Hey Liam, did you want a 3D printer to play with? I didn’t have to ask twice, his eyes absolutely lit up when I mention to my teenager that an Elegoo Mars 5 Ultra is heading our way. For him it was all his Christmases had come at the same time.
We have a couple of editors here at DRN who are into 3D printing. My son has been talking about it for most of the year, learning about how he could be printing off custom bits for his gaming miniatures. For quite a while he has been collecting STL files for the day he can get access to a printer somewhere.
Elegoo was kind enough to send us their Mars 5 Ultra along with a bottle of their ABS-like Resin V3.0. If that wasn’t a clue enough, the Mars 5 Ultra is a resin printer.
First Impressions
The Mars 5 Ultra (here on referred to as the Mars5U for brevity) came securely in its shipping container. Written across the top of the box Elegoo recommends that you keep this for thirty days in case there are any issues and you need to return the unit.
Unlike the previous Mars 4 line, the Mars 5 does not taper towards the top. The unit is more cuboid in appearance with a slightly protruding front. On appearance it seems Elegoo took some design inspirations from The Expanse, the Mars5U appearance and markings to me resembles at lot like the Rocinante.
The footprint of the unit is 260 x 268 x 451.1 mm. On the bottom right of the front panel is a 4 inch Capacitive Touch Screen. This means the screen is touch sensitive rather than pressure sensitive in the case of a resistive touch screen, and should see a better lifespan for the screen overall.
The unit comes in at 8.8 kg and is very solidly built.
All the key parts are covered in protective film during transit, which needs to be removed as per the instructions. These include the translucent gray cover, the build plate and the FEP (Fluorinated Ethylene Propylene) layer.
Aside from materials, the Mars5U comes with everything ready for you to get started – masks, filters, gloves, spatulas. You will have to source other items to continue beyond getting started. Keeping in mind that the Mars5U is a resin printer, you will need to stock up on nitrile gloves, masks, IPA and other PPE.
Setting Up
It is always good practice to put a resin printer away from areas that you would frequent. By all accounts resins stinks and it is also toxic to handle without precautions. With kids and pets roaming our place, the detached garage was the logical place to home the Mars5U. This also gave me the impetus to start clearing out the junk in there and get some hard rubbish out of the way. That was a long overdue task which I am very thankful to Elegoo for.
Full disclosure, this is my first rodeo setting up a 3D printer. Liam had boned up on hours of videos since I told him about it. For the standing up and commissioning of the Mars5U, I lured in our resident 3D printing expert Jo Wieclaw with pizza and booze to make sure we don’t stuff anything up.
There was a moment of concern when Jo looked at the very skinny getting started instructions and wondered where the rest was. It turned out that the setup was so simple it barely needed any instructions.
Unlike the old joke about Plug-N-Pray, Elegoo was serious when they marketed the Mars 5 Ultra as Plug-N-Play.
“With its smart self-check and automatic leveling functions, the Mars 5 Ultra allows all skill levels to dive straight into the creative process. No more setup hassles or tedious calibrations – simply unbox, power on, and print.”
That was it. We put the resin bed in place, tightened the screws, put the build plate into the holder and locked it in place with the quick release clip. Then we turned the machine on, it did its self check, auto-levelling and it was ready to rock and roll.
With all the self checks taking place, the Mars5U does take a few minutes to power up and be ready. However it really was that simple. All that is left is to add some resin and send your file to the printer.
If you intend to hook up your Mars5U to your wireless network for remote sending of files and keeping an eye on things via the built-in camera, you will need to screw in the detachable antenna and do some configuration.
In Use
I don’t intend for this review to be a detailed guide to resin 3D printing. There are far more comprehensive resources out there and much more knowledgeable people than myself.
Elegoo says the Mars5U is for all skill levels and it was not an empty boast. As usual Elegoo provides their rook test print sample on a USB drive. To make your first print all you need to do is to pour some resin into the basin, taking care not to go past the max line.
Next you plug the USB drive into the USB port and select the file name from the list on the touch screen and wait.
It takes a few minutes before you see any real action. The machine will start the printing process but the screen won’t change for a while. This is because it is undergoing checks to make sure it has everything it needs to print the files. In the meantime the screen displays the print load, exposure time and model height.
It will eventually change to the percentage completion, statistics on time used versus remaining an same for layers.
The Mars5U has a theoretical maximum printing speed of 150mm per hour. However, this figure is a marketing estimate and does not necessarily reflect real-world performance. In resin printing, print speed is primarily influenced by the layer cure time rather than continuous vertical movement. Factors like resin type, layer exposure time, print resolution (layer thickness), ambient temperature, and resin temperature significantly impact the actual speed. Achieving the theoretical speed would require ideal conditions and minimal exposure time for each layer. While the Mars5U may be faster than the Mars 5 in specific settings, actual printing speed will vary depending on these critical factors. That said, it’s worth noting that the Mars 5 Ultra more than doubles the print speed of the Mars 5.
The layer thickness can be set between 10 µm to 200 µm, with the smaller value being faster to print at the expense of quality and structural integrity of end product.
The build plate is mounted on a motorised arm that lowers it into the resin vat layer by layer. For the miniatures Liam was printing, each layer takes approximately 2.5 seconds to cure. This curing time is influenced by the layer thickness, resin type, and UV exposure settings. His prints have so far taken between two and three hours, depending on the total number of layers needed for the desired height and detail. The results provide a variety of limbs, weapons, bodies, and heads for kitbashing, allowing him to customise his miniature armies. Liam also has impressive painting skills, making his creations stand out – far beyond what I achieve with my jet crewmembers!
One of the selling points of the Mars5U is tilt release technology. It is talked about as a mechanism that slightly tilts the print bed to help the process of model removal from the print bed. I don’t have a baseline to measure this again, but considering Liam is having no issues getting his prints off the print bed on his own, this seems to be a good thing.
For those who are uninitiated in the resin 3D printing process, these are the basic steps:
- Get a model file
- Load it up in the Chitubox software and do the needful
- Print it via the 3D printer
- Remove the printed model from the build plate
- Rinse in a jar of isopropyl alcohol
- Put into a wash and cure station for a further wash for a few minutes
- Cure the resin under UV light
- Enjoy the fruits of your labour!
Jo very kindly loaned me her Elegoo Mercury Plus 2.0 for the post printing process. This little unit is a 2-in-1 wash and cure station to render the resin product safe to touch. Since this is not a review on the Mercury Plus, I am just going to limit myself to saying this comes with a bucket and wire basket for washing your resin prints, then it goes on a turntable to get a nice dose of UV to cure the resin. Don’t remove the cover when the curing process is going!
While the Mars5U makes the printing process simple, the rest of the process requires a little more care and thinking. The wash is easy enough, you can’t really go wrong giving it a bit more time in IPA.
The UV curing process though, is a bit like trying to cook from a Jamie Oliver show. A little bit of this, a bit of that, and boom. There is no set time or duration for curing your masterpiece. It depends so much on material, shape, whether the UV can actually get to all the bits and pieces, You need direct exposure to cure the resin. It is a matter of trying, testing, repositioning pieces until it is done. You also don’t want to overdo it because the resin can overcure and become more brittle.
On the topic of the resin, the Elegoo ABS-Like V3.0 which I was provided a bottle to test with was pretty low on the smell.
Looking at the resultant prints, the fine details and finish are incredibly detailed and clean.
Software
Elegoo does not provide their own software, instead they direct you to Chitubox Basic which is provided on the USB drive with the Rook. You do have to use this particular bundled version to install as the Mars5U is not listed on the version you download from the website.
As part of getting a Mars5U, you also get a three months free trial of the Chitubox Pro software. The Pro version is a subscription software, but offers better controls over support placement and generation, multi-parameter slicing and greater control with hollowing and lattice infill. Overall the Pro version is for greater control over the process with a view to improve outcomes and reduce material usage.
Certainly Chitubox is not the only software option out there, with Lychee being a name that is mentioned a lot in the resin printing world. From my research both have their own … quirks and learning curves, and neither is winning consistent praises across the board.
To access the camera on the Mars5U requires installing the Chitubox Manager. This can be done from the Chitubox interface, in fact it seems that is the only way to do so. Even though it is a separate component and software, you have to run Chitubox in order to run the Manager, which then you can connect to your printer on the LAN and access the camera function. That’s .. kind of annoying but hardly the fault of Elegoo.
Also there is a limitation on the timelapse, again this is on the software and not Elegoo where it will only be available when a print is more than 30mm high.
Other Features
The Mars5U has an overheat protection where if the LED temperature exceeds 80, the system will trigger an alarm and halts the print automatically to preserve the lifespan of the unit and components.
It also has power-loss protection where it will automatically resume printing from where it stopped. This helps to reduce wasted materials and time.
Gripes
After much observations and bit of testing on my own, I only have two real complaints.
Firstly the touchscreen is a tad hard to work when the keyboard comes up. A bit of splitting hairs here because I only used it to configure the wireless connection into my network. Overall it is far from the most responsive screen I have used, but it does the job just fine.
The second complain is that the camera is tied to using Chitubox Manager to work. I can’t access it independently of the software, and the software is tied to a desktop operating system – Windows, MacOS and Linux in Ubuntu/Debian/Fedora flavours. I just want to dial into the camera on my mobile when I am not on some kind of desktop but there is no love there.
Look Chitubox isn’t an Elegoo issue, and allowing access to the camera is not a Chitubox issue, but between the two I would love a simple app to just allow me to check on a print progress without firing up a PC.
Conclusions
3D printing is part science, part art. What Elegoo has done is take care of the science so you can concentrate on the art.
What is apparent is that Elegoo has made the Mars 5 Ultra child’s play when it comes to getting started with resin 3D printing. With just two rounds of printing under the guidance of Jo, Liam was able to run prints on his own without needing my involvement or assistance.
Even with a failure where the print failed to stick to the build plate, he was able to disassemble the essential parts, give them a thorough clean, put the box back together and successfully resume his printing.
That at the heart of it, sold me on the virtues of the Elegoo Mars 5 Ultra. The learning curve was a gentle slope and not a hard climb.
Obviously the whole 3D printing world is a rabbit hole to dive into and more complex issues to resolve especially when you change materials. But for someone who is new to this world, the critical first prints going smoothly makes the whole process much more encouraging and rewarding.
The Elegoo Mars 5 Ultra has a RRP of AUD$509.99, but there is a deal on knocking just over $100 off it from their website at the time of publishing. It is not the cheapest unit to start with, but the ease of setup, and the sense of achievement you get when your 14 year old can handle the entire process on his own after just one afternoon of guidance? Priceless.
DRN would like to thank Elegoo for providing the review unit.
I don’t give out too many awards per year, but I feel this one deserves a Pulse Award. Congratulations Elegoo!
