Best Resin 3D Printers for Miniatures of 2026

The Photon Mono 4 is the least expensive printer here, and it does not ask you to give up resolution for that. Its 7-inch panel runs 9024 x 5120 for a 17 µm pixel, the finest pitch in this group, and it prints visibly crisper detail than machines that cost a good deal more. We send budget-first buyers here before anywhere else on the page.

What you give up shows up in the workflow rather than in the print. Leveling is the manual four-point kind — loosen, set the plate, tighten — though the plate holds its adjustment, so it is a chore you do once rather than every print. Speed is rated at 70 mm/h, fine for a couple of characters and slow for a whole unit. The laser-engraved plate grips its prints firmly, which is exactly what you want until you are prying a thin sword off it with a scraper.

The 6.04 x 3.42 x 6.49 in volume is the smallest in this guide, and the 87 mm width is the figure that matters: a 32 mm figure on a base with its supports takes more of that than people expect, so plan on a handful per plate rather than a rank of ten. At 7.7 pounds the machine lifts with one hand and takes up less shelf than anything else we recommend. For a painter learning the craft a few figures at a time, none of that reads as a real loss.

A cold room changes how a resin printer behaves. The resin thickens, layers take longer to settle, and prints that worked in July peel in January. The Saturn 4 Ultra 16K holds its tank at 30 °C, and for anyone printing in a garage, a basement, or an unheated spare room, that alone is worth the price of admission.

The rest is a big machine done properly. A 10-inch 16K panel over an 8.33 x 4.66 x 8.66 in build volume means a whole unit of infantry, a monster, or a batch of terrain on one plate. Auto-leveling removes the setup ritual, the camera with its own light lets you check in from the next room, tilt release does the peeling so tall prints do not fight the film, and it runs quietly enough to sit in the house.

One design detail is worth knowing before you fill the vat: a leak on this machine means taking it apart to reach the LCD sitting under the tank. A screen protector and a strain-and-filter routine cost very little and spare you a miserable afternoon. At 35.5 pounds it is a fixture rather than something you put away, and if you print single characters instead of armies, you are paying for volume you will never fill.

The narrowest plate here belongs to the Sonic Mini 8K S: 6.5 x 2.8 x 6.7 in, and the 2.8-inch width is the figure to picture. That is a couple of 32 mm figures on their bases with supports, not a rank of ten. The machine itself is 11.4 inches square and 22 pounds, so it earns its spot on a desk that has to do other work between prints.

Twenty-two microns is finer than the big Phrozen's 28 and coarser than the 17 and 18 µm machines, which puts it in the comfortable middle for tabletop work: crisp on armor trim, cloaks, and weapons, a touch softer on the very finest faces. What we value most is the open door. Lychee, Chitubox, and Tango all drive it, so the support workflow you already know carries over unchanged, and the precise Z-axis calibration keeps layers even from top to bottom.

Nothing about it is flashy, and that is the appeal: steady, predictable output from a machine that fits where a bigger one will not. Value and image quality are the strongest parts of how it has held up for the people printing on it, and the pace is unhurried rather than slow. If you build your supports in Lychee and want a printer that takes your files without an argument, this is the one on this list for you.

Think of the Sonic Mighty 8K as the Sonic Mini 8K S with the plate stretched: 8.6 x 4.8 x 9.3 in against 6.5 x 2.8 x 6.7, with a 10-inch panel behind it. The pixel count stays at 8K while the panel grows, which is exactly why the pitch loosens from 22 to 28 µm.

The volume is the whole point. A 9.3-inch Z height and a plate that wide take a dragon, a tank, a cavalry unit, or a run of dungeon walls in one go, and the reinforced dual linear rails keep tall prints from swaying as the plate climbs. Firmware and thermal management are tuned to hold exposure steady across a long job, which matters when a single piece runs most of a day.

The trade is detail. At 28 µm this is the coarsest printer in the guide, and next to the Mars 5 Ultra or the Mini 8K S you will see it on a 32 mm face or a jeweled hilt. Buy it because your output is monsters, vehicles, and display pieces, where surface area beats a couple of microns. It is the most specialized machine here, and it is honest about what it is for.

Anycubic rates the Photon P1 for resins up to 8,000 cps, roughly forty times the viscosity of the standard miniature resin you actually pour into it. That is headroom most painters will never touch, and we think it is the least interesting thing about the machine. The interesting parts are the 8.78 x 4.96 x 9.05 in build volume, the largest in this guide, and a ball-screw Z axis on precision guide rails that keeps tall prints from wandering.

The automation is thorough. Smart Leveling 3.0 arrives factory-calibrated and re-checks itself before each print, an AI inspection pass verifies the plate is seated and the bottom layers separated, and the machine flags low resin before a plate starves. Wave Release pushes air under the film as the plate lifts, which Anycubic says cuts release force by 60%; the practical effect is fewer heavy models torn off their supports.

Before you buy, know where your files go. Printing runs over Wi-Fi through Anycubic's own slicer, and Lychee and Chitubox do not drive it. If you build supports in Lychee the way most miniature painters do, that is a workflow change rather than a footnote. For a workshop turning out large display models and thick specialty resins, the volume and the Z-axis hardware make up for it. For everyone else, the Mars 5 Ultra is easier to live with.