Elegoo Neptune 3 MAX VS Creality CR-M4! Can $470 beat $1100??

so you want to start 3D printing really big but you don't want to spend really big money so in this video we're going to find out if this 470 dollar 3D printer can beat out this 1 100 3D printer let's find out [Music] hey guys what's up welcome back to the channel my name is Frank and I have a pretty cool video for you guys today sitting behind me is the new elugu Neptune 3 Max fdm 3D printer and the creality crm4 3D printer now these are two huge 3D printers and they're great for building big props and cosplay case in point this gigantic Nova helmet like look at this thing now being able to 3D print this big has been a really cool advancement in the hobby but sometimes the really large 3D printers like the M4 and even the cr-10 max over here can be over a thousand dollars but recently some companies have been taking a pretty big swing at those price points like the elegant Neptune 3 Max which is only 470 dollars now I've been running both of these printers for quite a while now and then we also have the edition of my cr-10 Max over here which I've had for upwards of two years now and I want to know is this over a thousand dollar M4 really worth the price difference between the Neptune 3 Max or should you just save your money and get two of these almost three of them for the price of the M4 so first off I think we should you take a look at the M4 here and talk about the features that creality has added to it because the M4 is an upgrade over the cr-10 max now spec wise the M4 is basically just a replacement for the max it has the same size build volume and roughly the same size footprint build volume wise the M4 is 450 by 450 by 470 or roughly 18 inches by 18 inches by like 22 inches tall this is a massive build volume and one of the largest ones you can get on the market currently and it's pretty neat the cr-10 max here in my opinion was almost perfect for the time it was produced it is basically a creality cr-10s Pro V2 but bigger it's sported some really nice strut braces it had a Bowden tube style setup with a dual extruder gear it had a BL touch leveling system had a nice touch screen it was fairly quiet especially for the size it was easy to work with and it you know it's a pretty big printer in terms of the M4 they've gone and upgraded a couple things it still has the support braces it still has the build volume they've added a much nicer touchscreen system that's actually kind of removed so you can kind of hang this you know wherever you want if you ever put it in some type of enclosure they've adjusted from a roller wheel style setup with belts to a linear rail system with adjustable tensioners this is much more stable on the max they've gone and upgraded the bed it is a removable flex plate I didn't have any adhesion problems on this bed but it's you know it's it's very different from the bed that came on the max now we've upgraded to a direct drive extruder system this is their Sprite system with their own CR touch as opposed to the old BL Touch system on this they give you really nice cable chain for cable management these are not printed they are actually injection molded I was very much expecting them to be printed but they are really nice my only gripe was with that is they didn't put it on the y-axis which is arguably the one that probably needs it the most but you could probably go and print that and get one made both the Max and the M4 have the filament run out sensor system but the M4 now has a dual spool holder which is kind of nice it doesn't have a dual extruder system but you know if you want to swap filament over you can have one ready up there however they have ditched the SD card slot and upgraded to a USB slot this is the only one that works I haven't used the type C yet there is another USB plug over here on the side that doesn't read or register so I'm not quite sure what that's to oh another thing the cr-10 max doesn't have a z-sync belt where the M4 does it helps keep the z-axis screws in line with each other which helps a lot but honestly aside from those two things the M4 and the max are pretty much the same thing around the time of its Inception the cr-10 max was a little over a thousand dollars and now the cr-10 M4 is a little over a thousand dollars so it is just kind of a replacement for it with nothing being too substantially upgraded just small quality of life things now let's talk about the actual print quality on the M4 honestly not bad I started by pumping out just a little test bunny on it and yeah it's a little Larry but especially for the size of the printer I'm not expecting really super fine detail and quality you got a big 3D printer to print big not small bunnies the first print I sent on the M4 was this really low poly Oddish planter and it came out really good came out nice and smooth and consistent um the adhesion was great I like the the quality it came out this was on creality's uh standard filament that they sent me it they changed their filament boxes all the time but it's creality filament it prints good and I'm actually really happy with the quality of it the bottom layer came out really smooth and you know hey I printed what I wanted so then I decided to move up a little bit and try to max out the build volume size and print this giant Nova helmet however it was my first failure I did have a really massive layer shift and I still am not quite sure why though the overhangs on it worked really well it wasn't an adhesion problem because even when I caught this layer shift it was still stuck to the bed I think I was printing too fast for it and that was only 70 millimeters a second so I figured that there was a really bad y-axis shift and something just got messed up from the speed but instead of troubleshooting it I just resent the print without adjusting a single thing and then it printed just fine um so I'm really not quite sure what happened but I did to get the print out the supports came right off this is more of a slicer thing but the helmet printed I actually printed it standing up like this and it really didn't get too wobbly or Shifty I printed this at 70 millimeters a second on the M4 and it came out really good it took exactly one whole roll of filament 999 grams that's including supports but this came out really good like that's really nice quality for the uh for the speed I was running it at and what I was trying to do so I'm happy with this it works I had also gone and printed Thor's hammer in one piece standing up like that but I being the dummy I am I broke the handle when I was trying to pull it off but as far as the details on the hammer goes it actually nailed everything pretty good I still have to dig some supports out of there but it came out really good the quality of the prince is it's acceptable and then I finally printed some massive Arc reactors on it um I wanted to make some kind of fun wall decorations so I printed this giant Arc Reactor on it it's just the front cover and the quality of this came out really good I did have have a little bit of a layer shift at one point but it's because I bumped into the desk really hard but again nice tall easy had really good layer adhesion and I'm happy with it I also printed a glow in the dark version that uh if you're hopefully there's like b-roll right here of you seeing this but they came out really good however you might have noticed that I also printed very similar stuff on my cr-10 Max I wanted to see if the quality over the past two plus years has gotten better and honestly aside from some janky layer lines and I this was really bad quality filament when I did the swap it actually ended up coming out a lot nicer but this mule in there was printed on the cr-10 Max and honestly it came out pretty good I'm happy with this and it didn't break I also printed an arc reactor however it did fall over and didn't finish it was starting to get a little wobbly near the end but as it was printing the quality is pretty comparable to what the M4 produced honestly the quality difference from the max to the M4 not substantially better or worse they kind of look like they came off the same printer so I'm not really so far Blown Away by the upgrades on the M4 sure cable management is cool sure a new bed is cool sure a new user interface is cool but it's not producing any better prints than the max was I think over time as 3D printers evolve either the price should come down with the features it already has or there should be even more offered on the printer to justify the continued price point and so far in this case the jump from the max to the M4 I'm really not seeing that big of a difference in a jump in quality to justify that price or that price coming down and we beat us being able to get a cheaper cr-10 Max but it prints I haven't had any real issues with the M4 it's a good printer so far and it's huge but what if there was an alternative option this is the new elugu Neptune 3 Max and while it's X and Y dimensions are a little smaller than the M4 and the cr-10 max it is taller here's a little comparison of the build volume where the cr-10 Max and the crm4 or 450 by 450 the elugu Neptune 3 Max is only 420 by 420. so you're losing 30mm meters of build volume on both sides but you are getting a 500 millimeter build height on the max compared to the M4 and the cr-10 max which only go up to 470. so you're getting 30 millimeters back on the height so let's talk about the Neptune 3 Max's features you have a pretty nice touch screen here that's removable with a good user interface this way you can put it wherever you want you have a nice removable Pi Spring Sheet magnetic bed for popping off your prints you have an SD card slot holder and a USB to hook it up to your computer you have belt tensioner right here with a single belt but dual rails here you have a direct drive system and a run out sense I feel like I feel like I've said oh oh it has all of the same features as the M4 weird it it does it has exactly the same features as the cr-10 M4 it actually has a couple extra I know it's gonna sound stupid but it has a little storage drawer here and with this big of a build volume and if this big of a footprint there was plenty of real estate on the M4 to add some type of tool storage a lot of people appreciate little things like this no it doesn't have the fancy cable management but if that's the uh if that's the 600 plus price difference yikes now while I haven't had any adhesion problems with the m before over there on that new kind of smoother bed it's been fine and sticky this whole time um the pi Spring Sheet on the Neptune 3 Max which is also on the plus which is also on the pro it's across the whole line of the Neptune 3. this bed is awesome now I can easily go and get a new bed for the crm4 over here but I just turned this third Eleven Hundred Dollar 3D printer into a 1300 3D printer just to get it to have the same features as the max it has a reliable direct drive system it has a filament run out sensor that did fail on me one time the trigger didn't click one time during a print resume and unfortunately these are the results it thought it was still printing when it wasn't but again I doubt that 600 plus price difference between these two is in a more reliable run out sensor on the M4 versus the Neptune 3 Max once I restarted that print with new filament the Neptune 3 Max printed molineer better than both the M4 and the cr-10 max this thing looks great the Oddish planter on the Neptune 3 Max came out exactly the same as the one on the M4 if not a little bit better but that could be uh temperature settings and the filament I used but the fact that the 470 3D printer was able to match the 1 100 printer so far not bad and what about the giant Nova helmet well what about it it worked perfectly and I had to stop the print halfway through to change the filament out and the print resume function works perfectly you can see the change in filament clear as day there and there's no layer separation or any type of layer shift here it worked really nicely and they both printed in about the same amount of time using about a roll of filament and I'm happy with it and for comparison here's the muellineer on the Neptune 3 Max and the mule linear on the M4 and they look the same and the last Prince I want to show you that I got off the M4 are armor pieces if you're buying a printer this big in the cosplay world it's because you want to be able to print large parts for armors and cosplay and this is the VEC 3D Mark 85 Iron Man suit and look at that I was able to one shot the back and the chest on the Neptune 3 Max no problem the back plate did get a little Larry this was over a five day print and I could have used more supports on it I was trying to be a little stingy that's my fault but everything printed great and the chest plate printed even better like being able to one shot stuff this big reliably for under 500 that's that's awesome now I haven't thrown any big armor pieces at the M4 yet and I don't really think I need to just seeing the quality comparison that the Neptune 3 Max is putting out in comparison to the M4 I mean you can guys can kind of already figure out where this video is going I've also just gotten preheated the Neptune 3 Max here and the loudest thing on this printer right now is the cooling fan right here on the side of the hot end and it's really not that bad no louder than most 3D printers on the market as for auto homie leveling moving all that fun stuff it doesn't get any louder than the initial cooling fan that's you know making all the noise which I guess if you were really concerned about you can go and swap it out for a silent like knock to a fan or whatever but it's really not that bad now let's compare that to the M4 which is more than double its price okay I'm hoping my microphone is picking up the noise coming from the Neptune 3 right now so I'm gonna stay as quiet as possible and turn on the M4 and you should be able to hear a difference [Music] the cooling fan on the M4 is now the loudest thing in this room and I haven't even started preheating the printer yet foreign don't know why that took so long to power down um I I I can't sell you the M4 let's be honest here creality used to be the cheat brand creality used to be the brand that it was a race to the bottom they made the Ender three they hit that sub 200 price point everybody got a 3D printer and I think they're you know their reputation started going back up through the roof I just can't in good conscious recommend the M4 when something like the Neptune 3 Max exists now this isn't a sponsored hey go buy the elugu video no there are other options there's the any cubic Cobra Max there's even the uh the creality cr6 max which is much cheaper than the M4 here though a little bit smaller I don't really know what they were thinking making an over a thousand dollar printer on the market currently when their old thousand dollar printer did the exact same thing maybe it's their name and brand nowadays but elugu saw a hole in the market and took a shot in this printer this printer is awesome you can buy two Neptune 3 Maxes and still have money left over for the price of the M4 I it's not worth it now I'm not saying the M4 is a bad printer the cr-10 max wasn't a bad printer and the upgrades they put on this thing are pretty cool I do like them and the creality cloud print thing when you can get it to work isn't too bad either but it's just it's too overpriced right now for the features the M4 has this should have been a 700 ish dollar 3D printer and that would have been a much better comparison okay 470 for the Neptune 3 Max its build volumes a little bit smaller than the M4 the M4 700 ish dollars that's great that would make this thing way more worth it but the price point that it's at right now now I just I can't I do appreciate creality sending it to me to test and there will be a dedicated review video on the M4 going on the second Channel eventually but for now if you can grab it while it's in stock I know that has been a big problem with the Neptune 3 Maxes and the pluses they sell out super quickly but there's probably a reason for that because they're good machines so if you're trying to start 3D printing big stuff and you don't want to break the Bank elugu delivered by far honestly for ease of printing I may eventually get rid of the Max and the M4 and just replace it with a couple more Neptunes because why not it's reliable this was like the third or fourth print I did on the Neptune 3 Max and it was an over a five day print and I didn't have to worry about it at all I just kind of sent it so that's pretty much gonna wrap up this video guys I hope you did find it helpful and it helped guide you into making a smarter purchase like I said there's nothing wrong with the M4 I just think it is massively overpriced right now and there are better options on the market so um on top of the Neptune 3 Max I will link a couple other printers down below that I still think are worth the price point for the size but if you just want the absolute biggest 3D printer on the market right now that I think is good yeah the M4 is there maybe you can find a used cr-10 Max but very seldom are you gonna miss those extra 30 millimeters on the X and Y um just reposition the print or maybe scale it down a little bit it can go a long way if you have any comments questions concerns about anything you saw in the video please let me know down below by the leaving a comment I read them all and I will do my best to respond to as many as possible and if you haven't already please consider subscribing to the channel I have tons of more videos coming out about all these awesome 3D printers that are in the garage um way more projects in work and I would just love to be able to share them all with you guys but that's going to be wrap for this video as always guys thank you so much for watching and you have a good day [Music]

Channel: Frankly Built

Views: 144,735

Keywords: elegoo, neptune, elegoo neptune, 3 max, elegoo neptune 3 max, elegoo neptune 3, elegoo neptune 3 pro, elegoo neptune 3 plus, netpune 3 plus, creality, creality cr-10 max, creality cr-m4, cr-m4, large 3d printer, whats the best 3d printer?, what's the best large 3d printer?, large 3d printer?, elegoo vs creality, cr-m4 vs neptune 3 max, whats a good printer for cosplay?

Id: eOOK9KC5a3Q

Length: 17min 31sec (1051 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 01 2023