And now 16.8 microns

[Chris333]

https://epax3d.com/products/epax-e10-14k-mono-lcd-3d-printer

[draskouasshat]

looks very "anycubic" to me.

[robert3985]

I tried to find some information as to the pixel dimension on this machine since the published factory literature doesn't specify if the pixels as being square or rectangular. 

Sometimes manufacturers will give the smallest dimension of a rectangular pixel as the pixel size when they should be doing just the opposite...stating the largest dimension.

However, looks like the pixels ARE "square" on this machine...which is pretty impressive if true.

Other factors contributing to "sharpness" will be what they use to collimate the light source, and what the light source is.  The better collimated the light is by the time it reaches the resin, the better, which is one of the advantage of DLP printers, since their technology cuts out some of the layers the light must penetrate before getting to the resin, yielding sharper results on the voxel level in the resin vat.

Then, of course, there's if the resin will handle resolution that's as fine as 16.8 microns...which most won't, and those resins that might handle it, are too brittle to be of much use to model railroaders.

Progress!...which is good, but at what point is it "good enough"??

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[JeffB]

Progress!...which is good, but at what point is it "good enough"??

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

"Good enough" will be when further advancements do not give a noticeable improvement in quality for a reasonable price. 

I just bought a Elegoo Mars 4 Ultra 9K to use as a dedicated resin to cast brass printer (rather than having to switch between resins on my Sonic Mini-8K).

I got a printer that gives about a 22% improvement in resolution (18µm versus 22µm), and it cost me a bit more than 1/3 of what I paid for the printer I had. 

They can keep improving things in that way as far as I'm concerned!  Had I been aware of the Epax printer, I probably would have bought that instead of the Elegoo machine.  Maybe the current resins can't take full advantage of pixels that small, but eventually they'll come up with something that can.

Jeff

[robert3985]

"Good enough" will be when further advancements do not give a noticeable improvement in quality for a reasonable price. 

I just bought a Elegoo Mars 4 Ultra 9K to use as a dedicated resin to cast brass printer (rather than having to switch between resins on my Sonic Mini-8K).

I got a printer that gives about a 22% improvement in resolution (18µm versus 22µm), and it cost me a bit more than 1/3 of what I paid for the printer I had. 

They can keep improving things in that way as far as I'm concerned!  Had I been aware of the Epax printer, I probably would have bought that instead of the Elegoo machine.  Maybe the current resins can't take full advantage of pixels that small, but eventually they'll come up with something that can.

Jeff

@JeffB - Jeff, yup, I agree with ya.  There have been some fairly recent improvements in resins that make them both "durable" and able to render excellent details...so, I am continually encouraged by what the manufacturers are doing most of the time.

Personally, I am thinking about the Elegoo Mars 4 Ultra also, since the vat size on my 10" Anycubic is so huge.  Frankly I'm 100% happy with results I'm getting with my 28.5 micron pixel printer, which, because of its precise ball screw, high vertical resolution and COBB light collimation technology, renders detailed prints that are actually smaller than what is practical in some instances because the resin details break when things such as grab irons are printed at less than .006" diameter...which is the resin's fault, not the printer's.

Plus, the price for the Elegoo Mars 4 Ultra is hard to beat, and I don't need another medium large printer.

Finally, if it's only the pixel size that would have influenced you to get the Epax machine, and not it's 10.1 build plate size, I'd say that a 16.8 micron pixel size is really a 17 micron pixel...so, you're talking about a single micron difference between the two as far as pixel size is concerned...which you can't see...and you saved a lot of money with the Epax being $1,700.

But, the larger print envelope with 16.8 micron pixels is pretty impressive.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[JeffB]

@JeffB
But, the larger print envelope with 16.8 micron pixels is pretty impressive.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

Yeah, that would have been the driving force in that decision...  Being able to get that pixel size in a larger (not "large" by any means) format printer is pretty darn impressive for sure!

Jeff