January 17, 2025: The Elegoo Saturn 4 Ultra 3D Printer: Best Beginner's (Or Expert's!) Resin Printer – Part 1

The first 3D printer I ever saw in action was one of the early MakerBot filament (FDM) printers. It was for sale in a Sam's Club. They had a demo running, which consisted of a couple of feet attached to a spaghetti monster – that's what it's called when a filament print fails and the printer just spews filament in a big stringy ball. I was not impressed. (Nor was I impressed by the price, around $1k.)

Fast forward to about 2018. I was at Con Nooga and a vendor was selling STL files for making 3D printed cavern floor tiles . . . hexagon tiles! And he had an Ender 3 setup printing out demos. Now I was impressed. I was extremely impressed. I bought the CD of the tile STLs, went home, and ordered an Ender 3. Then I promptly lost the CD. I never found it again, nor have I ever found the vendor. (If you're him, please let me know!) My first print, by the way, was a walking octopus. (This was long before ours – one of which is available as a free sample.)

About a year later I took my first tentative steps into resin printing. Since then, I've accumulated seven printers from three different manufacturers. One manufacturer is somewhat decent, one doesn't have anything I'll ever touch again, and one is Elegoo, my favorite. They're affordable, reliable, and good.

A few months ago, after seeing YouTuber Uncle Jessy's videos about it, I bought an Elegoo Saturn 4 Ultra. And I couldn't be happier with it. I love that printer. It's not their cheapest, butmfor the average home user, it's by far their best. It's also the most newbie-friendly.

It's blindingly fast. I've compared the Saturn side by side with the Mars 2 Pro, and the Saturn is more than twice as fast. The build plate on the Saturn is about 2.5 times the size of the Mars, which means I get about 5x the throughput (I'd recommend a second build plate, available from Elegoo, for quick turnaround, so you can wash one while printing on the other). This might not be important at first glance – but if you're planning on printing enough gpb;ins to do a nice horde for Friday's game, it definitely matters.

Another great feature is the onboard camera. I can run the entire print job from right here at my desk – sending the file to the printer, watching how it's coming along, etc. This is particularly handy if your printer is somewhere inconvenient, like in your basement . . .