Elegoo Saturn Journey to a New Frontier

As most of you know, the Elegoo Saturn is the big brother to the Elegoo Mars series resin 3D printers, and for those of you who are looking into getting one, I wanted to tell you about the various issues that some people had with their early-bird pre-orders. Elegoo was very responsive to the early-bird adopters and they have successfully addressed these issues in the most recent production models that were released last fall and early this spring.

Elegoo did their first batch of 2000 Saturn pre-orders back at the beginning of June 2020. There was so much interest that the first batch sold out within minutes. As a result, there were a lot of Elegoo fans that were really upset that they had missed out. So, Elegoo being the winning brand that it is, offered a second batch of 2000 pre-order units a week later. The last batch of pre-sale orders were shipped during the first few weeks of November 2020.

Elegoo has been releasing new resin 3D printer models at a hectic pace and they acknowledged that this had been, to some degree, at the expense of quality. On September 15, 2020, they addressed this on their Elegoo Mars 2 Pro Facebook page. They said that they were not going to be releasing any new printer models for the rest of the year, and that they were going to focus on improving the existing models. Their statement was as follows:

Hey guys!!!

Here we’d like to share our view with you on the product iteration and release of our printers.

The Mars printer was launched two years ago (2018). With the birth of the product, we reflect and summarize the improvements that can be made to a printer, and we received an ocean of feedback and questions over Mars from our loyal customers. Based on our experience and people’s voice, we released the Mars Pro, and even later the Mars 2 Pro. It is the law of product development that we research improved machines, also it is the requirement for our own innovation. As the growth of communities goes fast, so too does the customers’ needs for more diverse printers.

Kindly believe that our goal is to create better quality, more efficient and versatile machines through our manufacturing experience and by responding to the different needs of our customers all along.

Beyond that, in the second half of the year we will not work on launching a new unit but will be focusing our full attention on Saturn, Mars 2 Pro, Mars Pro and Mercury Plus. While keeping in touch with our customers closely, we’re about to continuously strengthen quality control and optimizing the customer experience. Thank you all for your understanding and support along the way. Should you encounter any kind of problem using Mars or other machines, feel free to email to 3dp@elegoo.com. We’re all glad to help you out.

The response from customers was overwhelmingly positive and Elegoo made good on its promises. With that said, let’s discuss the issues that became apparent with the early-adopters of the Elegoo Saturn.

Resolution

One thing that was a bit of a disappointment for some people is that, even though the Elegoo Saturn has a much larger build volume and a higher resolution screen, it doesn’t actually generate much finer quality prints than the Elegoo Mars and Mars Pro. The Saturn beta units originally came with an 8.9 inch, 2K screen. That quadruples the pixels of the Mars and Mars Pro, so naturally, one would assume that you’d get a higher resolution. But, when you do the math, the pixel size with the 2K screen was 75 microns, compared to 47 microns on the Mars and Mars Pro. Even though the final production units ended up with the 4K monochrome screen, it still doesn’t stack up to the Mars and Mars Pro in terms of resolution. Although the 4K monochrome screen allows the machine to print quite a bit faster with a large build volume, its pixel size still only comes in at 50 microns as opposed to the Mars and Mars Pro’s 47 microns. So the Saturn generates prints with only a very slight improvement on resolution, but you do get the larger build volume and the time-saving benefits of the monochrome screen.

LED Array Grid Problem

The LED grid array problem, dubbed “grid gate” by some, was an issue with the LED array and diffuser that caused dark spots in the LCD screen. The result was a grid pattern or, in some cases, holes in the print. This was initially a problem in some batches of the Elegoo Mars Pros and some very early versions of the Elegoo Saturn. Elegoo was quick to correct this issue in the Mars Pro by sending out new LED array assemblies, but some customers complained that this did not completely remedy the issue. In my case, my Mars Pro was in one of the first batches, which wasn’t affected. They were able to correct this issue in the Saturn before they shipped the early bird models. It seems that the solution for the Saturn may have been with the brightness adjustment. Here’s something that I found interesting:

Grid Array Issue (Facebook: Allen Moss)

the Saturn actually has brightness controls for the LED array! In one Facebook post, Elegoo had instructed a customer to manually adjust the brightness of their LED array, using the controls shown here. [Show Image]. I followed up and asked that customer if he had actually tried it. He replied that he hadn’t, stating that he didn’t want to mess with it because he paints most of his prints anyway. This has been a problem with most resin 3D printers that have the LED array set up. I have the same problem with my EPAX X1K and, when I spoke to EPAX about it, they said that there is no way to completely eliminate the grid pattern issue in printers with the LED array setup. As a result, I suspect we may see manufacturers moving away from the LED array, like Elegoo has with the Mars 2 Pro.

Build plate damage during shipping

Some early bird customers received their units with damaged build plates. The issue seemed to be the result of insufficient protective packaging. Elegoo was able to address this problem and issued the following statement on Facebook:

“We have learned that some of our customers found serious damages to the build plate of Saturn.

After an internal meeting with our production team and logistic dept, we think the damages have something to do with transportation but the root cause would be more likely related to the protective foam inside the package, which didn’t provide enough protection then caused the scratches and cuts on the plate. 

We have urgently changed the foam structure today and add thicker protection over the plate. Hopefully, this issue won’t happen again from the next orders we’re going to fulfill.

To those customers who had a damaged built plate please contact our service team at service@elegoo.com and we will send you a new build plate via UPS/DHL and a bottle of resin to make up your loss.

If you feel like the damages won’t affect your printing and you don’t need a replacement, please also let us know the situation and as compensation, we will send you a free gift as well. 

We appreciate your support of ELEGOO and we do apologize for the inconvenience caused so far in terms of delayed shipment and the build plate issues. Your trust will make ELEGOO thrive and we will put out all our endeavours on the production, quality control, and customer service. Thank you.”