Hey guys, CJ with Elevated Systems, and today we're diving into the Elegoo 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. 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 Elegoo 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 a much easier handle plate, reducing the risk of dropping it onto the screen. It's a simple, effective solution. Next up, lighting.
Elegoo added an internal light so the webcam is actually functional even with the lid closed. While the webcam's 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 changer, 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 degrees Celsius. 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 degrees Celsius. 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 skip preheating, the vat will heat automatically before printing while the... build plate stirs the resin for even heating.
Let's dive into the flashy upgrade, the new 16K screen. It boasts a resolution of 15,120 by 6,232 pixels, delivering an impressive pixel size of just 14 by 19 microns. This is definitely an improvement over the 19 by 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 resins capable of producing sub-18 micon levels of detail? The best Elegoo offers is their 8K standard resin, which is decent, a good balance of detail and flexibility. Some Lou 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 Anycubic 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 by 19 micron printer. As far as the display, Increasing pixel density also means adding more electronics to the screen.
Thin 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 7 inch screen compared to the Saturn's 10 inch screen, resulting in a similar pixel size of 18 microns squared. The prints 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 and smaller aperture ratio of the saturn 4 screen also contributed to the slower exposure times. Now, this performance difference highlights why top-tier consumer and industrial printers like those from Hagears and Formlabs 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 Reflect RS proves that it's not just about resolution. Instead of focusing on arbitrary numbers, the manufacturer equipped it with a high quality, precisely calibrated screen that uses advanced LCD technology. While the closed ecosystem and proprietary resins of Hagear's 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 on-screen guide vaguely 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 loosening them didn't adjust the 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 posts connecting the bottom of the build plate to the top the so-called auto 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.
And 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 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 corners 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 spot on the build plate.
I shared my findings with Elegy 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 millimeters for the first 20 to 30 layers.
This works fine if you're printing supported models on a 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 75mm 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 planned 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 3 and 3. Basically, I ended up with the exposure so low that the success pillars would fail, indicating underexposure, yet the sword and ale test were still too big, indicating overexposure, and the attunement block measured at best 5.2mm, 0.8mm 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 Elegoo Tough Resin, which isn't listed on Elegoo's website or included in their recommended settings chart. Now...
Elegoo is addressing this with their new slicer, Satellite, but as a pre-release product, the Saturn 416K had no pre-loaded profiles in Satellite. Instead, Elegoo shipped it with Chitubox 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 reseating the ribbon cable multiple times, it continued acting up.
eventually 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 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 inches of debris and like five inches is a lot right Should have definitely noticed five inches 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 was supposedly patched in the latest firmware update. Thankfully, that incident didn't kill the printer as I initially feared.
However, the original problems persist. Three 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&D friends waiting on. That in itself says everything about my experience with the Elegoo Saturn IV 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. Elegoo 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 Elegoo rush the Saturn 4 Ultra 16K to market to beat Uniformation and Nova 3D in the race to deliver the first 10-inch 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 Elegoo tried to brute force a software fix for 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 times as this one.
None of the creators who replied reported major issues with their machine. They had minor issues and occasional print failures, but nothing show-stopping. What many of us agree on, though, is that marketing is increasingly trumping engineering in the consumer space. Slapping a high-resolution screen on a printer and calling it 16K doesn't guarantee better results.
Instead, manufacturers should focus on sourcing high-quality screens with the latest IGZU 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? Elegoo has proven they can innovate. Their tilting VAT mechanism is a game changer. 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 market and hope software updates 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-release 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 shipped 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 three weeks after a product launches, it's old news and nobody's 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've got like an eight-year gap in my resume and let all my professional certs expire. So yeah, hit subscribe and come back.