While most of these problems are annoying, theyre easy enough to fix. NY 10036. After you've been printing a while, you'll be able to pour in less and less resin as you learn how much is needed for a given print. One of the biggest draws for the Kobra line of 3D printers from Anycubic is the automatic leveling feature included in the software. However, you probably wont realize they are wrong until you have had a few failed prints and know what to look for. I checked with Anycubic, and they say they are aware of the issue and intend on providing this functionality later this year with a software update. The Photon Workshop software has an option to create these automatically, but it doesnt work that well. The Photon M3 is capable of creating very detailed prints. Where it may lack function is in advanced automated support generation, a common problem with resin 3D print slicers. The Anycubic Photon M3 Plus settings are already present in the Anycubic Photon Workshop (V2.1.30) slicing software. If you need to add more for a very large print, you can do so while printing; just pour it very slowly and, as many will tell you, don't pause the print as this can screw it up. The only limit that we saw was that of the available materials, which is why we have worked with two material providers (3D Materials and Photocentric) to show that the Anycubic Photon M3 Plus LCD/LED photopolymerization technology can easily adapt to a wide range of durable, tough and generally high-performance materials, which means it can be even used for some serial production. This is not a quick and easy procedure. Please refresh the page and try again. We're hiring! This step is optional but recommended in order to save resin and reduce the peel force applied to the print when changing layers. The bottom line of these numbers? Insert the USB drive containing your generated .photons file into the USB port on the right side of the printer. SLA printers use a focused or UV light on a resin vat to "cure" each layer of your print. A 4-inch high print of our thinker model took 7 hours and 3 minutes. We check over 250 million products every day for the best prices, Razer back to school sale takes 50% off gaming accessories, Samsungs affordable OLED TVs just came to a halt heres why, Zoom security issues: What's gone wrong and what's been fixed, The best tech tutorials and in-depth reviews, Try a single issue or save on a subscription, Issues delivered straight to your door or device. Dyze Design has some interesting new hardware. The difference between the two Photon models is the size of the prints they can handle. Where did the two 3D printer filament diameters come from and what is the difference? Since 2002, Davide has built up extensive experience as a technology journalist, market analyst and consultant for the additive manufacturing industry. The full-color LED touch screen makes following all setup instructions even easier. Once we found the right settings in the Photon Workshop software, both resings performed well, producing clean, smooth prints. Once youve set up the WiFi network, the Photon M3 Plus connects to the Anycubic cloud. Instead, it uses a proprietary .photons file, which essentially contains a photo of each layer to be projected and cured. In 2016 he co-founded London-based 3dpbm. Photon Workshop can be found on the USB drive that came with your printer or downloaded from the Anycubic website. Use the supplied print scraper to carefully pry the print from the plate. They really are super fast, requiring minimal curing time, especially with the power of Anycubics M3 Plus system. I'm using the green Anycubic resin that came with the printer. 3D Materials is a South Korea-based developer of photopolymers for 3D printing leveraging nearly 30 years of industrial experience in UV Curable Polymers Material Sciences and Engineering. The Photon M3 Plus is available from Anycubic at a list price of US$699. The Photon M3 also requires some patience and tweaking to get the most out of it, which isnt helped by some problems with the Photon Workshop app that prepares the prints. Hands On With the Anycubic M3 Plus 3D Printer, Part 2. The app doesnt do this: instead, the automatic supports it creates wont print because they are missing parts of the print. Then, close the Settings panel. I should note that Anycubic is quite aggressive in updating Photon Workshop and Ive seen multiple updates during my experience with them. What makes the Anycubic Photono M3 Plus even more professional is the automated resin feeding system. As well also see in this Anycubic Photon M3, the printing process is also a bit hit-and-miss, sometimes requiring several tries and some tweaking. In other words, each time you launch Photon Workshop, you must sign in again. One thing that's super interesting about SLA vs. FDM printers is that adding additional models to an SLA print doesn't always increase print time. This does also mean that you need to be careful and make sure that the Photon Workshop app is set up correctly for that resin, though, as different types of resin will require different exposure times to the UV light. Two sensors go in the vat to detect the level of materials available to print and the other two sensors screw into the top of a 1Kg material bottle to detect the level of material left to use. Amazingly, it displays a standard keyboard on the large touchscreen and you can simply type in your SSID password. Next, use 99.9% isopropyl alcohol (IPA) to clean off any uncured resin. And again with a close up view of the detail, with a coin for scale. Beside the automatic material feeding system, the machines kit of tools and accessories comes with a spatula, gloves, mask, power adaptor hex key, wi-fi antenna (more about that later) and a screen protector kit that is easy to apply bu following the instructions contained in the manual that youll find, along with the latest version of the Photon Workshop slicing software, in the USB key that comes with the tools. The macOS version is similar however it is only compatible with the latest systems running the M1 processor. There are a couple of software components used with the Photon M3 Plus. Remove the resin vat and clean it using some IPA and paper towels. That might prove to be a problem for first-time 3D printers, who might have a couple of failed prints and give up. So, with lower curing times, we got some very flexible parts while with a higher curing time we produced stronger and stiffer functional parts. You can easily find and download the latest firmware version from the Anycubic website and upload it using the USB drive provided with the machine. The other material that we had the opportunity to try was the UV80 durable resin from Photocentric. So far, it seems to be working! The printer then raises the print bed, letting the liquid resin flood in, and the process repeats, creating the print layer by layer. For our Photon M3 review, Anycubic also sent us a couple of their $23 AirPure filters small air filters with active carbon that you put inside the printer itself. Once I found the right print settings on the Anycubic Photon M3, I found that it produced good quality prints, with excellent detail and only barely visible layers. Save the generated .photons file to an external USB drive, such as the one that came with your printer. You can see Master Chiefs body section printing in the stop-motion video and the result in the photo gallery below. In other words, each layer is basically a "photo" projected using a projector. Thank you for signing up to Tom's Guide. This is where it gets interesting, as you can operate the Photon M3 Plus almost completely from the mobile app. Anycubic also sent 4 bottles of materials (transparent and white resin) to test. Occasionally youll see islands that really should have supports, but dont. We also use a set of gears as a test model, and the Photon M3 produced clean, sharp-edged prints of these that fit well together. This is part three of a three part series, please read parts one and two. This information will never be shared with 3rd parties, Ive read and accept theprivacy policy. The Anycubic Photon M3 is available now and is priced at $299 (opens in new tab). Eventually, we were able to produce both some very strong and some flexible parts, including functional clips of various sizes, with a surface finish and feel that closely resembled injection molded polyurethane. The Anycubic Photon M3 Plus comes in a package with everything you need to get started. For Light-off Delay and Bottom Light-off Delay, use the Off time value from the table. It includes quite a few advanced features, provides a reliable 3D printing experience and produces prints of excellent quality. I recommend using UV-safe safety glasses in case you want to open the printer while printing. We have been using the M3 Plus over a period of several weeks to print large parts and we did not run into any technical issues with the machines reliability and part repeatability, other than the cloud sometimes failing to connect. Born in Milan, Italy, he spent 12 years in the United States, where he completed his studies at SUNY USB. Lets not pretend its all just fun and games. We tested two resins that Anycubic supplied with the printer: their light grey resin and the water washable white resin. Thats somewhat slower than more expensive printers like the Form 3+ (which took 2.5 hours), but it is about the same speed as its more expensive sibling, the Photon Mono X. Putting your new Anycubic Kobra Plus 3D printer together has never been easier. I wrote a separate guide on Anycubic Photon bed leveling. Our review of the Anycubic Photon M3 concludes with an examination of the software environment, print quality and final thoughts. Next, make sure the model is touching the plate! The water washable and plant-based materials we tested make it much easier but they are still difficult to clean and unpleasant to be in contact with. The Anycubic Photon M3 Plus is solid. The Photon Mono X may be a better introduction to low-cost resin printing. When one of my prints failed, a piece of the print didnt stick to the print bed and made a small hole in the plastic film, letting a small amount of resin leak out onto the LCD screen below. But what might be included in a MK4? Software has some issues with preparing prints, Smaller print area than other resin printers. However, the system did not initially recognize our printer so we had to upgrade the firmware to the latest version. We tested it with the AirPure filter (opens in new tab) which costs $25 for two. You simply select it, pick a printer from those youve added and the print starts! Youll need to specify the Machine CN, a long code that uniquely identifies your machine. At that point the sliced file appears as a file in your Anycubic account. Thats bad news because the LCD screen is very fragile, and the only way to remove the leaked resin is to carefully scrape it off. This is a simple printer to set up: you just unpack the Anycubic Photon M3, install the print bed, and level it by loosening four screws. Where the screen is opaque, the light is blocked and the resin remains liquid. This meant that it took a few tries until we found the right curing settings. But how do you get sliced files to the printer? Many Fabbaloo readers own their own 3D printer, while others contemplate buying one. Recall that the Photon M3 Plus includes a WiFi connection, and thats what enables the cloud and app to work. Theres one filament that appears to have the highest-temperature resistance of them all: EXTEM AMHH811F. Ive been on a bit of a quest to find some truly safe 3D printer resin, and Im not sure theres actually such a product. Select AnyCubic Photon or AnyCubic Photon-s from the drop-down menu. This would be necessary if you are running a production outfit. published 29 June 22. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Over the past few months, we have been able (thanks to the very efficient marketing and partnerships team at Anycubic) to test several Anycubic systems, for both filament extrusion and photopolymerization technologies. Unfortunately, this also makes it rather fragile. Here we present ten 3D print companies that just might be of interest by other, larger companies. Fortunately, Anycubic seems to be aware of this as a potential problem, as they include a screen protector, rather like the ones you put on your cell phone. I found the Photon M3 Plus to be a very reliable resin 3D printer; the only print failures I had during testing were due to my poor placement of support structures. Charles R. Goulding & Preeti Sulibhavi look at how 3D printing can produce BBQ accessories. SLA printers use a focused or UV light on a resin vat to "cure" each layer of your print, whereas FDM printers melt a spool of plastic filament to generate each layer. As long as the additional models are shorter than the tallest model, there's no difference in print time whatsoever. Unfortunately, the only way to load prints into the Photon and Photon S is via USB. Software engineer, designer, tinkerer, and beer enthusiast living in Tampa, Florida. The Photon M3 can print with any brand of photosensitive resin that works with the 405nm UV wavelength light used by the printer. This is because the same number of layers are being generated. Join industry leaders and receive the latest insights on what really matters in AM! Even the Photon Mono X, another low-cost resin printer from Anycubic, costs between $450 and $550 these days. This weeks selection is the enormous Articulated Dragon by Cults contributor MCGYBEER and printed to scale by Metalhead Printing. When UV light hits this resin, it solidifies. The latest one that we had the opportunity to test is the new Anycubic Photon M3 Plus, which was released last March, together with the M3 and M3 Max (and with the filament extrusion systems Kobra and Kobra Max). The Photon M3 is a middling printer in terms of speed. Ive used it quite a bit when testing this and other Anycubic equipment, and find it more than adequate. Of course, you must connect to your local WiFi network, and I was curious how this is done. The printer has some limitations, though, with a relatively small print area and no network connections. Every Anycubic system weve tried so far has far exceeded our expectations and they just keep getting better. There was a problem. We use cookies to give you the best online experience and for ads personalisation. I'm going to use ChiTuBox since it's the industry standard for SLA/DLP/LCD 3D printing. Similarly, the geometric sculpture we use for testing was well reproduced, with very sharp edges and points. Sign into your Anycubic account in Photon Workshop, Save the GCODE to your Anycubic Cloud account. Many machines Ive used involve very convoluted processes for setting up a WiFi network, but thats not the case on the Photon M3 Plus. The Kobra printers have a great auto-leveling feature, can you use it? As stated previously, you can't use Cura or any other standard slicing software to prepare prints for the Photon or Photon S. This is because the printer doesn't use standard .gcode files. Unfortunately, only one screen protector and the film of the resin vat are included, but additional parts arent expensive: you can get five of the screen protectors for $10 (opens in new tab), and two of the vat films for $20 (opens in new tab). From there, you lower the print bed, then tighten the screws again. Chasing The Elusive Safe 3D Printer Resin, 8 Reasons Why You Should Not Buy A Home 3D Printer, What Might We Expect To See In The Prusa MK4? This quality was especially noticeable on our print of Rodins Thinker statue, a tough model to print as it has many fine details and smooth curves. A quick and reliable method for leveling your Photon or Photon S. Think of it like a 2D printer, but with an extra dimension. Tom's Guide is supported by its audience. Researchers have developed a method of 3D printing extremely small structures using copper. A large orange cover fits over the top of the printer, which shields the UV-sensitive resin in the print ray from outside light. If the level goes below that threshold, the pump will refill it, which means that if you ever need to change the material you will have to handle a large quantity of resin and need to be prepared to do so with a capable funnel and filtering system. These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. I intend on using this machine going forward for my high resolution prints. This will allow your machine to connect to the Anycubic Cloud in order to track progress and, if you install a webcam (not included), see your prints progress. Today the company publishes the leading news and insights websites 3D Printing Media Network and Replicatore, as well as 3D Printing Business Directory, the largest global directory of companies in the additive manufacturing industry. In addition, although they are industrial materials, the resins have a much less unpleasant odor than other photopolymers used in industrial 3D printing. It is possible to slice 3D models using other slicers, and then simply load the GCODE up onto the Photon M3 Plus. Scale your LCD 3D printing with the Anycubic Photon M3 Plus, Fraunhofer IGD scientists develop new process to avoid stair-step artifacts, Factum Artes 3D printed parts on display at Giulio Romano exhibit, MyBone 3D printed bone implant approved for patients in Europe, Mercedes Vision EQXX features directly and indirectly 3D printed parts, Peekay Group opens 3D printing facility at Bengaluru Airport City, Stratasys implements Rights Plan to protect shareholders, IN625 qualified for use on Desktop Metals Studio System, The new Industry 4.0 Center of Excellence from MSU Denver, Infinite Materials Solutions releases new general purpose printing material, Intertronics supports University of Sheffield with bioelectronics research, which was released last March, together with the M3 and M3 Max (and with the filament extrusion systems Kobra and Kobra Max), download the latest firmware version from the Anycubic website, . The results were perfect, both in terms of the 3D models details and the fact that it all printed the first time around, even without major adjustments other than finding the best orientation of the file and manually adding some supports. Because they were 500 grams bottles, we could not use them for the auto-feed mechanism so we ordered a 1Kg bottle of plant-based washable resin in addition. The App can be downloaded from any mobile App Store and it looks very nice on iOS. Thank you, Ive read and accept the privacy policy.*. By Kerry Stevenson on May 18th, 2022 in news, printer, Tags: anycubic, cloud, hands on, refill, resin, review. You will receive a verification email shortly. After the App is connected and youve registered to the ANycubic Cloud you can add multiple Wi-Fi printers and upload your sliced files directly from the Anycubic Workshop slicer. To create these, the actual print needs to be lifted up, so the supports can be created underneath it. The other issue is that the default exposure time for the resin in the software is incorrect. That ensures that the print bed fits snugly against the base of the resin vat to create nice thin layers. This determines how long the UV light is turned on for each layer, and each resin type needs a different amount of time. The Mono X has a much larger print area 9.8 x 7.6 x 4.7 inches to the Photon M3s 7.1 x 6.4 x 4 inches. The Anycubic Photon M3 pushes resin 3D printing to a new low price for around $300, you get a printer that can produce excellent quality prints, although they will be smaller than what a device like the Photon Mono X can produce. Its also possible to use the QR code on the right via the mobile app and camera to catch the Machine CN instead of typing it in. There is an unusual statistical display that shows the consumption of resin over the elapsed time of the print job. This is a pretty decent job preparation tool that provides all the usual functions. Thats a bargain. As an Amazon Associate, we may earn a small affiliate commission at no cost to you when you buy through our links. Its a pretty easy-to-use program that imports 3D models in a number of common formats (.stl, .obj, etc.) Then, fill the resin vat up to the first bevel "line". My standard Robert Head print came out extremely well. There are basically two pieces of software that you can use: ChiTuBox or Photon Workshop. There are just a few screws required to attach the sensors and pumping system to the base of the machine. These are the settings from that spreadsheet for printing with a 0.04mm layer height: You can set these in Settings > Print. Here we see a highly detailed Aztec sculpture. To do this, launch ChiTuBox and click Add New Printer. What makes Anycubic's Kobra Plus the perfect printer for beginners and enthusiasts alike? We collaborated with two material companies: 3D Materials and Photocentric. Assembling it and levelling the plate is very easy and quick, just like with any other Anycubic Photon system. There are numerous ways to do this, including the use of an ultrasonic bath, but I normally just submerge the print into a bath of IPA for about 3 minutes. Where the screen is transparent, the resin solidifies, forming a layer of the print. As 3D printing becomes more familiar, prices are falling, even on technologies that used to crowd out beginners. Of course, youll need to sign up to the Anycubic Cloud online before you can proceed, which is easily done. I scaled each model down an arbitrary amount for the sake of time. As a journalist covering the tech and videogame industry for over 10 years, he began covering the AM industry in 2013, first as an international journalist and subsequently as a market analyst, focusing on the additive manufacturing industry and relative vertical markets. Whether or not you're new to 3D printing, printing on the Photon is different than most 3D printers on the market today. Explore Howchoo's most popular interests. Then, run the print under your sink to get the excess resin off. Klipper is a very powerful firmware addition to most 3D printers.