2023 was truly a year that heralded the second golden age of 3D printers with the advent of high-speed FDM.
And before the end of 2023, I wanted to share my experience using the Flashforge Adventure 5M Pro, a high-speed 3D printer known for its great value alongside Creality.
It is officially imported and sold in Korea by 덕유항공, and I was able to use it because they sent it to me for testing purposes.
The 5M Pro is a printer featuring a maximum printing speed of 600 mm/s, a HEPA filter, a fast-swappable nozzle system, a Core XY structure, a printing size of 220 x 220 x 220 mm, and automatic leveling.
Alongside the 5M Pro, a more affordable 5M was also released; it lacks a chamber configuration, has a slightly different bed, and appears to have a speed difference.
Please refer to the video below for the full unboxing and brief usage review.
As you can see from this unboxing video, it was a printer that left quite an impression.
Compared to Creality, which is a price rival, it seems like it was released late and prepared quite a bit. (Ignoring Creality)
Especially, the stable print quality was quite satisfying. It feels like quality somewhere between a snake-printer and a Creality printer? The price seems to be similar.
So, for a print test, I used Creality's Hyper Gray product, which was in poor condition among my PLAs and was being used for print testing.
As shown in the photo below, even when printing at 24 to 18 minutes, I was able to see that the output was reasonably good. It printed better than I expected, so I was a bit surprised.
However, the photo on the top right shows a print with a 0.25 mm nozzle, and I was quite disappointed that it didn't print well with Hyper PLA. Although I was instructed that this printer is optimized for a 0.25 mm nozzle from Flashforge, I don't know if it's because the filament isn't optimized, but it simply didn't print properly.
I also tried the included 0.6 and 0.8 mm nozzles, but the quality was a bit ambiguous compared to the 0.4 mm nozzle that comes standard.
It seems that quality is optimized mainly with official filaments based on a 0.4mm standard. (More testing may be needed)
So, to test it further, I tried printing with various filaments.
The photos below are PLA from 3D Materials, Flashforge Filament included in the basic box, and eSUN's PETG and PA-CF filaments.
As you can see from the photos, Flashforge's filament appears to be of the highest quality.
这有点令人费解，eSUN 的耗材在 Creality 和 Venus 打印机上都能输出得相当不错，但遗憾的是，它有时会像下面这样输出质量很差。
Especially when mounting a 0.6 mm nozzle and printing a fairly large Christmas tree with standard PLA, the print quality came out quite disappointing.
Maybe it's because the weather is cold, but looking at the above state, it seems that extrusion defects occurred at the overhang section, so it appears to be a problem caused by insufficient detailed settings for the 0.6 mm nozzle.
As mentioned above, the filament in question is not a Flashforge filament but a filament from another company, so you may need to adjust the settings.
However... an unexpected fatal flaw occurred with the Flashforge printer..
It turned out that the default slicer for Flashforge, FlashPrint5, does not provide a way to set up third-party filaments as custom. (Surprising.)
Of course, you can modify the Flashforge filament that comes pre-configured, but the fact that you have to modify it every time is very inconvenient.
After searching and asking around among experienced printer users, it seems that Flashforge maintains its somewhat closed policies, and they say that the best quality can be achieved when printing with official Flashforge filament.
The only saving grace is that when using this printer, Flashforge's official filaments are not that expensive.
And since OrcaSlicer also provides a profile for this printer, it seems possible to use the data created through OrcaSlicer for custom use.
However, as seen in the video above, the data sliced with OrcaSlicer also seems to require some optimization.
I couldn't help but feel that the print quality was surprisingly lacking.
Perhaps because there are not yet many Flashforge 5M Pro users, detailed settings are not being shared.
And, unfortunately.. network printing via OrcaSlicer is still not possible, and even if you create G-code, there is no way to send it over the network via FlashPrint 5 slicer.. You have to move it via USB to print ㅠㅠ
Anyway... let me summarize the pros I experienced while using this printer for a short while.
- Excellent quality guaranteed when using official filaments
- Convenience of being ready to use immediately after installation
- Extremely fast nozzle switching
Especially the 3rd was very satisfying.. At first, the process of manually cutting filament and retraction was very confusing, but.. After learning this method, I liked how nozzle replacement was so simple and easy.
Looking at this video, it took about 10 seconds to film, but once you get used to it, it seems like you could change it in just 3 seconds, just like a promotional slogan.
Conversely, summarizing the downsides I've felt over more than a week of use..
- A bug that causes the printer to fail - other than a reboot, there is no solution.
- Closed filament compatibility
- A dedicated slicer program with insufficient features
It seems to be about the right level.
Especially #1 took quite a while to identify the problem, and I still don't quite understand it.. Prints fail quite frequently. However, when such a failure occurs.. even if I cancel the print, it says "Cancelling print.." and the device stops completely..
No matter how long you wait, it won't be resolved.
When such problems occur, the device must be rebooted and data must be sent from the slicer program again, and even if recovery is cancelled after reboot, the hotend temperature is raised, etc... It feels like it is not fully optimized.
After experiencing this annoying issue a few times, the Creality slicer starts to look like a gentleman.. No, it looks like a fairy because it actually updates frequently.
After using it for about a week, my conclusion is
It is a printer with solid fundamentals, but the software capabilities and UX issues seem to hold the printer back.
While the device is built on a solid foundation, it has a different feel from Creality K1, which possesses ambiguous fundamentals and mediocre software. However, unlike K1, which offers solutions and allows for custom modifications, Flashforge seems to leave users with no choice but to twiddle their thumbs and wait until the manufacturer updates it.
At this point, I think the Ribbon's printer system is really well made... First off, it's user-friendly.
However, if these software issues are resolved, I believe this product would be capable of producing output quality that rivals the Rapoo printer ecosystem, excluding multicolor printing.