Few things get us giddy as new desktop 3D printer launches. Besides giving us something to look forward to using in the print lab, it also means competition and variety.
If you look simply at the search volume data for specific 3D printers, Creality dominates by orders of magnitude over others with its Ender machines. They’re good, but it’s also dull to see such dominance.
Perhaps Anycubic has the cure for this with the weekend announcement of five new printers. Three make up an all-new generation of Photon machines, referred to by Anycubic as the M3 series. Also new are the Kobra and Kobra Max, two FDM-style machines.
M3an Machines
The new M3 series of printers introduces the Photon M3, Photon M3 Plus, and Photon M3 Max. As you probably could tell, the more superlative the name, the bigger the printer.
Notable among the new Photon printers is the attention seemingly paid to user experience, with automatic filling mechanisms for the Plus’ and Max’s resin vats, and cloud functionality including model slicing and remote monitoring via the Anycubic Cloud app.
Resolutions stay sharp, in line with the last Photon releases late last year. As do the prices, which start at $299 for the Photon M3, and peak at $1,099 for the Photon M3 Max.
The Photon M3 Max is the most interesting of the bunch, being the largest resin 3D printer Anycubic has ever put out. Going head-to-head with the likes of the Elegoo Jupiter and Phrozen Sonic Mega 8K, it offers a mind-boggling 298 x 165 x 300 mm print volume. Whereas the M3 and M3 Plus are purchasable as of yesterday, the M3 Max is currently only available for pre-order, though.
There’s more to cover than we can spare here, so jump on over to our handy-dandy guide of all we currently know about the M3-series printers for more detailed information.
Snakes… Why’d It Have to Be Snakes
Also announced for near-immediate sale are the Anycubic Kobra and Kobra Max. Following 2021’s Vyper, Anycubic continues the snake thing with these two new filament-based 3D printers.
The Kobra, while smaller than the Vyper, features a direct, geared extruder. A step-up, possibly. You’ll have 220 x 220 x 250 mm space to print in with.
Like the Vyper, the Kobra has auto-bed leveling, although this comes by way of an inductive sensor that Anycubic refers to as LeviQ, rather than the Vyper’s strain-gauge-based system. This results in even first layers that shrug off any discrepancies in the build plate.
A flexible metal bed with PEI coating for strong print adhesion that gives with a cheeky flex completes a package that, in all honesty, seems to be a complete steal. The ask? $299.
As with the Photon M3 Max, the Kobra Max is the large-format version, packing a 400 x 400 x 450 mm print volume. Curiously, it doesn’t have much of the DNA of the standard Kobra. Instead, it uses the same print head, dual-geared Bowden-style extruder, and nozzle-probe-based bed leveling as the Vyper. We can only shrug our shoulders about the naming, but having seen it in action, the slightly faster-printing Vyper as a basis for such a large print volume seems to be a smart decision. Like the Kobra, the Kobra Max is aggressively priced at $599.
We’ve got both the Kobra and Kobra Max up and running and under review. Coming soon.
License: The text of "Anycubic Drops Five (Five!) New 3D Printers" by All3DP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.