Elegoo Mars 4 DLP

The Elegoo Mars 4 DLP is the only printer in the Mars family without an LCD panel: a Texas Instruments DLP projector paints each layer straight onto the bottom of the vat. It launched in 2023 and is now discontinued, but it still appeals to anyone who wants a quiet machine with a long-lived light source.

Build volume is 132.8 × 74.7 × 150 mm, projector resolution is 2560 × 1440 (marketed as 2K) at a 52 μm pixel, layers run 0.01–0.2 mm and speed tops out at 70 mm/h. A 405 nm LED fires through a 13-element lens stack, and tempered glass sits where an LCD would normally be. There are no fans at all: rated noise stays under 48 dB and the machine draws about 12 W while printing. Leveling is manual and files come in over USB only.

Pros

• The projector is rated for 20,000 hours against roughly 2,000 for an LCD, so the single biggest running cost of a masked printer simply goes away
• Fanless design leaves only stepper noise — the spec sheet says under 48 dB
• MBReviews measured an 18 W draw and called it "ridiculously low" for a resin printer
• Less light bleed than an LCD, so reviewers find exposure easy to dial in and forgiving of mistakes
• No fragile screen: a resin spill lands on tempered glass you can simply wipe clean

Cons

• A 52 μm pixel is coarse next to the 8K and 9K LCD machines at the same price; Age of Miniatures calls the detail lackluster against that competition
• The "2K" claim is doubtful: Liqcreate and Age of Miniatures both suspect a 720p DMD with pixel shifting rather than a true 2560 × 1440 chip
• At 132.8 × 74.7 mm the plate is small even for a desktop resin printer — batching a squad of miniatures in one run is out
• Voxeldance Tango has to be unlocked with the printer's serial number, and auto-repairing heavy models ate 28 GB of 32 GB RAM in MBReviews' test
• Manual leveling and USB sticks only — no Wi-Fi, no camera, no remote monitoring of a running print

It suits people printing 28–32 mm miniatures, busts and small parts in a room they also live in: with no fans it barely registers, and screen replacements never enter the budget. Since the model is discontinued, a new machine today means the Elegoo Mars 5 Ultra (9K, 18 μm pixel, 150 mm/h) or the Elegoo Saturn 4 with its bigger plate.

Bottom line: an interesting DLP experiment from Elegoo — quiet, cheap to run and free of screen maintenance, but outclassed on detail by the LCD machines in its own price bracket.

Reviews

• MBReviews — Elegoo Mars 4 DLP 3D Printer Review: Excellent DLP Printer for Beginners
• Age of Miniatures — Elegoo Mars 4 DLP Review (How Good is DLP for Miniatures?)
• VogMan — Elegoo Mars 4 DLP (honest) review & Anycubic D2 comparison
• Liqcreate — Elegoo Mars 4 DLP: technology breakdown and doubts about native 2K