Oh, [Music] here [Music] [Music] Hey everyone, it's Norm from Tested, and first of all, happy holidays, although I

guess, depending on when you're watching this, maybe happy new year. As I'm recording this, we are wrapping up 2021,

which has been a pretty exciting year for people who are interested in resin printing and resin printing enthusiasts, or 3D modelers, people interested in

tabletop gaming, uh, people using resin printing for cosplay props. It's just become that much more accessible, and there have been a ton of

printer options out there. Today I'm reviewing the Phrozen Sonic Mini 8K. It's a highly anticipated, uh, MSLA 3D printer

from Phrozen. They were able to get me a unit to test for the past couple of weeks, and it is a very interesting 3D printer.

8K, what does that mean? There's so much to talk about, but uh, from a broad sense, let's give an

overview of, you know, where we are today in MSLA printers, because at the end of last year we saw a big technology jump

in terms of what was available, in terms of the size of the things you can print, the quality of those prints, in terms of

the panels that those manufacturers were using as their masking layer, and also the type of panels. So much faster prints

as manufacturers move to mono LCDs. And as a quick overview again, these are resin printers, so

it's basically turning a 3D model that you slice into so many layers, and then there's a vat of liquid resin in here,

that's the vat right there, and layer by layer this build plate rises and the resin is cured from a UV

light that's underneath, on the bottom here. So UV light, whether that's from an array of UV LEDs, lensing, or maybe now LED COB LED

strips of the UV variety, they blast UV light through a masking layer, so a, that's an LCD typically.

LCD panel which at every layer it blots out what should not be cured and only what should be cured

Then layer by layer they're turning that mass-cured layer into a 3D object. Uh, and you know, manufacturers,

from Elegoo, from Anycubic, making printers that are all frankly really similar in terms of the user

experience, and in fact they share a lot of not just design elements but also components as well. We're talking

about all using very similar rail systems, stepper motors, with Z-axis milled aluminum build plates and also control boards; many of them

using, uh, from CB systems. Uh, if you're using a printer that uses the Chitubox

as the primary slicer, chances are it—well, it uses that CB systems control board. And so, and then they all have like

that touchscreen interface. You know, all transfer files over a USB key. Um, and so the differences may be in terms of the

build quality, the vat size, uh, and most importantly, the build plate size—the build volume, which is correlated

with that LCD panel. And so when you see, you know, a company touting here an 8K

resolution printer versus a 4K, or you may see a 6K, that actually by itself is not very

meaningful because when you even like—like when you're shopping for a TV, you might see a 4K TV or in the future an 8K

TV. What matters is the pixel resolution—how many pixels wide by how many pixels tall—correlated with

the actual size, right? The size of that panel, the size of that TV, the, you know, the—like in terms of VR

headsets, the field of view of that VR headset. A lot of these things, a lot of similar parallels, uh, there.

and when frozen, uh, has put an 8k panel, which is incredible. Like, we were 4k only became

like the standard, uh, toward the end of last year, beginning of this year. Uh, what they're also

touting is the pixel size, and it's not labeled here, but the size of the individual pixels per layer is 22

microns, so 0.022 millimeters, which is much smaller than what your standard maybe layer height might be. A

sweet spot for layer height is, um, is 50 microns, although you can print, as you know, as small as like 10 microns on some

of these printers. And I have something to illustrate here, um, in terms of the build size, the build plate size. I didn't want to take this

out, so I laser-cut a bunch of examples of what the build size, uh, not necessarily the volume, but the x and y

axis, the build plate looks like on these printers. And here's the—let me show you the Sonic Mini 4k first. So this is the

build size, the plate size of Frozen's earlier 4k mini printer. And in terms of printers, you can think

of them as there's like small, medium, and large. Small is really great for tabletop miniatures. Medium, like you get with like

the Elegoo Saturn or the Anycubic Mono X, that's usable for maybe props and miniatures as well, but props, but not

maybe the helmets. And then you have like the, the large size, the Excel size. So Phrozen, you know, their Phenom XL, uh,

uh, Anycubic or the Elegoo Jupiter that's coming out soon. I'd consider those larger—the largest size consumer

resin printers. But really, in terms of the, the, uh, the small size, I don't want to say entry-level because some of those

can be quite expensive as well. The Mini 4k had a build plate about this size, and the 8k here, interestingly, because of

The LCD they sourced has a much wider build plate, also not as deep, so the Y-axis is

produced just a little bit. It has a much wider X-axis here, uh, which means that you can maybe print more things on

a, uh, the Sonic Mini 8K. You know, stack more, more, uh, miniatures on the plate at

once. Uh, print wider things, but not necessarily larger overall things. If you have a large model, like a dragon, for example,

with a big curled-up tail, you couldn't fit that on the Mini 8K at the same, at the max width because it

doesn't have the depth there. And because it's spreading those pixels, those 8K pixels, over a

larger area than this 4K, it's not quite like half the pixel size. So at 35

microns, uh, of the Sonic Mini 4K here, 22 microns, or not yet at that 16, 17, 18

micron size, which seems unfathomable about a year ago. In comparison, uh, the last

printer I reviewed was the Elegoo Mars 3. So here's a size comparison; that's a 4K panel,

but the aspect ratio is more square—still rectangular, but deeper—and that actually, I think, allows you to print larger objects. Like I said, if you

have something, you know, with a big curled-up tail or something, or a robot that's more boxy than it is wide, you're

going to be able to print that on the Mars 3, and it might not fit at that same

scale on the bed of the Mini 8K, just because of the LCD panels in the supply chain that these manufacturers

chose for their printers. And then if you go up to—I just put these just for, uh—laser cut these out.

For fun, uh, the medium-sized printers here's an example. This is the bed size of the Elegoo Saturn, and that's at 50

microns pixel size, 4k panel, mono panel as well. And then, more recently announced, Anycubic's Mono X 6k,

which is 35 microns. So 50 seemed like a good sweet spot for this past year, definitely, you know,

that was, uh, the baseline for if you want to find a high-quality resin printer. And then 35 microns

at these 4k printers, of the, you know, the Mars 3 or the 6k one, like you're going

to get more detail. And then, of the, of the Phrozen Sonic Mini 4k, well, how much more detail is the

question? And so I printed about a dozen things over the past two weeks, a mixture of models at 100% scaling. So, uh, from some

of the Patreons I back, four tabletop miniatures, in addition to scaling down some larger models that were maybe meant

for a larger printer, but I wanted to see if what it could be, if that detail could be could be

resolved if I scaled it down 50% or so. So let's start with one of those, uh, this is a model that I previously

would have printed maybe, you know, five inches tall or so, uh, you know, 14-15 centimeters tall, but scaled down, I want

to see if I could retain, or what details I could make out on this 4k printer. And you know what? They're basically all

there. Uh, when you're talking about the benefits of higher resolution, you're talking about seeing fewer layer

lines. Uh, you're also looking at the kind of the surface texture. It's all geometry, so when I say texture, I really

mean like surface detail; it's being sculpted. So in terms of the creature, this, the skin, uh, indents, any of the

scales that might be on these lizard creatures, as well as, you know, structural complexity, um, additional geometry that might have been

put into the hard parts, you know, the backpack here or the blaster here. Uh, could that be resolved at the smaller

size? And it looks fantastic. I mean, you'll see up in these, in these close-ups, the skin detail is all there

and I can barely notice—I don't, I can even see the layer lines. This was printed at uh, 35 microns

per layer. So yes, very impressed. But that's in a vacuum, and that really doesn't mean anything if you're talking about a 22

micron pixel size versus a 35 micron pixel size. So let's look at some comparisons. Uh, here are two characters

printed at 100% scaling. Uh, this is from Lord of the Print, and again, a mixture of some surface detail complexity in the uh,

the skin of this dinosaur, as well as some geometric complexity on this backpack it's carrying. And you know what,

according to, you know, my naked eye, I am really, really hard-pressed to spot the differences. I mean, I showed this to

my family. I, I stared at these for minutes, and I'm trying to see if there are details on

the Frozen Mini AK print that I can't see on the Mars 3 print, and I don't think there are any.

I mean, even layer line-wise, I don't see layer lines on the Mars 3. They look almost exactly

the same at an object of this size. Even going to comparing some of the models that Frozen included on their USB key—models that were meant

to demonstrate, you know, the fidelity of the prints here—they look almost exactly the same to my eye as the

prints coming out of the Mars 3. So I did take some models and I scaled them down.

It's a really small size to really push the print detail to the limits. Uh, here's an example.

Also from Lord of the Print, this is another dinosaur that's carrying, you know, a whole kind of encampment on its

back, as well as with a tiny figure mounted on the top. And I mean, it blows me away, just again the

the skin surface detail on this dinosaur to the hat on this figure. It's like I can't believe that this came

out of a printer. But if you look at the back, this is not supposed to be as destroyed as this model is, and that's because

something I realized, uh, is the smaller I started to scale these models for the printer, the harder it was, the harder it became to

salvage or to retain those details without damaging the model because of the support structures. I mean, you're going

to have to scale the supports down, and at some point, because of the physics of the resin and the weight of the printer

and and lift forces, you're going to need, you know, supports of a certain touch point diameter. So even taking down my

supports so they're easy to tear off, I was still damaging the models because these models became so fragile because

Phrozen Sonic Mini 8K Resin 3D Printer Review!

Adam Savage’s Tested is a content platform and community playground for makers and curious minds. On Tested.com, the highly- engaged Tested YouTube channel, and at conventions and events, dynamic makers share ideas and inspire each other to build their obsessions. Led by Adam Savage, the Tested team explores the intersection of science, popular culture, and emerging technology, showing how we are all makers. Adam also takes viewers behind the scenes of films, TV shows, theater, and museums, shining a spotlight on the craftspeople and artists who make the magic we all enjoy.

Tested is also: Norman Chan, Joey Fameli, Josh Self and Kristen Lomasney.