Reviewing 3DMakerpro’s Seal 3D scanner. I have mixed feelings about 3D scanners in general, but this one works relatively well. Let me know if you want an in-depth guide on how to get the best results from 3D scanners like this!
Specs of the PC I ran JMStudio on:
WeCreat is a new player in the laser cutter industry and their first product is a machine aimed at the hobbyist and prosumer market: the WeCreat Vision. In this review, I’ll help you decide if the WeCreat Vision is worth your hard-earned cash.
Disclaimer: WeCreat provided me with this laser cutter free of charge, but this review is as unbiased as possible. WeCreat did not pay for this review and these are entirely my own thoughts.
The WeCreat Vision is one of many diode laser cutters to hit the market over the past couple of years. Diode lasers are generally less powerful than CO2 lasers, but they’re more affordable and simpler. They also operate at different wavelength, which changes the types of materials you can cut or engrave.
Power comparisons between diode lasers and CO2 lasers are not 1:1, but the WeCreat Vision has a 20W laser diode that is quite powerful. Many of the current crop of diode laser cutters have similar power and it is a good choice for general cutting and engraving.
But unlike most hobbyist laser cutters that have open frames, the WeCreat Vision has a full enclosure. That is a big deal when it comes to safety and it also allows for smoke/fume extraction. WeCreat sells a fume extractor accessory for this purpose and it makes the Vision a particularly good choice for those working indoors.
Interestingly, the WeCreat Vision has a Z axis lift system that expands the enclosure. That means the machine is more compact when the Z axis is all the way down, which is useful for shipping and transportation.
The WeCreat Vision has a few features that make it stand out. My favorite is the camera that points down onto the bed. That lets you position new cuts onto the material without taking measurements or messing around with origins. The accuracy isn’t perfect and sometimes cuts start a millimeter or two from where you position them, but this feature is still incredibly useful if you want to cut several parts from a single sheet of material.
There is also an available rotary axis accessory for engraving cylindrical objects. Once again, the camera is useful for positioning designs onto cups, mugs, and other round parts. The rotary axis mounts with two screws and connects with a single cable, so attachment and removal is quick. The chuck isn’t machinist-grade, but it is more than adequate for this application.
And air assist helps the WeCreat Vision achieve clean cuts. The air pump is an external unit, but it is unobtrusive and pulls its power from the main machine.
At this time, the WeCreat Vision supports Lightburn and WeCreat MakeIt! software. The former is proven and reliable, but the latter gives you access to all of the Vision’s features and so I chose to use it.
With WeCreat MakeIt! running on my Windows PC, I was able to operate the WeCreat Vision through USB and WiFi.
MakeIt! has all the functionality that most people will want. You can use your own designs, designs from the WeCreat library, or create designs using the built-in text and drawing tools.
The Vision itself doesn’t have any onboard controls, so you setup everything through the MakeIt! software. After sending a new job through the software, you push the singular button on the machine to start. This is minor nitpick, but I wish it wasn’t necessary to push that button to start a job. Walking from the PC to the Vision could be hassle if they’re located far from each other.
MakeIt! generally did everything I needed it to do, but I did encounter a frustrating bug when importing DXF drawings. For whatever reason, it imported every drawing at about 1/3 the size that it should. So a 100×100mm square would come in at 35.3×35.3mm. That can be fixed by scaling the drawing back up and WeCreat support says they’ll fix the problem in a future update, but it was still annoying and may potentially cause small errors with parts that require tight tolerances.
You’ll also find some features missing that you might expect. For instance, I couldn’t find any way to change the angle of fill engrave passes or to fine-tune image processing.
The performance of the WeCreat Vision is very good—as long as you have the appropriate expectations. You won’t, for example, but cutting through sheet metal. That would require a much more powerful and expensive laser with a different wavelength.
But you can engrave stainless steel, which works well and looks great. You can also engrave just about any other metal that has a coating, like anodization. Other engravable materials include stone and ceramic. I tested ceramic with pretty nice results.
When it comes to cutting, the WeCreat Vision works best with wood, leather, paper, fabric, and acrylic.
You should, however, be aware that the color of the acrylic matters. That is because of how different colors absorb the wavelength of the laser. WeCreat says that you should stick to black for the best results, but I tested a whole rainbow of opaque colors to find out what you can realistically cut.
Black was the best and the Vision easily cut through 3mm black acrylic in a single quick pass. Red, dark green, yellow, and orange all yielded acceptable cuts, but they required three passes to get through 3mm sheet at the same speed/power as black.
Light blue, dark blue, pink, light green, and white all failed to achieve cuts that I would deem acceptable. You can cut through them with enough power and passes, but the cuts are thick and messy. That may be okay for some applications, but the results were too poor for me to consider them a success.
Overall, I think the WeCreat Vision is a good laser cutter that you should consider. The price point is competitive with other similar machines on the market and the features are great. The rotary axis and fume extractor accessories really make it solid prosumer or small business option.
The Vision has a maximum working area of 420×290mm (16.54×11.42 inches) and can accommodate material up to 140mm (5.51 inches). If that meets your requirements and the material options fit your needs, then I think you’ll be happy with this machine.
The software isn’t perfect, but it works pretty well and the WeCreat team seems to be actively improving it. You also have the option to use Lightburn, though you may lose access to some of the Vision’s features.
The hardware feels well-made and well-engineered. The Vision is a handsome machine and the full enclosure is great for safety, fumes, and cleanliness. I plan to make the WeCreat Vision the primary laser cutter in my maker workflow and feel confident recommending it to others.
There is an approximately 100% chance that you own an Anker smartphone charger, but did you know that they also have a 3D printer brand called AnkerMake? Last year, they released their first 3D printer: the AnkerMake M5. Today I’m going to review their newest model: the AnkerMake M5C.
When the AnkerMaker M5 launched on Kickstarter, I wrote an article for Hackster.io expressing my skepticism. AnkerMake made a lot of claims in the campaign marketing that I found farfetched.
Some of those claims, like the “5X faster printing,” were simply misleading. Others, like the advertised AI camera, seemed to be overly ambitious.
It turns out that I was right, because many reviewers felt that the AnkerMake M5 did not live up to the marketing. Sean Hollister of The Verge, for example, said that the AI camera was a joke. AnkerMake didn’t even enable that feature until well after the release of the printer, and most said that it still doesn’t work as advertised.
So it would be fair to say that I had a low opinion of AnkerMake. Then they reached out to me and asked if I wanted to review the new AnkerMake M5C and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
The AnkerMake M5C seems to be a stripped-down version of the AnkerMake M5, with some of the expensive features removed. That also has the benefit of omitting features that never worked, like the AI camera.
The basic specs are typical for an entry-level 3D printer of this price: it has a 220×220×250mm build volume, a direct drive extruder with an all-metal hot end that can reach 300°C, dual Z axis lead screws, a heated bed that can reach 100°C, and automatic mesh bed leveling.
But there are a couple things that set it apart. First, AnkerMake claims that it can print at 500mm/s and that is very fast. It also has a custom aluminum alloy frame that is very attractive. And finally, it has a “play in one click” control interface that AnkerMake seems really proud of.
AnkerMake’s videos seem to treat the “play in one click” feature like something really exciting, but I dislike it.
The AnkerMake M5C does not have any kind of control panel or screen built into the printer. The only control on the printer itself is the play/pause button. Users can configure that button’s functions, with different actions tied to a single-press, a double-press, or a long-press. You can, for example, set it up so that a double-press reprints the last job.
I don’t like this at all.
Why? Because it means that you have to use the smartphone app or the desktop software every time you want to do anything. Want to change the filament? You need to use the smartphone app. Want to print a new file? You need to use the desktop software.
That’s particularly annoying because you have to use both the smartphone app and the desktop software. The desktop software cannot control the printer, so you have to use the smartphone app to move the motors or set temperatures. But you can only slice a new file with the desktop software.
That back-and-forth is annoying. I would have been much happier if the desktop software provided full control over the printer. I would have also liked a conventional control interface on the printer itself.
The AnkerMake M5C is actually capable of very good print quality. The only issue I ever encountered was some stringing. Because it doesn’t have an enclosure, I performed all of my prints using the PLA+ filament provided by AnkerMake.
But though the print quality was good, using the AnkerMake M5C wasn’t always pleasant. It has silent stepper drivers, so there is almost zero motor noise. But the printer’s fans are very loud, which got annoying and mostly defeated the purpose of the silent drivers.
Thankfully, the frame of the AnkerMake M5C is very sturdy and that helps to produce nice prints at fast speeds. The base of the printer is a big hunk of milled aluminum. That looks nice and provides a lot of rigidity. It is clear AnkerMake put a lot of the budget into that base—money that might have been better spent elsewhere.
AnkerMake advertises the top printing speed of the AnkerMake M5C as being 500mm/s, with 5,000mm2/s acceleration and 35mm3/s extrusion flow. Those are very impressive numbers, but they’re also misleading.
The “fast” slicer profile does, indeed, have a max speed of 500mm/s. The problem is that it really only uses that speed for travel. All of the actual printing operations happen at much slower speeds.
Infill speed, for instance, is 270mm/s. Outer wall speed is 150mm/s.
Those are still respectable numbers and they’re very fast for a bed-slinger printer like this, but I don’t like the exaggerations in AnkerMake’s marketing.
I’m a little torn on this one. The AnkerMake M5C is a decent printer, but I find the marketing to be distasteful.
I also think they made a big mistake with the “play in one click” feature and would have much preferred a conventional control panel. Similarly, I didn’t like having to switch between the smartphone app and desktop software.
At $399, I think the AnkerMake M5C is a questionable choice. You can find printers that work just as well, but that cost significantly less. However, the AnkerMake M5C is very well-built and that price is probably reasonable given how much this printer costs to manufacture.
I wouldn’t recommend the AnkerMake M5C, but those who do end up with this printer will probably be happy with it.
When we bought our pop-up camper (a 2007 Fleetwood Sedona), we knew that we wanted to go off-grid. We have no interest in camping in parking lots surrounded by others people.
But we live in Arizona and have two dogs, which means that AC is a necessity. We considered solar setups, but I’ve done that in the past and wasn’t satisfied. Solar panels are expensive and you need a lot of them to power AC. You’re also limited by the available sunlight, which is hard to predict.
We decided a generator would be the best option for us, but there are many on the market to choose from. In this article, I’ll explain why we chose the generator we did and give my thoughts on how we like it so far.
The first step when selecting a generator is to determine how much power you’ll need in watts. We had to potentially provide enough power for:
We wouldn’t need to use any of those simultaneously, which meant that we just had to accommodate the most power-hungry item: the AC unit. That uses around 1,400 watts while running, so we needed at least that much.
Generators have two specifications: surge watts and running watts. In our case, we needed at least 1,400 running watts. Theoretically, the AC unit could draw as much as 6,500 surge watts while starting, but we haven’t found this to be an issue.
It is tempting to just get a large, high-output generator like this one. Models like that are quite reasonably priced. But they’re also large, very heavy, and use a lot more fuel. We have limited space in our camper and wanted to keep fuel consumption as low as possible, to reduce the amount of fuel we had to bring with us.
Ultimately, we settled on the WEN 56235i inverter generator (rated at 1,900 running watts) It is a portable model with a built-in carry handle that is quite compact and fuel-efficient. It weighs just 39 pounds, compared to 104 pounds for the Westinghouse WGen3600DFv. It was also pretty affordable.
The WEN 56235i is not a dual-fuel model, which means it only runs on gas. We would have liked the option to use propane too, but the dual-fuel models in this form factor are much more expensive. On the plus side, the WEN 56235i is very efficient. Wen claims that its 1-gallon fuel tank will last for seven hours at half-load.
We haven’t yet tested the real world fuel consumption, but I estimate that the fuel tank will last around 5 hours while we run the AC. With the generator’s tank full and an additional 5-gallon gas can, that gives us 30 hours of runtime. We could run it nonstop from 11am-6pm everyday (keeping the dogs cool) and get four full days of use before needing more gasoline.
My only real complaint about the WEN 56235i generator is that it is fairly loud. It might not be any louder than other generators, but it is still loud enough to be a nuisance. This isn’t a major issue for us, as we have no reason to run it at night and don’t camp near other people, but it is still something you should be aware of.
Startup is very easy (make sure nothing is connected to the generator when starting!) and the engine runs smoothly. You do have to ensure that it has oil, because this isn’t a car engine and it will burn oil. We bought a handful of bottles of oil to keep in our camper so we could top it off when needed.
The available power outlets work well for us. There are USB ports for charging our phones and other gadgets. There is a 12V DC receptacle if you need it (we haven’t had a use for it). And there are two 120V 20A outlets, which is what we use for the camper via this adapter.
One nice feature of the WEN 56235i generator is the “Eco-Mode” switch. Flipping this switch will allow the generator to adjust itself to suit power draw. In the manual, Wen says to only use Eco-Mode if you’re drawing less than 1,000 watts, so it doesn’t help with the AC. But it is great for saving fuel when all you need to do is charge a phone or something.
The power switch also has a handy feature that lets you cut off the fuel supply while the generator is still running. This burns off the fuel in the carburetor, which should keep it from getting junked up and therefore extend the generator’s service life.
Finally, there are connections that let you daisy chain generators together to increase the power output. We don’t have any plans to use that feature, but it is a nice option if we ever wanted to get a second generator to power our home in an emergency situation.
There are lots of similar generators on the market and I can’t tell you if this is the best one. But I can tell you that we’re very happy with our purchase. I chose this model because I’ve always liked Wen’s tools and the price was right. Plus, I’m a sucker for the color scheme (don’t judge me).
I would absolutely recommend the WEN 56235i generator to anyone in a situation similar to ours. It provides a little more power than we need, but it is still compact, easy to carry, and fuel-efficient. In my book, that makes it perfect for boondocking in a pop-up camper.
If we ever run into any issues with our generator, I will update this page.