I'd be more excited if the Anycubic Mono M5s had the same twin activated charcoal air filters as their Photon M3 Premium 8k, with the same larger resin vat, and an integral vat heater.
As for "auto-leveling" I haven't had any problems leveling my build plates on any machine I've had.
More resolution is cool, but (and I may be wrong) I'm don't think today's resins are capable of defining horizontal resolutions much below 35 to 30 microns with the inherent light-diffusing properties of mSLA printers and their LCD screens.
DLP printers, which Anycubic has two on the market right now, have "resolutions" that are nowhere near a 19, 22, 28.5 or 35 micron resolutions of most "new" mSLA printers on the market right now. The original Anycubic Ultra has a resolution of (rounded off) 80 microns, and the newer Anycubic D2 has a resolution (rounded off) of 64 microns. This is measured at the bottom of the resin vat, whereas mSLA printers' resolutions are measure by what their LCD's produce, not at the bottom of the resin vat.
DLP printer's UV light is produced by a LASER, which means it is "Coherent Light" meaning basically that the light waves are traveling perfectly parallel to each other, are exactly the same wavelength, and are phase-sychronized. On the other hand, the latest mSLA printers' light is produced by a COB (Chip On Board) source that is supposed to be brighter, last longer and consumes less power than a conventional LED source....but, the light is NOT anywhere near to being "coherent", which is why mSLA manufacturers apply several ways to make the UV light that goes through the LCD, the screen protector, and the FEP on the bottom of the resin vat, into light that is "collimated"...traveling in the same direction, but nowhere near being only one wavelength nor being phase-synchronized. This means that it is much more easily diffused since it is already somewhat diffused, and focuses much less sharply than LASER generated coherent light.
So, when looking at test results, it's pretty obvious that present-day consumer-grade DLP resin printers print sharper than the very best mSLA printers do...in fact, that very sharpness accentuates the "layer lines"...not really applicable to DLP printers, which produce cubic "voxels" but which, visually, are manifest as "layer lines"...not exactly the same, but practically, close enough. Collimated light from mSLA printers has to travel a short distance from the LCD through air, through the FEP film to the resin, and in that short distance, the effective resolution is greatly reduced.
How much is "greatly reduced"?? From a practical standpoint, the first consumer-grade DLP printer manufactured by Anycubic (the Photon Ultra) has a resolution (at the focal point located on the FEP film on the bottom of the resin vat) of 80microns. The mSLA printer, the Phrozen Sonic Mini 8k has a resolution (at the LCD) of 22microns. When prints from both printers are visually compared for sharpness under magnification, the Anycubic Photon Ultra is noticeably sharper...meaning edges are more angular, straights straighter. This means that practical resolution, AT THE FEP FILM, for mSLA printers is much less than their resolution AT THEIR LCD's, probably being, for a 22micron machine, somewhere in the 90micron range.
The newer Anycubic Photon D2 has increased both build-plate size and improved resolution to 64microns, an improvement of (if my math is correct) of 20% over the original Photon Ultra.
Another advantage of DLP printers over mSLA printers is that in DLP printers, the LASER goes on when exposing, then turns off until the next exposure. With mSLA printers, the light source is always on, and because the dark parts of an LCD are not perfectly opaque, this adds even more light diffusion into the mSLA equation, making for even less light accuracy at where it counts...at the FEP film at the bottom of the resin vat.
However, for us model railroaders, sharpness alone isn't what we need. Since the stuff we want for our railroads has plenty of curved surfaces, like car roofs, boilers, domes, etc., we need fewer, or actually NO layer lines. This is where Anti-Aliasing and Blur come into the picture...which means selective, controllable fuzziness.
Since mSLA printers already are pretty fuzzy, Anti-Aliasing (AA) is much easier to produce than with DLP machines, which is why the Phrozen Sonic Mini 8k machine has been so popular with modelers. Its prints are plenty "sharp enough", and it's pretty easy to control layer-lines by messing with various slicing apps' AA and Blur capabilities. DLP printers, on the other hand, because of their inherent sharpness and cubic voxels, are more difficult to make more fuzzy, which is why one of Anycubic's selling points for their newer Photon D2 is that their slicing app has more AA capability for that machine, or more fuzziness is possible than with the original Photon Ultra.
All of this is why I'm not very impressed with the new Anycubic Photon M5s's 19micron resolution...because I don't think I'm gonna be able to actually SEE the 3micron improvement over the Phrozen Sonic Mini 8k's 22micron resolution, since I can't see the 22micron resolution's improvement over newer 10" machines' 28.5micron resolution.
So, how much in inches IS a 3micron improvement?? Since a micron (1/1000th of a millimeter) is 0.0000393701 inches, multiply that by 3 which equals 0.0001181103", or basically one ten-thousandths of an inch. One ten-thousandths of an inch in N-scale is basically 1/64th of an N-scale inch.
Are we going to be able to see an N-scale 1/64th of an inch improvement?? I highly doubt it...especially after painting, decaling, sealing & weathering.
The next question is: "Is any present-day UV resin capable of rendering details of 3microns?" I don't think so.
So, c'mon manufacturers, give us 3D printers that have USB ports and on/off switches on the front, larger control screens, better UI's, larger & stiffer & better bearings/rails, double-threaded rods, more convenient vat attachment, more practical and convenient build plate attachment & leveling, bigger wash & cure machines that'll take the larger build plates, much more durable & detail capturing resins that are also much less toxic, conveniently replaceable LCD screens, larger vats with etched volume markings, precision and reliable integral vat heating, more convenient air filtration and venting, more capable slicer apps, and lastly, larger DLP machines.
I think we're going to see many of these items coming up in the next couple of years, with "resolution" taking a back seat since we're nearly at the practical limit for it now since why have it if you can't see it???
In fact, I think that we're at the practical limit for mSLA right now, and that larger DLP machines are already being developed that are in that sweet-spot of 10" diagonal build X-Y size and will become "the standard" because of their other advantages, such as a much better MTBF, less power consumption and much better recovery from resin spills.
That's my rant...
Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore
