Hey everyone,

I'm a beginner with the Photon M5s Pro and trying to get my prints properly calibrated. I started by running the R_E_R_F (Resin Exposure Range Finder) test file as suggested in the manual, but I didn’t see much difference in the results. Because of this, I decided to try the Cones of Calibration V3 test from Tableflip Foundry.

Resin & Print Settings

I'm using Sunlu Toughness 405 nm UV Curing Solid White resin and started with the default Photon Workshop settings:

• Normal exposure time: 3.6s per layer
• Layer thickness: 0.05mm
• Base layers: 5 layers at 30 seconds each

However, the test failed—the water does not fit in the mug at all, same for the sword and the three possible voids/holes.

I then printed the same file but with adjusted normal exposure times:

• 3.4s, 3.0s, and 2.5s

Each time, the water still didn’t fit. At 2.5s, one of the cones was malformed, which makes me think I hit the lower exposure limit.

Build Plate Adhesion & Temperature Considerations

At first, I tried printing the Cones of Calibration V3 without supports or the foundation that Photon Workshop provides, but the prints did not stick to the build plate. I believe this happened because I did not set up the first layers as foundation/base/fire layers.

After that, every Cone of Calibration test was done with auto-support and base layers enabled, with the only variable being the normal exposure time.

Additionally, because my surrounding temperature is 15°C, I followed the user manual recommendation and set a 1-hour delay start while using the inner heater to maintain 25°C inside the printer.

Time Concern: Calibration Takes Too Long

With these foundation layers and appended supports, each print takes about 2 hours. Since I can realistically only make two per day, the calibration process takes multiple days to complete.

Possible Workaround Idea

Instead of printing multiple Cones of Calibration V3 one at a time per exposure setting, I was thinking of printing 8 Cones in the 8 quadrants of the build plate and renaming the file to R_E_R_F, essentially tricking the printer into testing multiple exposure settings at once.

Would this work? Has anyone tried something similar to speed up calibration?

Any insights or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!