ELEGOO Saturn 3 12K – Review

ELEGOO Saturn 3 12K
ELEGOO Saturn 3 12K

ELEGOO Saturn 3 12K

| 3D MSLA Resin Printer | 12K |

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ELEGOO Saturn 3 12K, one of the upper-tier 3D resin printers from ELEGOO.

The ELEGOO Saturn 3 12K is part of the 3rd generation of 3D MSLA Stereolithography resin printers from ELEGOO.

Until recently, the ELEGOO Saturn 3 12K was the flagship model of the Saturn series and now sits as the 2nd top tier below the Ultra variant.

The ELEGOO Saturn series are one of the largest 3D resin printers from the brand, being the Jupiter line the biggest above the Saturn models.

Throughout the time, the Saturn 3D printers have become the most sought after for 3D print enthusiasts that want to make an upgrade into larger resin prints with high definition.

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ELEGOO Saturn 3 12K Review

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A

ACCESSORIES & PACKAGING
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The ELEGOO Saturn 3 12K comes well protected in a large box that includes lots of dense foam to avoid any type of damage during shipping.

The machine includes all the assembly pieces and instructions needed to get the printer up and running in short time.

Inside you will find:

• USB air purifier
• USB disk
• Voxeldance Tango lifetime license
• Masks
• Gloves
• Funnel
• Assembly and replacement screws
• Tool kit
• Metal scraper
• Plastic scraper

D

DESIGN
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The ELEGOO Saturn 3 12K can be defined as a mid-large 3D resin printer due to its printing/build volume capabilities reaching up to 218.88×122.88×250 mm³.

The machine has a rectangular form factor with a modern and futuristic aesthetic that includes sharper geometrical shapes than the style seen on the Elegoo Mars 4 Ultra.

The ELEGOO Saturn 3 makes use of a 3-color design with a red anti-UV cover/shield and a dark space-grey lower case with red and silver color accents.

The front of the printer holds a display screen and the power on/off button, while on the right back edge of the machine you will find an USB port and on the back of the lower case you will see the power connector.

Unlike most 3D resin printers, the Saturn has a detachable cover for the installation of an optional exhaust fan on the rear section of the anti-UV lid.

Compared the ELEGOO Mars 4 Ultra vs ELEGOO Saturn 3 12K, the Saturn is noticeably larger but not that much bigger considering the way vaster build volume. The ELEGOO Saturn 3 12K has a dimension of 305.9mm(L)*273mm(W)*567.3mm(H).

As usual with ELEGOO machines, the Saturn 3 has a pleasing aesthetic look.

ELEGOO Saturn 3 vs ELEGOO Mars 4 ULTRA
ELEGOO Saturn 3 vs ELEGOO Mars 4 ULTRA

 

AS

ASSEMBLY
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The assembly process of the ELEGOO Saturn is as simple as plugin the USB air purifier, putting the build platform in place and leveling the machine.

You will spend more time getting the machine out of the box and removing the protective foams than the minutes needed to “assemble” and getting the machine ready for your 1st print.

DS

DISPLAY SCREEN
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The ELEGOO Saturn 3 12K has a 3.5″ color touch screen on the front of the machine.

This screen uses a resistive touch technology and makes use of large UI buttons that are clear and intuitive.

While printing the screen will show detailed live information of the current printing task showing a preview of the layer being printed, file name, remaining time to complete the print, elapsed time, progress in percentage and in layers.

 

OC

OPERATION & CONTROL

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Through the touch screen you have access to all the configuration, settings, calibration, leveling and enable all controls of the machine itself.

As the machine works as a standalone unit with files uploaded to a plugged UDisk, the touch screen is the main and full element of control of the printer. Also, the screen is used to select the file to be printed and start/stop/pause the printing task and, even, apply live adjustments of the current printing process.

Overall, the touch screen UI and navigation is responsive and fairly snappy to operate without having to struggle with it.

 

CB

CONSTRUCTION & BUILD

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The ELEGOO Saturn 3 12K is born as a serious 3D resin printer to get the job done with accuracy and precision, thus the machine was built with solid and reliable materials to ensure to meet the needed standards for this level of use.

The outer shell of the printer is mainly made of plastic but the internal frame and structure is fully made of metal.

In addition to this, the printer has high-quality components such as dual linear rails for the z-axis, an all-metal laser-craved building plate with a ball-jointed leveling design and 9H tempered glass screen protector.

To ensure uniformity and wide coverage across the whole printing bed, the Saturn 3 has a COB and Fresnel Collimating Lens light source.

Moreover, the machine has 4 big, tall and very rubberized feet that keep the machine slippery-free and absorb any possible impact and vibrations that could happen while printing.
As expected, the machine has no single piece that feels flimsy, loose nor cheaply built.

To keep the thermals of the COB light at optimal working ranges and dissipate heat when needed, the printer incorporated 4 active fans and 6 copper tubes with dual cooling units. The unit weights approx. 15.2kg.


CON

CONNECTIVITY
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The model series prior to the Ultra line were all wired only; as so, the Saturn 3 12K works exclusively through a USB-A connector on the right of the case – another USB-A port can be seen next to the base of the z-axis but this is intended for the USB Air Purifier.

Edited and sliced files can be sent to the machine through an UDisk connected to the USB-A port.

P

PERFORMANCE
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The ELEGOO Saturn 3 12K offers 2 main qualities that make it stand out from the competition at this price range.
The Saturn is highly efficient in providing large sized prints and excellent definition, these 2 features are achieved thanks to top-notch specs such as:
• 10-inch 12K mono LCD
• 11520×5120 resolution
• 19×24µm XY resolution
On top of that, the z-axis presented a very low dB noise from the moving axis and motors while there was zero presence of grinding or scratching noises.
It might seem obvious but a high-quality resin is part of the key elements that ensure and allow the machine to provide its maximum resolution, definition and accuracy over the final results; therefore you are highly advised to buy a good resin like the ELEGOO 8K resin line.
Due to the larger area of the building plate and XY printing capability, the ELEGOO Saturn 3 12K allowed to place bigger XY elements on a single printing task or place a larger quantity of smaller designs to be printed all at the same time. As print times with 3D resin printers are mainly conditioned by the height and not the XY area/size, having a larger building plate allows an exponential saving in the printing times of multiple objects.
Also, the vast height offered by the z-axis allowed us to print both taller objects and overall bigger in all dimensions.
To further test out the machine, we printed one full bottle of 1 liter of ELEGOO 8K White Smoke resin printing hollow and full designs, objects needing supports and also others that were support-free.
When properly calibrated and leveled, the Saturn 3 responded with exceptional print quality that resolved even micro-details of minuscule sizes with pristine sharpness – it is fair to note that the leveling needed more trials and care than on the Elegoo Mars 4 Ultra.
In addition to this, all tested prints presented smooth and accurate reproductions of the original edited and sliced designs.
It was also useful seeing that the printer allowed to pause and resume the printing tasks and pulling up the building plate so we could checkout the printing process condition.
Setting the printing parameters and leveling accurately are the main fine-tuning that has to be taken carefully to allow any 3D printer to grant adhesion to the building plate and no failures over the full printing process.
After testing several prints with the Saturn 3, we found that in our case, we were able to obtain better plate adhesion using a thinner leveling card than the one bundled with the printer (like a sheet or two of standard A4 printer paper)
Moreover, we discovered that changing the default parameters offered by ChituBox for the Saturn 3 12K provided stronger adhesion. Mostly we adjusted the Bottom Exposure Time and number of bottom layers, but after several re-leveling fine-adjustments we ended up going back to default parameters.

PC

PRINT QUALITY
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1. Thor’s Hammer printed in a single piece of 249mm height taking around 14 hours to complete the printing process with supports


2. Diablo printed in a single piece of 201mm height taking 12 hours with supports – photo of printing process


3. Rook printed in 3 hours without supports

4. Miniature donkey printed in 2:36 hours with supports

5. 1980’s Batmobile printed in 1:20 hours with supports

PC

POWER CONSUMPTION
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Despite the big and almost intimidating size and printing capacity of the Saturn, the device uses only PSU with a max power consumption of 144W.

If you compare this with any 3D FDM printer, you will get 4x less power consumption on the same hours of printing time; thus, allowing to print massively large designs with 4 times less impact on your electricity bill.

SW

SOFTWARE
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The Elegoo Saturn can work with .goo open-source files and sliced files from all mainstream 3D resin slicers.

Both the bundled Voxeldance Tango and current versions of ChituBox are 100% compatible with the ELEGOO Saturn 3 12K and offer printer presets for it with all the correct settings and parameters preloaded.

The brand includes a lifetime license for Voxeldance Tango so you will not need to spend any extra money for a slicer.

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Specifications

ELEGOO Saturn 3 12K Technical Specifications

LCD
10-inch 12K Mono LCD
SYSTEM
EL3D-3.0.1
SLICER SOFTWARE
CHITUBOX & Voxeldance Tango
TECHNOLOGY
MSLA Stereolithography
LAYER THICKNESS
0.01-0.2mm
PRINTING SPEED
MAX 70mm/h
Z AXIS ACCURACY
0.02mm
XY RESOLUTION
19×24μm(11520×5120)
BUILD VOLUME
218.88mm(L)*122.88mm(W)*250mm(H)
LIGHT SOURCE
COB (wavelength 405nm)
LANGUAGES
Chinese, English
CONNECTIVITY
USB Interface
WEIGHT
15.2kg
OPERATION
3.5-inch Touch Screen
POWER REQUIREMENTS
100-240V 50/60Hz 24V 4A
PRINTER DIMENSIONS
305.9mm(L)*273mm(W)*567.3mm(H)

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ELEGOO Saturn 3 12K

ELEGOO Saturn 3 12K
9.3

SCORE

 9.3/10
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