I’ve been FDM printing for about a year and this was my first resin printer. So far, it’s been printing great! It’s been running almost non-stop once I figured out the settings for this particular printer.
According to the Anycubic App I'm 76 hours of prints into using the M5s and so far I am very impressed. Admittedly there were some challenges initially mainly caused by the delivery company but Anycubic went above and beyond. They worked hard to ensure everything worked out from contacting the logistics people responsible to make sure deliveries worked out through to having their engineers talk to me about the specifics of the machine such as the resin viscosity and optimal usage.
I have to admit I thought I was taking up a fair bit of their time yet I couldn't help my curiosity after receiving such good customer service. I also ordered 10kg resin from them after getting the M5s running beautifully and the quality of service continued.
From ordering the printer on the 19th of December (2023) - getting it on the 22nd, through to my most recent request for information. I really have to say their patience with me and the polite manner in which they helped was great.
Although I'm not new to 3D printing I very much like to get the best out of my machines and don't mind investing time into getting things just right. Dealing with a company that takes the time to help you achieve that is wonderful..
Now regarding the M5s; from the moment the build plate got properly leveled (the four bolt system works great), I have not had to adjust the build plate again at all. Thinking back to my first resin printer where I had to manually level the build plate for every single print, I really wish the auto-level feature existed sooner.
The nFEP is a material I've heard some pros and cons about, in some machines I've seen it be quite the pain but for the Anycubic M5s the results speak for themselves. It does take a bit of testing to find the exact settings to get the best results based on ambient temperature, layer height, lift speed and all those lovely little details. But I can confidently say that if you are printing minis at 50um then you are underutilizing the M5s.