Anycubic’s latest Photon Mono M7 Professional is a step up from the earlier Anycubic resin machines. It’s smarter, lots quicker and by some means has much more decision for tremendous crisp particulars. Nevertheless, with a pixel measurement of solely 16.8 x 24.8 microns (roughly the dimensions of a white blood cell), we’ve reached a stage of element the place the human eye would have problem distinguishing the distinction.
One enchancment that I actually loved is its velocity. It makes use of a specialised movie within the vat that appears sturdier than what Anycubic has used earlier than. This movie ought to ship 45,000 layers earlier than needing alternative, in comparison with the Photon Mono M5s, which might tear after 30,000 layers. It’s additionally fairly a bit faster, printing a three-inch mannequin in 35 minutes, in comparison with the M5s doing the identical in 53 minutes.
The M7 Professional will monitor the lifespan of your vat’s movie and ship a reminder when it wants altering. It may well additionally detect print failures and low resin ranges. It comes with an auto refill system, nonetheless, this wasn’t practical on our check unit and couldn’t be reviewed. The construct plate comes factory-leveled, with guide leveling accessible must you want it.
The key to Anycubic’s lightning velocity is a mix of skinny “excessive velocity” resin and larger-than-normal layer heights. This leads to prints which can be surprisingly good for a excessive velocity printer. In truth, when in comparison with its regular printing velocity, we had a tough time telling the prints aside.
At present on sale for $549, the Photon Mono M7 Professional is effectively well worth the value for a excessive decision, mid-size printer and is likely one of the finest resin 3D printers in the marketplace immediately.
Specs: Anycubic Photon Mono M7 Professional
| Construct Quantity | 223 x 126 x 230 mm (8.7 x 4.9 x 9 inches) |
| LCD Display | 10.1″ Monochrome |
| Mild Supply | COB (Chip On Board) with Fresnel Lens |
| X/Y Axis Decision | 16.8 x 24.8 microns |
| Regular Publicity Time | 1.3/1.7 seconds |
| Interface | 5” Contact Panel |
| Connectivity | USB, WiFi |
| Machine Footprint | 310 x 315 x 520 mm (12.2 x 12.4 x 20.4 inches) |
| Machine Weight | 12.8 KG (28.2 lbs) |
Included within the Field: Anycubic Photon Mono M7 Professional
The Anycubic Photon Mono M5s consists of the whole lot that you must get began as quickly as you unbox the printer. You get a steel scraper for the construct plate, a plastic scraper for the discharge movie, a big display protector, paper funnels, disposable gloves, disposable masks, a set of Allen keys, an influence twine with adapter, and a printed guide.
This machine additionally comes with a resin pump and a powered air filter.
The field features a USB thumb drive loaded with Anycubic’s Photon Workshop slicing software program, a PDF of the guide, and two pre-sliced check prints.
Printing Security with Anycubic Photon Mono M7 Professional
The Anycubic Photon Mono M7 Professional requires the identical security precautions as different resin printers. Uncured resin is harmful, and the solvents used to wash your prints will be irritating to the pores and skin. Use gloves and security glasses when pouring resin and dealing with uncured prints.
Make certain the room you utilize your resin printer in is well-ventilated to keep away from inhaling fumes. Spilled or dripped resin needs to be instantly cleaned with 99% isopropyl alcohol. After printing, be sure to wipe down your printer and bottles to take away smudges of uncured resin. At all times hold your resin tightly sealed and safely saved out of attain of pets and kids.
Assembling the Anycubic Photon Mono M7 Professional
The printer comes totally assembled. You solely must take away the LED display protector used for delivery, screw within the vat and construct plate, then you definitely’re prepared to start out printing.
The printer comes with each a resin pump and powered air filter, which plug into the machine with a USB port. Sadly, it’s an both/or state of affairs, and also you’ll have to decide on which to make use of. In the event you go for the pump, you have to to take away a small part of the UV hood. The cutout part of the hood is taped in place, so it may be changed in case you select.
Calibrating the Construct Plate on the Anycubic Photon Mono M7 Professional
In contrast to older resin printers, the Photon Mono M7 Professional ships factory-leveled. Merely put the construct plate in place and also you’re able to go. Guide adjustment is on the market must you want it.
Design of the Anycubic Photon Mono M7 Professional
The Photon Mono M7 Professional is a mid-sized resin printer with a classy black-on-black coloration scheme. The smooth black UV hood continues to be of the lift-off selection, which is irritating to make use of after the enjoyment of discovering tilt again lids from the competitors.
The very first thing I wish to level out is the facility, which is supplied with an ordinary equipment plug with out an annoying energy brick. Nevertheless, the system won’t activate in case you solely flip the swap within the again. You additionally need to push (and maintain) a button within the entrance. I believed for certain the entire printer was broken, as this methodology was surprising.
The printer is extremely sturdy, and at 28 kilos, very stable. The vat is big and might maintain greater than a full-sized bottle of resin. The vat itself weighs a number of kilos on account of its materials, giant measurement and the awkwardly mounted heater pump completely connected to the again nook. This makes it off balanced whenever you’re making an attempt to pour out leftover resin from the only spout situated on the entrance proper nook.
The aim of the heater is to hurry up the print time, as heat resin is thinner (thus quicker) than chilly. I’ve not seen a heater fairly like this one. It’s really a pump that sucks up the resin from a channel across the fringe of the vat. It pulls resin in, warms it, after which pumps it again out.
This slowly circulates the resin across the vat because the printer works however doesn’t appear to intervene with layers as they remedy. It’s additionally not robust sufficient to essentially stir the resin, so that you’ll nonetheless wish to get in there and manually stir the resin in case you’ve let it set a day or two.
The pump works as a cleansing support after you’ve dumped the resin out and refill the vat with a cleansing agent like isopropyl alcohol. In truth, you HAVE to make use of the cleansing cycle in case you swap resin varieties or colours and don’t need contamination. The resin will get trapped within the pump and people channels, so cleansing it with only a paper towel is just not an possibility. And naturally, you can’t clear the vat by submerging it in a bucket of IPA as a result of electronics within the pump.
I wasn’t capable of check out the opposite pump, which is designed to fill the vat with resin and hold it topped off. The pump plugs into the again proper nook and has a cap designed to suit Anycubic resin bottles. It has sensors to measure the quantity of resin in each the vat and the bottle, and may be capable of switch resin out and in. Mine did neither.
In the event you don’t like the thought of a pump – and I’m undecided if I’d wish to attempt to clear it – you may drop an air air purifier in that very same nook. You must choose one or the opposite, as they each slot in the identical spot.
The large secret to the M7 Professional’s velocity is slightly cheaty. Just like the M5s earlier than it, the quickest mode really combines shorter publicity instances with thicker .1 mm peak layers. This setting is designed particularly to work with excessive velocity resin, which is tremendous skinny. We’ll get extra into this once we have a look at the check prints.
The Photon Mono M7 Professional has an insane 14K decision (13,312 x 5120) on a ten.1 inch monochrome LCD display. I wish to level out that whenever you get into this stage of decision, you’re solely going to get out as a lot element as you set in.
The construct plate on the M7 Professional is laser-etched, which grabs onto prints to maintain them protected, however isn’t too tough to scrape off. The highest of the plate has sufficient slope to permit many of the resin to empty again into the vat. There’s nonetheless a spot the place the screws are that catch some resin, which makes cleansing the plate slightly annoying.
This 3D printer can take information off a USB thumb drive or over WiFi – in case you don’t thoughts operating it via Anycubic’s telephone app and Cloud system. I’m not an enormous fan of telephone apps for my printers, so I didn’t check it out.
The contact display is effectively thought out and straightforward to make use of, with giant graphics that will help you alongside the way in which.
Slicers Suitable with the Anycubic Photon Mono M5s
The Anycubic Photon Mono M7 Professional ships with a duplicate of Photon Workshop, its customized slicer. The slicer has improved significantly through the years and I didn’t have any issues utilizing it. It may well add good helps robotically, has instruments for hollowing the mannequin – and including drainage holes so you may preserve resin.
The M7 Professional can be utilized with Chitubox, however we’re nonetheless ready for Lychee Slicer.
Washing and Curing Your Prints
Earlier than you may admire your prints, you’ll must wash them with isopropyl alcohol and remedy with UV mild. I like to offer prints a 30-second hand rinse in a container of 95% Isopropyl alcohol, then a 2-minute rinse within the Anycubic Wash and Treatment, which is bought individually and retails for $249 at Anycubic.com.
Utterly dry the print with a hair dryer on cool – IPA left on the print will flip white. It’s also possible to let the print air dry in a spot away from daylight.
Helps are simpler to take away earlier than curing as a result of they’re softer. Clip the helps off with aspect cutters and use tweezers to take away cussed helps. Bear in mind to at all times put on gloves whereas dealing with uncured prints.
Then place the print in a UV curing station for quarter-hour, or outdoors in brilliant daylight for just a few hours.
Your IPA ought to by no means be flushed down the drain, particularly after being contaminated with uncured resin. As a substitute, hold utilizing the resin till it’s too soiled, then go away the container open to evaporate. The remaining sludge will be cured with UV mild or the solar earlier than being thrown away.
Helps must also be cured earlier than being thrown away.
Pattern Prints on the Anycubic Photon M7 Professional
The Anycubic Mono M7 Professional has three settings inside its customized slicer:
Excessive Velocity/Quick Resin: .1mm layer and 1.3 second publicity
Excessive Velocity/Customary Resin: .1mm layer and a pair of.1 second publicity
Regular Velocity/Customary Resin: .05mm layer and 1.7 second publicity
All three speeds produce high quality prints, with the quickest setting being just a bit bit softer on the main points. As I discussed earlier than, whenever you use the quick/regular mode and excessive decision resin, you’ll get one of the best outcomes. Contemplating the value of resin, and the quantity of bother to modify supplies, I feel conserving your M7 Professional stocked with a top quality “regular” velocity resin is one of the best mixture of high quality and velocity.
You possibly can see from the pattern beneath that every one three prints look very good and sharp, however the quick resin (on the best) is only a tiny bit softer. The quick “regular” resin resulted in good high quality, and you’ll solely see the layer strains on Rocket’s jacket when the sunshine hits it on the proper angle.
The distinction between quick and regular mode on the check prints beneath is over 90 minutes with out a vital misplaced of element.
Resin printers are very fashionable with table-top players, so I bought a pair customized figures from HeroForge to check out. These are printed at 100% and are 1/60 scale, commonplace for Dungeon and Dragons sort miniatures, and stand 35mm tall.
The determine on the left is made with Anycubic’s Quick Resin and quick settings, and the one on the best is utilizing Anycubic (regular) Bio Resin and Gradual settings. The sluggish resin has only a tiny bit extra element, and whenever you zoom on this shut, you may discover extra layer strains. Oddly sufficient, the quick setting blurs the layers strains and appears cleaner.
I used to be stunned that printing in quick mode didn’t lose a lot element in any respect. Let’s have a look at some extra gaming figures. These HeroForge customized figures are additionally printed at 100%, and stand roughly 40mm tall. They’re additionally a typical measurement for Dungeon and Dragons sort miniatures. The extent of element is remarkably related regardless of being printed in three completely different resins.
They’re, from left to proper:
Anycubic Excessive Velocity resin, Quick mode, .1mm layer, 19 minutes
Phrozen 8k Aqua, Quick Mode, .1mm layer, 25 minutes and 23 seconds
Phrozen 8K Aqua, Regular Mode, .05mm layer, 1 hour, 14 minutes, 3 seconds
Anycubic Bio, Regular Mode, .05mm layer, 1 hour, 14 minutes, 3 seconds
Total, I feel the Phrozen resin seems higher as a result of its flat end seems crisper. Each Anycubic resins had been translucent the place the determine was thinner – on the dragon’s head and canine’s ears. Printing at high velocity with quick resin solely saved about three and half minutes in comparison with utilizing a traditional resin at quick velocity. Printing these gaming miniatures at regular velocity didn’t enhance the standard by any noticeable quantity.
I additionally printed a fancy dragon mannequin from Dragon Trappers Lodge. This mannequin was in a number of items and wanted to be assembled with glue. It took solely 35 minutes and 32 seconds to print utilizing Anycubic’s quick resin with the quick settings. It’s remarkably detailed and delicate, and all seven items match on the construct plate. There are little spots from the helps, which will be sanded off with out drawback. In any other case, this mannequin is flawless.
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Backside Line
The Anycubic Photon Mono M7 Professional is freaky quick even when utilizing regular resin and has no noticeable lack of element when cranked as much as max velocity. At 16.8 x 24.8 microns of decision, we’ve gone well past a stage of element you may actually recognize with the bare eye. The machine is straightforward to make use of and filled with options – and despite the fact that the resin pump didn’t work on my check unit, I didn’t really feel like I used to be lacking out on something. The heater makes the vat a bit awkward to deal with whereas cleansing, however looks as if an appropriate trade-off for this machine’s velocity.
I went again and checked the final high-speed resin from Anycubic that I reviewed, which was the Mono M5s. It has related options, but it surely took 5 hours to print the Rocket Raccoon check mannequin in regular mode with a high-resolution resin. The M7 Professional reduce that point in half taking 2 hours and 25 minutes to print the identical mannequin utilizing related resin and the identical .05 layer peak.
I’m very happy that Anycubic is ready to make a resin 3D printer that’s superfast whereas utilizing a launch movie that solely prices $10 a sheet to exchange and can final a very good 45,000 impressions. In the event you’re printing miniatures, which means you will get not less than 100 batches of prints from a single sheet of movie.
Priced at $669 (and at present on sale for $549), the Anycubic Photon Mono M7 Professional is just not precisely low cost for a resin printer. However you’re positively getting some worth in your cash with all its stellar velocity and sensible options.
In the event you’re in search of a resin printer that delivers the identical high quality at a slower velocity and cheaper value, take a look at our favourite medium-sized resin printer, the Anycubic Photon Mono X2, which is on sale for $179. That is a incredible deal! You may additionally wish to have a look at our choose for one of the best resin 3D printer for freshmen, the Anycubic Photon Mono 2, which has dropped to $159.
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