I’ve always been fascinated by 3D printers, but I never knew what I would do with it. When Shenzhen-based company Elegoo offered to send its $350/£300 Neptune 4 Plus for review, I thought I’d better take them up on their offer and find out what’s possible with a modern 3D printer – and what challenges awaited me A complete beginner. Here’s what I discovered – from the challenges of the initial setup process to defining the successes and failures of the first few weeks of 3D printing.
First, the setup process. The Neptune 4 Plus comes in multiple parts, so you’ll need to follow an IKEA-style assembly process to connect the main components, install the included control box, and connect a bunch of wires. A printed manual is provided, but there is also a digital version on a USB stick. The stick also includes a video tutorial on the setup process, which I followed carefully. The build itself is very simple and should take about an hour, with no real challenges – the smaller components for each step (such as screws) are neatly labeled in separate bags, and all the tools are provided, which is nice.
The real challenge comes when you’ve screwed everything together, inserted everything, and turned the machine on for the first time – because now it’s time for leveling.This process requires you to raise or lower the nozzle, a hundredth of a millimeter at a time, until you can pull a piece of paper between the nozzle and the print bed go out But it won’t be pushed back. The process repeats at six points around the bed, this time the adjustment comes from the springs underneath, which you tighten or loosen by turning a knob.Again, you need to find the right amount of friction between the nozzle, paper, and bed; judge How many Friction requires some patience.
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After completing the six points, I saw a YouTube video that suggested not to proceed to the next step – auto-leveling – but to go back to the initial leveling step, level the center point again, do the six springs again, and then finally go to auto-leveling program. I did this – tearing the paper only once or twice – and was rewarded with an auto-leveling stage, which moves the printhead sequentially to 36 different points on the bed.
From here, just add a roll of PLA to the holder at the top of the machine, feed it through the “out of PLA” sensor, push it as far into the top of the print head as possible, and finally press the “load” button to heat the head and begin pulling the PLA over the head. I don’t quite know what to do with the flow-through PLA, but I used a plastic scraper tool to scrape it off the print bed and it seemed to work fine.
The USB drive came preloaded with a few designs, so I chose to print a small Buddha model as it seemed to be the quickest to make. Estimated build time was about 20 minutes, but after about 12 the Buddha was complete – and appears to be in good working order, extremely faint horizontal lines can be seen, but other than that the detail is only a few inches higher than I expected There need to be more characters.
My biggest mistake that first night was to immediately start a second print: this time a flower pot! I was excited to make something actually useful and prove the concept, but the printing took about three hours – and it was past midnight. I didn’t want to sleep or even leave the room for too long in case the build got ejected at high speed or the print got messed up, so I spent those three hours taking care of it while working on the other side of the room. Room. I don’t think PLA fumes are very toxic, but I opened a few windows just to be sure.
The problem with this late night print, besides my increasing tiredness, is that the Elegoo’s small fan (80mm?) makes a lot of noise when running at full blast, causing the table to shake and the computer to squeak. The print head rotates in a circle. I ended up moving everything off the table to prevent things from banging into the wall in rhythm, and changed the machine to “Silent” mode – interestingly, “Normal” and “Sport” are the other two speeds Setup – This makes me feel a little guilty that the questionable bustle might be keeping my neighbors up at night.
After an initial trial, I became increasingly comfortable with the machine and started printing prints from my machine to the printer via WiFi under ABP’s motto – Always Print. Over the next few days I downloaded a bunch of models from Thingiverse and made:
- Colt 1911 pistol (best thing I’ve ever printed – incredible detail)
- Weighted Companion Cube keycaps (printed in six minutes!)
- Snowflake Christmas Ornaments (very quick, if a bit gray)
- Two nutcrackers (really useful and cool to see perfectly working screws)
- Another Buddha (for testing purposes)
- USP-S with removable suppressor (biggest thing I’ve ever printed, but fiddly)
- Narrowboat (it took a whole bunch of string printing before I figured out I needed a “support” that goes under the “overhang” so the 3D printer doesn’t print into the “empty air”)
- Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger 1 Ausf. Type E tank with rotating turret (requires huge effort to remove the supports imprinted in the tiny gap between the tracks and chassis)
- Classic Rocket (so I can use this post title)
I’m really pleased with the detail – seeing the beautiful font on the side of the 1911 is especially jaw-dropping – and the speed with which all the products are produced, with the longest print (USP-S) taking about eight hours, smaller models like Snowflake, The Nutcracker , Buddha and Rocket were completed in about half an hour.
After doing quite a bit of printing, I tried using OrcaSlicer, a slicer program recommended online, instead of the option offered by Elegoo Cura 4.8.Although the introduction of Neptune 4 Professional version existence, I thought it was close enough, but it ultimately failed. The next print I attempted was slamming the nozzle into the print bed, and after this setback and the many things I tried that failed, even printing the pre-sliced sample model that came with the printer, I was convinced I had screwed something up – I got Broken nozzle, or somehow corrupted the firmware.
Thankfully, through repeated manual and automatic re-leveling, my problem was resolved and I’m back to work. Slowly I learned some necessary bracing skills: how to add bracing using Cura, which certainly prevented some early disasters, adding different types of bracing, and then removing these from both exterior (easy) and interior (very difficult) placements support. Not all prints survived intact, but none were completely destroyed either. I’m making something really cool, at least if you don’t pay close attention to the details.
After about a week, it felt like a good time to write this review and share my experience. This may come as no surprise, but the main thing I learned here is how little I know about 3D printing, and how complicated the practice is! That’s one of the best and worst parts of starting a new hobby – something that initially seems simple and straightforward turns out to have beautiful, terrifying complexities that can completely disappoint you if you’re not careful .
Don’t get me wrong, reading Reddit posts and watching YouTube videos provides a lot of useful information, but it can be overwhelming to see how many variables there are to adjust and how much you should remember: slicing models, updating firmware, selecting Slicer software, changing nozzles, performing maintenance, working with different materials and more.
But ultimately, I don’t worry too much about that side of things – if things get really bad, I’ll ask for help, but for now I’m enjoying the ability to think about something, go “Ah, that’s cool” print”, and then Get a small plastic model after a few hours. If the print isn’t perfect or something goes wrong, that’s okay – I’ll figure it out eventually and I won’t stress things out too much.
The biggest problem I have is “This is actually it works Own a 3D printer? “I think so. yes Useful, but this practicality comes at a price – the physical space on the table – about half of the IKEA Idasen 160x80cm table is fully contained; the time spent on printing, post-processing, planning and maintenance; the need to keep the windows open during the winter Open to prevent PLA fumes from building up; and of course the investment in the printer itself.
For that matter, though, you can make an almost unlimited variety of small to medium-sized gadgets with the relatively modest price and power of PLA, which means you’ll be picking up as gifts for at least a few years (until your friends get tired of it) 3D printed stuff ! ). You can also make useful things, like the flowerpots and nutcrackers I made, but the challenge is more about thinking about what you can actually do – and gaining the skills to design custom parts yourself – than mastering the print settings. I think you’ll make your money back after a relatively small number of prints, and the longer the printer works, the more valuable it will be.
In terms of value, the Neptune 4 Plus does look good. It’s quite large but relatively cheap compared to other 3D printers I’ve seen. To be fair, the firmware and software are still immature, with Elegoo shipping Cura software version number 4.8, and the main Cura build being (reportedly much improved) 5.5… but out of the box, everything does work. It’s certainly not plug-and-play, but the build process was simple and relatively brief, and there were a few models provided with the printer itself, which gave me the confidence to try larger, more complex prints early on. I love the WiFi functionality, I love the integrated LEDs in the bed and nozzles, and I love the ability to manually level the bed.
So, in the end, I really like this 3D printer and considering its size, it’s really good value for money at $350/£300. It just needs to mature so I can use it with different packages and upgrade the firmware without worrying about it. (It’s not a good look to go into a dedicated Reddit subreddit and see reports of people bricking their devices due to firmware updates, that’s for sure.) But for now, if you stick with the default firmware and default packages, This may seem surprisingly bulletproof to a beginner – just remember to level the bed a few times and wipe down the print area with rubbing alcohol every few prints, and you’re good to go!
I’ll continue to experiment with Neptune 4 Plus behind the scenes, so if there’s anything you’d like to know or want me to try and print, please let me know!
