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ELEGOO Saturn 4 and Saturn 4 Ultra to be Announced on April 15th
Paul Chow
Updated on April 14, 2024
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ELEGOO has iterated on its best selling Saturn series of resin 3D printers for the past number of years. The release of the 2023 Saturn 3 and Saturn 3 Ultra in which many praised (including us at 3DGearZone) was a very iterative update to the 2022 Saturn 2. The general consensus was while it was a great medium format resin 3D printer, it did not give a compelling resin for users to upgrade their older printers.
Meanwhile companies such as Anycubic and Uniformation released printers like the Anycubic M5S Pro and the Uniformation GKTwo which had some revolutionary features such as automatic bed leveling and resin heating. Both are huge quality of life and reliability upgrades which we appreciate.
Many users were worried that ELEGOO had started resting on its laurels when other resin 3D printer manufacturers started adding new innovative features to their printers while ELEGOO remained silent.
However, a number of leaks and teaser images from ELEGOO have confirmed that they have listened to the community and have at least implemented some of these quality of life and reliability features that users have been asking for.
What We Know
The community has gotten a hold of a copy of the ELEGOO Saturn 4 Ultra manual which does a great job of outlining many of the changes made to ELEGOO’s upcoming flagship medium format resin 3D printer. Many of these features have been corroborated by ELEGOO in their X account (formally known as Twitter) teaser posts leading up to the April 15 announcement. What we currently know of the ELEGOO Saturn 4 Ultra:
- Automatic bed leveling: like many of the latest flagship resin 3D printers, the Saturn 4 Ultra is capable of self leveling the print bed. This takes out a significant portion of the initial set up and guess work in resin 3D printing and potentially improves the reliability of the Saturn 4 Ultra. It is currently unclear if the Saturn 4 Ultra possesses the force sensor found in other flagship resin printers that can do failure detection or dynamic print speeds.
- Tilting vat: First pioneered by Formlabs, Peoploy and Prusa, the tilting vat mechanism was praised for increasing print reliability and speed. However, it was limited to higher priced resin 3D printers and we are happy to see it trickle down to popular brands like ELEGOO.
- AI camera: new to ELEGOO is the inclusion of a camera. We suspect it would be used for remote monitoring of the printer and potentially warn users of a resin failure.
- Vertical LCD: new to any resin 3D printer is a vertically oriented touchscreen located on the right of the machine. We are curious how this oddly shaped LCD screen will differ from a traditional landscape LCD screen found in every other resin 3D printer on the market
- Hinged lid: ELEGOO is stepping away from the removable acrylic lid in favor of a hinged lid found on flagship 3D printers such as the Uniformation GKTwo or the Phrozen Sonic Mega 8KS and upcoming Phrozen Sonic Mighty Revo. One of our recurring complaints of resin 3D printers are their removable acrylic lids which can be a pain to remove and store. A hinged lid solves this problem.
- No resin heater: the leaked manual has no mention of resin heater which we found disappointing as it is one of the top requested features for a resin 3D printer.
- No filter: curiously removed is the small filter system popular with many of these resin 3D printers. They do a good job of removing the odor of resin 3D printing, however, it is unknown whether they do a good job of removing the VOCs found in resin 3D printers. ELEGOO has retained an exhaust vent at the back of the unit that can be hooked up to a ventilation system such as an inline filtration system.
- ELEGOO has stated the pre-order price to be an extremely attractive price of $399.
What We Think
We are fans of ELEGOO’s line of resin 3D printers and rated them highly on our resin 3D printer reviews for both quality and value. However, resin 3D printer manufacturers such as GKTwo, Phrozen and Anycubic have released printers that have eclipsed ELEGOO in both quality of life and reliability features.
In resin 3D printing, a level build plate and a consistent 25-30c temperature are some of the largest contributors to a high quality and reliable resin print and many manufacturers have released printers with an automatic leveling build plate and resin heater to ensure both of those boxes are ticked off. ELEGOO appears to have taken a step in the right direction by including an automatic leveling build plate in its Saturn 4 Ultra.
However, we are concerned there is no mention of a resin heater in its manual. Anycubic’s M5S Pro would be the ELEGOO Saturn 4 Ultra’s direct competitor and it comes with both an automatic leveling bed and heater and the Saturn 4 Ultra will be at a severe disadvantage without it.
Smaller quality of life features such as the hinged lid and large bed release lever are welcome additions to the Saturn feature set. The review team has consistently complained about the removable acrylic lid found on the majority of resin 3D printers as it takes up space, and is a pain to take on and off on a regular basis. The hinged lid allows easy access to the printer while taking up significantly less space than a removable lid.
We’ll find out more about the Saturn 4 Ultra along with its price on April 15th. However, we are cautiously optimistic about ELEGOO’s latest entry to its Saturn line up.
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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.
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