Review on ELEGOO 3D Printer with Removable Motherboard - 220x220x250mm Build Volume - Additive Manufacturing Products by Darion Wooten

Came here to look at a regular Neptune 2 printer, then I saw 2D. I found almost nothing on the internet about this model with two extruders. Based on reviews of the regular Neptune 2, I took a leap of faith. I haven't regretted it one bit. I bought a fake Anet A8 kit about 4 years ago. It arrived in a box full of acrylic and screws. No details were collected. Fast forward to this printer. It is very well packaged, made of aluminium, with the base already assembled. Even the Y-axis belt is already mounted and tensioned. It comes with a decent set of free tools to create anything (well, you pay for it. You know what I mean). ASSEMBLY: Any single Neptune 2 extruder assembly video will also help you with this 2D one. All the steps seem to be the same until you end up installing the second extruder. Some videos complain that this printer requires a lot of assembly. Compared to my previous box of loose parts, this was easy. I took my time and was done in about two hours. As mentioned in many reviews, the base wasn't square and the build plate was wobbly. Before proceeding with the assembly, I loosened the screws on the right side of the base and gently pressed down on the rest of the assembly at the height of the table I was working on. Retighten the screws and voila, no more wobbly base or having to print adjustable legs for this thing. The only change I've made to this machine is to add stronger bed springs, as recommended in many places. I swapped out the springs on the bed before I started assembling everything else. With the mounting plate off, it's time to tighten up the wheels on this wobbly mounting plate truck! Although you only need four nibs, they seem to come in packs of 16. The price was reasonable so I'm not complaining about 12 pieces. The assembly went smoothly. The official video has pretty loud music and moves at a fast pace. Playing with the sound muted helped a lot, as did revisiting the sections as I made them. INITIAL LEVELING: The menu system will help you to level the bed. There are four corner points and a fifth point in the middle. It took me multiple rides to the four outer points to get them all on the right level. When I checked the piston in the middle, I found that it was too high - the nozzle was hitting the build plate. I adjusted each of the four corners by the same amount until the center was the correct height. I thought the prints were halfway through, so before we look at my warranty options, let's make sure this printer works - more on that in a moment. PRINTING: I have successfully printed more items in the last two weeks than I have in the last four years with the Anet A8 Clone. The printer came with red and green filament. The example gcode file on the SD card printed a two color mug model on the first try. I was excited. Being new to dual extruder printing, I had no idea what the heck was printing in the back corner of the desktop. It turns out it was a color-changing primer, and it should do the trick. Compared to my old Anet A8, printing is very quiet even on this machine. The X and Y stepper motors are almost silent unless they are making a very fast and large movement. Even then it's not bad. The Z axis is not silent. There will be a lot of noise when you start printing and the machine lowers the frame to press the Z-level switch. However, in normal printing, the Z-axis moves only a little and only for each new layer, so that the noise isn't really a concern. So far I have printed about 25 pieces in PLA. Part of this PLA sat open in my office for almost 3 years - I know it's a big no-no. This printer used it with no problems. I've only had a few failed prints out of all the multi-hour prints I've done. One of them was that the filament was wound incorrectly, so it got tangled up at the end of the print and the plastic couldn't unwind anymore - not a fault of the printer. One was because the gap at the edges was too big when I was trying to print a really big piece running diagonally across the entire bed. This is due to the bed issue mentioned below. One of the recommendations on YouTube was to replace the build area with a wham bam system. I ordered one at the same time as a printer. Unfortunately, they are not distributed through Revain. He's still in the box. I had no problems with the standard build plate. The prints hold up well and tend to fall off as they cool if you remove and flex the plate. You may need to use the included scraper after removing the center of some stubborn marks. I will use this standard bed until it doesn't hold up as well as it does now. MAINTENANCE: I used a ruler and some feeler gauges to determine that the center of the hot bed is actually over the edges. Remember I only had ONE print that failed because of this. I contacted Elegoo via email to see what to do about this part that was distorted from the start. They responded in less than 24 hours and sent me a replacement heatbed. I left a 5 star review because things happen in life and I just ask for the right people to take care of the problem. That's what happened here, without protest and with speed. GENERAL: I am very happy with this printer. It prints with just one extruder. So far I've only changed one thing from thingiverse to take advantage of the dual color, but it worked like a charm! For years I've struggled to get deductions just to get through this. I was just happy to get the finished work regardless of the quality. Now this thing is so reliable that I look at my finished prints to play around with the Cura settings to tweak the quality. That's the nicest compliment I can give this car.