Anker has already found great success in the portable charger business, but how well can it do in the 3D printing market? Very well, if the results of the Kickstarter for its first 3D printer, the AnkerMake M5, are anything to go by. As noted by the project’s first official update, Anker was able to collect $1 million for the AnkerMake M5 from backers in just one hour, a feat that was almost certainly driven by the 3D printer’s impressive specs. These include a standard printing speed of up to 250 mm/s and standard acceleration speed of 2,500 mm/s2, making the device 5x faster than traditional models, as well as a built-in AI camera to help ensure accurate printing. Processing is provided by the XBurst, a 3-core CPU that’s specialized for video and image recognition.
Anker’s First 3D Printer Uses a Smart Camera to Spot Failed Prints (Gizmodo)
The AnkerMake M5’s most appealing feature is that Anker promises it’s easy to assemble and can go from unboxing to ready to print in roughly 15 minutes. A 49-point auto-leveling system is also used for the print bed which should make a process that’s absolutely critical for successful prints much easier for those with no experience in battling finicky 3D printers.
[…] out of the box it features an integrated webcam that not only allows timelapse recording of prints to be captured and shared on social media, it also allows the user to sporadically monitor the printer’s progress remotely through a smartphone. The AnkerMake M5 also goes one step further by upgrading its camera with AI smarts that can automatically detect issues with a print, and send alerts to the user that they’ll need to intervene, potentially allowing a failed print to be saved before it becomes a giant mess of extruded plastic.
Anker’s boldest claim about its new 3D printer is its speed. Out of the box and post-assembly Anker claims the AnkerMake M5 can print at 250 mm/s at its default speed for those wanting to create a high-fidelity model with a relatively smooth finish. That’s already much faster than the highest print speed on other popular 3D printers available today, but for those who don’t need as much detail and are simply looking to quickly churn out rough iterative prototypes, the AnkerMake M5 also offers an accelerated mode that boosts print speeds up to 2,500 mm/s², reducing print times by up to 70 percent.