Anycubic Kobra Max HUGE 3D Printer Review 

I just recommended it to a friend, and he bought the Kobra Plus (slightly smaller version of the Max). He's really happy with it, but told me the same thing about the negativity on the Anycubic Facebook group.

In my experience, Anycubic makes generally decent machines that are lacking in quality control sometimes. Treat it like a creality where if something breaks, expect to fix it yourself. I had an Anycubic Chiron for about 3 years, so I'm looking to upgrade to this one now that the heat bed cable snapped.

I've been debating upgrading to the PEI spring steel plate for the Kobra Max. How do you like the one the Vyper has?

@@DoresoomReviews I'm considering the same. I love the plate on the Vyper. Adhesion has been 100% and I've never had any problem, and the flexible magnetic surface makes prints really easy to remove.

5 months later, what is your take on the Kobra Max?

Still love it, it still works great.

Glad it was helpful!

Nope, just scaled it all in proportion.

Thanks! There are actually quite a few differences between the Kobra and Kobra Max other than build volume (I have both printers, BTW). - Kobra has a direct drive extruder, Kobra Max has a Bowden extruder. - Kobra has a spring steel PEi coated bed, Kobra Max has the Glass Ultrabase bed - Kobra has a non-contact inductive bed level sensor, Kobra Max has a strain gauge sensor that actually contacts the bed. -Kobra has single z axis lead screw, Kobra Max has dual. -Kobra has single y axis rail, Kobra Max has dual.

Where did you buy it from? So you didn't even use it and declared it junk?

@@DoresoomReviews couldn’t use it the spool holder & other parts were missing, no quality control. It had clearly been returned then sent to me without checking over, if your happy to waste money for second hand junk then go ahead 👍

If you've already run the auto leveling routine and manually adjusted Z-offset if necessary, try editing your start G-Code to include the M420 S1 command. In Cura, for menu options select “Settings”>>“Printer”>>“Manage Printers”>>“Machine Settings”. There you'll see the start G-Code that's executed before every print. Add another line after the G28 auto home command and insert "M420 S1". That will re-enable auto bed leveling after the G28 auto home wipes it out. I didn't have any trouble with my Kobra Max initially with auto bed leveling. However, when I got my standard Kobra and installed the profile in Cura, I started having trouble with both my new Kobra and my Kobra Max ignoring their auto bed leveling data. (I also had updated Cura simultaneously, so more than one variable was in play.) After some Googling, adding that M420 S1 command fixed the problem immediately for the Kobra Max. My standard Kobra turned out to be too far out of level for the auto leveling to compensate for, and I had to make further mechanical adjustments to the bed and X axis gantry to get that one working right.

It just takes longer for regular prints. The marble run was with the original 0.4mm nozzle. Anything you print in vase mode will be a little weaker, since it will have a wall thickness of 0.4mm instead of 0.8mm

This printer was pretty easy to set up if you're a beginner. It's a much bigger investment starting out than an Ender 3 or Kobra, but if you're sure you'll need the larger print volume, then go for it!

After replacing the nozzle, I just changed the line width to 0.8mm, the layer height to 0.6mm, and played around with print speed. You'll have to go slower since it's extruding 6X the volume than the default configuration. I found different types of PLA required different speeds for the hot end to be able to keep up. I'd start at half the speed you were using with the 0.4mm nozzle and adjust from there. An easy way to do it is adjust the print speed percentage on the fly in the user interface. If your extruder starts slipping or grinding on the filament,, then slow down.

It is noisier than other 3D printers I've used. I run it in our basement and can occasionally faintly hear it when I'm upstairs. It's just subfloor and flooring though, with no insulation between.

Looks like a great printer, but it's only on pre-order now and not out until July. I think the biggest advantage is direct drive if you want larger TPU prints, but then you're probably taking a hit with print speed slinging around the extra mass.

@@DoresoomReviews To be honest not really. its dual z and the hot end is very small for a direct drive. With the PEI plate instead of glass its light. Im printing at 80mm/s with no issues and can go up to 120mm/s with very little drop in finish.

Yes it does.

I just copied the parameters from CHEP's TPU profile for the Ender 3: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-sGxewzACO9g.html I'm using Overture TPU: amzn.to/3ZYR8gJ

2yrs in and I'm now repairing more then I'm printing and that's not kewl haha

I'm using Cura. I started with their default PLA profile that comes with the printer, and did a few temperature and retraction towers for each brand of filament. It can be really brand dependent for the perfect settings.

Check the inductive sensor on the z-axis gantry. It may be faulty or just not plugged in securely.

@@DoresoomReviews can you say that in ultra beginner terms lol

On the left upright post, there's a sensor slot that a metal tab slides between when the nozzle is almost at the bed. Unplug and re-plug that cable. Then run the auto bed leveling program and see if that fixes the issue. If that doesn't fix it, try going into Settings and increasing the Z Offset to keep to from crashing into the bed.

www.thingiverse.com/thing:1340784

There's really no detectable odor for FDM printers, at least with the materials I print with (PLA, TPU, PETG). If I get right next to it and inhale deeply while it's printing, I can get a faint whiff of melted plastic. But the air quality monitor I have located on the same workbench doesn't detect any increase in VOCs or particulate while printing.

I don't believe there's a switch on the Kobra Max like there is on other Anycubic printers. The power supply says it can handle 110/220V. I haven't actually hooked up to my laptop with the USB connection - I just use a microSD card, which I think is easier anyway.

I haven't used that one sorry. It would just be me reading off it's specs same as you can do.

Slow way down! I've only gone up to a 0.8mm nozzle with PLA. You're in uncharted waters! 😄

www.thingiverse.com/thing:1340784

Try adjusting your z offset lower. After homing the print head, the nozzle should be the thickness of a piece of printer paper above the bed. Adjust the z offset lower until you can feel resistance when sliding a piece of paper between the nozzle and the bed. Also try applying a glue stick to the bed covering the area you plan to print in.

@@DoresoomReviews ill try that thankyou appreciate the advice ill let ya know how it goes

I used a color change filament that gradually fades from one color to another as you print: amzn.to/43Srsp6 For something like that, color change rate depends directly on how big each layer slice is. For small objects you'll barely notice a difference in color, for large ones like the marble run they will change colors rapidly. I've also used a tri-color filament that shows different colors depending on which direction the print head is moving: amzn.to/4aiMUWt Or if you want to get fancy and switch colors once or twice between layers in a print, you can either customize the g-code to stop at a certain layer so you can swap filaments, or you can watch the print like a hawk and manually pause it and swap filaments.

​@@DoresoomReviews Thank you so much for a very quick replay. Alright, but in general this printer is just single colour? And can't print the same as for example Bambu Lab X1-Carbon where the printer changes the colours when needed? Well I understand that we can pause and change manually but I more interested in automatic colour swap do Anycubic do something like this as BambuLab is a few times more expensive printer :(

Yes, in general this printer is single color. The Bambu X1C looks like a great printer (which I've been eyeing for a while!), but with the AMS it's 3-4 times the cost of this one. I don't think Anycubic makes a multi-filament printer unfortunately.

@@DoresoomReviews Thanks, yes BambuLab is really expensive but when I look what it can it is really amazing printer. Unfortunately they doesn't have the bed sizes like Anycubic has which makes Anycubic still really good printer to have for bigger prints I guess. Many thanks

No, sorry I don't have those posted. I've found it depends enough on the filament that' it's better to start with the provided PLA profile and then run some temperature, and retraction towers for fine tuning. I used CHEP's TPU profile for the Ender 3, just adapted to the Kobra Max printer profile.

Yeah, I was really surprised there was no built in interface for calibrating esteps. You have to connect to a computer to do it with Pronterface or other similar program.

@@DoresoomReviews bugger!! Thankyou for getting back to me I appreciate it :)

I've had a roll of tpu 95a sitting on my bench for 6 weeks after having to suddenly rebuild my printer ... Lesson learnt it had built up so much crap it was the only thing keeping it tight haha .. either leave it be or do it allllll the time hahah... Not keen on a tpu melt through . My cat did that years ago to my da Vinci.. entombed my extruder so glad it didn't catch alight but 😅

I haven't used the Neptune 3 Max, so I couldn't say.

I don't see a 115V vs 230V switch anywhere on it. I've got mine running on 110V just fine. The data plate on it says it's rated for 110V or 220V, so I assume the power supply can handle either. The funny thing is, I also just bought a Kobra for the direct drive extruder, and ran into the shutdown error when I tried to print. It was the 110V/220V switch on the back that was set wrong.

@@DoresoomReviews thank you for responding I appreciate it. Which Kobra print max or pro, with that issue?

@@anthonyrickardii6198 Just the regular Kobra. It heated the nozzle and bed just fine running on 110V, but as soon as I hit print the screen would just go blank. The fix was easy - just flipping the power supply switch. But I had to Google it because I would have expected the machine not to turn on at all when set to the wrong voltage.

@@DoresoomReviews that’s interesting thank you for your advice I appreciate it

I've never gotten the Cura estimate to match up with actual print time either. It's about 5-10% longer than the estimates each time. I took their PLA profile and tweaked it with some temperature and retraction towers specific to the Overture PLA I'm using. And I just copied CHEP's TPU profile for the Ender 3 into the Kobra Max print volume.

Cura 5

Yes, I have an example of a PETG benchy later in the video.

No.

Try reinstalling the last stable build of Cura. Or possibly try a different slicer.

What slicer would u recomend me

I've only used Cura myself, but you could try slic3r, Prusaslicer, or simplify3d

I'm not sure exactly what's going on in your video, but from what I can tell your extruder temp (EO) says zero for your print settings on the screen. What do you have your extruder temperature set to in your slicer?