AnkerMake M5 3D printer review: Printing under the watchful gaze of AI

[Redaktion]

With the AnkerMake M5, Anker makes an impressive entry into the 3D printer arena and delivers high quality in many areas. Despite straightforward assembly, an easy to understand slicer, as well as high speed, we were unfortunately not impressed with the fast printer.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/AnkerMake-M5-3D-printer-review-Printing-under-the-watchful-gaze-of-AI.668706.0.html

[LL]

So you cannot use other software with this 3D printer? only proprietary?

[And any]

You can use other software, it just works better with anker's.

[And any]

The price for this printer is $799 if you order it from their website.

[Todd]

Fair warning: I backed the Kickstarter and have two printers on their way, and also backed their filament changing product.

The article says that it is lacking, but I have a hard time finding what is actually lacking other than; the ai has problems with black, it re-homed and continued instead of stopping, it is loud, it uses PTFE in the hot end, and your print in place print didn't work. Which to me are minor problems (ai ones might be able to be fixed via software)

In your testing did a print fail that wasn't intentionally messed with to try and make it fail?

Did you contact support on any of these issues?  I have read in the Kickstarter comments that their support has so far been very responsive.

If the software is printing everything that you need (other than print in place joints) why does the software need more control? 

From my point of view Anker is consumerizing this hobby so you don't need to know what your hot end temperature needs to be, or how fast your fan needs to be for the first layer vs the second layer.  This simplification is needed to turn this fdm/ffm from a hobby with a steep learning curve to something more people can use. Which from what you have written it seems they have a really good start at.


It seems like you don't want to like the product, but are having a hard time finding it failing to print well.  Which seems like a strange stance to take on a sight that doesn't appear to be a hard core 3d printing site.

[Brad Hinman]

I backed this on the kickstarter and got mine in the early air-shipping US batches. So far its been a FABULOUS machine to work with.
The only thing I personally find lacking in the software (the slicer) is an auto arrange button for parts on the plate. If I have multiple parts, I have to manually arrange them. If I dont they all just pile on the center of the build plate.
I've had terrible luck with the AI, every single print, regardless of color of filament, has "detected an error" but never looks like anything is wrong, and the print just keeps going, with the red light flashing and a warning on the LCD screen. I think my printer may be in too dark of an area. I've stopped using the AI on the print files, I'm glad its an option. Makes the print files smaller too. If AI is turned on, they are .acode files, with it off, they are normal .gcode files. As an example, a medium size print with 3 parts in gcode is ~16mb, same print with AI is ~45mb, and the AI slices take longer to generate/slice by about 50%.

Overall very minor gripes, so far its been the best 3d printer I've ever owned (I've had and still have many), very easily the simplest and most painless to use. Slightly loud (the extruder fans), but that's the price for the speed. It's become my go to over my partners MK3s and FlashForge Creator Pro.

[ToddA]

I backed the M5 early on Kickstarter. I was excited to see some fresh innovation in 3D printers, especially around speed. And I like other Anker products.

Then Bambu Labs arrived with their X1.

It's faster. It's enclosed. It's even more innovative. And it's shipping. Already with with multi-material support.

And now with the stripped down P1P @ $699, why would you buy an M5?

At this point, I'm tempted to directly resell my Kickstarter M5 without opening the box and just buy another X1. I love that Anker got in the game, and I'm glad this review suggests it's a solid machine, but Bambu Labs has raised the bar for everyone else. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯