I’ve had two good years with a Creality Ender 3 V3 SE. Once calibrated, that was a good workhorse. That printer has now gone on for kids to learn on (our local Catholic elementary school).
I gave in to the hype and bought a Kobra X. I’m not sure what to think of it yet, but these are early days. I certainly do not like Anycubic as a company and won’t be buying anything else from them.
There was two main features that convinced me to buy this printer:
- multi-color printing without an outboard MMU. 4 1kg spools are mounted on top. The hub, direct drive extruder, cutter and hot end are all contained in one tool head. I live in an apartment and space is a premium: I now have multi-color print capabilities in a slightly larger footprint. It is easy enough to mount the spools standing right in front of the printer.
- 260 mm^3 build volume. The SE is 220 mm^3: I missed out on printing a few models that were designed for a standard (256 mm^3) build plate.
I’ve read a few complaints about this printer not being able to handle TPU, but I generally only print in PLA, so not an issue for me. I also had to concede and adopt the Anycubic Slicer Next (I’ve been a Cura man for two years, but had to concede before that and switch from Prusa).
The biggest issues for me is to learn better skills at coloring a model (preparation for multi-color printing) and better “poop” (waste) management.
I’d like to hear from anyone else that bought a Kobra X.