A Gold-Plated USB Stick and an Actual Butler!

Ha! Just kidding.

The Basics

The Anycubic Photon M3 Premium is the fourth machine in Anycubic’s third generation of resin printers, following the M3, M3 Plus, and M3 Max. It has a build volume of 219 x 123 x 250 mm, so it’s a relatively spacious offering, making it very similar in size to another one of its M3 siblings, the Photon M3 Plus.

Like all the other Photon M3 series machines, it makes use of Masked Stereolithography (MSLA) technology, meaning, very simply, it prints using an LED array as its light source, which shines UV light through an LCD screen one layer at a time to cure resin.

10-inch 8K monochrome screen

The LCD within the M3 Premium’s little body is a 10-inch monochrome offering with an 8K resolution, packing 7,680 x 4320 pixels. This baby helps provide the user with a 28.5-micron print resolution, which is identical to this machine’s biggest rival – the Elegoo Saturn 2 – which also has a very similar build volume of 219 x 123 x 250 mm. The Saturn 2, by the way, is currently our favorite mid-sized resin 3D printer.

Expect to be able to get some fantastically high-detailed prints off the M3 Premium, 28.5 microns is a pretty low number in MSLA printing, and across the larger build volume, minute details over larger areas should make for some spectacular prints.

Improved Light Source

We can only assume it must be illegal to launch a new resin 3D printer without claiming to have upgraded the light source in some way. Anycubic’s calling the light source within the M3 Premium “LighTurbo 2.0” which is an upgrade on its LighTurbo light source, introduced barely a few months ago.

Light source information is often fairly secretive, but Anycubic says that the 2.0 version of this source makes use of a curved reflector that should produce more uniform light and that it, in their words, “…could contribute to a higher light uniformity.” In truth, it’s going to be enormously difficult for anybody to tell if that is the case or not. Better light uniformity could result in crisper-looking prints, sharp edges and angles, that sort of thing, but it’s often hard to attribute exactly what made those details better.

Intelligent Cooling System

There’s no real word on exactly what makes the cooling system intelligent in the M3 Premium, but Anycubic’s press release it handed over to us stated that it could save users maintenance costs, before referencing the LCD screen.

Keeping the heat down around the screen could well preserve it for longer, but there’s no figure to back this up, so it’s a bit of a vague statement. Testing is also unlikely to show if this new system works as intended or not. Still, good cooling is important for any resin 3D printer, and it’s encouraging to see it mentioned.

Laser-Engraved Print Plate

One feature we’ve seen implemented in most of the new resin printers that Anycubic has put out recently is a laser-engraved build plate. It gives a very pretty checkboard effect to the plate, which you can admire right up until the first instance that you use it, but from a more scientific perspective, the texture should help prints adhere to the plate better.

We’re not sure it’s a massive step up from the brushed aluminum plate that its predecessors had, but prints do seem to stick well, and it’s kind of pretty. So, thumbs up, we suppose.

Anycubic Cloud app

Anycubic says it plans to make the M3 Premium compatible with its Cloud app for one-touch printing. The thing is, the app has been promised for a while now and hasn’t been fully functional yet. Some marketing material we’ve seen from Anycubic suggests that it might get off the ground in early 2023, but we’re skeptical.

Speed & Precision

Another interesting couple of claims that Anycubic is making relates to the speed and precision that the M3 Premium is capable of. Anycubic claims its ball screw double-threaded rods will allow it to reach a layer accuracy of 0.005 mm, whereas most resin printers can only go to 0.01 mm.

Whether or not slicer settings will allow for that level of accuracy to be successfully implemented is a good question, as is how it will affect printing speeds. On the topic of the latter, Anycubic is claiming a rapid 95 mm/h maximum printing speed. We’re not sure that’s going to produce particularly impressive results, but only testing will reveal whether that proves to be true or not.

Further Features

There’s a few other little features we know exist in the M3 Premium, here they are:

• Dual Z-axis: The dual Z-axis is what you want to see when you’re dealing with larger, heavier prints. It’s more stable.
• Two air purifiers: It’s interesting that Anycubic isn’t calling them filters. Presumably, they don’t filter anything. Expect less of that resiny funk in the air for the butler to deal with.
• Larger vat: Anycubic says the resin vat is 60% larger (what than, we don’t know) in the Photon M3 Premium. It also says its NFEP film improves printing success rate by 10%.