Greetings everybody! Today I will unbox and review this Anticubic Foton Mono. Does it live up to the hype? Is it really fast? Is it really high resolution? Stay tuned to find out here on South Pole Workshop. Like most resin printers, this one was nicely packed in a sturdy box with some open cell foam and plastic wrap. The accessory box was packed on top of the printer and the build plate and resin vat was packed inside the printer. As I'm taking the printer out of the box, I notice there's a lot of plastic here. First off, the base of this unit is made out of plastic. I also notice that the resin vat is made out of plastic and I will touch on that a little bit more later in this video. The bottom surface and the z-axis are made out of aluminum and steel and they appear to be sturdy enough. The build plate is also made from steel and aluminum and I like how the top of the build plate is angled to allow excess resin to run off when printing is complete. Now we're back at the resin vat. It is made out of plastic. I'm not a fan of this. It is attached to the printer with a captive thumb screw which I do like. Packed in the accessory box are some filter funnels, several pairs of gloves, an AC adapter, a cheap warped plastic spatula, a nice huge steel spatula, a huge glass. A USB drive, a bag of hex wrenches, and a completely useless mask. The power plugs into the back and the USB port and power switch are on the right side of the printer toward the back. I find the position of the port and switch convenient and easy to access. Wow, this screen is tiny, but despite its small size, I have to admit the navigation buttons are large and easy to read. The user interface is intuitive and easy to navigate. There isn't much more than basic functions on this printer and I like it for its simplicity. Someone was a little heavy-handed with the grease on the Z-axis screw. I may have to do something about that. The 6-inch LCD screen is monochromatic and sports a resolution of 2560 x 1620 which gives it a pixel width of 0.051 mm or 51 micron. The build volume on this printer is 130 x 80 x 165 mm and any cubic boasts a printing speed as fast as 1.5 seconds per layer. Leveling the printer is fairly straightforward using the provided leveling card. It is as easy as loosening the screws on your build plate, laying the leveling card down on top of your screen, pressing the home button to bring the build plate to home, tightening the screws while you hold down on the build plate, and then pressing the x equals 0 button on the printer. And that's it. One extra feature this printer has is a sensor that will pause the print if the lid is removed. I don't know if this is to protect the printer or the user or to make pausing prints easier so you can check up on them. But all the same, this feature can be turned off in the tools menu of the touchscreen if so desired. I told you I was going to do something about that grease. I'm using any cubic standard gray resin for all of my testing. I do like the molded in level indicators in the side of this resin vat. I start with the test print provided on the USB stick. The print was easy to remove from the build plate and I cleaned it up in some isopropyl alcohol and cured it in my new makeshift curing box. The test file is the standard anti-cubic skeletonized cube which was underwhelming and frankly did nothing to showcase what this printer is capable of. For my next test I returned to the Amaro Labs Town Benchmark. And since I had space left on the build plate, I went ahead and added this wood elf 32 millimeter miniature by Argotier and this 75 millimeter. Mandalorian figurine by Sattonger miniatures. These models make good benchmarks because they come pre-supported so I know that if this print fails it isn't because of the support. It also eliminates any human error that I would introduce by trying to add my own supports to these models. The Photon Mono uses any cubic workshop to handle slicing. It worked well enough for me. It was easy to use so I have no complaints. For later work I switched over to Lichy Slicer and I just found out that any cubic printers are now supported in the new Chitobox version 1.8. Everything appears to have printed successfully so after a little cleanup let's take a look and see how these turned out. This is the best looking Amaro Labs Town I have printed so far. Just about every single detail printed without any flaws, the results are quite impressive. The 32 millimeter elf is equally as impressive. All of the tiny detail is super crisp. When compared to the 3D model there isn't one detail missing on this print. The same goes for the 75 millimeter Mandalorian. All of the tiny details as well as the smooth contours of the armor printed perfectly and you really have to get in close to even see a hint of layer lines on any of these prints. I've been printing a lot with the Anticubic Photon Mono these past couple weeks. I've used a whole bottle of resin and I have not had one single failure yet. This is what I like about the Anticubic Photon Mono. The 2K monochromatic screen produces fast prints in stunning resolutions. I've had zero failure so far using both the Photon Workshop and Lichy Slicer. This printer was very easy to set up. I was up and printing within 15 minutes of opening the box. And this is the quietest printer I own. Here's a small sample of how this printer sounds with two other printers running in the background. Keep in mind that the camera microphone is closest to the Photon Mono. Here's what I don't like. So I haven't brought this up yet. But as if a plastic vat wasn't bad enough, the Photon Mono FEP replacement is a proprietary part that can only be bought through Anticubic. The idea is to make fabric placement quicker and easier, but it comes at a much higher cost. What's worse, the special replacement FEP isn't even available to buy on their website at the time of filming this video. So my solution was to order one of these aluminum resin vats from Soval 3D. At $25, it costs less than two of the Anticubic FEP replacements. In my opinion, this is a huge failure on Anticubic's part, and they should either make traditional FEP replacement available for this vat or just eliminate the idea altogether. Besides that major complaint, and maybe the rest of the plastic construction, I really have no other complaints about this printer. If you are looking for a reliable printer that makes highly detailed prints and doesn't cost a ton of money, you won't find many machines better than the Anticubic Photon Mono. Despite the plastic forward construction, I have found the performance to be flawless. Just be prepared to pay a little extra for their proprietary FEP replacement, or do what I did and get a third party resin vat to skip all that proprietary nonsense. Well, I hope you enjoyed my review of the Anticubic Photon Mono. For the price, it is a really good printer. It produces really excellent results. As long as you are aware of the drawbacks that come with this particular resin vat, I have no problem recommending this printer to anybody that is interested in buying it. As always, all my Amazon links are going to be in the description below. If you guys like this type of content, just stick around, subscribe, and go ahead and throw the video a like if you wouldn't mind. I want to thank you all for sticking around, watching this review. I hope you guys have a great day. I will see you next time. Thanks for watching.