Elegoo Neptune 3 Pro 3D Printer Review. What Accessories And Filament Do You Need With This Printer.
I was thoroughly impressed by the build quality and print quality of the Elegoo Neptune 3 FDM 3D Printer. Winner of the Best Budget Printer of 2023 is well deserved. However it needed a lot of tightening of the belts and axis linear rail rollers during the initial assembly, which was not covered in the assembly instructions, would have been missed by a beginner with less experience and resulted in horrible print quality. So, the tightness of all belts and linear rail rollers needs to be checked before running the printer.
WHERE TO BUY PRINTER:
WHERE TO BUY ENCLOSURE:
WHERE TO BUY FILAMENT:
Assembly tips
To make it easier to attach the gantry, set the printer on its side and mate the gantry to it and loosely tighten the screws. Then set it upright and lower the Z axis such that the print head is all the way down to the build plate. Set the printer at the edge of a table such that you can access the gantry assembly screw and tighten it down. Do the same for the other side.
Check the tightness of all the belts. If the X or Y-axis belts are loose, tighten them until there's no more slack.
PROS
Assembly is straightforward and easy.
Includes 2 extra nozzles and a Teflon hot end feed tube.
Prints great out of the box (after tuning the loose axis)
Prints TPU very well
Dual-drive extruder gears grab the filament very well. Don't have to worry about slippage. It feeds the flexible TPU filament well too.
CONS
X Axis belt was very loose (no mention in the manual to tighten that.
X Axis carriage was loose and wobbly. Needed to tighten it using the eccentric nuts.
Y Axis table was very loose. Needed to tighten it using the eccentric nuts.
No enclosure. Adding an enclosure will improve the print quality.
The included micro-SD card is poor quality and slow. It causes the print to pause at the end of each layer, which causes extra material to accumulate at that spot. Get a new, quality micro SD card.
The Micro SD card slot is small and annoying to use to transfer files. The lead-in is poor and too easy to shove the card into the gap between the micro sd card slot and the housing. Also, have to put the card in upside down which is counterintuitive.
The user interface of the control could be improved.
PRINTING
For such an inexpensive 3D printer, I was very impressed by the print quality.
ASA PRINTING
ASA is a UV stable ABS designed for use outdoors. The Neptune 3 Pro did an excellent job printing this material. Small parts stuck well to the build plate and didn't warp. I haven't tried, but I expect that large parts will still warp on the lower layers.
TPU PRINTING
TPU is normally a tough material to print. In the past I would have never even attempted to print TPU using 1.75mm filament. I only used 3mm TPU filament because it is stiffer and feeds better. 1.75mm filament usually leads to under extruding and poor print quality.
I was pleasantly surprised by the TPU print quality from the Elegoo Neptune 3 Pro. It printed as good or better than my 3mm filament printers. You still need to print very slow ~20mm/s.
TO BE CONTINUED...
