Anycubic Kobra 2 Plus review

Having beforehand reviewed Anycubic’s Vyper and being impressed with its reliability and general high quality, I used to be eager to see how far issues had progressed with the Kobra 2 collection. 

In contrast to coreXY printers such because the Bambu P1S and Creality K1, the Kobra 2 printers persist with the standard “bed-slinger” design. That is the place the print floor strikes backwards and forwards and the print head strikes facet to facet (and upwards).  

The coreXY movement system lends itself to sooner printing however producers have discovered methods to enhance the print pace of bed-slingers. The Kobra 2 Plus, then, claims to be 10X sooner than conventional fashions and may print a 3Dbenchy in 17 minutes. 

There are 4 different fashions within the vary: the Kobra 2 Neo, Kobra 2, Kobra 2 Professional and Kobra 2 Max. The Neo is the finances mannequin which prints at a most of 250mm per second, the Kobra 2 at 300mm per second and the opposite three can – theoretically – go as much as 500mm per second. 

The principle distinction between them is construct quantity. The Kobra 2, Neo and Professional are all 220x220x250mm, the Plus is 320x320x400mm / 15.7×12.6×12.6 inches and the Max can print monumental fashions as much as 420x420x500mm. 

This evaluate is targeted on the Plus, which prices £449 / $449. 

Options & Design 

• Automated levelling 
• 4.3-inch touchscreen 
• Direct-drive extruder 

For those who’re new to 3D printing you may assume you want a much bigger construct quantity that you simply actually do. Most of the time fashions are fairly small, however then once more, it depends upon what precisely you wish to print. 

Any such 3D printer makes use of customary 1.75mm filament. PLA is the commonest kind of filament and it’s very straightforward to attach collectively utilizing superglue, so it’s potential to print massive fashions by splitting them up into smaller sections and printing them individually. 

I requested Anycubic to ship the Kobra 2 Plus as a result of I needed to seek out out if it had managed to create a bed-slinger that would print as rapidly as a coreXY printer at a bigger-than-usual measurement. 

Because the construct quantity will increase, the more durable it’s to print precisely. That’s one cause why the Plus has supporting rods for the gantry and two z-axis motors (and due to this fact two leadscrews) to maintain every thing steady.

Like many different 3D printers, the Kobra 2 Plus has a heated mattress with a magnetic and due to this fact detachable textured metal plate. As soon as printing is completed, you merely elevate off this plate and flex it to take away the mannequin. 

The filament – which isn’t equipped – sits on a reel off to the left and is fed by way of a run-out sensor and a reverse Bowden tube to the extruder that feeds it into the hotend. 

This could warmth as much as 260°C, some 40°C off the 300°C some rivals supply, however it ought to be sufficient to deal with PLA, ABS and PETG. Anycubic additionally lists the versatile TPU filament as one of many supplies the Kobra 2 Plus can deal with, however if you wish to use that, you’ll have to set a lot slower print speeds – round 100mm per second.

The included nozzle isn’t hardened so you possibly can’t print with abrasive filament resembling carbon fibre PLA.

The mattress goes as much as 90°C, which is once more decrease than some printers. However once more, it ought to be sufficient for most individuals.

Do observe that as this isn’t an enclosed printer you may have to put it in a cupboard if you wish to print with ABS or PETG which want a continuing ambient temperature that’s larger than regular room temperature to keep away from issues with warping. This isn’t a difficulty should you’re simply printing with PLA although. 

Setup 

The printer arrives in two most important items: the bottom and the gantry. These are fixed along with 16 screws for transport, which is uncommon, so eradicating them takes a short time earlier than you can begin truly assembling all of the components. 

Jim Martin / Foundry

The directions that come within the field are good, although, and it took me about half-hour earlier than I might energy it on for the primary time.  

If you do that, you’ll be walked by way of selecting your language, connecting to your Wi-Fi community, putting in the Anycubic app in your telephone – the place it’s worthwhile to create an account after which scan the QR code to attach the printer to your account so you possibly can monitor it from the app. 

Jim Martin / Foundry

After that, it’ll run by way of a self-test course of, computerized levelling, loading some filament, and at last vibration compensation (which ought to be re-run everytime you transfer the printer to a brand new location). 

Jim Martin / Foundry

You’ll be able to then print any of the fashions pre-loaded within the 8GB of on-board storage. However I’d advise in opposition to that as all of them have a brim by default which is a ache to take away for the articulated dinosaur and even the bottle opener. 

It’s the easiest option to check that the fundamentals are working, however pre-sliced information aren’t at all times the very best demonstration of the standard you will get. 

I didn’t like the position of the filament spool holder as a result of it’s proper by the ribbon cable for the print head, and the 2 contact when the print head is low down. It additionally means you want much more desk area in comparison with if the holder have been positioned on prime of the printer. 

Jim Martin / Foundry

You’ll want quite a lot of area anyway: the Kobra 2 Plus measures 630x605x564mm / 24.8×23.8×22.2 inches (HWD) and wishes rather more depth that to permit for the complete journey of the print mattress – at the very least 700mm. 

Efficiency 

I printed my normal number of check information, slicing them utilizing Anycubic Slicer – the corporate’s clone of the favored open-source Prusa Slicer – and utilizing the PLA profile equipped on the USB stick.  

It’s unusual that Anycubic doesn’t present extra profiles for different varieties of filament, and there isn’t even one to cater for non-high-speed filament. 

Jim Martin / Foundry

As you possibly can see beneath, the default speeds aren’t anyplace close to the 500mm per second most claimed pace, nor are they even the 300mm per second common pace that’s marketed. Nonetheless, there’s nothing to cease you rising them from these presets. 

Jim Martin / Foundry

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At these settings a 3DBenchy will print in simply over half-hour. However the pre-sliced Benchy on the USB stick prints in below 20 minutes.

Jim Martin / Foundry

Utilizing some high-speed gray filament that Anycubic despatched for testing, print high quality wasn’t the very best on the default settings. You’ll be able to see it’s not very clear in any respect on the facet of the slug beneath. I attempted numerous different prints after which swapped to some high-speed filament I had left over from testing the Creality K1 Max and prints have been significantly better high quality, suggesting Anycubic’s wasn’t pretty much as good. It actually turned very brittle on the low temperatures in my storage of round 10°C. 

Jim Martin / Foundry

Get the appropriate mixture of filament and settings – and slicer software program – and the Kobra 2 Plus is able to respectable high quality as this Benchy reveals. It printed in round half-hour.

Jim Martin / Foundry

I like to check every printer’s tolerance with just a few articulated fashions together with this slug. On the default measurement, printers typically find yourself fusing the segments collectively, which is strictly what the Kobra 2 Plus did.

An identical factor occurred with among the hinges on this infinite dice which additionally fused collectively. Whereas just a few of the hinges have been merely a bit stiff, a pair wouldn’t budge and forcing them precipitated the plastic to interrupt. 

Jim Martin / Foundry

I assumed it is perhaps – once more – previous filament at fault, however I threw the reel into the Bambu P1S’s AMS and used the identical 0.2mm layer peak. No issues with fused hinges in any respect: the dice folded completely. 

I then printed this tiny honeycomb field with an identical lid. Printing each components directly proved an excessive amount of for Anycubic Slicer which did warn me that there was an issue with the motion path which I ignored and ended up with an entire mess. 

Jim Martin / Foundry

Printing them individually labored significantly better and demonstrated that the Kobra 2 Plus’s retraction is nice: there was minimal stringing and the field appeared nice. 

To check for any layer shift with massive prints, I printed the double-spiral vase (proven within the photograph on the prime of this evaluate) nearly 400mm tall. I used some rainbow filament and ticked the spiralize setting within the slicer. It’s onerous to say if the gaps on the backside of every diamond are as a result of filament not being particularly high-speed stuff, however the finish consequence appears to be like nice. 

Jim Martin / Foundry

It was additionally good that, regardless of quite a lot of “shaking” of the mannequin because the print mattress moved backwards and forwards rapidly, the vase caught agency to the construct plate, as did all of the prints I attempted. You might want use a glue stick if you wish to print with ABS as you’ll nearly actually find yourself with some warping should you don’t. 

When it comes to noise, most of it comes from the highly effective cooling fan. However the energy provide additionally has followers they usually have been very noisy. I despatched a video to Anycubic and requested if this was regular, and was advised I’d want a brand new energy provide, which might be offered below guarantee. As of penning this evaluate, that has not but arrived. 

App & cloud 

In the course of testing, Anycubic launched a major firmware replace which added assist for cloud printing and monitoring. This turned out to be an enormous palaver, partly as a result of I ended up in some way putting in the firmware for the Kobra 2 Max and Anycubic’s assist then failing to instruct me to place the right replace file into an Replace folder on a USB drive and as an alternative saying the file wanted to be within the root folder the place the printer utterly ignored it. 

Jim Martin / Foundry

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Nonetheless, the replace ought to have been value it because it means you need to use the Anycubic app to seek out, slice, print and monitor progress of that print. The truth was a lot much less spectacular.  

Printing from the app proved unattainable. After selecting a mannequin to print, the app remained on the slicing display indefinitely and solely when making an attempt to cancel it did it transfer onto the printing display, however the printer itself by no means appeared to obtain the print. 

Jim Martin / Foundry

I attempted the identical factor from the Home windows app: utilizing the cloud service to remotely print a mannequin sliced within the app. However but once more, regardless of assurances that the gcode had been despatched to the printer, no printing ever started. 

It’s value saying that you would be able to’t monitor print progress from the desktop app – solely the cellular one. On cellular it really works superb, and sends notifications when there’s an issue (such because the filament working out) and in addition when prints are full. 

Jim Martin / Foundry

The firmware supposedly added assist for webcams as effectively, so I attempted plugging in three completely different cameras into the USB port marked with a digicam icon. No less than one appeared to be working, because it’s LED turned on, however there was nowhere within the app to view the digicam feed. 

Jim Martin / Foundry

In the end, I ended up exporting gcode from the desktop app to a USB drive and plugging that into the Kobra 2 Plus, then monitoring progress from the cellular app.  

A slick expertise it was not. 

Worth & availability 

The Kobra 2 Plus prices £449 / $449 from Anycubic’s web site. For Black Friday, there’s a £50/$50 low cost bringing it all the way down to £399/$399.

That’s a tempting value for a printer with such a big print quantity, totally computerized mattress levelling and excessive print speeds. 

For those who’re eager about saving cash and see the unique Kobra Plus on sale, simply do not forget that its construct quantity is smaller (300x300x350mm) and it’s a lot slower. 

For options, see our suggestions of what to purchase in our greatest 3D printer roundup. 

Ought to I purchase the Anycubic Kobra 2 Plus? 

Sure, should you’re in search of a 3D printer that may print larger-than-normal fashions rapidly utilizing PLA. With respectable high quality filament, it may possibly do an amazing job. Simply keep in mind that it’s fairly noisy. 

For those who don’t want such an enormous construct quantity, take into account the Kobra 2 Professional which takes up a lot much less area and is sort of a bit cheaper. 

Then once more, Elegoo’s Neptune 4 (or Professional) can be effectively value a search for even much less. 

It was a disgrace that I had so many points with the Kobra 2 Plus, from the overly noisy energy provide followers to the lack to print remotely or see printing in progress utilizing a webcam. Then there’s the truth that it’s not excellent at printing when tight tolerances are required for articulated components. 

However should you don’t intend to print these types of fashions and are comfortable to switch prints on a USB stick then the Kobra 2 Plus is a good alternative.