K resin claims that it can resolve details better than most other resins, and our testing confirms this claim. We were blown away by the level of detail achieved with the 8K grey resin. Notably, when examining the 28mm tabletop miniature, we found that it excelled in reproducing intricate textures, feathers, beaks, and other fine details. No other resin we have tested could match ELEGOO’s 8K grey in terms of detail reproduction.

Durability

When it comes to resin 3D printing, durability is a crucial factor. After all, many prints, such as tabletop figures, need to be handled regularly.

In our durability tests, we printed nine of the 28mm miniatures and divided them into three groups. These groups were subjected to drops from different heights: 60cm, 90cm, and 150cm, simulating the various surfaces and heights these prints might encounter in real-world usage. We also chose this particular model because it contains large amounts of fragile areas such as the ankles, blade, beak, and arms.

Unfortunately, ELEGOO’s 8K resin turned out to be one of the most fragile resins we’ve ever tested. Multiple models broke at each drop height. While the detailed reproduction of the ELEGOO 8K resin is perfectly suited for tabletop figures, we are hesitant to recommend its use due to how fragile it is.

Flexibility

An often overlooked trait of 3D printing resins is flexibility. Flexible resins are some of the most durable, making it easier to assemble objects printed in multiple pieces.

To test the flexibility of ELEGOO’s 8K resin, we printed a thin wizard staff and bent it to see how much it could flex before snapping. Given that ELEGOO’s 8K resin had already demonstrated brittleness and fragility in previous tests, we were prepared for some lack of flexibility. However, we were quite surprised when the resin snapped almost immediately the second we applied any pressure on it.

As of the writing of this review, ELEGOO’s 8K grey resin is the least flexible and most fragile resin we have tested.

Disclaimer
3DGearZone.com is a professional review site that receives compensation from the companies whose products we review. We test each product thoroughly and give high marks to only the very best. We don’t guarantee, however, that our suggestions will work best for each individual or business, so consider your unique needs when choosing products and services. 3DGearZone.com is independently owned and the opinions expressed here are our own.

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Paul Chow

Paul’s been prop making since 2012 and has garnered an extensive experience in woodworking, CNC machining, 3D modelling and printing experience. Getting his first 3D printer in 2016, he dove deep into the world of 3D printer building, repair, upgrading and tinkering. He has built, tested and upgraded dozens of printers ranging from large & small, resin or FDM and ready to print fully custom builds.

Elegoo 8K Grey Resin Review

The Pros

The Cons

76

Price and Availability

Packaging

Ease of Use

Smell

Cleanup & Post Processing

Detail Reproduction

Durability

Flexibility

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