Elegoo Neptune 3 Pro & Plus: 250mm/s high speed printing, stock Marlin VS Creality Sonic pad Klipper

welcome back to Aurora Tech Channel today I am going to review the latest elegoo Neptune 3 Pro and plus printers these two machines are pretty much identical the print volume of the pro is 225 by 225 by 280 and the retail price is 230 dollars the plus has a larger print volume of 320 by 320 by 400 and is priced at 350 dollars there's also a Max version which has a print volume of 420 by 420 by 500 and is priced at 470 dollars this pricing seems pretty aggressive so let's take a look at the hardware of these printers first they all use a direct drive extruder in terms of the extruder design it's pretty similar to the under 3s1 series and uses a bond Tech clone dual gear extruder they have a dual C axis with a timing belt and use an inductive Auto bed Leveling Sensor the print surface is a textured Pi spring steel sheet they come with a 4.3 inch capacitive touchscreen as well as all of the mid-range printer upgrades such as LED lights belt tensioners filament sensors 32-bit boards with STM chips silent stepper drivers on all axes and clean cable management with all this hardware for a super low price the price value is actually amazing in addition to testing out the normal printing speed I will also experiment with increased print speeds I will compare the performance and print quality of the Clipper firmware with the stock Marlin firmware by connecting the machines to creality Sonic pad I'm very excited to explore these features and share my results in this video I would like to thank eligu for sending me this machines to review and took reality for supplying the Sonic pad to me in this video and with that let's get started [Music] we have the bass touch screen Gantry filament holder some tools and a power cable the structure of this machine is really simple so all you need to do is connect the Gantry to the base and tighten the four screws underneath Mount the screen on the right side of the frame Mount the filament holder on top and connect some cables flip the power supply to your local voltage and finally check that The Eccentric nuts of the X and Y axis are tight enough to make sure they don't wobble and check the belt tension too everything looks good so we can turn on the machine screen UI is pretty clean and is similar to that of an Ender 3v2 since this machine uses an MKS motherboard and Screen elegu reprogrammed the screen UI to make it more usable as there are no leveling knobs under the bed it will just let the auto bed Leveling Sensor do its job the sensor does 36 points on this tiny bed which I think is a little bit Overkill then we will set the Z offset and heat up the machine to feed in some filament I will start by printing a calibration cube with Area 1 rainbow silk candy pla while the cube is printing I will put the Neptune plus printer together it is essentially just a pumped up version with two support rods for the taller frame and instead of having no leveling knobs it has six knobs under the bed I will let the Neptune 3 plus print the same G-Code file and see how both prints turn out they both look pretty much identical on the Y surface I found that the plus has more ringing which may be caused by the larger bed creating more momentum to swing back and forth besides that they both look okay and the dimensions are also accurate next I will slice another 3D benchy and let both printers run the same G-Code again foreign [Music] the smaller Pro took 1 hour and 36 minutes to finish and the plus took less than a minute longer so the speed is still pretty much the same the print quality is really nice for both of them with no cooling issues the plus does have a few tiny stringing but other than that I can't see any differences then I will print a model of the Elizabeth Tower also known as the Big Ben on both machines [Music] [Music] it took them both 15 hours to finish as the maximum seat height of the pro is 280 millimeters and the maximum height for the plus is 400 millimeters I printed both of them at 280 millimeters for a better comparison it's interesting that the plus is still stringing a tiny bit but it's not that big of a deal the tip of the tower looks good on both of the printers next I will print some TPU using the pro I'm going to print a large flexible lizard model [Music] [Music] [Music] it took a little over nine hours to finish but this lizard was printed beautifully [Music] while the lizard was printing on the pro I printed ABS on the plus I will use the same Conger smoke filter as an air purifier while printing abs I will print a small screw box and I'll start by printing the lid directly on the Pei sheet to see if the ABS can stick to it as expected without an enclosure and because it's printing in my cold garage the corners warp especially the bottom left corner still the other Corners don't look that bad so I'll just apply my favorite Elmer's craft Bond Extra Strength glue and try to print the body of the box foreign [Music] [Music] this time it sticks perfectly and the print looks good and is still usable with the lid [Music] next I will try printing with nylon filament as this rule of nylon has been opened for over a year I will dry it first using this new filament dryer from fix dry which can heat up to 70 degrees Celsius I will dry it for six hours after that I will keep this spool of nylon inside the box and keep the heating on while printing [Music] foreign [Music] is printing very well this may be the best nylon print I have made with this spool of overturn nylon over the past year it looks as good as pla with zero issues and overall is a perfect part after that I changed the nozzle on the larger plus printer to print a large trash can that almost uses up the entire print bed [Music] the Extrusion looks good I printed this at 25 millimeters per second as the filament needs to be melted pretty quickly with a large diameter nozzle since this is a standard hot end I just want to make sure it doesn't cause under Extrusion [Music] foreign [Music] the model was finished with perfect Extrusion but as you can see there is a crack here as this is only a one layer thick wall and the entire body is Hollow it seems a 0.8 millimeter nozzle with the same line width is not strong enough to hold the model the trash can is unusable as it can easily break then I use the same nozzle with the same speed and settings and printed a scaled down version this time the Extrusion was also perfect and the trash can is usable the bottom and the inside all look good without any issues using a large diameter nozzle to print something this big only took less than four hours next I will try something more extreme I will switch to a 1.2 millimeter nozzle to print the full size trash can and see if it works I will print at 10 millimeters per second to make sure the filament can melt fast enough at first it prints all right but as you can see later on the extruder gear is turning really fast to keep up with a 1.2 millimeter diameter nozzle after a while the extruder stepper motor overheated and stopped moving I stopped the print and after a few minutes I started to extrude some filament and it worked again so I guess I may have pushed it too far using the 1.2 millimeter nozzle then I switched back to the 0.8 millimeter nozzle and printed the scaled down trash can with petg to see how it looks [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] it also extruded perfectly and had zero issues with petg using a 0.8 millimeter nozzle okay I've pretty much tried all the materials on the stock setup so next I will install Clipper on both printers and use the creality Sonic pad to control them I've prepared the config file for Clipper and the motherboard firmware which I will put under the video description you just need to copy the bin file to the root of the SD card to flash the printer and copy the printer.cft to the USB drive that came with the Sonic pad insert the SD card to flash the printer firmware to clipper you will see the boot screen for 15 seconds and then when it shows update firmware it will just stay like that forever as Clipper only supports classic LCD screens with the Sonic pad I will use the seven inch tablet to control the printer so you can simply unplug the screen if you want my Sonic pad was factory reset so I will set everything up from scratch select the language agree to whatever it says select the time zone and connect here 2.4 G Wi-Fi network for non-creelity printers scroll all the way to the end of the list and select other models depending on which Port you plug your printer into on the Sonic pad you may need the serial Port ID my config file assumes you plugged it into Port 1 so if you use another Port just change the MCU section to your port number insert the USB drive that contains our printer.cfg and it will load the config and set up the printer automatically if your config file is incorrect it will keep repeating and it will require you to log in using the terminal or the web interface to configure manually however if your printer Hardware is the same as mine you should be good but I can't guarantee that as printer Hardware may change from time to time so if you do decide to use my config files good luck and use them at your own risk after a while when you see the success message it will perform a self-test it will test the heatsink fan part cooling fan and show the leveling menu starting with setting the Z offset and followed by Auto leveling now you can use the Sonic pad to control the printer a small bug I found is that no matter how I try to rename the printer the Sonic pad still shows unknown printer but I don't have this issue with creality printers I'm not sure if it's just my own problem but let's keep moving I will then set up the plus using the same process the only difference is that I connected it to Port 3. I then use the accelerometer that came with a Sonic pad to calibrate input shaper on both machines I don't want to design another Mount so we just use duct tape to tape it onto the print head after the x-axis is done I type the accelerometer on the center of the print bed and did the y-axis okay the Clipper setup is now done let's open our web interface as you can see I have two printers the default one is the Pro you can use the IP address directly or use it with port number 7125 for the plus since I installed it on Port 3 the port number will be 71.27 I will now set up the Moonraker plugin in Cura just send the print job directly to the iphs with the port number or without the port number if you only have one printer connected if you want the preview thumbnail you can choose ufp which is the ultimaker format or if you don't care about the thumbnail you can just choose regular G-Code I will start with the 120 millimeters per second profile that I previously made for the under 5s1 using the Sonic pad the speed is 120 but only when printing infill it will print at 60 for the walls and 40 for the first layer the acceleration is set to 3000 but for a small print like this anything between two thousand to three thousand won't make a huge difference I will just send the print and start it directly from Cura okay the Sonic pad is responding and the web interface is also showing the same print job [Music] it ended up taking 54 minutes and 38 seconds which is around 50 faster than the stock setup the result looks pretty good and the cooling is also okay I will compare the bengies printed at different speeds with the stock standard speed at the end I then tried to print at 150 and 200 millimeters per second as you can see the surface still looks clean even when printing at 200 but we start having some cooling issues if the speed is 150 or faster as the surface still looks pretty good I want to add an external fan and keep pushing the printer using the Sonic pad to print at even higher speeds we are going to use this 12 volt 1.6 amp 120 millimeter fan and mount it on the side of the printer to show you how strong this fan is let's turn it on and set it to its maximum power it can actually blow the Banshee away so cooling definitely won't be an issue anymore let's retry 200 millimeters per second as expected there are no more cooling issues I then tried another one at 250 with a 0.25 millimeter layer height the print took just 34 minutes and 7 Seconds to complete and the result is still presentable let's compare the stock setup at 60 the Sonic pad at 120 the Sonic pad with extra cooling at 200 and the fastest 34 Minute benchy with the Sonic pad extra Cooling and a 0.25 millimeter layer height I'm quite happy with the results let's talk about the pros and cons of these two printers starting with the pros one these printers are built with high quality materials surpassing those found in budget machines when printing at a standard speed a 50 to 60 millimeters per second the print quality is excellent even when the speed is increased to 120 or 250 millimeters per second with three thousand millimeters per second squared acceleration the print quality stays presentable two the Neptune plus has a total of six leveling knobs which is more than the standard four knobs found on other printers this feature may work better with a larger bed especially on budget machines where the heat bed may not be completely flat as for the standard size Neptune Pro due to a smaller print bed it no longer requires leveling Springs the bed Leveling Sensor is designed to do its job and it works quite effectively like it does on a prusa mk3s plus three using an inductive limit switch for bed leveling is a low-cost alternative it may not work as fast as the BL touch or CR touch but it is definitely more stable than the 3D touch or the strain gauge Leveling Sensor and I didn't have any leveling issues throughout my tests four the pi sheet is of high quality and it sticks pretty well to all commonly used materials like PLA petg and TPU for abs and nylon I can print without issues if I have glue applied five the capacitive touch screen is highly responsive and is of high quality the UI structure is simple clean and fully functional it also uses an MKS Robin Nano motherboard while I'm not a big fan of the rub and Nano screen UI a Lego has reprogrammed the screen UI and has done an excellent job common issues when using Auto bed leveling and setting the Z offset that I found with other MKS motherboards no longer exist on these Neptune Pro and plus printers six both printers work well with clipper I connected both machines to the creality Sonic pad and they can produce presentable results at a speed of 120 millimeters per second using the stock Hardware when I added an extra large fan to the Neptune 3 Pro it was able to print even faster at 200 or even 250 millimeters per second 7. at this price range you get the full package including almost every feature you could possibly want such as a dual gear direct drive Auto bed leveling a dual Park holding fan a color touch screen a dual C access with a timing belt a solid base belt tensioners on both the X and Y axis a filament sensor and clean ribbon Cable Management I can't see any machines in the same price range that can beat these two now for the cons one the hot and assembly is a bit bulky and extends quite a bit at the front as a result I have to tighten the eccentric nuts tighter than normal to prevent it from wobbling this may lead to another issue as the rubber wheel seem to wear out faster than they do on other machines two the stepper motor is not very strong when I try to use a 1.2 millimeter nozzle on the Neptune plus to print out a one millimeter layer height even when printing at just 10 millimeters per second the stepper motor stops responding before the first layer finishes which may be because I pushed it too hard but when I switch back to a 0.8 millimeter nozzle and print at a 0.64 millimeter layer height it works perfectly fine three using a USB drive or a full-size SD card instead of a micro SD card will be preferable it wouldn't cost much to change to an SD card slot personally I don't like micro SD cards on non-camera or mobile devices that don't really need to limit the physical dimensions of the storage media 4. the slicer profile and the latest Cura 5.3 is not tuned well enough but just using the Ender 3s1 profile works fine in conclusion at a price point of 230 dollars there's nothing else in the market that can beat the value of the elegu Neptune 3 Pro it offers the full package including features typically found in mid-range printers that cost 300 to 400 and the build quality is still pretty good therefore I would call this the king of Budget Printers if you're a beginner looking for a printer don't bother with those under two hundred dollars just get the Neptune 3 Pro for 230 dollars in addition the Neptune plus which offers a print volume of 320 by 320 by 400 and the same full package is an incredible bargain at 350 dollars there are also no other mid to large size printers available at this price point that can match the value offered by the Neptune Plus initially I had planned to test out the Neptune Max which offers an enormous print volume a 420 by 420 by 500 and costs only 470 dollars which is a pretty crazy price unfortunately the max is currently sold out but since it shares the same extruder and most components with the pro and plus I assume it should also work similarly in my opinion the new elegu Neptune series outperforms all other budget 3D printers currently available in the market while it would be even better if they came with all metal hotends that support 300 degrees Celsius high temperature printing the current offer is still an excellent deal if you are interested in these machines I included the links in the description that's all I wanted to share about these two machines 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Channel: Aurora Tech

Views: 69,528

Keywords: Elegoo, Neptune 3 Pro, Neptune, Elegoo Neptune, Elegoo Neptune 3 Pro, Elegoo Neptune 3 Plus, Neptune Klipper, Neptune 3 pro sonic pad, Creality Sonic pad, non creality printers sonic pad, sonic pad for other printers, sonic pad klipper upgrade, sonic pad 250mm/s, sonic pad klipper fast 3d printing, fast 3d printing, Ankermake M5, klipper firmware 3d printer, part cooling high speed 3d printing, high speed 3d printing, high speed 3d printer, fast budget 3d printer

Id: hFMCORlVZ3A

Length: 24min 34sec (1474 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 22 2023