Creality Halot One Plus review

At a look

Skilled’s Score

Execs

Simple to make use of & dependable
Works with numerous slicers
Nice print high quality

Cons

Fan runs continually throughout printing
Requires post-printing cleanup + curing (like all resin printers)
Dearer than some rivals

Our Verdict

The Halot One Plus is an easy-to-use resin 3D printer that has a good-sized construct quantity, prints reliably and at top quality. It’s fairly costly in comparison with rivals, particularly within the UK.

Finest Costs Right now: Creality Halot One Plus

I’ve grow to be one thing of a 3D printing addict over the previous few years, however the Halot One Plus is my first foray into resin printing.

For these new to 3D printing, or simply to resin printers, it’s essential to grasp there are main variations between resin printers and FDM printers (the sort that print utilizing a spool of filament), such because the Creality Sermoon V1 Professional.

This isn’t the place to check the 2 applied sciences, however it’s value figuring out from the outset that with a resin printer just like the Halot One Plus, you’ll want a ‘wash and treatment’ station as nicely. In contrast to an FDM printer, when the Halot One Plus has completed printing, this isn’t the top of the method: uncured resin should be cleaned from the print (together with helps), then it should be cured utilizing UV gentle.

Attending to the Halot One Plus itself, it’s the flagship mannequin within the Halot One vary, which additionally consists of the Professional and Halot One. It has the biggest construct quantity of the three, the largest LCD and highest decision.

It’s no shock that it’s dearer, however the query is whether or not it’s value shopping for. Let’s discover out.

Options & design

7.9in monochrome LCD
Proprietary gentle supply
4.9in touchscreen
172 x 102 x 160mm construct quantity

In comparison with an FDM printer, the Halot One Plus is pretty compact and utterly enclosed. It measures 236x243x418mm and weighs just a little below 7kg. The duvet is required to guard your eyes from the UV gentle, and it’s such a darkish shade of blue it’s onerous to see by way of it.

Fortuitously, the big shows progress so you may see how a lot print time is remaining and what number of layers have been printed (out of the entire). It’s a capacitive touchscreen, like a telephone, and this makes it easy to navigate menus, change settings, select fashions to print and enter your Wi-Fi password.

Jim Martin / Foundry

Subsequent to the display screen are two USB ports, one for a flash drive containing print recordsdata and a type-B port for direct connection to a PC.

The built-in Wi-Fi means wired connection is one thing you’re unlikely to make use of, and there’s even entry to Creality’s Cloud service that means that you can obtain prints on the printer itself. The Halot One Plus can then slice these fashions and print them.

I’ve seen lots of people declare that among the fashions out there are “stolen” and are breaking copyright, so if you wish to keep away from inadvertently printing one thing it’s best to have paid for, it could be finest to supply your fashions elsewhere.

Below the duvet you’ll discover a steel resin tray with a clear FEP sheet screwed to the underside. There’s a spare included within the field, which is helpful.

Jim Martin / Foundry

The tray has markings for 250, 450 and 650ml and likewise has captive screws so you may’t lose them. On two reverse corners are lips that enable unused resin to be poured extra simply again into the bottle.

The aluminium construct plate has 4 Allen bolts that have to be loosened earlier than levelling. It is a easy course of (in comparison with an FDM printer) which requires you to put the calibration sheet on high of the LCD display screen, then tighten the bolts as soon as the construct plate has been lowered on high of the sheet.

Creality Halot One Plus leveling process

Jim Martin / Foundry

The highest of the construct plate is angled to assist resin run off, however actually wants a steeper pitch as some resin stays after printing, and will get caught across the bolts.

The 7.9in LCD has a decision of 4320×2560, which is greater than loads of resin printers. As with graphics, the next decision means a smoother-looking print, whereas a decrease decision means prints are blockier. This is among the causes the Halot One Plus prices greater than lower-resolution resin printers.

Nonetheless, as a result of resin 3D prints are created by shining UV gentle by way of the display screen, it’s essential that this gentle is even throughout the display screen. Many resin printers use a UV LED matrix, however Creality has developed its personal ‘integral gentle supply’ which it says can attain over 90% “evenness”, in comparison with round 50% for resin prints utilizing ‘parallel emission’.

Additionally, as a result of it makes use of far fewer LEDs than a matrix, there are supposedly fewer issues with damaged items inside the matrix.

The Halot One Plus can print 0.01mm layers and has an XY axis precision of 0.04mm. It has twin rails on the Z-axis which ought to assist guarantee no deviation for tall prints.

It’s good that firmware updates are doable over the air through Wi-Fi, and Creality says that its group is engaged on including webcam help. Confusingly, there are references to cameras within the menus already, however what actually threw me was that the ‘Digicam password’ within the Digicam Monitor settings is definitely the password (token) you could set if you wish to print over Wi-Fi from a PC.

Jim Martin / Foundry

Having webcam help can be good if the duvet wasn’t so darkish that’s isn’t doable to see clearly what’s being printed, because the digital camera must be positioned exterior of the duvet.

With two followers, one for the UV LED and a second for the activated charcoal filter, the One Plus is comparatively noisy because the followers run repeatedly whereas printing. Utilizing Creality’s personal resin, the odour wasn’t too unhealthy, but it surely definitely appeared that the filter wasn’t in a position to neutralise the scent utterly.

There aren’t many equipment included within the field: only a plastic scraper, a single paper filter (for pouring resin again into the bottle) and some Allen keys. There are not any flush cutters for eradicating helps, nor any gloves, so these and a few IPA (isopropyl alcohol) to wash prints are the extras you’ll must get at the least.

You may additionally wish to purchase Creality’s UW-02 washing and curing machine which prices $219 / £179.

Slicers

You could have a alternative of slicers. There’s Creality’s personal Halot Field, Lychee Slicer and ChiTuBox. As I hadn’t used any of those, I went with Halot Field.

Creality

It’s comparatively simple, although you will have to learn to add helps to resin fashions. The auto-generated helps weren’t positioned in essentially the most smart locations, so it’s value spending the time to manually add them the place you need them.

You may export the sliced mannequin to a USB drive, or print direct to the Halot One Plus over Wi-Fi, after setting and getting into the password, and the software program will estimate the print time and the way a lot resin will likely be used.

Printing

For the primary print, I downloaded a Minion mannequin from Creality Cloud and used the default print settings. Surprisingly, it printed completely with no issues by any means – the exact opposite of nearly each FDM printer I’ve reviewed.

Jim Martin / Foundry

The plastic scraper eliminated the mannequin from the construct plate and, since I didn’t have a wash-and-cure machine at hand, I used a shower of IPA to wash the uncured resin after which left it exterior within the solar for a great few hours.

Jim Martin / Foundry

Resin prints do change color when cured, so the white resin took on an virtually peach shade as soon as cured.

For the second check, I opted for one thing rather more tough: a mannequin of Captain Jack Sparrow which crammed a great proportion of the utmost top. This took just a little over 13 hours to print however, as soon as once more, printed efficiently first time.

Jim Martin / Foundry

Element was exceptionally good, with nice texture within the beard, jacket, picket flooring and cord.

Resin prints are just a little versatile earlier than they’re totally cured, and may grow to be brittle at that time, so you need to watch out to not snap items off, such because the sword. On this mannequin, one of many two chin braids snapped off when eradicating a help.

The primary drawback with this print was that it was caught so quick to the construct plate it was extraordinarily tough to take away. I needed to resort to a steel scraper, and even then, it was powerful to prise it off. Lowering the first-layer treatment time largely fastened this for subsequent prints, although.

One more check was the difficult Tower of Pi. That is just about unimaginable on an FDM printer, which is why the designed created a model with partitions. However the Halot One Plus took it in its stride, printing virtually completely at 100%, which is 150mm tall and 85mm large.

Jim Martin / Foundry

The one imperfections have been a couple of crammed in holes in among the quantity 8s. You can too see stepping across the edge (on the left-hand facet of the picture above), although this wasn’t current all the best way round – some areas appeared completely easy, so it’s not merely the 0.04mm XY decision coming into play.

Importantly, there have been no points in any respect with Z-axis accuracy, and prints with vertical surfaces have been additionally good and easy.

General, print high quality is superb, and the nice gentle uniformity means you should use the total space of the construct plate with out sacrificing high quality.

After printing, you may run a ‘cleansing’ cycle which cures a complete layer and may catch any small items which have fallen into the resin vat.

The default time of 25s wasn’t sufficient, so I ran it twice extra and was then ready to make use of the plastic scraper to take away the cured resin.

Jim Martin / Foundry

Value & availability

The Halot One Plus prices $399 from Creality’s web site.

That’s $100 greater than the same Anycubic Photon M3. It isn’t an identical: it touchscreen is smaller, it has a single linear Z rail and doesn’t have the Halot’s integral gentle supply.

Within the UK, availability is extra restricted than within the US. You may’t purchase one from Creality’s web site, and one of many solely UK retailers itemizing it on the market on the time of evaluate was Expertise Outlet, the place it value £469.

For comparability, the Photon M3 prices £295, £174 much less, making the Halot One Plus look overpriced. Hopefully it is because it’s model new, and costs will come down when there’s higher provide (and Creality sells direct to UK patrons, one thing that’s deliberate for the long run).

Bottles of resin aren’t low-cost. They’re bought by weight and a 1kg bottle prices $35-40. Creality sells each water-washable and normal resin, in quite a lot of colors.

Verdict

The Halot One Plus is an excellent resin printer total. In my testing, it carried out reliably and delivered high-quality prints with out fuss.

Like all resin printers, the method of eradicating helps, cleansing and curing after printing is a messy enterprise, however there’s no technique to keep away from this until you select an FDM printer as a substitute.

Other than it being barely noisier than I’d like, the primary drawback with the Halot One Plus is the value. It’s significantly dearer than the Photon M3 and lots of first-time patrons will discover it onerous to justify spending the additional.

When you’re not a newbie care about getting the best-possible print high quality, and really need the additional gentle uniformity of the Halot One Plus’ integral gentle supply, you may be capable of justify spending extra.