HeyGears Reflex RS Review: Commercial Resin for your Desktop

Resin printing isn’t exactly my favorite 3D printing activity, so I tend to dislike any machine that makes the gooey process more difficult. HeyGears has been getting rave reviews across the internet for its outstanding quality – and when it comes to quality, the results are impossible to ignore. But it’s also annoying to use.

The truth is, making a good-looking resin print is pretty easy these days. Where manufacturers need to focus is within the realm of user experience.

I knew immediately that the Reflex RS was trying to copycat Formlabs, judging both by its looks and the locked down ecosystem. I appreciate the effort – the idea of a walled garden is that by limiting the user to proprietary resins, you eliminate user error. Everything is precalculated for you, and HeyGears does that, right down to how long the wash unit shakes your parts. Again, I appreciate this.

But I couldn’t get over the software. The printer doesn’t just have a slicer. It has Blueprint, a cloud-based project management system. Nothing is intuitive, and I constantly search for the right button to move the files through the process. When you start a new job, you have to tell it which machine you’re running and what extras you have installed. I find this annoying, as the software greets me by name – if it can remember my profile information, surely it could remember my machine as well? Then you have to select the resin you are going to use, which have charming names like PARP10, PAP10, and PAWW10. I’m pretty sure I had poured in PAP10 and accidentally sliced it as PAWW10 and neither of us seemed to know. The poor UX carries over to the machine’s interface and even how you pour in the resin. We can get into that further within the review.

The bottom line is that the HeyGears Reflex RS has good hardware but annoying software. If you only use this one machine, you’ll probably get used to its quirks. I couldn’t, and for that, I’m not recommending it as one of the Best 3D printers.

Specifications: HeyGears Reflex RS

Included in the Box: HeyGears Reflex RS

The HeyGears Reflex RS includes everything you need to get started as soon as you unbox the printer. We were sent a Combo for testing, which included a matching wash and cure machines with ample room for the Reflex RS print volume.

Printing Safety with HeyGears Reflex RS

The HeyGears Reflex RS requires the same safety precautions as other resin printers. Uncured resin is dangerous, and the solvents used to clean your prints can be irritating to the skin. Use gloves and safety glasses when pouring resin and handling uncured prints.

Make sure the room you use your resin printer in is well-ventilated to avoid inhaling fumes. Spilled or dripped resin should be immediately cleaned with 99% isopropyl alcohol. After printing, make sure to wipe down your printer and bottles to remove smudges of uncured resin. Always keep your resin tightly sealed and safely stored out of reach of pets and children.

Assembling the HeyGears Reflex RS

The printer comes fully assembled. You only need to unpack the printer, peel the protective film, then put the build platform in place.

Calibrating the Build Plate on the HeyGears Reflex RS

HeyGears Reflex RS ships with the build plate factory-leveled. It has an internal sensor to make sure the machine itself is level so it can accurately read the liquid contents of the vat. If the machine as a whole is not leveled, it will alert you and walk you through the necessary adjustments.

Design of the HeyGears Reflex RS

The HeyGears Reflex RS is a solidly built machine that follows the general style of a Formlabs 3D printer at a fraction of the cost. It has a flip-top lid with a recessed handle, which is easy to use. The vat has screws that remain attached, so there’s no worry you’ll misplace them. The glass surface over the light processing unit comes with a preinstalled clear protection sheet, and the vat has raised circles in the corner to prevent suction from forming.

HeyGears resin comes in special cartridges with a standard bottle cap and a spring-loaded seal. A peg on the vat pushes open the seal, allowing the resin to pour freely. This is a purely mechanical system controlled by gravity. The 900mL vat will hold 9/10th of a resin bottle, with very little to keep in reserve. If you try to switch resin before using it up, you have to deal with an incredibly awkward, very large pan of resin to attempt to pour back into the bottle.

The machine can detect the bottle’s presence – and will not operate without a bottle in place. I found that I could cheat the system by pouring a small amount of resin in, capping the bottle, and putting the now closed bottle in the chamber. Unfortunately, I couldn’t open the lid because the bottle stuck out the top.

When the Reflex RS finishes printing, it will only raise up a few inches. This prevents the resin on the build plate from splashing on the UV cover, which is great. However, you only get once chance to raise the build plate higher. If you’re not reading the screen carefully and pass over the option, the build plate is locked into place, making it difficult to remove without bumping your prints on the edge of the vat. There is no control on the printer interface to raise the build plate on your own.

Or perhaps there is, and I couldn’t find it. The machine’s control panel is arranged in a nonsensical manner, with setting optimized for first time use. Sure, it’s great that entering your Wi-Fi password is easy to find, but this setting is only needed once. Something you may need more often, like cleaning the vat, is pushed way down the list.

This is also a good time to talk about file naming. The machine is run by a complex program called “Blueprint” and when you’re done slicing a file the default name is a 32 digit string of numbers which seems to contain the date twice. You do have the option to rename the file, but without clear prompts to change the name, you miss the opportunity.

The build plate is a lightly etched, completely flat plate, which collected a great deal of resin on top that needs to be scrapped off before removal. I didn’t have any trouble getting prints off the plate with the scraper and a light tap of my hammer.

You have the option of sending files by LAN, Cloud, or USB stick. Cloud files can send settings to both the wash and cure units, but these take a significant amount of time. Again, the program, with all its complexity, didn’t have a “send all” button to send the files to the three units: printer, wash, and cure. Instead, you have to send the file to the cloud, then send it to the printer, then send it to the wash, then send it to the curing oven. This is tedious, to say the least.

The wash station – optional – uses an ingenious two-tank system. These plastic tanks have locking lids with a spring-loaded port on the top and bottom. Rinse fluid, most likely isopropyl alcohol, and pour it into one container. The model is placed in the container. The container is placed into a cradle on top of the wash mechanism, and a time can be manually dialed in or beamed over from the slicing software via the cloud. You can’t move the wash & cure data by USB or LAN, so I assume the calculating is done on the server side. The mechanism then shakes the container for the allotted time. Once done, you place the full tank on top of the empty with the ports lined up and then turn the valve to open. Liquid drains into the empty container. You must be sure to close the value when done, or else you’ll make quite a mess the next time. Ask me how I know.

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I can see the value in this method, as this keeps the liquid away from the shaker’s mechanical bits. I used to have a traditional wash unit from another company, but that rusted to bits after using it to store alcohol for a couple of years. I do prefer to use a two stage rinse method, so I still dipped the dirty resin parts into a pre-bath of alcohol first. This keeps the liquid in the official wash tank cleaner for longer.

The curing station is very roomy, with lights on the sides and roof and reflective walls on every side but the door. There’s no light on the bottom, but reflected light seems to do the job. The station is also an oven that can reach 80 degrees to aid curing. It comes with a turn table and a ceiling rack on which you can hang parts.

Slicers Compatible with the HeyGears Reflex RS

The Reflex RS only works with its custom software, Blueprint. The software is a free download for both Mac and Windows. There is also a companion app for Android and iOS if you’re into that. The software runs the entire system and optimizes the print jobs based on the materials you say are in the printer. It can also calculate how much time is needed for the wash and cure machines, and that information can be sent via Cloud.

Though I did have problems with the way the non-slicer part of Blueprint is laid out, the slicer itself is actually very easy to use. Blueprint handles all the math, so there’s no need to calculate exposure times, or how long to cure the finished print. The presets are locked in and there’s no way to change them.

The automatic supports are also very good and easy to remove. I would suggest you rotate the print yourself, so that supports are not placed on the face. I don’t suggest using “one click slice” on any model with a face or surface area that can not risk scaring from supports.

Washing and Curing Your Prints

Before you can admire your prints, you’ll need to wash them with isopropyl alcohol and cure with UV light.

Completely dry the print with a hair dryer on cool – IPA left on the print will turn white. You can also let the print air dry in a place away from sunlight.

Supports are easier to remove before curing because they are softer. Clip the supports off with side cutters and use tweezers to remove stubborn supports. Remember to always wear gloves while handling uncured prints.

Your IPA should never be flushed down the drain, especially after being contaminated with uncured resin. Instead, keep using the resin until it’s too dirty, then leave the container open to evaporate. The remaining sludge can be cured with UV light or the sun before being thrown away.

Supports should also be cured before being thrown away.

Sample Prints on the HeyGears Reflex RS

Basic HeyGears Resin is only a little more expensive than consumer resin, with prices starting at $32 a KG. Specialized resins get more pricey, with ABS like resin costing $65, compared to $38 for 3rd party Siraya Tech ABS-Like resin.

I first tested the printer with the AmeraLabs resin test print using PAP10 Ash Grey resin that was provided for the review. The print looked perfect, with extremely crisp details. The print took 62 minutes to complete using a 30 µm layer height and default settings.

I also tested out a fidget spinner (not a great idea) using PARP10 Rapid Prototyping Resin – it was listed as “pale purple” and I got excited that I had some not-boring-grey resin. Sadly, it’s just cool grey. The spinner was printed using a 50 µm layer height and took 1 hour and 24 minutes to print using whatever settings HeyGears decided to use. The model printed with the most perfectly crisp edges I’ve ever seen, but I couldn’t figure out how to get it to stay open to fully cure.

Of course, I had to run the Rocket Bust by Wekster, which I’ve been using as a larger comparison test for resin printers. This printed in 8 hours and 28 minutes, using a 30 µm layer height with default settings with the grey PAP10 resin. The details are super fine, revealing the vines on Baby Groot, each individual tooth in Rocket’s mouth and bits of texture in the jacket fabric.

The Reflex RS really brings out the details. This model looks like an original sculpt, with super clean lines and noticeable texture in the hide that a lesser printer will blur. This is printed at 50µm in PAP10 Precise Detail Resin in 10 hours and 57 minutes using HeyGears defaults.

I pulled out a miniature I made in HeroForge and printed it in PAP10 Precise Detail Resin in 3 hours and 17 minutes with a 50µm layer height. The levels of highly refined details are amazing. For comparison is the same model, also with a 50µm layer height, but printed on a Mars 5 Ultra with a cheap “rapid resin” in just one hour and 44 minutes. The “fast” mini looks like putty, showing that matching a quality resin to a dialed in 3d printer is definitely worth it.

Bottom Line

The HeyGears Reflex RS is a good machine saddled with both firmware and software that’s difficult to navigate. The printer is locked into a cloud based software ecosystem, which is annoying if you don’t have a strong Wi-Fi signal in your workshop. You can send files via USB, and they recently added an offline mode, but this doesn’t have the full functionality of the cloud based system.

Despite my difficulties navigating the project management software, the slicer itself is very good, highly automated and easy to use. The models I printed had very clear, impressively fine, details.

Though print quality is excellent on this machine, but it’s not unique to HeyGears – many consumer grade machines can produce crispy prints when paired with a high resolution resin. The walled garden is both a blessing and a curse – it’s great if you want to leave the math and chemistry to the experts, bad if you want to buy your favorite resin from Amazon. You would have a hard time using Prusa’s color mixing resin kit, or Elegoo’s translucent red on this machine, as there are no presets for it and no way to access that part of the slicer.

It’s $999 starting price tag is a bit expensive for the consumer market, but not unheard of for a large machine with a good quality build like the Reflex RS. The combo kit with a matching wash and cure brings the costs $2107. They are not required to run the Reflex RS, but having matching equipment that all talks to the slicer is pretty nice. If I were buying this for a maker space, educational setting or a business, I would definitely recommend getting the combo system.

If you’re looking for a resin printer that delivers the same quality with a similar build volume but lets you pick your own resin and settings, I’d suggest the Elegoo Saturn 4 Ultra which is currently on sale for $399.

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