hey guys CJ with elevated systems and today we're diving into the eligo Saturn 4 ultra 16k I've been testing this printer for over a month and while it does have some impressive upgrades I've also ran into several issues this raises an important question can pre-release reviews like this one truly represent what customers will experience when the product comes to Market that's what we'll explore in this video alongside an overview of the printer's new features its problems and what this means for the 3D printing industry as a whole let's get into it it's the Mone now despite the issues I face the Saturn 4 ultra 16k does bring some impressive upgrades over last year's Ultra 12K Beyond just bumping up the screen resolution despite major flaws I managed to crank out some fantastic prints along the way first things first the Saturn 4 Ultra isn't just about upgrading from a 12K to a 16k screen and honestly I don't even think that's the most significant Improvement here sure it's the flashy spec eligo wants to sell you on but let's talk about the upgrades that actually matter at its core the Saturn 4 ultra 16k is essentially the same exact printer as the Saturn 4 ultra 12K with a few meaningful tweaks one of the most practical improvements is the addition of plastic Wings to the build plate this makes it much easier to handle the plate reducing the risk of dropping it onto the screen it's a simple effective solution next up lighting eligo added an internal light so the webcam is actually functional even with the lid closed while the webcams placement is fine for capturing some time-lapse footage of your prints I'm not sold on its AI capabilities it didn't pick up on a few print failures and adhesion issues during my testing so take that feature with a grain of salt now let's talk about what I think is the real game chain the built-in vat heater under the vat you'll find two Pogo pins that power the heater keeping the resin at a cozy 30° C and let me tell you it works like a charm and the solution is invisible not adding any extra components to the vat or working area of the printer I do all my printing in an unheated garage where Winter temps hover between 5 and 15° C despite the cold the heater kept the resin consistently warmed which made printing actually possible there's even a preheat function that can hold the temperature for 24 hours if you SK preheating the that will heat automatically before printing while the build plate stir the resin for even heating let's dive into the flashy upgrade the new 16k screen it boast a resolution of 15,120 by 6,232 pixels delivering an impressive pixel size of just 14 by9 microns this is definitely an improvement over the 19x 24 microns of the 12K screen but pixel size is just one piece of the print quality puzzle the first piece of the puzzle and the question I have to ask are there even any consumer photo resents capable of producing sub 18 mikon levels of d detail the best elu offers is their AK standard resin which is decent a good balance of detail and flexibility sunlu has a 16k resin but it's so cheap and brittle that I only use it for solid mini bases some of the best resins I've tried are the any cubic Craftsman and the Frozen Aqua hyperfine but even those don't really reveal much detail beyond the 18 to 24 Micron level speaking as a hobbyist who primes and paints these models I pay close attention to finer details and the truth is the K numbers on the resins are also mostly just marketing there really isn't anything on the consumer Market that can fully utilize the level of detail offered by a 14 by9 Micron printer as far as the display increasing pixel density also means adding more Electronics to the screen thinf film transistors or tfts control each pixel and as pixel density Rises so does the density of the tfts this additional density reduces the amount of light that can pass through the screen based on the math if all other factors like TFT technology and light source intensity remain the same the 16k screen could transmit up to 36% less light compared to the 12K to explore this I compared the Saturn 4 ultra 16k with my Mars 5 Ultra which has a 9k screen despite the difference in resolution the Mars 5 has a smaller 7in screen compared to the Saturn's 10-in screen resulting in a similar pixel size of 18 Micron squared the print produced by both printers were visually identical down to the layer lines what stood out during testing was that the Mars 5 completed this print with a 1.5 second exposure time while the Saturn 4 needed 2.2 seconds the smaller screen on the Saturn 5 allows the light to be more concentrated but the denser TFT layout smaller aperture ratio of the Saturn 4 screen also contributed to the slower exposure times now this performance difference highlights why top tear consumer in industrial printers like those from he gears and form Labs prioritize screen quality over chasing higher resolution numbers in fact the best prints I've ever produced come from my 8k ultracraft reflex RS with a pixel size of 29.7 microns The Reflex RS proves that it's not just about resolution instead of focusing on arbitrary numbers the manufacturer equipped it with a highquality precisely calibrated screen that uses Advanced LCD technology while the closed ecosystem and proprietary resins of he gears printers might not appeal to everyone I can't argue with the results I simply drag a model into the slicer click one send it to the printer and get Flawless prints every single time and I don't have to deal with any of this let's talk about this and more importantly the significant problems I encountered with this printer when I first unboxed and set it up I did my due diligence I checked to make sure the build plate was level and I immediately noticed that there was a corner that was slightly off no big deal though this printer has Smart Auto leveling right so I started with some calibration prints to dial in my exposure settings using the handy multi-exposure calibration tool built in despite cranking the bottom exposure time up to 70 seconds for a resin that typically works fine at 35 seconds I kept having adhesion issues in one specific area of the build plate at this point I tried manually leveling the plate even though there aren't any real instructions for doing so the onscreen guide igly walks you through the process but essentially leaves you with adjust the four leveling screws problem is that didn't do anything all the leveling screws were fully torqued down and loosing them didn't adjust a plate it just removed the screw entirely so I had to completely disassemble the upper portion of the plate to figure out what was going on what I found was that the plastic cover was screwed on so tightly that it restricted any possible adjustment of the shock absorbers in those post connecting the bottom of the build plate to the top the so-called autol leveling system works by driving the build plate into the bed with enough Force to flex these shock absorbers until all four corners make contact with the screen now this isn't an auto leveling it's a four corner dependent suspension system while it technically does what it's designed to do it comes with serious limitations reducing both quality and Precision in the process let's not forget what a total pain it is to clean using the Mercury wash and cure to clean prints directly on the build plate meant I had to thoroughly clean the plate every single time as IPA would get up into that in between area and you definitely don't want to reintroduce alcohol into the printer vat that level of hassle might be acceptable on a $270 printer but at this price point it's not by loosening the plastic cover I managed to make make some adjustments to the build plate but it wasn't enough after further analysis I concluded that the build plate itself is probably warped or at least not machined to proper tolerances to confirm I laid the plate flat on a sheet of tempered glass and found that a 70 Micron feeler gauge could slide under one corner while the other edges and Corner sat flush and the high point was consistent no matter where I placed the plate on the glass despite all this I was still able to get some good prints out of this machine by avoiding that one trouble splot on the build plate I shared my findings with igu and a few days later they sent me custom G-Code machine Updates this update technically fixed the adhesion problem but not in a good way now the printer simply uses Brute Force to drive the plate harder into the screen flexing the shock absorbers by several millim for the first 20 to 30 lers this works fine if you're printing supported models on raft but only if you've already dialed in your resin exposure settings perfectly unfortunately this brute force method completely prevents me from printing quick and thin validation models every time I tried the printer crushed them even single validation models in the center of the plate didn't work now I'm stuck making educated guesses at exposure times and validating using fully supported models and sometimes even that doesn't seem to matter for example I dialed in a 2.2 second exposure using Frozen Aqua hyper detail resin on standard 32mm Miniatures as calibration models but when I printed a plate of 75 mm collectible models with the same settings they were so Overexposed that the support trees fused together and removing them caused a serious chip out on the model now I always try to tackle a showpiece project with each printer I review but the Saturn 4 ultra's Precision issues made that impossible I planed to print and assemble a functional Stargate model with a geared mechanism to spin the ring unfortunately I got crazy results trying to dial in Precision using the cones of calibration model version three basically I ended up with the exposure so low that the success pillars would fail indicating undere exposure yet the sword and Ale test were still too big indicating overexposure and the Attunement block measured at best 5.2 mm M8 mm shorter than its Target I tried to make educated guesses at settings but the print still failed partially or lacked dimensional accuracy part of the issue could be the eligo tough resin which isn't listed on ELO's website or included in their recommended settings chart now eligo is addressing this with their new slicer satellite but as a pre-released product the Saturn for 16k had no preloaded profiles in Satellite instead eligo shipped it with chitu box basic a slicer known for its bugs and quirks now I didn't have time to troubleshoot slicer issues though because there were too many other problems with the printer itself for example the touchscreen kept glitching despite checking and recing the ribbon cable multiple times it continued acting up eventually I found that the ribbon cable clip wasn't working so I had to tape the cable in place I also ran into the problem with the printer freezing mid print when it happened I rebooted the system it recognized the interrupted print and asked if I wanted to resume of course I did yes it was a big print job that turned out to be a big mistake oh that was brilliant oh yeah [Music] well that's dead like a lot of stuff failed there the interrupted print or power loss resume function obviously didn't work and the vat debris sensor completely failed that was like five Ines of debris and like five Ines is a lot right it should have definitely noticed 5 in in the vat right well it turns out the freezing issue was caused by a network problem when the machine dropped its Wi-Fi connection it would freeze the issue is supposedly patched in the latest firmware update thankfully that inant didn't kill the printer as I initially feared however the original problems persist 3 weeks and about $100 worth of resin later I'm still trying to complete the full RPG campaign character set I set out to print and have some D and D friends waiting on that in itself says everything about my experience with the eligo Saturn 4 ultra 16k now listen I can only review what's in front of me is this experience representative of what you'll get if you buy one of these today probably not eligo has built a solid reputation especially in the resin printer space I still think the Mars 5 Ultra is the best beginner resin printer on the market that said a single machine with multiple major flaws is definitely concerning did eligo Rush the Saturn 4 ultra 16k to Market to beat uniformation and Nova 3D in the race to deliver the first 10-in 16k printers to customers I don't know what I do know is that this printer at least in its current state isn't ready for customers now to be fair I did perform a factory reset to bring the printer back to the state before elu tried to brute force a software fix what for what what seems to be a hardware issue as long as I avoid the bad spot on the build plate I'm able to get some really nice prints out of this machine now for additional perspective I reached out to other reviewers who should be releasing their videos at the same time since this one none of the creators who replied reported major issues with their machine they had minor issues and occasional print failures but nothing showstopping what many of us agree on though is that marketing is increasingly trumping Engineering in the consumer space slapping a higher resolution screen on a printer and calling it 16k doesn't guarantee better results instead manufacturers should focus on sourcing highquality screens with the latest igu TFT technology better aperture ratios and sharper images even better why not innovate with floating screens that use Force sensors and actuators to actually self-level elu has proven they can innovate their tilting that mechanism is a GameChanger and the Pogo pin heater in this printer is clever and effective and minimal but there's still too much emphasis on flashy specs over practical performance we're also seeing more companies using reviewers and customers as beta testers instead of delivering polished fully functional products they rush into the market and hope software updates can can patch the issues later that's not a strategy that builds trust now I can't fix the industry's approach but I can stop contributing to it that's why this is the last pre-released product I'll be accepting for review going forward I won't review anything that isn't a retail product available to customers at the time of release to be honest 3D printers were the last category whereas I was still accepting pre-release units these days I either buy everything out of pocket or the company sends me retail samples in fact for all the mini PCS I review the companies order them directly from Amazon and have them ship straight to me just today I got a shipping confirmation for two PC cases the manufacturer sent from Newegg and yeah that's a terrible business model for YouTube the most views come from day one release reviews two or 3 weeks after a product launches it's old news and nobody searching for review videos anymore but if you're interested in seeing how an actual retail version of a 3D printer holds up after at least two or 300 Print hours you'll find that here hopefully you'll stick around because I genuinely enjoy this job plus I got like an 8year Gap in my resumé and let all my professional shts expire so yeah hit subscribe and come back