The Good And Bad Of Large 3d Printers 

Cannot stress enough, having enough space as a prerequisite! My CR10 Max sat for 6 months in the middle of the garage because of how much space it commands. Love the printer but it takes up quite some space.

I'm surprised that you didn't mention two things: First, I have an Ender 5 which solved some of the issues you mentioned by having the print head move on the X and Z axis, and the bed only moving on the Y axis. No matter how big or heavy the print gets, there's fewer of issues you mentioned, and much less shaking of the printer due to the increased weight. Plus, it has a smaller footprint. Second, I haven't tried this yet, but you could use a UPS which would eliminate brownouts, and keep the printer running during a blackout. As long as the blackout isn't several hours long, it should eliminate the associated issues.

The original CR-10 is the largest bed slinger I have bought and I knew that was the largest I was going to go with a bed slinger, I needed a larger build area so I built a Pro 3D V-King 400 from self sourced best quality parts and then I bought two Ender 5 Plus machines, I read far too many problems that people were experiencing with large format bed slingers for me to change my mind regarding getting a larger bed slinger and I am glad I did.

Large scale printers should have a bed that only moves on Z axis, or not at all. Whipping parts back and forth is a horrible design.

I'm just glad you're not an idiot cuz a lot of people will talk about the product but never give you the name now I know the name and you gave me good information on the dimensions especially when the bed moved back and forth I approve of this message

I have a CR-10S purchased in Feb 2018. I thought I would need the build volume, but so far all the items I have printed could have been done on a 200x200x200 build volume. My bed was not flat when purchased and is still not flat. Not a surprise. I do not think the warping has changed over time. Hence I do not have a use case for these large bed slinger printers. If I replace my CR-10S, I would look at a CoreXY machine just to get a smaller overall footprint.

I use a CR-10S4 to build large functional parts and it works well for that purpose. I added a Microswiss direct-drive hot end, a TH3D ABL sensor, a silent mainboard and replaced the glass build surface with a thin sheet of G10. With the upgrades, it's a solid, reliable printer that fulfills a need. I doubt I would want to use as a daily driver though. It looks pretty silly printing a CHEP cube.

Fantastic video as always modbot! I have a couple of large ones aswell as the small ones. They all get used equally, but for the mostly, the big ones are the work horses. I don't double up the prints. One item per printer, I know some will say that is inefficient, but in the long run it just works.

I have been considering building a larger than Ender 5. This has provided some excellent food for thought. thank you.👍

Thanks for the pros and cons of big printers . I was thinking of getting the elegoo max

Thank you for explaining what fade height means. I saw the option in Marlin, but never found this particular description in the documentation.

This reminded me of the whole tevo tarantula experience when I got one years ago. Thinking of getting an enclosed 3d printer that can do ABS now.

I am pretty happy with my LK5 Pro as I have only once ran into not being able to print what I wanted to print. I also have a E2 Pro and I really like this printer. It pumps out some really nice prints. I only print as a hobby, but nevertheless it is super nice having two printers.

Thank you for your insight. It has made me rethink my requirements. And considering what I'll be using my printer for, it makes sense not to go bigger

Dude I feel like you were in my browser history and saw I was debating on getting and Elego large printer. I have seriously been going back and forth for two weeks on rather I want one or not. The one thing stopping me is they are out of stock. The other thing stopping me is I already have a Frankenstein CR10. So I have a large FDM but not with the fancy stuff. Thanks for your take on this topic.

Thanks. I have never used such a large printer.

instead of relying on power loss recovery, get a UPS! I run dual 1500VA battery backups on my large printer, one for the controller and one for the dedicated bed heater circuit. I run a Modix Big-60 V4 IDEX, so adding on $500 of battery backups to a $7000 printer is well worth it. but my building also has redundant generator backup so the printer really only has to make it through the 30-60 second generator spin-up time.

I have a Kickstarter Creality CR-6 Max which sports a 400x400x400 build volume. It is a beast and does require a huge footprint. Creality utilized a 42-60 through-shaft stepper with a belt gear on each side of the stepper with 2 belts driving the bed to try to overcome the issues involved with slinging so much weight. This caused several issues as you cannot get the belts 100% in sync with each other so they constantly fought against each other trying to causing one another to ride up the ribs on the belt gears. At slow speeds it was not bad, but at quicker travel speeds above 150mm/s, the printer would horribly vibrate. The full buildplate is heated and at 24vdc, it heats fast for such a large bed. The strain gauge probing has issues and I have made many, many modifications to the printer, enough that I could have built a voron for the price I paid for the Max plus the price of the parts I bought to upgrade it. I'd recommend anyone to go coreXY when going large format, the bed-slingers just are not worth the trouble. Not only is is difficult to sling that bed around, tall support material vibrates as that bed slings back and forth causing issues including falling supports.

Repping a STRONG beard game!

I have a CR-6 Max (400x400) that has been mostly decent. Most of the print failures were due to poor planning, not due to the printer itself. I use 0.6-1.0mm nozzles for everything on that printer.

Ender 5 Plus is a cube style non Core-XY that provides a huge build volume. If you add on an S1 extruder and klipper you can actually take advantage of big build volume and making parts in a reasonable amount of time. Bed slinger i3's just can't get that fast

My first printer was the Migbot Prusa i3 back in 2015

I designed the Maximin, the printer that should have been made in place of the FT5 R2. It has a bed size of 360x410x460, and was made before Creality formed. Currently looking for one that's at least 600x600.

Many people say that most of the time they print smaller things that would fit onto a 200x200 or even 160x160 build plate! That's why I think, two printers are really a good way to be flexible in that manner: a small size Ender 2 Pro/ Prusa Mini or similar which would be "big enough" for 85%+ of all prints and maybe a Sovol SV04 (that you showed with not only the bigger build plate but also some other aspect like IDEX for 2 color/ material prints. With that you also gain "more speed" by printing 2 parts simultaneously. *The fact that would also be interesting would be energy costs or savings with a second smaller printer!" If you always heat up that large bed for printing small things the size of a benchy or android figure than a mini printer on sale for like 120 bucks (Ender 2 Pro) should easily be more efficient over like 3 - 5 years and 2 prints per week, shouldn't they?! The downside (as you explained very good in your video) is space. And although a mini printer is like very compact it still needs the space especially when using a dry box for filament. But if someone regularly prints parts and also tinkers with the printer and is installing mods, the option to always use the second printer - if needed - could become very handy. So my take on this would be a small machine like the Ender 2 and a bigger one with IDEX and maybe an closed build volume for ABS/ ASA. *I wonder if Creality or Sovol would be launching a Core XZ machine (for easy enclosing) with at least a 300 x 300 plate and IDEX next soon?!* ;o) With that newer tool heads from the Ender S1 Pro and a Raspi4 with Klipper (or Sonic Pad) that could be very competitive against a fast but otherwise "standard" and expensive Bambu Lab.

Been eyeing the solvols. they seem like such a good deal! I Have been working on and tuning my dad's Tevo Tornado Gold with disappointing results. In that time I have purchased an Ender 3 Neo, modified in the usual ways to increase hot end flow and quiet it down a bit. Both printers are now on Klipper with all metal hot ends. The Tevo still struggles with ringing artifacts even after input shaping, the large machined glass bed is a behemoth. 75mm/s + 1250accl is the max you better even think about if you need any type of surface definition. the absolute egregious use of T-nuts holding everything together is likely the reasoning why the printer just can not compete with modern printers and the diminishing returns in terms of print quality. in the coming months it will probably see a cr-10 bed + cr10 x axis to stiffen it up. I've only found a one source of American made carriages and parts wish there were more but it is what it is!

I like your videos!

Been using my first gen CR-10 for a couple years now (it's 12v, lol) and even tho it's an quite outdated machine, i managed to get some quite good results on it ! I plan on replacing it soon with a Voron V2.4r2 ✨

My cr10 v2 size is the bain of my existence. I managed to build an enclosure to fit the cr10v2 and my ender 3 v2. I haven't even used the whole height... 260mm is the most i've used. However, I have used the full 310x310 bed. I might mod it to 310x310x300. I have just purchased a rat rig. I was going to get the 500x500 however due to the size, where i build it, is where it stays. I got the 300 version instead. My experience in 3d printing for the last 2 years is, more smaller is better. My plan now is 2 rat rigs 300 size and maybe a rat rig minion.

I don’t trust filament runout sensors and I also don’t like having that cold joint between paused layers. Definitely suggest larger spools, like Colorfabb Economy or others. Bed slingers haven’t innovated as much as I had hoped. Maybe machining the bed mount holes to compensate for thermal expansion. That’s what we did at work with our big Modix 120’s

i used to have a cr-10-5, which was a nightmare. it arrived damaged , but creality did not recover the damage. in the end just gave a low percentage of the money back for the pile of thrash they sold to me. I will not by anything form Creality anymore.

I would like to see klipper on that SV04.

I am updating my CR10 s5 to new board/PSU/switchwire/IDEX w the belted zmod (dual motors) so I will run x axis leveling at start and everything is linear rail now. Do you have an idea what 24v board to go with? So many on the market, and now.. so many old printers out there, you all have so much content to make videos on. Resto-modding these old printers would be a lot of quality video content to make there. Anyway, I know you have messed with a lot of boards, let me know if you don't mind, what board would be good to go for. I appreciate it man.

To me the only way a large bed printer should be engineered is with the part moving in the Z axis as it is being printed.

until now i had a flsun sr (wich i sold) and a prusa mini wich currently prints asa parts for a voron 0.2 i never really got along with the super racer, it wasnt that fast, never worked how i liked and messed up around 1 out of 10 ro 12 prints i really like the prusa mini, never failed onec if you use the right settings, but it will probably go one the voron is finished if not its gonna go as soon as i get my k1max ❤

I think it woild be great if i could get one of these with some extra parts to turn it into a belt printer, or a corexy/hbot

Can you run Octoprint with that Sovol SV04 IDEX Printer for dual printing? If so can you do a video on it? How is it holding up for you?

I've never had a part self-release from PEI whether it be PETG or PLA. Even warping tends to pull the sheet from the magnet. TH3D holds like it's glued.

What FDM brand/model would you recommend with a large print bed with the least user hassle that you can justt remove from the packaging and get right to work with most reliable prints? Let's assume the budget is under $1000. Thanks.

Every printer has pros and cons. Large format 3d printers should be corexy imo. BTW first.

Do you have a link to what you are using to store your filament on the wall?

I had two CR10 Max running Klipper and they worked well but print times were high. I didn’t like them being bed slingers so I sold the for too little money. I have regretted that decision ever since. Having a bed that size allowed me to do some great larger project and to replace them with a corexy instead has been out of my budget. I really wish I had kept them. By now I would have them running 1mm nozzle and doing fun things with them. I’m thinking of getting one of these new large printers since they are more affordable.

I would like to know which is the best large format, 3-D printer

my first 3d printer had 100x100x100mm build volume and no heated bed lol

I dunno if it's just me but the cr10 bed is 310x320 but most build plates are 310x310, so you end up losing 10mm of y axis. Unless you go for crealities own beds.

I love huge printers, but they're just so slow. Thats why i got a ratrig 500mm, which can do 25k accels even at the huge size.

To be fair, i think that if you need a large printer, make a ratrig vcore 3, it's your best option

What is the best large printer (400mm or more bed) under $1,000.00?

i hate my cr10 s4 i upgraded it so much linear rails hemera hotend 230v bed heater but now the bed is so heavly bend that i just want to put it in the trash. I messured in the middle of the bed its 0.5mm more down then in the corners. maybee i just buy the p1p and forget about that thinkering its just always pain that i need atleast 4 trys to get a sucesfull print

Yeah.. Not gonna lie, I'm not exactly looking forward to the size a 350mm Voron 2.4 will take up, however at the same time, we're going that route because we specifically want to print larger items as one shots, instead of having to print 16+ pieces, pin and glue them all together, and do an insane amount of post-processing on them afterwards to look seamless. Plus side though, I have a 300mm Trident, so I have a general idea of how much space it's going to take up. Larger printers definitely take up a surprising amount of space...

Some one yet again fails to understand that mesh bed leveling makes little difference if you are using a standard 3d printer as the printing head can not ajust the fine level that is needed unless you are twisisting thev bar that the print head moves on. The only type of 3d printer that is able to use mesh bed leveling to its full effect is a "delta". So will people please stop bloody talking out of there "ARSE". It confuses people no end.

Yeah kind of a tough problem that only 1 company makes 400x400+ printer kits as a coreXY and they have a reputation for using proprietary firmware and using pretty bad parts even compared to Creality or Anet.

I think another critical consideration is absolute print quality. Just because your printer can print to the extents of 400x400mm doesn't mean that it can do that while also matching the quality of a 150x150mm sized printer with significantly better rails. This is particularly important when what you are printing is a 50x50mm part, where all that extra print volume isn't helping you. Virtually every printer on the market larger than 150x150mm uses aluminum extrusion for the rails. Don't get me wrong, this has proven to be quite the functional little tradeoff... but it *IS* a trade off. So don't be fooled into believing that it's as good as purpose built linear rail systems. Aluminum extrusion is more capable for linear motion than linear rail zealots care to admit, but it's also less capable than extrusion zealots care to admit too.

I have an upgraded Ender3 which is my second functioning printer, the first being a FLSUN 2016 model delta. I will NEVER own another of EITHER design. My next printer will either be based on an Ender5 or full blown coreXY. It's going to be 100% DIY so I haven't decided yet. The bed moving is simply the WRONG configuration for additive manufacturing because the weight is constantly increasing as the print progresses, meaning physics is fighting the printer. The Z axis should handle the bed leaving XY for the gantry. And that's even before you factor in that a coreXY machine has a smaller footprint than a i3/CR10 layout machine with same build size. Meanwhile, the delta is just an overly complicated PITA.

Large printer with dual extruders, one with a 0.4 nozzle and one with the largest nozzle that will reliably work, 0.4 for precision and surface, huge nozzle for everything else.....................................

that bltouch is so bent, i cant..

Hi do you know when the ELEGOO Neptune 3 Max FDM 3D will be back in stock?