Mars 4 9k or Saturn 3 12k

Mars 4 9k has the best resolution on the market right now and Saturn is slightly less fine but much larger print bed, both in your price range with room for a wash+cure station

if quality and durability went hand in hand, it would be a perfect combo 😉

With my 0.2 extruder I could probably...wait, is that a tiny staircase on the inside rotating the other direction? Ok I'm impressed

What printer do you have?

Might get one if I can get around the toxin issues

I love resin printing.. but I haven't printed anything in over a year and am considering getting rid of all but one of them. I just wish the entire post processing situation was easier / less messy... but if you need high detail or miniatures there's definitely no better option.

Thank you for your contribution, however this post has been removed as this question is best suited to our monthly Purchase Advice Thread, which you can find in the top navigation bar on Desktop Reddit or as a stickied post when sorting the sub by hot.

Good luck in your purchase!

You aren't going to escape post processing with resin, I'm afraid. You're gonna need a wash and cure station, and PPE for when you're handling it because resin is a pretty nasty chemical until it's cured.

I'd honestly suggest you look into getting a 0.2mm nozzle for your printer instead. It will be cheaper and the quality will almost be as good on a P1S once your settings are dialed in, and you won't have to post process the results nearly as much. Even on a 0.4mm nozzle you can get fairly nice figurines with the right settings, and a 0.2mm will let you get even more detail.

But if you have your heart set on resin, some Elegoo machine is probably a good starting point. AFAIK they're the entry level resin brand.

https://m.all3dp.com/1/best-large-format-resin-dlp-sla-3d-printer-stereolithography/

https://www.google.com/url?q=https://m.all3dp.com/1/best-resin-dlp-sla-3d-printer-kit-stereolithography/&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwj3iYeqgLf0AhWJXsAKHRKrDwEQFnoECAQQAg&usg=AOvVaw2_GahmV5JJyRkEDAfefzTi

It is a pity that you did not ask the question earlier. AnyCubic had a sale of the the Photon at $99. A reasonable printer that would let you see if you wanted to spend bigger.

Be aware that a resin printer is a bit messy. New prints must not be touched with bare hands and have to be cleaned with something like Isopropyl alcohol and cured using UV Light. Some manufacturers sell wash and cure boxes as well as printers.

Then there is what are you going to print? You can download files from places like Thingiverse and Thangs. A search for free STL files will find others. If you cannot find the item you want, then you will either have to get someone to create it for you or learn to create the item yourself. If you want to create model figures, say for instance, World of Warcraft figures, Blender (Free open source software) would be your best bet. Less intricate and more mechanical items (Jewellery box?) would be better using a free hobbyist licence of Fusion 360. There are tutorials on both and other applications on YouTube.

Hope you find one and have fun.

My recommendation is get a Small resin printer first. Then when you got that down buy a medium or large format. You have enough for both. Use the leftover to buy resin.

Your budget is generous and thus, you have a wide range of options to choose from, especially since we're still in the BF/CM season.

I'd recommend you go for the Anycubic Photon just for the ease of use. I've also had a good experience with the Phrozen Sonic Mini 4K. I mean, the level of detail achieved is incredible.

Either way, you'll be good with either of these two. If you're looking to score some deals with resin 3D printers, check these ones listed here.

Depends on the size of the parts you want to print. The Mars 2 Pro is a great machine for the money, but the Elegoo Saturn is awesome too if you want something larger.

I did a video about 7 months ago about budget resin printers, this is the short version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxAt4DQm_Cg

Hope this helps! Also, make sure you look at a wash and cure station too, with plenty of silicone mats and such, need to protect yourself, your work surface, and your printer :)

Ive only got experience with the Mars 2, first resin printer ive had, before it have had a diy built i3 based filament printer.

The Mars 2 was super easy to set up, to the point that i think pretty much anyone could do it, unpack, loosen two screws, hit the level button, fasten those two screws, tell the printer to lift up the buildplate, put on the resin vat, fill, print.

When it comes to settings there are really only two you _need_ to mess with, bottom layer exposure and regular layer exposure, as opposed to so many things to poke at when doing fdm slicing.

Im using lychee for slicing and it has predefined profiles for most of the visible printer models as well as profiles for a lot of resin brands and types.

Resin? most of them are pretty awesome and work out of the box with little calibration. The resolution is so high on these you wouldn't notice much difference either. Usability and price would be my main concern. If your budget is tight go for the cheapest one that satisfies your needs in regards of print area.

I think all the elegoo/Anycubic/creality/prusa/Voxelab resin printers are more or less the same. It’s a plate with a certain brand of screen, possibly the same boards, a uv light and a lifting mechanism. Your really looking for one with rails for a smooth lift. FDM printers are a little bit more diverse due to the number of moving parts an variables in quality. For SLA if you have the budget I’d get the Elegoo Saturn, you can still get it for less than 500. The Mono x, etc are jacked up on price just now and I think due to this I’ve noticed the smaller ones are 30-50 more than the usually would be. Can’t go much wrong with a Prusa i3 if that’s your thing.

I'm using the Phrozen Sonic mini 4k, and it's been great. Any failed prints have been due to me using wrong settings. Setup is easy as pie, and it seems to be quite well built.

Little on the expensive side, but the amount of stuff I've printed that would otherwise cost me 15 euros a pop has probably earned me the money back already.

Still happy with it! I've had to tone down my printing a bit in the recent months, but that's due to other circumstances.

I don't have experience with any other resin printers, but I got myself an Anycubic Photon M7 like a few months back, and I'm pretty happy with it.

There is the thing with the ACF vs. PFA release Film, but since you have to replace those down the line anyway, I just bought regular NFEP sheets for when it's time to replace. That being said, I'm printing mainly small minis for DnD and personally, I don't see any problems with details, even with the stock ACF film.

The machine itself I think is very solid and also not to expensive.

Get the Elegoo Saturn 3. $280 on Amazon, incredible specs for the price.

i personally got the anycubic photon mono 4 (not 4K. just mono 4) and im loving it so far. its my first printer and im probably 20+ prints deep and i never needed to re-level or really fidget with it. prints are good quality and it was about 200dollars on sale when i got it. It just works.

Mars 5 ultra, printing full details with 0 problems since 4 months.

240€

I can only speak from my own experience, but I can't recommend the Saturn 4 Ultra highly enough.

It's my first printer, FDM or otherwise, and I've yet to have a print failure.

I didn't even do any calibrations. Just set my resin profile in lychee slicer to the most upvoted community profile and away I went.

Elegoo Saturn 2 has large build volume and 8k. Right at your price point.

Mars 3 is an excellent choice, especially for a first Printer.

For jewelry I'd also look at the Phrozen Sonic Mini 8k, as smaller pixel size will be far more important to you than the size of the build plate.

I would personally recommend the Phrozen Sonic Mini 8K. It is more than your $500, but it provides a very high resolution in a smaller form factor, excellent for jewellery. Otherwise, I would recommend the Anycubic Photon Ultra. It's a DLP printer, meaning it uses a projector rather than a screen, it's resolution can't be easily compared to other printers, as it will calculate with a lower resolution, but it actually creates high-resolution prints. The Photon Ultra is around $500, however it isn't available on the Anycubic website anymore, you can however find it on Aliexpress. Here's a review for it https://youtu.be/eAf0mpF9Nww

Elegoo Saturn 2

To find the best resin 3D printer in the $500 range that fits your specific needs, I recommend checking out the article The Best Resin 3D Printers. It provides insights into various options that offer a good balance of price and quality, helping you make an informed decision for your jewelry printing projects.

You really haven’t had an innovation push in consumer resin printing like Bambu did with FDM. That said, the innovations, tho incremental, have been there. To be honest, the latest Elegoo and Anycubic machines are your budget resin ‘bambus’. The Saturn 4/4ultra pushes the highest print resolution and speeds we’ve seen. Plus, lots of QoL additions like a tilted bed, bigger resin tank, etc.

The real issue here is we’ve hit the ceiling of print quality vs what the naked human eye can see. There really isn’t much point going higher than 8k screens for most printers. Manufacturers can try pushing the envelope, but it’s useless - if no one can tell the difference between an 8k 30um print and a 14k 10um (or less) print, the innovation is useless.

So, as a manufacturer, how do you innovate? Quality of Life additions. Automatic resin refill, resin tank heating, taller vats, anything to help with spills, etc. That’s where we’re at.

Speed, which resin printers already had an advantage over FDM, seems to be the one avenue left to seriously innovate. And we’re seeing improvements there lately. For example, the Saturn 2 print range is 30-70 mm/hr. The Saturn 4 Ultra tops out at 150mm/hr. Not the 5+ times faster that Bambu suddenly appeared with, but respectable nonetheless. We’ll likely see more printers trying to push the envelope here, so this is where to really watch.

Honestly the elegoo mars is a great printer.
Anycubic is similar. Both are insanely reliable and easy to use.
The new Elegoo Saturn has auto leveling and stuff too.

I have a Mars 2 Pro and and a Saturn 2 4k. Both are exceptional.
I'm sure the anycubic versions are just a good though.

The prices are sub 500 for all of them too.

I think in regards to fit an finish, the one most people point to is the uniformation gk2

Phrozen I think honestly was a bit ahead of its competitors. When the Mega 8k dropped they were definitely in the forefront. Been awhile since I was in the market for a printer since the 8k printers came out I haven't heard of any major advances since then

Saturn4Ultra is the budget version of what you are looking.

Add an extra 50$ for a vat heater, and you are ready to go

Orientation and geometry of the model can play a big role in whether or not you get sharp features.

What kind of stuff will you be printing? If you need to use specialty resins and you aren't paying for it, might as well go with something from Formlabs. Also their customer service should be able to tell you if their machines are suitable for your applications.

If it's for a company (so, assuming you have a larger budget), look at B9 printers. They have very good resolution for a decent price (around 15 microns for ~$15k).

If your budget is substantially higher, it's difficult to beat the Boston Micro Fab (BMF) 2-micron series printers. I have experience with their S230 machine, and it's leaps and bounds better than any other printer out there, but we're also talking $300k+, so it's up there in price, but that 2 micron resolution is stunning when you need the absolute best.

Well depending upon your budget, you can either look into the ANYCUBIC models particularly the M5s. I mean, as far as top of the level 12K resolution and speed goes, this one takes the cake. There are cheaper models of course and also the larger-format ones. Again, all depends on your budget.

I'd stay away from consumer printers and go with something that's more geared towards your application. Yes they can make relatively sharp corners(depends on size of pixel or whatever they use to create the feature(dlp, laser)). I think you need something that is both accurate and precise.

Depends on your budget and what exactly you want to produce tbh.

If it's business use then Formlabs, or Prusa have a resin printer that's a bit lower priced. Or if you have $10K+ then that's a whole new ball game, and one I'm not as familiar with.

For low-cost you can even get large build volumes now with the M3 Max for under $1K, as well as 12K+ LCDs for under a grand.

This article compares 5+ resin printers in different prices ranges also, if this helps.