ELEGOO Neptune 3 Pro FDM 3D Printer with Auto Bed Leveling
ELEGOO Neptune 3 Pro FDM 3D Printer with Auto Bed Leveling, Dual-Gear Direct Extruder, Dual Lead Screw Drive, Removable Capacitive Screen, 225x225x280mm Large Printing Size
From the brand
ELEGOO develops the high quality, cutting-edge and user-friendly 3D printers.
At ELEGOO, we go beyond being a 3D printer company. We recognize the crucial role businesses play in fostering a sustainable ecosystem. We believe in the power of innovation and sustainability to shape a better world.
his is my first 3d printer, had it 3 months and it’s been amazing! the only issues I have are USER errors, for example, it takes a few days to learn how to get good-quality prints via the software but you will get there! i have wanted a 3d printer for 10 years and I’m so glad I waited!
Here’s some tips:
Follow the instructions for putting it together and install Elegoo Cura (the latest version)
Ditch the supplied USB and use a new one.
Do test prints for dimensional accuracy to ensure belts are not tight or loose (mine are still perfect after 100 hours+)
Turn off the large gantry fan, which is for going super speedy (500m/s) and you will most likely stick with the default “fast” setting of 200m/s for quality prints, unless you want to try going faster of course….
use elegoo filament and Set your material temps to 200c, this will help you print without supports, not saying you will never need supports (it can’t print in mid-air after all) but this will help reduce the need for them.
Go with tree or 10% gyroid supports if you have to use support.
use “hidden seems” or “smart seems” under the “walls” drop down.
Don’t use the glue stick, If your filament is not sticking use dawn of fairy dish soap to clean the pei plate, dry with a microfiber cloth and use it again straight away. try not to touch the middle of the build plate with your fingers as the grease will stop the filament from sticking.
You can buy 16mm silicone spacers for replacing the bed springs, this saves manual levelling every 10 prints or so.
Remember that print orientation matters, some times rotating an object 90 degrees will make it stronger!
Test, Play and have fun!
I first tried 3D printing about a year ago with a second hand Ender 3 and boy, I must have spent 50+ hours trying to level that bed before I finally gave up and sold that heap of trash to someone else.
It wasn’t until I went to a convention recently and saw all the cool stuff people were making that made me want to try it again, and after a bit of searching I decided on the Neptune 4 Pro, mainly for the low price and decent featureset
Setup was painless, took me about 35 minutes to get it put together with my clumsy fat fingers, if you’re more nimble than me, you can probably do it in under 20 minutes. Plugged it in, turned it on, and… It just worked. I levelled the bed once, using the “basic” 36-point system instead of the “pro” 121 point system, and it worked straight away!
I’ve printed about 10 items in the last day, and aside from a few issues with getting things to stick to the bed (solved by using the included glue stick and a good clean to remove any oils), it’s worked perfectly! I cannot overstate how happy I am right now!!!
Print has an goods resolution and is very quick.
Pros: relatively easy to assemble, doesn’t get stuck filament, can print very well, very fast ! Great adhesion to the bed..
Cons: Z AXIS issues, when it starts building higher than 2 cm you have to raise the axis as it will start scratching and damaging the print, the bed tweaking is not great, the wheels are rubber and they wear out fast.. once every 5 prints it forgets the leveling and scratches the bed..
I bought nozzles from amazon cheap.. easy to change
Overall if you don’t mind the tweaking it’s better than 500+ printers..
For the price I would buy it again !!
It`s my second 3D printer. First I bought some years ago and had bad experience with getting good “first layer”. After couple months of troubles I finally disassemble it and put on it laser head.
This printer works like a charm. I have it only couple weeks but already print a lot of toys, animal models and so on.
Of course I spent some time to level the bed and, most important, to get correct Z axis offset using A4 paper sheet but its worth it.
I do not use flash drive to transfer gcode but connect LAN cable to home network switch. It has very good web UI, easy to understand, to use it and to upload and print gcode files.
I am happy! 🙂
Update with pictures.
Printing results in X, Y and Z axis are very accurate for straight lines/objects, but have inaccuracy for round objects. I am not sure is this because of slicer mistakes or some wrong printer configuration settings or printer hardware issues.
But I can repeat that this is perfect 3D printer for beginner for that price (less than 400). If you want really perfect prints then look for more professional, industrial printers. 🙂
17/11/23 getting more consistent results by following a routine – clean nozzle and build plate before each print – do an initial level to check the Z offset so that the same piece of paper used each time gets trapped – then back off slightly so it just moves with friction – SAVE on the LCD screen – when printing make tiny adjustments if needed using FLUIDD (0.005mm up or down) until layers are smooth and even
15/11/23 – Is there a way to use the onboard mesh sensor to measure the distance to the bed when doing auxiliary bed leveling – this would be accurate to 1/100th mm and would be more reliable than the random piece of paper method ?
latest update 03/11/23 – after a lot of stress I have discovered that the Z offset I get using a piece of paper causes problems, it is simply incorrect – eg. I got an offset of using a piece of A4 paper of -1.57 and had to adjust to -1.77 (0.2mm) to get prints to work – I am hoping this fixes my issues and will look at config files to see if I can set the adjustment there.
Latest update 24/10/23 – the Elegoo customer service has been excellent and they sent me details of updating firmware and UI – although not perfect in the sense of the Z offset is still a bit off each time, I have started using a wide brim on my designs to allow real time compensation before a print gets going.
Update I have reset my star rating to 4 and will POSSIBLY raise to 5 – Elegoo have contacted me proactively, which is very good, they gave me some info on how to solve my problems – there may have been a number of things affecting my Z offset issue – my bed plate screws were a bit slack- I tightened them – my PLA + filament requires higher temperatures than ordinary PLA so I have started using 230/65 – also when using PLA+ my nozzle needs to be slightly further away from the build plate – so when I was changing from PLA to PLA+ the nozzle was too low. I am currently running off a PLA+ print after doing the same print in PLA and so far all looks OK.
I have had the printer for a week now and as someone else pointed out leveling does appear to only last for one or two prints at most – to be fair, I have discovered that the level mesh created remains accurate however, the Z offset drifts a lot and requires resetting frequently – I have reduced my star rating to 3 stars and will keep an eye open for some sort of fix to this really annoying problem. Good prints when Z offset is good , frustration when Z offset drifts.
Arrived on a Sunday afternoon and being new to this 3D stuff assembly took me half an hour with the help t
he a video provided. First steps – Aux and Auto bed leveling.
My first print was the little buddah from the provided models and with the provided filament – this worked very well until I wiped the touch screen – did not notice an emergency STOP button on the screen – which shut down the printer immediately with only 75% of my print done – I believe it is not possible to resume from an emergency shut down – anyway the print quality apart from having no top to it was very good.
Software provided is Fluidd which when installed allows monitoring and control of printing and I even added a pizerow camera which allows me to monitor the print from another room – I could not get my USB camera to work with the software.
Printing from Fluidd directly to the printer – simply drag a gcode file into the jobs area, right click and select print.
Things to note –
Find a very stable place to stand the printer
Learn to level and do a few test leveling test prints before embarking on a large print
I was almost in despair at the failure rate until I learned how to do test leveling prints and Z offset.
Clean your build plate with isopropyl alcohol every time before a print.
Do a temperature tower for each new filament type.
YouTube is a good place to research problems.
To be honest I think that this printer, although fairly easy to set up , requires a slight level of OCD and willingness to research solutions to problems.
If you make a mistake , Z level offset adjustments can damage your nozzle and or print plate – I know this from experience.
Nozzle removal is a bit tricky – you have to pull off a silicone rubber nozzle guard and remove the nozzle while at working temperature – the tiny spanner provided is totally inadequate – you will get burned fingers quickly – I used a pair of grips with rubber handles – there are two spare nozzles supplied with the printer.
On balance, this printer is good but there are problems.
Attached photos of Yoda Soap dish and Silk PLA+ vase printed with this printer – also two test leveling pieces yellow and gray.
The yellow failed badly on second layer the gray is near perfect after 4 layers – the fix after leveling was to reduce 1st layer height in Cura to 0.2mm and first layer speed to 30mm/s then create a test model 80mm in diameter and 2mm thick – the 80mm allows you to see the model as the layers are being deposited and the slow speed gives you time to adjust your Z offset by 0.005 mm steps in Fluidd up or down as required – with my grey model the first layer indicated that the nozzle was too high so I lowered until the layer looked like the image show
The assembly process is super quick albeit a bit fiddly especially if doing it by yourself with putting the screws from underneath into the rails.
The screen is incredible, the Inbuilt lights and observation lights are so useful.
The first print blew my mind with how fast it went out of the box, coming from a 50mm/s average speed from the ender 3 v2, it was mind blowing, cutting print times down from 14 hours to 4 hours is so useful.
The PEI plate is amazing, adhesion is perfect but still takes off prints with 0 marks on the plate too and with no issues too.
Only issues I have had was the non native support for ultimaker cura as the Neptune 3,4 or the pro are down as a printer option and it forces you into the Neptune cura which is good but out of date, there are ways of sorting out Ultimaker cura with your printer however just takes some modification to the software files.
The printer is loud when printing at top speed due to the fans but that is the trade off for speed. You can slow the fans down easily on the inbuilt screen but it just slows the print dow
Saw this and was impressed by it’s up to 500mm per second speed. I have run it at 300mm per second so far with great results! Obviously helped by its four print cooling fans and pre installed Klipper.
It came well packed and mostly pre assembled – The only work was to bolt in the uprights with four screws, attach the spool holder, screen and connect the cables. I was up and running in under 30 mins (a world record for me!!)
It has excellent auto levelling and use 11×11 sensor leveling points – that’s a lot. The print surface is great and the printer came with an elegoo branded print stick (novel for me as I have not needed one of these since i had a cetus 3d printer a few years ago) and i do not need to use it now as the prints have bonded well.
The touch screen is excellent and large and is held to the machine with a magnetic dock. You can remove it from the printer and use it “in hand” so to make things easier.
You will need time to get those print temps homed in as the printer is so fast, you may have to run a little hotter than you may have done on slower models – but the fluidd interface that you can access through a web interface, gives you great control.
I have seen a lot of people on the web complain that is does not have wifi out of the box – now mine is connected via ethernet cable in the office, but you can attach a wifi dongle to the USB port – yes you can connect a USB hub into it. It does need some direct editing of the config file to enable, but there are a number of YouTube vids out there to help. But I would always recommend using a network cable connection if possible as it makes everything more stable and its there ready to use
Note, you can also add a webcam direct to it so you can monitor via the fluidd interface.
The printer is not absolutely perfect – you need to access the config files to get the most out of it, but once you get into the swing of it, it is not difficult.
Pros – Klipper is great. The web fluidd interface is fantastic – you even get a picture of how “flat” your print surface is. You can monitor all the stats such as layer timings, watch layers being printed, temperature flows etc. Its very comprehensive.
Cons – You may have to edit the config files to get the most out of the unit, and no onboard wifi could be a problem for some. Propriety print heads – but they can be bought “cheap” on AliExpress for example. The version of Cura that it is shipped with is 4.8 so is quite behind the current version – But there is a config file for Cura 5.4 out there from a third party, which i am using with no issues. It is also available on the Prusa3D Slicer though as well.
But these deficiencies, at this price point and the quality that this printer produces at the speed it does (eg. a print on the Neptune 2 was taking 12 hours, on the Neptune 4 4hrs 45mins!!!) This is a win win in my book, especially with the price of electricity these day in the UK
For the average user this is a superb printer at this price point.
It’s incredible that the printer comes set up to print perfectly straight out of the box. The factory had even levelled the print bed but I decided to run the levelling routine after I’d built it just to be absolutely sure it was spot-on, it only takes a few minutes to do, and then you’re good to go.
When I went to give this purchase a review after owning it for 3 weeks, during which it’s gobbled up a quarter of a reel of PLA+ filament and done about 17 hours of printing, I saw it only has one review… How is that possible? Must have been reset or something. Anyone getting one of these will just want to rant about how good it is! And no, I didn’t get it free or have anything to do with anyone or anything related to the product, I’m just an extremely happy buyer!
I went straight for PLA+ filaments for the extra strength over PLA, and the Elegoo own-brand ones are available on Amazon for an amazing price, just 14 a kilo and the print quality is superb. I wouldn’t mind paying a bit more for Overture or eSun etc but why do that when you can get it for Elegoo price? Well ok some of the colours are out of stock but if you want black or white to get going with then the Elegoo stuff is brilliant.
I used TinkerCAD (Autodesk) for my first few designs, and these came out perfectly using Elegoo’s supplied custom version of Cura slicer. I thought it would take me ages to learn how to use them but no, watch a few tutorials and you’re good to go. I’ve even started using the freebie “personal” version of Fusion360 which is extremely powerful and takes over from TinkerCAD which has quite a few limitations for more complicated models.
The original demo Buddha supplied was printed with the supplied PLA filament sample at the recommended 200C and that was perfect. When I put PLA+ into the printer, I notched up the temp to 205C which is the bottom end of the temp range for PLA+ and again it printed perfectly. Frankly I’m afraid to change the temps or mess with anything because I can’t see anything in my models which could possibly be improved, and if it ain’t broke, why fix it? Heheheh!
I bought a pack of eSun vacuum bags which come with spare valves and a pump, just to make sure that my filament doesn’t absorb too much moisture as I don’t print vast quantities of stuff and the filament that’s not on the machine is going to sit around for a while. PLA isn’t TOO bad on moisture absorption, but a long time could change that and it’s a pig to dry filament so just keep it dry :o)
What else can I add? Well one negative is that it’s quite tricky to change filament mid-print. With the current firmware and the included Elegoo Cura slicer, you’d have to mess with the gcode using scripts and I haven’t quite nailed that yet. It’s quite possible this will be addressed with future software/firmware updates as it’s mainly a procedural process rather than a hardware limitation, although it will still require manual changing of the filament at the appropriate time – if you’ve got the money for a Bambu then of course you can get a multi-filament unit for it which does it all for you, but that facility costs a lot more money!
So for anyone wondering whether or not to dabble in 3D printing, this is THE machine to start you on the road. The price is amazing, and the build and results are better than you could have hoped for at anywhere near that price. And if you get stuck, you can ask their tech support – the only question I needed to ask so far (can I use PLA+ as it’s not listed in the materials) was answered by a very friendly agent within one working day, you can’t ask for better than that!