AnkerMake (United States) - Press Release: Hey Kickstarter backers.

It's the news you've waited to hear. Drum roll, please... AnkerMake M5 is entering mass production!

Finally!

Thank you so much for your patience over these past few weeks!

Last week, our product team looked over the quality of our test runs and made the decision to move into mass production.

While the previous version's hardware was fine, we discovered that the cooling fan wasn't as good as it could be. So, our development team switched the fan to another model, and well, it's certainly cool. 

Testing Specifics:

We put our fan to the test with the AutoDesk Kickstarter Geometry model, specifically the bridge. The curved bridge hangs over the plane at 45°, 35°, 20°, and 15°. When the fan keeps the material cooler, the quality is better.

Note: This model was only for testing. Learn more about the test. We recommend adding supports to your prints if they have similar angles.

Here are the test results:

1. The printing quality with the upgraded fan (Model: 3010, RPM 15,000) improved at temperatures of 77°F (25°C) and 95°F (35°C).
2. At 77°F (25°C), the printing quality was similar at both 75% RPM and 100% RPM.
3. At 95°F (35°C), the printing quality of 100% RPM was slightly better than 75% RPM.

The rest results led us to set the default fan RPM to 75%. We recommend setting the RPM to 100% if the room temperature is around 95°F (35°C) or your model has a lot of overhangs. You can easily change the RPM via the touch screen, AnkerMake App or AnkerMake Slicer.

Noise Level:

We are proud of the new quality results, but one drawback to the new 15,000 RPM fan is that the noise level increases.

At 250 mm/s printing speed, we measured 52-53 dB at 75% RPM (Default) and 53-56 dB at 100% RPM, according to the ISO77779 International Regulation Acoustic Test Standard.

Note: The noise level of the test room was 33 dB. The testing distance was 1 m (3.3 ft).

Our previous fan model was able to print under 50 dB, but we decided that print quality was more important. We hope you understand our decision and will still enjoy creating with M5 as much as we do.

More M5 Updates:

AnkerMake App:

1. Control Modules: Now you can change even more aspects of your print, including moving the X, Y, or Z axes, auto-leveling, and loading or unloading the filament—all from your phone.
2. Timelapse Video Control: If you love showing off your work, toggle this feature on. If not, it's easy to switch off now on the AnkerMake app.
3. Improved Light Adaptation: Real-time viewing at sunset (or sunrise for you early birds) will be smoother to watch. We updated the algorithm to avoid frequent switching between normal and night vision modes.
4. Better First-Layer Detection: We improved the first-layer detection by raising the Z axis to a specific height so the AI camera can have a wider viewing angle. Thanks to our beta testers for helping us here!

AnkerMake Slicer:

1. Crash Fix: We discovered a crash could occur when the progress bar was loading and solved it.
2. Multiple Device Stability: We fixed a data transfer bug when multiple devices are connected and improved multiple-device connection stability.
3. AI Photos and G-Code Files Merged: Now, you can transfer G-Codes to your printer without extra files.

Firmware:

• Faster Startups: Once you've connected your printer to Wi-Fi, M5 now skips over the connection page to make starting up faster the next time.
• Printer Status Syncing: The printer status is now synced with the AnkerMake app, so you can easily see errors or print jobs at a glance.
• Bug Fixes: Thanks to our beta users, we were able to solve these small bugs on M5.
  • LED indicator display issues were corrected.
  • No more crashes from lengthy file names.
  • Updated font packs for Japanese users.

That's All for Now:

Thanks so much for sticking with us while we made these important updates to M5. Keep checking back because we're about to release specific details on our shipping plan!

Keep making,

The AnkerMake Team