Comparing a $65,000 3D Printer to a $350 home 3D printer

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This past weeks we decided to test print some minis on the phrozen 8k 3d printer and compare that to master print copies from the digital wax laser 3d printer DWS029.
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Amazon Affiliate Links to stuff i use(As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases you do after following this link - at no cost to you):

Canon M50 (the cameras i use)

Anycubic i3 Mega (the FDM printer i use)

HARDER STEENBECK EVOLUTION SILVERLINE (the Airbrush I use)

Phrozen Sonic Mini (the Resin printer I use):

Phrozen Sonic Mini 4k

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Emil On

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Painting miniatures for your warhammer & d&d games. Age of sigmar and warhammer 40k. Blood angels, Slaanesh, Death Guard, Space Marines, Space Wolves, Stormcast Eternals, painting scale models, miniature busts! How to paint NMM. How to paint warhammer, how to paint d&D figures.

correction in the video: it say the 4k printer costs $4000, the actual price is $350.

[Daredhnu]

My take away from this video is that the the home printers are perfectly fine for the average user and the industrial ones are not worth the price unless you're actually in the industry.

[Wijkert]

I feel like all of them having the same coat of primer on them would make it easier to compare them. The color of the resin makes too big of a difference otherwise.

[robertbensch]

(15k printer user here) Short note on the technology used: DWS is a SLA (Laser based) printer, Solus Pro is a DLP (Projector based) and the Sonics are LCD printers, which have come a long way in the last couple of years. Those are reiterated at an incredible rate, while the professional units are built for longevity, repeatability and basically a "put it on there, support, and do something else" approach. The Sonic 8k arrived just now on the market, while the solus was introduced with a 2k Projector back in 2019, and the DWS029 is being sold for even longer now, with various minor changes and propriaroty resins which perfectly fit the technology used.

DWS and Solus are marketed towards the jewelry sector where absolute precision in all dimensions is most important, not necessarily resolution (Solus has about 40 micron XY resolution, DWS has a laser spot of about 30 microns if I remember correctly). I´ve had phrozen printers as backup systems standing around if something should break on the professional printer, but the dimeonsional accuracy on those is really an issue if you have to set a hundred diamonds on a piece and every prepared setting has a slightly different dimension depending on orientation of the model. That´s lost money right there. But for miniatures and almost all (even professional) use cases where you don´t need to rely on your output to be perfect every time the phrozen machines are absolutely sufficient. As you said, for a mold master of incredibly detailed models like yours, you should always use the best available machine like the DWS.

[travisatwell]

I've never played any table top stuff and never even looked into this world until I found this channel. I love watching you guys build stuff and he process is amazing. I for sure will be jumping into your stuff

[EternalQuestion]

That 65k printer does seem to be amazing, but I guess you'd hope it would be at that price!

BTW, a blind test might have been better, that way you'd eliminate any possibility of confirmation bias.

[guyrigby]

I think alot of that percieved sharpness is also the resin. Some resins just the color washes out some of the details. The most fair comparison would be if you primed each one. It's crazy how much just the color of the resin affects perceived sharpness. Lighter gray resins for example, you tend to lose details. Also alot of resins are like slightly transparent when cured, so the final print looks a bit softer, throw some primer on there and bam, all of a sudden alot of hidden detail gets revealed.

[DylanGeick]

Oh god… not me trying to justify a $65k printer in my head already

[AlphaMachina]

The DWS is incredible, but it's still amazing what you can get out of a printer that's a fraction of the price. If I absolutely needed a $65K printer for prototyping or masterwork, that'd definitely be the way to go commercially or professionally. But as far as hobbyist level, you can't beat what you get out of the $300-$700 price range.

[Camzilla]

Can't wait to see the rest of the land you've been making!

[UncleJessy]

Absolutely amazing to see how the consumer market for resin printers is evolving! Fantastic comparison video... and man I need whatever lens that is you're using haha my close up shots look like 💩

[Azmodan]

on a lighter color everything will seem sharper - that's the nature of light ... a slight change and it can completely change the perception of a sculpture.
If there were no shadows, we would not be able to see the shape at all. Delicate tiny shadows blend with gray colors, so we can not see small details at all.

[nicholasbira]

One complaint I have here, is that the low cost resin printers were clearly washed with dirty alcohol; the frosting from mediocre post-processing really degrades visual quality

[housecaldwell]

The fact that you have to look so closely to see the difference between the $65k printer and the sub-$500 home printer is amazing.

[frenchii]

I would have preferred a comparison after priming. I feel like the 8k got an edge because of the darker resin, making it appear sharper to the eye. Still a fun video

[BrandonGiordano]

It must feel so cool to see something you created come basically come alive and be able to hold it in your hands

[home-dream-records]

Ive never thought that the difference was so big between 4k & 8K
Wtf.. Its as you saight so much sharper and tighter.

Thanks for this impressive video !

[fredkinney]

I have the same Phrozen printers 4K & the two 8k and I got them when they did a pre-purchase and they print really really well.

[DenePaintsThings]

Great video as always Emil - it's amazing to see how fast at home 3D printing is progressing. I've been on the fence about buying one for ages, but the machines keep improving so much that I worry whatever I buy today will be out of date VERY quickly.

[OTOss]

A blind comparison would have been nice. Have a friend or someone prepare them and you choose the best without knowing which is which. It's a very cool video though, I appreciate you putting this comparison together. It gives me a ton to consider.

[Holztransistor]

Either I missed it or some details are missing here. The XY resolution of the Solus Pro and DWS 029D. But fortunately this can be found on the web.

Compact size 2K mono printers in the 6 inch LCD range (Mars 2 Pro etc.): 50 microns XY resolution
Compact size 4K printers (Mini 4K, Mars 3, Photon Mono 4K): 35 microns XY resolution
Longer Orange 4K (5.5 inch mono LCD with subpixels): 31.5 x 10.5 microns XY resolution

Midsize 4K printers (Saturn/Mono X for example): 50 microns XY resolution

Photon Mono X 6K: 34 microns XY resolution
Phrozen Mini 8K: 22 microns XY resolution

Solus Pro (DLP printer): 42 microns XY resolution
DWS 029D (laser printer): 25 microns XY resolution