Ok I’ve got another 3D printer here. I’ve also got a massive hole in the floor of the studio. My foot went through some floorboards and I discovered there was wet rot.  But the show must go on. Crinkled edge there. I’m kinda preferring plastic at the moment especially compared to the wood which is prone to fungus.

I’ll put this back over here. A few things have changed in the workshop… I’ve had to get rid of a lot of things, and also lift things off the floor to make space to treat the area and replace the floorboards. It’s couldn’t have come at a worse time.

So this printer comes in two assembled parts and is a massive improvement to the Anet A8 – you fasten two larger machine screw through the base section into aluminium of the top section, and then secure the machine screws on the side through the fitted brackets. It’s really simple. The foot print isn’t that much bigger than the Tevo Tarantula, but the bed size has increased.

Got to be careful not the drop anything into the excavation.

It is worth mentioning they have achieved this by pushing the linear guide block closer together. This will probably have an effect on the print speed and artefacting – as the metal bracket that the heat bed fits onto isn’t supported from the exterminates so it won’t be as rigid.

I did notice a simple metal belt tensioning bracket on the machine which I guess is useful – but my anycubic i3 mega doesn’t have one and that’s my favourite printer so far.

It’s nice to see the electronics in an enclosure, with a switch but it looks like the same old stuff from the Anet A8 which I’m not really a fan off. The PSU is earthed which is the main thing and everything seems fitted but with this price range of machines I would always check.

The external wiring is very simple as everything is labelling, and you don’t have to do any soldering but the connections for the limit switches feel a bit flimsy. They just push fit onto the prongs and are then covered by a little plastic to prevent them shorting.

I’m guessing with the heat sensor, should probably put a little thermal paste or something in there. A lot of this is going to need to be cable tied down, just so you don’t accidentally pull something out.

At the moment you can buy the Anycubic i3 Mega with a 1kg spool of PLA for about 270 whie the E10 is being sold for 65 pounds les, but without the filament so it’s more like a £45 difference depending on where you get your filament from. I would suggest just savings a little extra money and going for the Mega as I’ve been printing stuff on that for well over a month now and it’s actually really impressive.

Ok I’m going to turn it on… sounds like an error message.

I’m currently working designing and making a 3D printed rotary slit-scan cameras and well you can see results in this video… I don’t think I could have done that with the Anet A8, or the Tevo, and I would have got board of this printer pretty quickly. Ok here goes. Home!

It feels like the panel behind here is a bit far back. It’s actually rubbing on the chassis.  Wait I’ve just noticed you even get a ruler. For obviously measuring the z on either side.

For the sake of a fair review, which I guess this is not. You get two little packets of PLA and a manual which is rare.

They are evolving very quickly. 3D printed end cap for the extrusion is really nice.

The machine is easy to assemble and well I better print something just so I can say I’ve used it. Some people like to print a benchy, others like the test cube but I think I’m going to print the most horrible thing I can find on thingiverse… Antler Piggy!

Ok I should mention something annoying about levelling this machine. And that is the display quickly resets back to the start or home display after you’ve clicked to move an axis. It’s really annoying – it just doesn’t stay on the axis moving menu for long enough. In the end I preheated the machine and turned the controller off and moved the bed around by hand levelling each corner.

Also the nozzle takes a lot longer to heat up. Mine plateaued at 207 C and stayed there for 15 minutes before I gave up and changed the filament heating settings in repetiere host. Even then I noticed temporarily covering the fan which cools the heating element sped up the process – not how you should use the machine I think.

As with the Anet A8, because again these are many of the same components, you have to be careful get the filament all the way into the heated nozzle. My stepper was clicking and I ended up pulling the PTFE tubing out, cutting a wedge into the end of the PLA and then physically pus that down into the nozzle before pressing the PTFE tubing back.

So I just used the same printer settings as I use with the AnyCubic i3 Mega but I reduced the print speed to 40 mm/s for the Anet E10 – I’ve managed to get decent prints coming out at 80mm/s with the Mega.

So to recap – if you are really on a budget and want larger bed capacity maybe go for this one, but for a little extra, you get 1kg of filament, a filament sensor and a much better print bed, and a much more rigid machine so I would still suggest the Anycubic i3 Mega over this machine, anyday.

Anycubic i3 megaaaaa.

I’m going to make a top 10 blog post so as I get new machines or try new 3D printers out I’ll list them in order of preference and the link to that will be in the description. It will probably change over time so take it with a pinch of salt and check back regularly if you are interested in what I think of different machines.

Butt looks good.