Anycubic Photon Mono X 4K Dental 3D Printer – WIFI Connectivity

Printing Speed

The heavy hitters in MSLA 3D printing today generally have two trump cards to play: a fast print speed, and high resolution.

The former has recently – with the use of monochrome displays – taken a leap forward, with average layer cure times cut from around 6 seconds to ~2 seconds. These swift cure times can be achieved due to the monochrome LCD’s light permeability – basically allowing for a greater light intensity to pass through, which than again results in faster curing – compared to the formerly used RBG screens.

The Photon Mono X, as the name suggests, features a monochrome display. This allows the printer to achieve prints speeds of 60 mm/h at 0.05 mm layer height, which makes it about three times faster previous Anycubic MSLA printers such as the Photon S.

Taking the large build volume (192 x 120 x 250 mm) and the fact that layer curing time is not affected by the size of the prints into account, then the potential uptick in output is even higher, meaning more prints at the same time and faster.

Resolution

The second trump card an MSLA 3D printer might have in its deck is the screen’s resolution. The Photon Mono X features an 8.9-inch 4K (monochrome) LCD with 3840 x 2400 pixels. This translates to an XY resolution of 50 microns.

Keep in mind, while other smaller screen-sized 4K MSLA printers, such as the Phrozen Sonic Mini 4k, can achieve an XY resolution as low as 35 microns, this is due to the smaller screen size. The larger your screen, the more pixels you need to achieve smaller voxels (and finer print resolution.) The difference between 35 and 50 microns might be almost impossible to tell with the naked eye, but for some specialist applications, it could matter.

Also, monochrome displays usually have a longer lifespan, with over thousands of hours of use.

Build Volume

The 8.9-in display transcribes to a build area of 192 x 120 mm. For comparison, combined with a Z-axis height of 250 mm, the Photon Mono X’s print capacity pans out to roughly four and a half times the volume and about three times the print area of the Photon S.

Design

Design-wise, the Anycubic Photon Mono X – from what we can tell so far – ticks all the necessary checkboxes. The removable top cover grants easy access to the print bed and vat. Anycubic’s new light engine, boasting a quartz lamp and “matrix design”, promises a uniform distribution of UV light. The Z-axis lead screw is guided by two dual linear rails for stability, and there’s a 3.5-inch touchscreen in the machine’s aluminum for finger-poking interaction with the printer. Nothing too fancy, but the bread and butter stuff is all there.

Slicer

The Anycubic Photon X Mono comes with Anycubic Photon Workshop, the company’s proprietary slicing software. With it, you should be able to perform the requisite functions needed to successfully set up resin prints, including hollowing, punch-hole, and model cutting functions, plus a few neat extras such as the lettering function, which allows you to add text onto your model. Plus, it supports up to 8x anti-aliasing.

Past Anycubic MSLA 3D printers were compatible with the widely-used ChiTuBox slicing software, so we are in high hopes that, if not at launch, compatibility will follow soon after.

App Connectivity

According to Anycubic, you will be able to monitor printing progress and remotely adjust settings. Connectivity comes by way of a WiFi module.

Further Features

Additional features on the Anycubic Photon Mono X include:

• Resin fill indicator in the vat
• A brushed aluminum print platform
• A new UI
• Automatic shutoff safety feature (a feature introduced with the Photo Zero, the printer will automatically pause if the top cover is removed mid-print)