Anycubic Kobra 2 Pro Review - AM I WRONG HERE?!?

the world has changed I see it in the printers I feel it in the layers I smell it in the fumes much that once was is lost for none now live who remember it except of course Brands like any cubic see 6 months ago I reviewed the Cobra 2 and my attitude back then was it's fine I don't really care it works if you want an easy one that works great get this I was happy to just have a printer that worked out of the box and it printed decent quality models with little intervention from me the Cobra 2 Pro is little more than that was except it's now faster comes with a new logo and changes some ports around in comparison to that older model and even similar models from other brands this is a much better machine but the problem is the last 6 months in fdm printing was a very very long time let me show you what's changed I'm Ross and this is former videos right first up despite being called the Cobra 2 Pro this unit sits in the price and size bracket for a beginner printer because it's got a build area of just 230x 230x 250 mm this machine is just slightly on the smaller end of a mediumsized printer in terms of area and if you look on the website any cubic also advertised printing speeds of up to 500 mm a second which well like every other printer that's come out this year is far more than fast enough for any material you push through it and I would expect to say that this again like all other recent printers is because it's based on Clipper firmware but any cubic have expressly said no this is their own firmware where other sources online have claimed that this is clearly based on Clipper now I don't know nor do I care that much because I'm interested in what works but the setup and features of this printer are to my untrained eye identical to the workflow I've seen on printers that do use Clipper now if it matters to you I expect you'll find a way to get clipper on these if you must but by workflow I kind of mean the outof boox experience before we properly get onto that though you do need to build this printer and it's not too hard just connect the upper frame to the lower frame attach the hot end which is actually easier than most because the top screws work as clips and they hold the hot end into place while you insert the lower two screws before tightening everything up so that's quite good you attach the screen you plug in some cables and then just boot it up now unfortunately any cubic don't help with the build process by advising you what screw goes where you've literally just got a random bag of screws and you kind of need to guess which sizes are for what now it's not too taxing but it's also not simple for someone who's never touched a 3D printer before I'd say setup will take up to an hour if you're experienced with any kind of electronics assembly and there is a video guide you can follow for any support you need once you boot the printer up it will walk you through all of the configuration and calibration options up to your first print so let's talk about the features as it ran me through them the first thing that the printer has you do in this process is connect to Wi-Fi and I'll talk more about the wireless functions later but first the setup is janky now I expect this is due to the printer having a noncapacitive touchcreen it's limited by how accurate your button presses will be so instead of a keyboard to type in your password you've got an alpha numeric keypad similar to one you would get on a phone from 1998 seriously any cu really guys was this the best way you could figure out how to do it now whilst this is annoying it's still better than the God aul please set me up via your phone app solution that they've got on their resin printers but once it's connected to Wi-Fi the printer will then go through a fully automated leveling sequence and again I'll come back to this later because I've got more detailed things to say about it once it's done that you get to load filament which on this printer is from a plastic arm that sticks off the side and the best placement for your reel is also right in the way of the ZN X wiring harness thankfully though I've got this new S4 dryer box from sunlu to test out and honestly this item is the best product in this whole review because it's a simple device it's easy to operate and it does exactly what it says in a sensible way unfortunately though if I wanted to connect this with a PTF tube direct to the hot end it means I have to bypass any cubic runout sensor or just accept that I won't have a sealed feed between the dryer box and the printer but anyway finally once your filaments loaded in which in my case was the any cubic high-speed black pla they sent me it's onto resonance compensation which basically means the printer vibrates to determine how much it vibrates so that it can dynamically counter any vibrations during the print vibrates and all of this is the exact workflow that I've followed on every single Clipper based printer I've had but again any cubic have said that this is not Clipper it's their own firmware please respond to that statement in the comments as you see fit at the end of the setup the printer offers up a test file which is a shark-shaped bottle opener now most brands would give you a Beni that's been the adopted standard but maybe any cubic wanted to avoid a test print that had any Bridges since this printer has no dedicated partk calling fan however this was a quick print and showed me my first issue the base layers are not as close to the build plate as they should be and also quickly on that build plate it magnetizes to the bed but there's no sign of any guidance Notches at all a little convenience feature that pretty much every other brand has adopted and that's just so that you aren't having three to five attempts just to get it aligned right but moving on due to the base layers I needed to tackle leveling and leveling on this printer started as an absolute nightmare you see past that automatic sequence that happened out of the box there's no manual adjustment options not even any Z offset options at all once you've done the auto leveling in this Prin leveling process you must position the nozzle dead center above a sensor but the onscreen function to do this puts the nozzle a good half inch above the sensor so determining if this is Central to the spot in the middle of that sensor is nonon impossible and it was through doing this that I went to find the movement controls so I could at least lower the nozzle to see how far off the Mark I am but there are no movement controls on the machine's UI and the only guides that any cubic have on their site about leveling forward you to info about out completely the wrong printer when none of these options are available on the machine because it's got a completely different UI that's even a different color and different design to what I've got here now I am winging but thankfully once I ran through a quick firmware update from inside the app which required a full recalibration I was able to print Basse layers much better so I'm glad this has working now but without any obvious refinement controls for this level setting any cubic must be incredibly confident that they can solve all leveling issues through software alone and I don't know that this is enough but I guess time and future user reports are the only way to be sure but once I had it leveled it was on to slicing a model to test now any cubic provide you with their own slicer any cubic slicer which is based on prer slicer but with more limited options I think the aim here was to make something simpler for the beginner but due to the fact that it's an uncommon application the average beginner would probably benefit more from a slicer with a larger Community following thankfully though they do give you prer slicer on the USB drive but the setup instructions are how to install it for the Cobra 2 not the Cobra 2 Pro which will have different settings so unless you're already familiar with importing profiles which to be fair is just a case of file import config and choose the file on the USB drive any cubic have left you on your own when configuring a much better application now I would have loved to have used Orca slicer with this printer but once again there were no profiles available for this machine and as many of you know I'm more interested in Printers as a working tool out of the box than having to do even the most basic of leveling or tinkering look my view is that a printer should work for me well and easily so that I can get models out of it I don't think I should have to work for it anymore we've grown beyond that now now getting back to some of the functions of the printer you may notice that this has not one not two but three USB ports now one of them is clearly for you to transfer files to the printer in order to print another has a picture of a camera above it and I've got no idea what the third's going to be used for and the second the camera one doesn't seem to do anything as far as I can tell there are no listed cameras that work with this and any cubic don't seem to sell one so I do expect that this is reserved for a future firmware update and as for Wi-Fi well here's the catch this only works with the any cubic phone app once connected to your network you then connect to the printer in the app and this app has its own models and some limited slicer functions but limited is an understatement the one time I tried to send a file from this app to the printer it never seemed to arrive and whilst this app isn't as bad as the creality app it's not that much better either but just the whole idea of putting Wi-Fi on a printer yet not even allowing us to connect to it and send or monitor from our computers is quite limited an anti-consumer even any cubic own slicer has no way to remotely send files to this printer so I really just don't understand who this function is for are people honestly buying 3D printers and only using their phones to operate them but there's still the reason why I like this printer over the Neptune series is that at the point this printer was released I could actually buy replacement parts should I need them and I can get them direct from any cubic with eligo it took weeks before they released any of their parts but this also comes with the limitation on any cubic side the only nozzle available are 0.4 mm and any cubic have also decided to go with a proprietary nozzle type which means if you want to change the nozzle size on this machine there are more components to change in this printer to get it work and I have no idea if this is then going to affect the auto leveling function and you have no manual leveling function also looking online if you need to access components like the extruder gear it's a full hotend tear down now I wanted to like this printer I really did with a lackluster 12K resin printer performance from any cubic last year at least before the m5s pro came out anyway and with me really taking a disliking to the whole Neptune 4 range I wanted to easily be able to say if you're looking at a Neptune 4 here's a better option but well okay I can still say that this is a better option based on my experience with both printers because once I got this printer printing it worked just fine but it's still not much better and in just the last two months since I reviewed those Neptunes a lot has happened in the 3D printing space when it comes to user friendliness any cubic are so far behind the curve in terms of current fdm printer trends that I find it hard to even say this is okay anymore the fdm consumer Market is divided now for those of you out there like me you just want a userfriendly printer that just works and works well and this unit just has too many irritating quirks and significantly outdated design approaches in both the software and the hardware for me to recommend it especially when they are now slightly smaller but significantly better printers from other brands for just $20 more spent so then you're possibly thinking maybe this isn't For Me Maybe This is more for the tinkerers out there but am I wrong to assume that those users would be more inter printers with open- Source firmware like Clipper rather than whatever Frank software is on this aren't cruser and voron machines more suited to those needs than what this may be at the best of times so don't get me wrong the cobras aren't bad I don't want to be completely negative on them I just think they suffer from an identity crisis by failing to Target any particular user type and it's not any cubic fault it's just the cost of progress and my suggestion to them is go back to the boardroom and brainstorm some new ideas starting with who their target consumer actually is then go and make a product for them or ignore me and continue your race to the bottom sorry guys I want to say thanks for watching and a huge thanks to our members for making this content possible it's with your support that I'm able to continue making videos so please even if this video didn't help you decide that this is the right printer for you maybe instead it helped you decide that it's not hit the like button so YouTube will recommend this video to more people and drop me a comment below thanks for watching until next time you have been fined one credit for a violation of the verbal morality statute F hammer [Music] out

Channel: FauxHammer

Views: 29,746

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Length: 13min 24sec (804 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 20 2024