Thank you for this honest review. As you said there are tons of "this printer is awesome, go buy it". However, there are problems you have mentioned. I have Ultra myself but I am trading it for a Phrozen 4k. Voxel lines kill the purpose of this printer for me. Busts and small thing are okay, but for tabletop this is a big no. If I see the lines after painting the model is unusable.
Thank you very much Honest review I would love to compare the aliasing on the model plane Very important serrated micropattern printing Thank you Wishing you peace and happiness
I could be wrong, I'm new to 3d printing and have been enjoying my Ultra last few weeks. It seems LCD bleed does indeed "blur" the pixels slightly making lines less noticeable by default, while the greater accuracy of DLP's is going to make the lines more noticeable at lower DLP resolutions which the Ultra is.
@@3dprintingpro212 That's exactly what I think too, in the end what matters is the result, and it's a disappointment, especially for those who participated in the kickstarter campaign. This without mentioning the excessive retail price, delivery delays for bakers and new models that have just come out of the blue.
Thanks for the direct comparison. Would you mind sharing what resin you used? I've seen posts of starkly varying quality, and the running theme is that the "DLP Craftsman" resin actually makes a difference. Your review seems pretty damning, so I'm not sure it could make enough of a difference even if you weren't using the dlp resin here.
if it's close to te regular gray craftsman, toss it in the bin. Idk what went wrong there but never seen a more random resin than that one. Even getting fails and delamination on my regular sonic mini, with cure times as high as 4s-5s for 0.04mm layers. For some reason it also tends to leave a sticky residue on the fep where your prints have been (no issues with the apricot stuff though 🤔)
#3DPrintingPro Greg, I have never stopped using a 2.5 resolution. My Mini 4K is on medical leave, but I have been using the 2.5 as a subconscious default on my Mighty and Saturn. Any harm? Any Benefit?
Nice review, just curious is their any other benefit to this... such as print speed or if you spill resin can you just replace the glass cheaply unlike ruining a LCD screen???
This was the perfect review. I have been on the fence between the Ultra and the 8K and this review made my decision easy. Vog (another RUclipsr) reviewed the Ultra and I thought it was the printer for me, but I was concerned about the lines. I thought maybe that priming and painting would cover the lines, but based on what you've shown here, that's not quite true.
Yeah at this point in time, Sonic mini 8k is the best choice for people wanting the highest quality prints. But if this DLP technology advances with much higher resolution, it may be the way to go in the future! :)
I was checking the DLP chipset used and it is from texas instruments. They do have a 2k and 4k resolution chipset. The 4k dlp chip costs around $1000 usd so it would be an expensive printer but maybe better than the sonic mini 8k.
Nothing currently on the consumer market can compare to the sm8k, these DLP printers aren't comparable whatsoever as their effective pixel size is just too large, by very far.
I want to buy a 3D printer but these manufacturers make it so hard by barely giving any information regarding the difference between a lot of them. Every time I want to check the maximum size a single print can get on a particular printer and the maximum quality regarding detail, it doesn’t tell me. Or at least I don’t know where to look because I don’t know the terminology of their feats. If you can clear this up for me that would be great!
@@whittaker007 then you are not working with complex high poly models or not using math intense Pro features. I even got my machine to the limit sometimes, and as I mentioned, it's more than 12x faster than the most powerful M1 configuration. You are just paying for the Apple brand (and design), not the performance.
Sorry. Could not disagree more. I have had fantastic results. I believe is it better than the Sonic mini 4k. 8k is pretty cost prohibitive still. Much better than LCD tech. This is def the future. Only drawback is I am not a minis guy. I print larger models. Looking forward to the larger screen sizes.
@@3dprintingpro212 I have been printing since March 2019 when I started off with the SparkMaker (LOL) moved on to a Peopoly Moai and eventually owned a Formlabs 2 for a while. But honestly, I wasnt very good at it. So I put it down for a while. It was like I was trying to read a book in the dark. Then I started watching you and its like you turned on the lights. All my success at printing today is because of what I have learned from you. Before you, I really did not understand placement, support settings or exposure settings. So I am truly grateful to you for making this hobby enjoyable for me again. Today I own 2 Mono X 4k machines and most recently the Ultra. I am really happy with the ultra. It does print form lines. But from my experience that are not readily visible to the unaided eye. And the lines that I have gotten are easily micro sanded and primed. I am not a mini's guy. I like to print larger models. And I got an Ultra? Go figure. To my original point, DLP is definitely the future. If I could sent pics I would. In any event, thanks again for all your help.
Thank you for your honest reviews. srry for my bad english at first . As an owner of the Ultra, i can tell you after printing some mini's, only AA16 from Photon Workshop is working as should. It would be nice you try him at AA16 , btw give him a second chance, if you dont have put him in a trash can :-) Other AA's 8 or 4 , the artificials like Blur or Grey Level with this 80 micron size produce only trash. Lychees AA is useless for the ULTRA, with blur or grey level, or without.. i can see all that before printing in UvTools, the prints came out like i rate them. but i always print it .. and i like Lychee, i work in Lychee, and export the file in stl for slicing in Photon Workshop with AA16, without any blur or grey level. Only with AA16 from photon workshop, the results at 0.02 layerhight are so comparable with 4k prints in 0.02 LH from my Phrozen Mini 4k oder Anycubic Photon Mono 4k. if my 4k's 35 micron printer are at 100% rating, i give 95% rating for the Ultra. Without AA16, or with AA8 and lower is all looking like mine craft grafics.. but the pixelprecision is high, and the uniformity of them. The topology of the prints came nearly perfekt out from ULTRA . 80 microns against my small 4k's with 35 micron, thats hard for the Ultra, but it's efficient what he do with his 80 microns .. a DLP with this class and 40 microns would blow all them away. Another "problem", is exposure time ! yes we have here 80 Microns, but when you overexposure ,lets take 20%, that has much more dramatic effect in size and volume as a 20% overexpossered 35 micron pixel. Because of better , more precise exposure, i feel i can much faster find the precise exposure times in dependent of layerhights. and while i tested, my power consumption from Ultra is real minimum 1/4 of my other 4K's, thats another positive aspect . i print my mini's always with 0.02 Layerhight, that work great and is a better match for the 80 microns of Ultra, then "standard" 0.05 . Sorry for the long message, i have tried to explain my expiriences with my Ultra. .. and keep going ! :-)
Why compare a brand new printer to an obsolete one? I get your point, but the comparison shouldnt be made against a Zero. Any of the 4k printers would be a better comparison as that's much more the "norm" now.
@@shawnmichaud4484 Because the actual output of the Ultra is closer to the Zero than any other printer, including the 1st gen 2k printers, and the 2nd gen mono 2k or 4k printers.
@@noviceartisan most people cross shop newer products though. New cars with poor performance aren't compared to previous generations with similarly poor pperformance. This printer can simply be summed up as "not as good as the alternatives"
@@shawnmichaud4484 aye, but when the performance is so poor that only the very bottom end product from 3 years ago is something it could compete against :/
Edit: sorry, thought it was SLA. The primary issue is that is prints WAY slower than an LCD based printer. You don't notice it much with a single small model, but if you printed a build plate of them it would be dramatically slower, adding the same amount of time per extra model. It's like FDM. Print 1 model, 1 hour. Print 10 models, 10 hours. Compare that to LCD at the same 50 minutes regardless of it being 1 model or 50. A larger build plate would make the problem worse.
So, Definitely NOT, for jewelry model making and lost wax (resin) casting for precious metals. What I figured at that resolution for DLP ( less than Half the resolution, of the Solus Pro DLP ). I will hold out for an all metal case, Phrozen Sonic 8K... Still Waiting...
@@angelopagliuca6102 Nope... poor resolution DLP projector. I am a jewelry modelmaker by trade, to the jewelry trade... I wouldn't even consider it, if it were given to me. Not even a player, for what we need to do... Sorry!
Love Love Love your unboxing videos... The Best Keep them coming
Thank you for this honest review. As you said there are tons of "this printer is awesome, go buy it". However, there are problems you have mentioned. I have Ultra myself but I am trading it for a Phrozen 4k. Voxel lines kill the purpose of this printer for me. Busts and small thing are okay, but for tabletop this is a big no. If I see the lines after painting the model is unusable.
Thank you very much
Honest review
I would love to compare the aliasing on the model plane
Very important serrated micropattern printing
Thank you
Wishing you peace and happiness
Very interesting
I could be wrong, I'm new to 3d printing and have been enjoying my Ultra last few weeks. It seems LCD bleed does indeed "blur" the pixels slightly making lines less noticeable by default, while the greater accuracy of DLP's is going to make the lines more noticeable at lower DLP resolutions which the Ultra is.
End result though, at this stage of home DLP tech, is that the prints just aren't as good in the end.
@@3dprintingpro212 That's exactly what I think too, in the end what matters is the result, and it's a disappointment, especially for those who participated in the kickstarter campaign.
This without mentioning the excessive retail price, delivery delays for bakers and new models that have just come out of the blue.
Thanks for the direct comparison. Would you mind sharing what resin you used? I've seen posts of starkly varying quality, and the running theme is that the "DLP Craftsman" resin actually makes a difference. Your review seems pretty damning, so I'm not sure it could make enough of a difference even if you weren't using the dlp resin here.
The resin can't matter that much...
if it's close to te regular gray craftsman, toss it in the bin.
Idk what went wrong there but never seen a more random resin than that one.
Even getting fails and delamination on my regular sonic mini, with cure times as high as 4s-5s for 0.04mm layers.
For some reason it also tends to leave a sticky residue on the fep where your prints have been (no issues with the apricot stuff though 🤔)
WOOT!
Need to convince my wife to do my unboxing for me too
#3DPrintingPro Greg, I have never stopped using a 2.5 resolution. My Mini 4K is on medical leave, but I have been using the 2.5 as a subconscious default on my Mighty and Saturn. Any harm? Any Benefit?
+5 for the Resident Evil joke!
Nice review, just curious is their any other benefit to this... such as print speed or if you spill resin can you just replace the glass cheaply unlike ruining a LCD screen???
Yes the glass vs LCD cost saving and also the extra longevity before replacing a part vs a lcd too
This was the perfect review. I have been on the fence between the Ultra and the 8K and this review made my decision easy.
Vog (another RUclipsr) reviewed the Ultra and I thought it was the printer for me, but I was concerned about the lines. I thought maybe that priming and painting would cover the lines, but based on what you've shown here, that's not quite true.
Yeah at this point in time, Sonic mini 8k is the best choice for people wanting the highest quality prints. But if this DLP technology advances with much higher resolution, it may be the way to go in the future! :)
@@3dprintingpro212 I wonder, if there will be just enough to replace whole projector part only to make it cheaper ;-)
@@SebGruch modular projector upgrades woudl be a dreaaaaam haha xD
I have a Anycubic printer been trying to find your video for setting. What would you recommend for setting so that I don’t run down the machine.
Which printer?
@@3dprintingpro212 Anycubic photon
I was checking the DLP chipset used and it is from texas instruments. They do have a 2k and 4k resolution chipset. The 4k dlp chip costs around $1000 usd so it would be an expensive printer but maybe better than the sonic mini 8k.
Nothing currently on the consumer market can compare to the sm8k, these DLP printers aren't comparable whatsoever as their effective pixel size is just too large, by very far.
I wanna use the printer also for jewelry resin. Will i be better off with mini 8k or the anycubic ultra dlp?
mini 8k I would say
Does the tray have feet?
I want to buy a 3D printer but these manufacturers make it so hard by barely giving any information regarding the difference between a lot of them.
Every time I want to check the maximum size a single print can get on a particular printer and the maximum quality regarding detail, it doesn’t tell me. Or at least I don’t know where to look because I don’t know the terminology of their feats. If you can clear this up for me that would be great!
Wait for it..... wait for it..... wait for it...... 0:46 - Tada!
try on mac m1 software .... biger part slice, just freeze. small printed parts works great.
Just don't use mac 🙈. It's absolut crap for 3D. For that price you will get a 12x faster pc/laptop.
@@pr0ton3d not true, Lychee runs amazing on M1
@@whittaker007 then you are not working with complex high poly models or not using math intense Pro features. I even got my machine to the limit sometimes, and as I mentioned, it's more than 12x faster than the most powerful M1 configuration.
You are just paying for the Apple brand (and design), not the performance.
@@pr0ton3d actually the M1 chips way outperform any Intel based chips in anything close to the same price bracket.
@@whittaker007 it's not the CPU you should be worried about 😉 It's okay to use Apple, just don't believe you get the best performance for the bucks.
Sorry. Could not disagree more. I have had fantastic results. I believe is it better than the Sonic mini 4k. 8k is pretty cost prohibitive still. Much better than LCD tech. This is def the future. Only drawback is I am not a minis guy. I print larger models. Looking forward to the larger screen sizes.
Hmm, do you have the Mini 4k? Or another good 4k printer like Mars 3 or Epax?
@@3dprintingpro212 I have been printing since March 2019 when I started off with the SparkMaker (LOL) moved on to a Peopoly Moai and eventually owned a Formlabs 2 for a while. But honestly, I wasnt very good at it. So I put it down for a while. It was like I was trying to read a book in the dark. Then I started watching you and its like you turned on the lights. All my success at printing today is because of what I have learned from you. Before you, I really did not understand placement, support settings or exposure settings. So I am truly grateful to you for making this hobby enjoyable for me again. Today I own 2 Mono X 4k machines and most recently the Ultra. I am really happy with the ultra. It does print form lines. But from my experience that are not readily visible to the unaided eye. And the lines that I have gotten are easily micro sanded and primed. I am not a mini's guy. I like to print larger models. And I got an Ultra? Go figure. To my original point, DLP is definitely the future. If I could sent pics I would. In any event, thanks again for all your help.
Thank you for your honest reviews. srry for my bad english at first . As an owner of the Ultra, i can tell you after printing some mini's, only AA16 from Photon Workshop is working as should. It would be nice you try him at AA16 , btw give him a second chance, if you dont have put him in a trash can :-) Other AA's 8 or 4 , the artificials like Blur or Grey Level with this 80 micron size produce only trash. Lychees AA is useless for the ULTRA, with blur or grey level, or without.. i can see all that before printing in UvTools, the prints came out like i rate them. but i always print it .. and i like Lychee, i work in Lychee, and export the file in stl for slicing in Photon Workshop with AA16, without any blur or grey level. Only with AA16 from photon workshop, the results at 0.02 layerhight are so comparable with 4k prints in 0.02 LH from my Phrozen Mini 4k oder Anycubic Photon Mono 4k. if my 4k's 35 micron printer are at 100% rating, i give 95% rating for the Ultra. Without AA16, or with AA8 and lower is all looking like mine craft grafics.. but the pixelprecision is high, and the uniformity of them. The topology of the prints came nearly perfekt out from ULTRA . 80 microns against my small 4k's with 35 micron, thats hard for the Ultra, but it's efficient what he do with his 80 microns .. a DLP with this class and 40 microns would blow all them away. Another "problem", is exposure time ! yes we have here 80 Microns, but when you overexposure ,lets take 20%, that has much more dramatic effect in size and volume as a 20% overexpossered 35 micron pixel. Because of better , more precise exposure, i feel i can much faster find the precise exposure times in dependent of layerhights. and while i tested, my power consumption from Ultra is real minimum 1/4 of my other 4K's, thats another positive aspect . i print my mini's always with 0.02 Layerhight, that work great and is a better match for the 80 microns of Ultra, then "standard" 0.05 . Sorry for the long message, i have tried to explain my expiriences with my Ultra. .. and keep going ! :-)
Thank you for sharing all the info! I will try photon workshop AA16.
I have a question: which exposure times do you use at 0.02 LH?
@@kettenotter depends on resin .. standard elegoo grey resin , sunlu standard grey at 1.3 or 1.4
Bananas!
I don't remember anything that happened after the first 47 seconds.
Bait and switch!
I'm telling you, it's cold in there!
@@tenchuu007 😂 when you could see temperature 🙈
@@tenchuu007 you can tell from goosebumps on her skin, right? Definitely not from something else 😉
I think a fairer comparison would be a model printed on the Anycubic Photon Zero, rather than the top end printer available at the moment
Why compare a brand new printer to an obsolete one? I get your point, but the comparison shouldnt be made against a Zero. Any of the 4k printers would be a better comparison as that's much more the "norm" now.
@@shawnmichaud4484 Because the actual output of the Ultra is closer to the Zero than any other printer, including the 1st gen 2k printers, and the 2nd gen mono 2k or 4k printers.
@@noviceartisan most people cross shop newer products though. New cars with poor performance aren't compared to previous generations with similarly poor pperformance.
This printer can simply be summed up as "not as good as the alternatives"
@@shawnmichaud4484 aye, but when the performance is so poor that only the very bottom end product from 3 years ago is something it could compete against :/
That ultra is priced more expensive than a mini 8k, why the fudge compare it to a 100$ entry printer?
hello sir, is it possible to get in touch with you? i have a problem with my printing, and it feels impossible to get it right.
Edit: sorry, thought it was SLA. The primary issue is that is prints WAY slower than an LCD based printer. You don't notice it much with a single small model, but if you printed a build plate of them it would be dramatically slower, adding the same amount of time per extra model. It's like FDM. Print 1 model, 1 hour. Print 10 models, 10 hours. Compare that to LCD at the same 50 minutes regardless of it being 1 model or 50. A larger build plate would make the problem worse.
You’re confusing DLP with SLA. DLP still projects the whole layer at once.
Yeah, it's a laser projector, not laser pointer that needs to draw whole image like SLA printer.
Oh, is this one DLP? Sorry, thought it was SLA.
So, Definitely NOT, for jewelry model making and lost wax (resin) casting for precious metals. What I figured at that resolution for DLP ( less than Half the resolution, of the Solus Pro DLP ). I will hold out for an all metal case, Phrozen Sonic 8K... Still Waiting...
Are you sure it's not the settings? VOG did several jewellery pieces and prefers it over 8k lcd printers
@@angelopagliuca6102 Nope... poor resolution DLP projector. I am a jewelry modelmaker by trade, to the jewelry trade... I wouldn't even consider it, if it were given to me. Not even a player, for what we need to do... Sorry!
O_O