ANYCUBIC Kobra S1 3D Printer,600mm/s High Speed Multicolor 3D Printers with Auto Leveling, 320℃ Full-Metal Hotend, Enclosed CoreXY Structure for Novices & Experts Smart Choice,Print Size 250*250*250mm

I bought this printer on a lightning deal priced at £123.65 and at that price it’s a steal. It’s my second FDM printer, replacing a much loved Flashforge Finder. I’ve now had it a number of months and feel comfortable that I know it’s ups and downs.Although “basic” it ticks all the really important boxes for me: a large print area, flexible build plate (very important), and heated bed. The filament path made me nervous (given the long bowden tube between the extruder head and the stepper motor driving the filament) but actually works very reliably in practice. I’ve used a wide variety of PLA including some rather tricky wood filament that clogged my old printer, and it munches through it all with no problems. I’ve also just started using TPU based flexible filament which has a reputation for being difficult to print and it worked straight from the first print.I was also a little concerned by the fact that the Z axis lead screw is unsupported at he top, which is not ideal, but again, it works well in practice and whilst it is a little more vulnerable to being whacked and bent as a result, it’s quite close to the frame so should be ok.Print quality is great, and my son has quite a side business in print services to his school mates. I have had a number of failed prints, as is normal. Several have been due to running it in an ungrateful garage in winter and bringing it inside resolves them. Other have been due to a roll of filament that is poorly and very tightly wound (not the printers fault) and occasionally jams if you don’t free it up with your hands.The flexible magnetic built plate is superb, making it so much easier to remove prints. The surface has peeled slightly (about a 1mm x 2mm area) at one point due to repeated prints of the same model in the same position. I’d budget to replace that about once a year of heavy printing (they cost about the same as a roll of filament). It certainly seems to cope better than my old flashforge finder did as I frequently needed to buy new build surfaces for that as it was easy to damage when struggling to remove prints from its rigid base.The control panel is basic, but workable. Some of the menus are a bit counterintuitive (for instance manual control of each axis is not found on the menu labelled Control, but under the Prepare menu), but you quickly learn where stuff is and it’s pretty workable. I do wish the selected menu item was shown as reversed colour though rather than with a line above and below, as several times I’ve managed to pick the wrong menu item without realising. Mostly that just means cancelling and going back again, but when it is selecting the file to print and you don’t notice until after the print starts it is super annoying. Also that brings me to my main criticism of the user interface which is that the main Information screen that shows when printing does not include the file name being printed, nor the expected time to completion. The latter you can work out from the percentage complete and the print time so far, but why should you have to do the math yourself?I’m summary, this is a ridiculously good printer for the money I paid, and would be pretty good value even at full price. Sure it’s basic, but what it lacks (auto levelling, dual extrusion, out of filament sensing) are nice to haves not major ommisions. I don’t feel like it’s a printer I will outgrow or become too annoyed with. So for my needs at least, it’s a bargain, neat, and capable printer.UPDATE June 2024 (2 years in): Still working beautifully and reliably, printing several prints a week (mostly fairly small ones admittedly). Can’t recommend this enough!

This printer has so far been excellent, it was somewhat easy to set up and when it is set up it does a lot of tests to make sure the build is level and stays level when printing (I think it has vibration compensation) it has a good sized build plate and because it is heated, filament sticks to it. The ace pro is great as well and the printer prints reasonably fast. It does have quite a large footprint so you do need alot of space to put it but it's well worth it. Anytime I have had issues (caused by filament not the printer) it's super easy to see the issue and fix it because of how clear it is put together.

The media could not be loaded. I've only had this printer setup for three days. purchased via Amazon. (of which it only worked for 2 days and 6 prints)At first, everything was printing fine and smooth. Then yesterday after completing a print (I'm roughly 6 prints in now since setting up), I loaded another file (which I have printed previously and perfectly I might add (and yes from the same Gcode that was on the flash drive). the printer started making a noise, the nozzle was hitting the print surface and grinding over the print.I manually adjusted the Z hight during print.and i kept adjusting until the nozzle stopped scraping on the print. Then once the scraping finally stopped, the nozzle was then too hight to form a print on the surface. and gave stringy/gaps etc.I aborted the print. i then preformed two bed levels. i then tried to print again and the same thing happened. I manually adjusted until the print collision stopped and then it was too high to print....I redid the bed levelling twice, i homed the axis and i did auto Z calibration. This gave me a hight of -1.31z When I tried to print with this, the print was loose and stringy, and shortly after starting, detached itself and failed. again i completed the bed levelling serval times below is the Z result of each tries this is what i got from auto bed levellingbed level #1 Z=1.37bed level #2 Z=1.36bed level #3 Z=1.35bed level #4 Z=1.36bed level #5 Z=1.31whatever i do, the printer scrapes over the print. even the boat which printed perfectly for testing on first start-up is having massive issues. I cant print anything.I have lost count on home many times I have auto calibrated Z and auto levelled the bed, Homed all etc. I have checked for play in the bed and made sure it is not loose. I have checked the tension of the X and Y belt pulleys. I have checked the extruder, to make sure not loose. and I have checked for play in the wheels to make sure they are not slipping on any axis.day 1 of setup through to day 3 the printer has always printed best at -1.51z and has not made or scraped until yesterday afternoon. now every print is scraping over the printed surface. I either have scraping, or nothing adhering and stringy due to then being to highI have attached videos, you can hear the nozzle scraping. I know the fan is loud but believe me, its very loud in person. It went from all ok to terrible in one print.Tried reaching out to anycubic customer services. They won't acknowledge it has a problem. Just telling me to constantly adjust the z hight..Auto level, random z heights. Home, test print, ajust the z hight on the fly, get a good first layer. After a layer or two print nozzle starts dragging across the print. Adjust to make it higher, nozzle continues to drag getting worse and worse until it beds in to the model.. or I ajust it too high and it dosnt even print.I've followed the troubleshooting wiki pageChecked the belts are tentionedchecked the rollers are correct tensionChecked belts are adjusted as per the manualChecked print head optimum torqueChecked sensor is correct distance as per guideChecked bed is the correct torqueNew fillement rollIt's not even my slices, I'm using the anycubic ones.This is the worst printer I have ever owned. 6 prints over a few days and it's junked.It is not user friendly at all, their customer service takes forever to respond and even then, with sending them videos of something wrong they just respond "adjust the z hight"Please please please avoid this printer at all costs.Product model: FDM printer/Kobra 2 Neo