Anyone ordered, or considered ordering, the impressive looking Elegoo Centauri Carbon, currently still taking pre-orders for only $299?
Proprietary nozzle and hotend, single z stepper, so no true bed tramming. Huge printer for the small build area.
I know that’s less than ideal. I already tolerate that on the Flashforge AD5M.
I’m shocked to read this. Where did you get this info?
It’s obviously aimed at being a head-to-head competitor to Bambu Labs X1 carbon. It’s build volume matches the Bambu Labs X1, and its overall size is similar as well.
The following review, which seems to be decently unbiased, is copied and pasted from a Facebook user group that exists in the name sake of the printer.
Hardware- For the price this thing can’t be beat. I have a Bambu Labs P1S that is currently priced at $630 in the US. The fit and finish of the P1S is better than the CC, but that does not justify being double the price. I feel major repairs will be an issue for both machines as the current market is moving away from the REPRAP, Open source, DIY 3D printers of the recent past. Printers now look nice, but still seem like they are ment to be disposable instead of repairable. I am not trying to sound negative. It just is what it is. I like tinkering, but it is also nice to be able to unbox a printer and get right to printing. The CC is much louder than my P1S, but in my situation this is not an issue. I have used PLA, PETG and TPU and I have been happy with my results so far. The printer itself has been nice. The issues really show up in the software.
Software- if you have read any reviews then most of this will sound familiar to you. The initial software experience for the ELEGOO CC has been rough. Especially coming from the polished experience with Bambu Lab printers like the P1S.
The touch screen has been nice and easy enough to navigate. Seems pretty intuitive. I have had a few errors when trying to send a print from the slicer to the printer via WiFi. This was resolved by turning the printer off then back on. The camera is not good. It is unreliable in the slicer and also when using the IP address to access the printer on a mobile device. I let my filament run out to test the run out sensor. There is a small blue light on the sensor to let you know filament is present. I let the filament spool run out, the light went off and the printer kept printing. I eventually had to pause the print. When I paused the print then the printer gave me a warning on the screen that my filament was running out. I had to disconnect my PTFE tube at the hot end to remove the remaining filament. I then used the load filament feature to get a new roll set up and was able to resume the print without issue.
Final thought. For the price I am happy with the hardware. The big question now is will ELEGOO be able to keep up demand and supply replacement parts. The software is the big issue, but all the issues I have listed can be fixed with updates. The ball is in ELEGOOs court. They need to keep up with support on the back end, listen to the community and make firmware updates, and keep up with demand on replacement parts and customer service. If they can do that the Centauri Carbon will be a home run.
I’m holding off on any thought of ordering one unless I confirm that there is more than one Z stepper!
That was my take at first glance as well. The current generation Qidi printers seem WAY better than this, when considering all the proprietary stuff in either.
FWIW, the Adventurer A5M has only one Z axis stepper, the 3 leadscrews are all on a continuous loop belt to the same motor. You can see that with the printer powered off if you ritate one leadscrew, all 3 turn at the same time. With a good calibration, the level does not change. Combined with the bed map level, the printer keeps a close level.
While I like the independent screws to level the bed, I don’t view this as a particular problem with the A5M, and likely Inwoild.not with the CC either.
Wow, I did not realize that. It puts things in a different light for me.
This was one of the reasons I got the Qidi Q1 Pro. I got both on black Friday for $350 but after having them I don’t think the $450 price point they are at right now is a bad deal at all. Little smaller than the P1S at 245x245 but larger than the 220x220 on the FF. It does have dual Z steppers. Z tilt is not enabled by default but its super simple to put it in the print start macro and it does it every time. Fully unlocked klipper and already installed Fluid web interface is nice as well. I do prefer Mainsail but Fluid is pretty much the same thing just a little different. Also does Z offset and really well. I have changed nozzles a few times from .4 to .6 and neither of them have ever dragged the bed or had a bad first layer. The nozzles are proprietary but the price isn’t bad. 2 bimetal hardened nozzles for $40 doesn’t seem horrible to me. They have good flow rate as well. I think my only real complaint with them is the start up procedure could be sped up a little bit. But since I can hit print from the computer and never have to worry about it I don’t notice it too much. And Ryan gets a kick back if you use his Affiliate link posted in his thread about them.
