To say the Elegoo Saturn is one of the most eagerly awaited consumer MSLA 3D printers ever is no understatement. Such was the mark its pint-sized predecessor, the Elegoo Mars left. Producing premium prints without a premium price tag, the Mars arguably picked up where the Anycubic Photon left off in building the bridge between the print capabilities of high-end SLA 3D printers and consumers on a budget.

But enough merits of the past, the new and shiny Elegoo Saturn promises all that and even more, with the new monochrome display and bigger build volume. The monochrome display came somewhat as a surprise, with beta-unit testers around the globe happily printing away 2K display-equipped units. Following feedback from these users – and perhaps sensing a shift in what should now be considered the norm – Elegoo made the switch from a “standard” 2K LCD to a monochrome 3840 x 2400 pixel panel, simultaneously increasing print resolution and speed.

But let’s start from the ground up.

Design and Features

The Elegoo Saturn is in many ways similar to the Mars and Mars Pro that came before it, carrying forward many of these predecessors’ traits, peppering them with practical improvements that acknowledge the jump in size and difficulties it brings.

The base unit is as solid as can be with a 280 x 240 mm footprint. The sturdy, all-metal chassis encompasses the 3.5-inch color touchscreen at the front, two fans in the back, and the USB port on the right side.

It seems to be somewhat of a tradition at Elegoo, to rearrange the USB slot for every machine the company releases. For the Mars, it was at the back (awful), the Mars Pro had it in front (optimal), the same as the Saturn Beta unit, and now Elegoo has settled somewhere in the middle and placed it on the right-hand side of the 3D printer (acceptable). Why the sudden change from the beta unit, we can only guess, but we’d put our money on the interior rearranging due to the new screen.

On top, the vat resonates (resinates?) with us. Besides its enlarged capacity – to make use of the 192 x 120 mm in the X and Y – it irons out one of the downsides of the Mars and Mars Pro; it is removable from the top and does not have to be awkwardly slid out sideways. Further beneficial improvements include four protruding bumps on the corners beneath the vat, allowing you to set it aside without fear of damaging the FEP film with dust and debris.

Last but not least, the vat now includes a pouring aid in one corner, which does make the change of resin a little bit less messy. Something not carried across from the Mars Pro is some kind of resin fill level indicator inside the vat, especially with the enlarged build volume and the need for more resin. Granted, Elegoo does include a measuring cup, but this just adds to the mess.

The backbone of the 3D printer is its Z-axis. Here, Elegoo also buffed up the Saturn, which now features dual-linear rails, flanking the Z-axis lead screw and sturdily guiding the build plate up and down the print volume.

The LCD on an MSLA printer is where the magic happens, and in Saturn’s case, the monochrome display truly is magical. The 8.9-inch 4K screen has a resolution of 3840 x 2400 pixels. Comparing this to the 2K screen, it sounds like almost double the pixels (but would actually be quadruple), but the reality is a little more complicated.

Breaking it down, with a build area of 192 x 120 mm this puts the Saturn at an overall X/Y pixel size of 0.05 mm (50 microns), compared to the ever so slightly more detailed 0.047 mm (47 microns) found on the Mars and Mars Pro. Had the Saturn stayed as previewed with a 2560 x 1600 2K LCD, that old Saturn (if you can consider it such a thing) would have had a pixel size of 0.075 mm (75 microns).

As it stands, at 50 microns the detail possible is indistinguishable from that of the Mars or Mars Pro.

Plus, print speed is where the Saturn stands apart. The monochrome display allows a greater intensity of light to pass through, cutting layer cure times down to as little as 1-2 seconds, in contrast to the likely 6-8 seconds it would take on a non-monochrome display. This makes the Saturn some 60% faster than similar printers, while still producing outstandingly detailed prints. Especially for batch production, this opens up a world of possibilities.

All in all, Elegoo seems to have taken feedback and common sense to heart and made sensible choices to have the Saturn stand apart.

Printing and Usability

Fresh out of the box, the Elegoo Saturn is a slick, well-constrained little cube of a machine. After going hands-on for a few days with the Elegoo Saturn, we can wholeheartedly say that the experience lines up with what one might hope for from the specs of the printer, the company’s previous machines, and our own personal experience with MSLA printers.

Much like the Mars and Mars Pro before it, printing with the Elegoo Saturn is straightforward. Pre-flight preparations consist of leveling the platform and – at least in our case – manually changing the screen’s resolution in the Chitubox profile to the newly upgraded 3840 x 2400 pixels. It would appear that the LCD spec bump came very late in the day – even the instructions and provided test print use the old resolution.

Nonetheless, it’s all smooth sailing. ChiTu’s highly capable ChiTu Box slicing software makes light work of preparing 3D models, with the obligatory tools (such as hollowing and support structure generation) upfront with the necessary parameters to tweak as you see fit. One thing we would recommend is setting the support structures to “strong” as otherwise, some prints may fall victim to the peel force at layer change.

Typically for modern-day MSLA resin printers, the Elegoo Saturn is compatible with many 405nm UV sensitive resins. We ran prints using two Elegoo resin samples provided by Elegoo (bear in mind that the stock printer does not come with any resin). Printing first time with no futzing around, the Saturn printed without complaint with both the company’s own resin and the plethora of remnant resins we have laying around from previous reviews. Even mixtures of Elegoo’s ABS-like resin and standard resins of no particular description cure fast without issue.

The Saturn’s 192 x 120 x 200 mm print capacity pans out to roughly three and a half times the volume and almost three times the print area of the Mars, opening up the possibilities for much larger prints. With the expedited print speed, it all adds up to a lot of fun. During our week-long review, we encountered no notable hiccups beyond the typical messy post-processing universal to MSLA printing.