While Phrozen remains a household name in the vast consumer 3D printing market, its dental specific (Sonic) line has created far less waves in the ocean of dental 3D printers. Their latest entry in this increasingly saturated field is the Lumii, which boasts a 2K DLP lightsource. A surprising move, when big players in the market such as Sprintray and Formlabs are moving away from DLP and towards LCD technology. Is this enough to differentiate this unit from a very busy market?
Figure 1: The Phrozen Lumii is the only DLP printer I’m aware of that is packaged on its side. I’m not sure if that’s a good or bad thing!
Disclaimer:
This is a personal and individual opinion on the Phrozen Lumii. Phrozen nor any of its global distributors have not been involved in the writing or editing of this piece and have not restricted any conclusions made by myself of this product.
Notable features:
- Compact physical footprint
- Mildly frustrating DIY-style physical set up
- Powerful heating functionality and internal air purifier
- Cheap build plate design that is impossible to clean in between prints
- Slicer requires USB dongle
- Moderately robust open resin library
- Cluttered internal chamber
- Consistent but slower than expected prints
Basics:
| Printer size | 23.7 x 23.7 x 47cm |
| Weight | 78 bananas* |
| Technology | 5.9” 2K DLP |
| Print volume | Std plate: 13 x 7.5 x 16cm Mini plate: 10.5 x 7.5 x 16cm |
| Slicer | Phrozen DS Slicer |
| XY resolution | 51 µm |
| Price guide | US$3000-3500 |
* 1 banana = 0.15kg
Figure 2: The all-important 2K DLP projector – but how does it fare…?
Set up:
Setting up the Lumii is definitely achievable by one person alone. While overall quite easy, it was admittedly quite tedious. Simple things like screwing on the Wi-Fi antenna to the back of the unit (yes, it actually has an ANTENNA), and installing the lid handle were very straightforward to do but will not be immediately obvious to the inexperienced and less tech-savvy users. There are no physical instructions but there is a QR code you can scan to get a PDF copy of it. Please note that you MUST make a note down of the serial number as you will NOT be able to use the Phrozen DS Slicer without entering it in!
Levelling is apparently factory-performed, but I would never trust this in a unit manufactured by a company that focuses on consumer-level printers. Thankfully levelling is quite straightforward and automatic home/Z-level detection is quite a nice touch.
There is an optional Phrozen GO app which allows you to track your prints during use. I found it quite superfluous and see very little use for it unless you want to take silly low-res photos of yourself stalking your prints.
Also of note is the fact that you have to relevel every time you switch between the standard build plate and mini build plate as they are offset slightly differently – annoying!
Figure 3: The creators behind the Lumii must’ve thought more is better and so you can see the internal chamber is just packed with stuff
Software:
It is annoying that although we are in 2024 now, there are still some programs out there that force you to have a USB dongle inserted. Phrozen DS Slicer is one of them.
The slicer itself is not the easiest to navigate through. Icons are unnecessarily small to view. This is a shame, as there are several VERY useful tools made available for free for users, which include drainage hole creation, platform creation, text creation and hollowing of solid models. By default, the auto-orientation functionality is turned on when creating supports, which made for some very weird and unexpected rotation of objects when I tried it out, so I’d suggest turning that off and just rotating your objects manually.
As long as your PC and Lumii are connected to the same Wi-Fi network, you can send the sliced print file directly to the printer. Beyond entering in the user and password details in the slicer (found in one of the menu options on the Lumii) once, you will unfortunately have to reenter the IP address every time a job is sent. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Funnily enough, as annoying as that is, jobs are sent very quickly and consistently and beyond having to reenter the IP address details all the time, I have had zero issues sending jobs via Wi-Fi! I wish the same can be send for many other dental 3D printers!
Figure 4: If you didn’t know how to squint before, after using Phrozen DS Slicer, you’ll be an expert at it in no time
Resin library:
While not extensive, the Lumii boasts a moderate resin library which will allow you to create more or less any 3D-printable dental application on the standard plate. Unfortunately, the mini plate has very few resins validated for it, and I sincerely hope they boost this quickly. Disappointingly, as of this piece, Keysplint Soft has not been validated on the miniplate, while the less popular Keysplint Hard has. Puzzling.
Figure 5: A couple of simple Keysplint Soft nightguards
The printing experience:
The Lumii boasts a surprisingly effective heater which heats the chamber to 30°C before automatically turning off. Unfortunately, this means you will always have to constantly turn it on manually via the printer menu. Quite frustrating for longer prints. The printer itself is pretty quiet during operation which allows it to be used chairside (as much as I hate that term).
Print time is slow, especially for a DLP printer. On “Turbo Mode”, models orientated horizontally and positioned direct to the build plate will take around 30-35 minutes – this is increased to just short of an hour using the standard settings! It is no wonder that “Turbo Mode” is on by default within the slicer. A central incisor orientated vertically with supports 3.5mm away from the build plate printed at 100 micron layers with Rodin Sculpture 2.0 will take around 35 minutes on “Turbo Mode” using the mini plate.
Despite the points raised with speed, prints were very consistent and reliable and in my limited experience with the printer, my failure rate has been zero, nada, zilch. I cannot say this for some of the more expensive printers out there in the market.
Figure 6: Some notable voxel lines apparent, even when anti-aliasing was turned on
While there was notable voxel line depiction in prints, bleaching trays, occlusal splints and restorations printed on the Lumii all clinically fit. At the end of the day, that’s what really counts.
Probably my biggest gripe with the experience is switching between resins, as the build plate is designed and assembled in such a way that it is basically impossible to clean resin from certain areas. This basically leads to cross-contamination of resins. Big thumbs down for this. It also takes a surprisingly large number of turns to fully screw down the resin vat.
Figure 7: It is impossible to adequately clean resin in the hex screws and around them unless you fully submerge the plate in a wash unit
Conclusion:
It’s clear that Phrozen wanted to introduce a worthy entry into the dental 3D printer market as the Sonic line was quickly being outdated. There are some really nice thoughts behind the Lumii, such as fast chamber heating, the option of using a mini plate for faster printing and a strong effort in validating a number of popular dental resins for it. However, it’s clear that to keep the costs of manufacturing low, shortcuts were taken, which ultimately dampen what could have been an epic experience. I do wonder what type of long-term support they will provide for Lumii users, considering its price is well beyond a consumer-level product. Overall, a nice unit that is suitable for low-volume and unambitious users on a tight budget but still want some of the functionality found in more expensive units.
3 points why you should get it:
- Compact size and convenient footprint
- Houses functionality that is more commonly found in more expensive dental 3D printers
- Favourable cost-to-effectiveness ratio
3 points why you shouldn’t get it:
- Slow prints
- Build plates poorly designed for dental-specific workflow
- Software isn’t terribly easy to follow and navigate
Figure 8: Functionless camera is functionless