Printing BIG models with the Elegoo Neptune 3 Plus! Product Review

the following product was received free of charge for the purpose of review I've not been paid to produce this video and all opinions remain my own thanks to algu for sending this review sample out recently elgu brought a new 3D printer onto the market the Neptune 3 plus this fdm printer boasts an increased print volume and other improved features over previous 3D printers I'm Matt this is model minutes and join me in this video as I take a look at the elgu Neptune 3 plus and find out if it's any good for us scale modelers [Music] so starting off I received a relatively large box in the post but as you can see everything was really well packaged and I didn't notice anything damaged or missing as I took these items out of the foam packaging I'm not going to do a deep dive into how to set this printer up but if you've got a little experience of assembling things and following instructions it's a really easy and straightforward process the instruction booklet is really easy to follow being pretty clear with the text and images and all the bits and pieces you need are included in the box or in the various bags of parts all in it took only about 45 minutes to get to this point where everything is assembled and plugged in with a flick of the power switch the touchscreen display flashed into life and I was ready to begin printing a little bit of initial calibration was needed but after this was done I thought I would see if there were any files on the included 8 gigabyte micro SD card plugging it into the slot on the front of the machine I was pleased to find out that there was I decided to print out this little Buddha statue model as my first print on this machine to see what it was like after a few hours I was pleased to find this cool little statue on the print bed everything seems to have printed pretty well and so far I've not had any issues so now I think it's time to print something a little more modeling related as I received this printer when it was pre-release the slicing software that came included pre-loaded onto the memory card was what I used this was simply because elgu had created the printer profile on there but I'm sure that after the public release the profile will be available on your favorite slicer software I decided to try out one of my micro set and soul holders which is my own design just to see how it would do the sliced file was saved to the memory card inserted into the printer once again and then after selecting the file on the touchscreen and tapping print the machine word into life after a few more hours the print was finished and it was easily removed from the magnetic build plate so let's now try printing a few more modeling things I gave one of my tiny T Gauge houses ago some Beacon models pilot figures a display stand and even a super large keyring and speaking of printing things super large well this printer has a big build volume so I thought it would be really cool idea to see how big I could actually print something for this I chose to scale up the beacon models pilot figure until it filled the build space of the printer to reduce the time it took to print it was printed on one of the lower quality settings though so let's hope it isn't too bad after all this printer is going to take the better part of a day to complete and after 29 and a half hours it was finally done and here it is my one foot tall pilot figure despite being done on one of the lower quality settings I'm actually really impressed of this yes the layer lines are quite visible in a few places but it isn't anything a little bit of post processing couldn't fix I'm impressed with how the model scaled up as well which is a testament to the guys over at Beacon models who created the STL file for the time being though that's all I've had time to create on this printer so far so let's take a closer look at all the things the T Gauge house due to its small size is missing some details like the window frames but that is understandable seeing as fdm printers aren't always the best at reproducing tiny details it's not done a bad job though and I could definitely use this on a t-gauge layout my microset and soul holder has come out well too I did give this one a quick spray with some primer paint though and the layer lines are quite visible I think printing this one on a higher quality setting would definitely help bring out the text on the logo and make those lines less visible but on the whole it does the job that it was designed for my giant keyring well this was just a bit of fun but it has printed out really well with no issues not sure what I'm going to do with this one though the display stand came out really well too supporting the weight of the planes with no issues I'll definitely use some of these for some of my planes in the future the small Beacon models pilot is a really nice model not as fine as a resin print but still perfectly usable whilst the giant one looks really cool indeed I think I might have to paint up this massive figure and put it on my shelf somewhere on the whole though I'm really impressed with what I've been able to print so far having completed the prints I think it's time to talk about the good qualities of the printer so first up that large build volume is definitely a positive allowing you to get lots of models on the build plate at the same time or printing large models in a single part which on smaller machines would have needed splitting into multiple parts the large size of this printer does have a drawback though and that is naturally it takes up quite a lot of space I struggle to do much else on my workbench whilst this was on it so we'll have to find another permanent home for it where it could be used I love the aesthetic that elgu have gone for with this printer though with the blue metal work and gold build plate it certainly is one of the more stylish printers that I have oh and to add a little more style there is a built-in LED light strip which can be turned on and off from the control panel a nice touch the control panel being touch screen is really easy and intuitive to use and it snaps magnetically into its holder or alternatively can be moved around if needed thanks to the attached cable I'll throw some information up on the screen now to give a bit more background if you need it particularly the thing worth noting is the build volume dimensions as mentioned at the beginning of the video I received this printer as a pre-release sample and I'm under the impression that this is now available to pre-order when stocks are available I didn't know what the retail price was going to originally be but at the time I'm making this video now it would seem that it would be on sale for 350 in the USA which is about 280 Pounds or so here in the UK for that price in my opinion it seems like a pretty good deal for what you're getting with this printer it works reasonably fast isn't overly loud is easy to set up easy to operate and produces pretty consistent prints with the minimum of fuss overall I'm very impressed of this new printer from algu and I'm looking forward to using it for some more larger model work let me know in the comments if you have any suggestions on things that I could print also if you want to find out how to get your hands on some of the files that I used to print the models in this video links are also in the description for those once again I'd like to extend my thanks to elgu for sending out this review sample and also to my channel members for the extra support they give the channel if you'd like to find out how to join these guys on screen take a look at the links in the description if you're new here and would like to see more content like this subbing to the channel and turning notifications on will mean you never miss a new upload and dropping a like on this video will help more modelers with a similar interest find this video too finally all that's left to say is thanks to you for watching this one and I'll see you on the workbench again next time [Music] thank you foreign

Channel: Model Minutes

Views: 5,564

Keywords: airfix, airfix starter set, model planes, plane model, model plane, model minutes, model plane building, ww2 model planes, dapol kit, airfix starter kit, airfix model kits, quick build, making model trains, official airfix, beginner building model planes, how to assemble, scratch building

Id: ehKTfbOHV0s

Length: 8min 34sec (514 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 13 2023