A look at Anker’s first 3D printer; Very fast modeling

If for 3D printing, along with quality, speed is also an important parameter for you, Anker meets this need with its first 3D printer AnkerMake M5.

When Anker announced that it was building a 3D printer, there was no guarantee that the company, known for producing phone accessories and power banks, could produce a good 3D printer from scratch.

But with the release of “AnkerMake M5”, it can be said that Anker can not only make a 3D printer, but this product can also be very promising.

The AnkerMake M5 project was initially launched as a Kickstarter campaign and managed to raise $8 million in funding. Backers of the project will receive their printers this week and will be available for purchase starting Tuesday.

This product is available for pre-order now at a price of $799 for a December 1 release, and you will also receive two rolls of filament and a 64GB flash memory.

First experience of AnkerMake M5

The first thing that strikes you about AnkerMake is how easy it is to install. In fact, tightening a few screws to connect the gate to the base is the only thing you need to do before connecting and starting to work. The display guides you through various steps, including installing the app on the phone, and goes directly to the automatic leveling step. It’s a super easy start, even if you’ve never used a 3D printer before.

Few 3D printers have built-in Wi-Fi, and devices that do have this feature often don’t pay enough attention to it. Enkermic also has this feature, but sometimes its connection is interrupted and it is necessary to redo the entire settings in the program. But when it works well, it completely eliminates the need for USB drives.

AnkerMake M5 quality

As the result of printing the old CNet logo shows, the M5 has very good print quality. Dimensional accuracy is excellent and the protrusion and bridging test is also done very well. The only part that had a little problem were the two end parts, which were printed a little shaky due to the increased printing speed, and the rest of the threads were clear in them.

All of the built models look very nice and depending on the material used, the layer lines are evenly and cleanly distributed throughout the model. Even when printing some of the smaller parts, the details were clear with consistent layer lines throughout.

So, the M5 is pretty much what you’d expect for a printer at this price, but it also has one outstanding feature that most $800 printers don’t have, and that’s the high speed of the device.

3D printing speed

The M5 has a top speed of 250mm/s with a top acceleration of 2500mm/s. In contrast, most of the best 3D printers available work at a speed of about 50 to 80 mm/s. So on paper, the M5 is about four to five times faster. Although in practice it is less than this amount, it still has a significant difference.

For example, it took about 27 hours and 13 minutes to print a model with the same parameters on the Prusa Mk3 printer from the PrusaSlicer brand, but with the help of AnkerMake software, this time was reduced to less than half, only 11 hours and 17 minutes.

Control the printing process with the camera

Anker has done a great job by putting an AI-powered camera in the M5. This camera shows you a side view of the model being printed and you can access it from anywhere with the app.

Artificial intelligence detects when the print is damaged and thus warns you. Even if this failure is high, it will stop printing. Although it still has flaws, it can be improved with a software update.

One nice feature of the camera is that the M5 takes a timelapse of each print process that you can share with others. It may not be considered a professional time-lapse and its angle is not always perfect, but it is responsive enough to be placed on social networks.

Overall result

What’s really amazing about the AnkerMake 3D printer is its high speed, which is half that of similar printers, while still offering the same quality as most printers in this price range.

Of course, this does not mean that the device is perfect. In addition to the Wi-Fi issues mentioned above, more infill is required when printing at full speed. Without this there are gaps in some parts that the filament can’t fill fast enough. At the same time, better results can be achieved with more experience. So we can say that the speed alone justifies the cost of buying the AnkerMake M5.

Photos: Modeling with AnkerMake M5
Credit: James Bricknell/CNET

Source: CNet