Anycubic Resin Exposure Time Settings Explained

Anycubic Standard Resin at 0.05 mm layers needs about 1.8 to 2.8 s normal exposure on most mono-LCD Photons, depending on the model, with 20 to 40 s bottom exposure over 1 to 6 bottom layers and a 0.5 to 2 s off time. High Clear Resin needs roughly 4 to 5 s on most models.

A Photon profile is a handful of numbers the printer applies in a fixed order: a long bottom exposure for the first layers, an optional ramp of transition layers, then the normal exposure that runs for the remaining thousands. The definitions below come from Anycubic’s wiki, its per-printer resin charts and the R_E_R_F test file. Treat every chart value as a starting point, and retest whenever the resin, the room, the screen or the release film changes.

What each setting does, in the order the printer applies it

Layer thickness. The wiki’s range is 0.01 to 0.15 mm with a 0.05 mm default. Thinner layers cure with less exposure; thicker ones need more, which the wiki notes ages the LCD faster. Everything below assumes 0.05 mm unless stated.

Bottom exposure and bottom layers. The first layers cure against a metal plate, not cured resin, so they get a far longer exposure: around 40 s on a brushed (“wire drawing”) platform and around 25 s on a laser-engraved one, with about 6 bottom layers, adjusted for model size and contact area. Too long and the base swells into an elephant foot. Which side of that line a failure sits on is the first question in the resin sticking to the FEP guide.

Transition layers. The Photon Workshop manual defines the count as “the transition layers between the bottom layers and normal layers”; Chitubox ramps them linearly, the only transition type it supports. They remove the cliff between a 25 s layer and a 2.8 s layer, which is where a print splits just above its base.

Normal exposure. Generally 2 to 3 s for Anycubic resin, per the wiki. Too short and the model is soft, loses detail and shows layer lines. Too long and it expands, because the resin is not fully transparent and UV diffuses into the surrounding liquid. Dark resins block more light and need a little more.

Off time. The interval between the platform finishing its descent and the next exposure. The wiki recommends 1 to 3 s, longer for viscous or cold resin and large layer areas, though Anycubic’s own charts use 0.5 s for standard resin on most current machines.

Why the numbers land where they do

Exposure is a dose. A NIST-led interlaboratory study uses the standard working curve, cure depth = Dp ln(E0/Ec), where Dp is the resin’s light penetration depth and Ec the dose at which it gels. Cure depth grows with the logarithm of the dose, so the first second does most of the work and each extra second buys little depth while still spreading light sideways in XY and down into the resin under overhangs. That is where closed holes, filled text and blunted downward-facing detail come from. Dp and Ec belong to the formulation, so every bottle is its own curve; the resin types comparison covers them by family.

Temperature moves the curve too. The wiki puts the optimal resin temperature around 24 °C and says it will not cure properly below 10 °C. Its resin settings page is specific: below 20 °C, raise exposure by 30% and cut Z speeds by 30%. Its values also assume factory light energy, so a machine with adjustable UV power needs its own retest.

AmeraLabs’ calibration primer covers the rest: the rule of thumb “50% lower layer height = 25% lower exposure”, bottom exposure around ten times the normal layer, and a recalibration every 3 to 6 months because the light source decays.

Anycubic resin settings by printer

Standard Resin at 0.05 mm, every row from Anycubic’s US store chart as listed in October 2026. It is the only one of Anycubic’s two regional charts that covers the Photon P1; where the EU chart gives different figures, the comparison further down lists both.

Bottom layer counts run from 1 to 6 across Anycubic’s own machines, so “about 6” is a starting point, not a rule. High Speed Resin is a different row, not a shorter exposure: on the M5s both charts give 1.7 s, a 10 s bottom, 3 bottom layers and a 3 mm lift at 20 mm/s, and on the Mono 4 Ultra both move it to 0.1 mm layers. Changing the resin without the rest of the row is how fast resin usually fails.

Other Anycubic resins mostly reuse the Standard Resin row. On the Mono 2 and Mono 4K, Standard Resin V2, ABS-Like Resin Pro 2 and Tough Resin 2.0 match it; the exceptions are ABS-Like Resin Pro and Plant-Based Resin+ at 3 s on the Mono 2, and a 1 s off time for Tough Resin 2.0 and Ultra on the 4K. Neither machine has High Speed Resin values in the chart. The P1 varies more: Tough Resin 2.0 is 2.1 s with a 15 s bottom, ABS-Like Resin Pro 2 takes a 25 s bottom, High Speed Resin 2.0 is 1.1 s with 15 s, and 16K Standard Resin is 2.8 s in orange-red but 2.5 s in other colours.

Where the US and EU charts disagree

Anycubic’s EU store chart gives different figures for four of these machines:

Every exposure gap is 0.5 s or less, within two 0.25 s R_E_R_F steps, so start model 1 below the lower figure and let the print decide. The bottom exposure gaps are wider, 30 s against 50 s on two High Clear rows, so judge adhesion and base flare separately.

Anycubic clear resin exposure time

Anycubic High Clear Resin needs about 4 to 5 s at 0.05 mm, 1.6 to 2.2 times the Standard Resin time on the same printer, according to the US chart. Several models lengthen its bottom exposure too:

The Mono 4, M7 Pro and M7 Max High Clear figures differ in the EU chart, as the comparison above shows. A Standard Resin profile on a High Clear bottle gives roughly half to two-thirds of the charted time and lands in the under-exposed row of the symptom table at the end of this page. Below 20 °C the 30% rule stacks on top: the M5s’s 5 s becomes 6.5 s.

Bottom off time: the pause before each bottom layer

Bottom off time is the off time applied only to the bottom layers: the pause, UV off, between the platform finishing its descent and the next bottom exposure. Anycubic’s charts list one off time for the whole print, from 0.5 s to 2 s depending on the printer, so on a stock Photon profile the bottom and normal values match.

Where a slicer offers a separate bottom value, check what it measures. UVtools’ rest-time guide explains that Chitubox’s older light-off delay counts the lift and retract as well as the wait: light-off delay = lift height / (lift speed / 60) + retract height / (retract speed / 60) + desired wait, with speeds in mm/min. On the Photon Mono’s 6 mm lift at 240 mm/min and 360 mm/min retract, a 0.5 s wait becomes a 3 s light-off delay. The guide suggests about 5 s of wait before cure on bottom layers and 1 to 2 s on normal ones, because resin stirred by the plate cures into cracks and weak bonds if it has not settled. UVtools sets the bottom value separately under Tools > Edit print parameters; the UVtools guide for Photon files covers opening them, and the Photon Workshop vs ChiTuBox comparison maps Anycubic’s off time onto CHITUBOX’s fields.

Anycubic RERF: how to use the R_E_R_F exposure test

Anycubic RERF means Resin Exposure Range Finder: a printer-specific file that prints eight numbered models in one job, each exposed longer than the last. The steps, from Anycubic’s RERF instructions and the wiki’s R_E_R_F guide:

1. Get the file for your exact model. It is on the supplied USB drive and on the Firmware & Software page of Anycubic’s site. The file is different for every printer model; do not reuse another machine’s.
2. Keep the name R_E_R_F. The printer recognizes the test by that filename, so do not rename it and do not give that name to an ordinary print.
3. Set model 1 in the slicer. Model 1 uses the normal exposure from the slice, not the bottom exposure, and each following model adds a fixed increment the wiki calls “Ts”, set per machine and printed in its manual. The increment is a printer-specific value, not a universal 0.25 s setting. Set model 1 below the value you expect so the answer lands mid-range: with a recommended 2 s and a 0.25 s step, start at 1 s and the eight models span 1 to 2.75 s.
4. Print warm. Anycubic’s test page asks for resin between 20 and 35 °C during printing.
5. Wash, cure, judge and record as described below.

Judge by Anycubic’s criteria. Its test page sorts features into positive details (bridges, needles, pins) and negative ones (holes, grooves, chessboard gaps); extra exposure fills the negatives in. On curved parts the smoothest surface wins. On the hole and pin features, count both: many holes and few pins means the exposure sits between optimal and failure, more detail at more risk; few holes and many pins means bloat, reliable but blunt. If none of the eight is right, shift model 1 and run again.

The exposure for numbered model n is model 1 exposure + (n - 1) × Ts. In the 1 s / 0.25 s example above, models 1, 4 and 8 receive 1 s, 1.75 s and 2.75 s respectively. Record the winning model’s calculated exposure with the resin, layer height and printer profile; recording only its number loses the setting when the starting exposure changes.

On the Photon P1: generate the test in the slicer

The P1 family can build its own zoned test. 3DWork’s P1 Max review finds it in Anycubic Workshop under Help > Resin Calibration, with 8 zones at 0.25 s steps recommended, and notes a ready-made R_E_R_F.pp1m file in the wiki’s test files. Its P1 review describes Tools > Exposure Test (RERF) in Photon Workshop 4.0, with each cube’s exposure engraved on it, so check the menus of whichever slicer you run.

Confirm the result with a separate calibration part

Confirm with a resin-agnostic part. The AmeraLabs Town prints at 50 µm in about 30 minutes: a weak antenna and fewer pillar rows mean under-exposure, narrow checkerboard gaps and an enlarged raised logo mean over-exposure. The UVtools resin time finder runs from the sliced file rather than the firmware and defines “just right” usefully: features match the preview, spacings hold, and the smallest features may be missing. It also advises raising bottom exposure for the test plate, from 30 s to 40 to 50 s, so a long row of parts stays put.

A worked profile and what to change when

Photon Mono M5s, Anycubic Standard Resin, 0.05 mm: 2.8 s exposure, 0.5 s off time, 25 s bottom, 5 bottom layers, 8 mm lift at 6 mm/s, 6 mm/s retract. In a room under 20 °C the wiki’s 30% rule gives 3.6 s, 32.5 s bottom and 4.2 mm/s. Then run R_E_R_F from 2 s and let the print pick the number. The resin exposure calculator opens with this profile’s exposure, bottom-layer and off-time values and shows how much of a 120 mm print is UV-on time and how much is lift and rest.

Splits that survive these changes belong to peel force or temperature; the peel-force section of the FEP sticking guide works through lift speed, lift distance and cross-section in turn.

FAQ

how long should bottom exposure be for anycubic resin?

Anycubic’s charts put bottom exposure between 20 and 40 s at 0.05 mm: 20 s on the Mono X 6Ks and Photon P1, 25 s on the Mono 2 and M5s, 40 s on the Photon Mono and Mono 4K. The wiki gives 40 s for brushed plates, 25 s for laser-engraved ones; elephant foot means too long.

should bottom off time be longer than normal off time?

Not on Anycubic’s profiles, which list one off time for the print: 0.5 s on most Mono models, 1 s on the Mono 2 and Mono 4, 2 s on the P1. UVtools suggests about 5 s of wait before cure on bottom layers and 1 to 2 s on normal ones, so disturbed resin settles first.

do i need a different rerf file for each anycubic printer?

Yes. Anycubic makes a separate R_E_R_F file for every printer model, and the printer only recognizes the test under that exact filename. Take it from the USB drive that shipped with the machine or the Firmware & Software page on Anycubic’s site, and never rename an ordinary print R_E_R_F or reuse another model’s file.

does anycubic clear resin need a longer exposure?

Yes. Anycubic’s charts give High Clear Resin 1.6 to 2.2 times the Standard Resin exposure: 5 s against 2.8 s on the M5s, 4.4 s against 2 s on the P1, 4.5 s against 2.5 s on the Mono 2. Some models raise its bottom exposure too, from 20 to 30 s on the P1.