This is the neptune 3 by Elegoo.
It's about to be released around the same time as this video, and it has a lot of changes
compared to the previous neptune 2S that I reviewed a couple of months ago.
It's also priced really competitively, and that makes it a really affordable printer
both as a second or third printer or for a beginner.
But what's it like?
I'm glad you asked.
Let's get on with it.
The first obvious change isn't actually obvious by looking at the printer.
It's obvious by building the printer.
If you had a neptune 2 or 2S you will remember the build process, it's actually pretty much
identical to the build on an ender 3, but that's all consigned to history now as any
meccano style 3d printer kit really should be.
I'm glad to see the back of printers you have to assemble from scratch.
It's a hangover from the old days, and it's a bit weird if you think about it.
You wouldn't buy a new camera or tv or food mixer and expect to have to put it together
from a bag of parts.
No, we've entered a new era, the era of "some assembly required" and not "all assembly required"
and it's good.
First thing you should do after building any printer and tightening the eccentric nuts
and making sure nothing wobbles, is to level the bed.
This is the normal process of just turning the wheels....
So this printer has no wheels, I mean they weren't in the box, they just don't exist.
Bed levelling then I suppose?
If I show you the sensor...nope there's no sensor either.
Something blah blah to do with strain gauges - the printer has a strain gauge.
You're going to be disappointed if I don't write funny things in the subtitles from now
on aren't you?
Well here's an interesting fact.
I had a different intro to this video with a 1m51s monologue rant but I cut it.
I might let patreon subscribers watch it, I haven't decided yet - it was pretty funny.
If you're wondering how accurate this method of leveling is, then there's two answers.
The first is, I'm not sure.
The second is, I tested it.
I made a test ring that's 0.9mm high so it's 4 layers when sliced, and I repeatedly printed
it to see how consistent the zeroing of the nozzle is on the bed.
And it seems ok.
I certainly put it through its paces.
I tested for a couple of things really with the leveling, firstly is it repeatable, secondly
does it drift with time, because that's something strain gauges tend to do especially as they
heat up.
Initially I thought this was happening but I later couldn't reproduce it, this is why
I have a stack of these disks.
The results were confusing me and I think the texture of the bed was affecting my ability
to figure out the reproducibility of levelling so eventually I just lost my patience, flipped
the bed over, and printed on the naughty side (yes that's a reference).
After that as you can see the results are fairly consistent between successive prints,
you would no way be able to do this if they weren't, the piece would be slipping all over
the place.
So while I have some reservations about manual override, with no wheels and stuff, it does
appear that the levelling works at least well enough for day to day printing, maybe better,
this will become more obvious over time.
If you're wondering why I'm being really critical of this leveling system, well, in the past
it has been troublesome.
Next up, The screen has moved from where the neptune 2 had it, and you'd be forgiven if
you thought they've used an ender 3 v2 screen, if you squint it could be the same, but it's
actually not.
This is a touch screen, thankfully - I hate the encoder dial controls - and it's even
connected properly via what I think it an RJ11 connector, which is on a curly phone
cable for that retro 80s standing in the hall because you can't move the phone vibe.
I think this is a huge improvement not only with this kind of cable, the same as the FLSUN
I reviewed recently, but also being moved from under the bed, it might not look as stylish
but you don't have to fight the bed slinger for access to the screen mid print.
One of the big new things as far as I'm concerned, that, when refined...more about that in a
minute, could be a game changer for 3d printing is the filament sensor.
Oh, the Neptune 2 had one of those.
Well watch.
Do you see what's happening here?
Yes, it's a movement sensor.
You can presumably tell if there's a jam in the filament.
Let's test it.
This is huge feature for me because I nearly never run out of filament, but jammed extruders,
knotted reels and other shennanigans are much more common.
Also that thing I keep doing where I load the filament while it's still pushed through
the little holes in the reel.
Just me?
New features and innovations usually come with a learning curve and this is no exception.
While pushing PLA and PETG into here is pretty easy, you have to give it quite a firm push,
you literally can't get TPU in here.
For some idea why, I opened it up.
You can see there's a spring loaded bearing and an encoder wheel.
This is really cool, but it's also exactly what I expected.
This is why flexible filament is struggling.
I guess there's mod potential here, a looser spring, but I found that if you cut the tpu
to a point and use extreme persuasion, you can load it.
Alternatively you can remove it for TPU printing, and thankfully they have included disabling
it in the firmware, but I'd prefer to struggle with it as TPU is the number one reason you'd
need it.
So, enough technical stuff - let's talk about the technical stuff.
Opening up the base we can see the same kind of active cooling as the neptune 2, but with
I think a bit better cable management, I do like the cable management actually.
The board, well you don't actually need to open it to check the board as it's in the
manual, it's a board I've never seen before, it looks like it's an evolution of the robin
nano, with non removable drivers, although space for one more I believe, and it has the
esp slot there for the wireless module still.
Of course it has the new socket and function for the touch screen that the last version
of the znp robin nano didn't.
So how does it print?
Fine.
I printed my usual calibration test piece and didn't get any huge surprises.
It's not winning any prizes for the cooling considering there's two fans, but it does
manage the overhangs and bridging pretty well.
I guess they are small fans after all, but there are other benefits of dual fans like
more even airflow.
The stringing test was weird, but I see that a lot.
I printed this thing with the link below, it's a cool toy.
It printed absolutely fine second try, no fault of the printer but there's a weak joint
that needs more than the standard number of walls.
Here's some other stuff including what was on the sd card.
And yes that's a shelf bracket.
Someone asked me to print them a shelf bracket, ok?
Don't overthink it.
I did test TPU performance against the neptune 2S and found the neptune 2S is still way better,
although the neptune 3 still marginally beats the ender 3 v2.
So it's not a bad result, but it does confuse me a bit, as I thought capricorn tubing did
nothing, so I'm at a loss as to why there would be different results.
Maybe we need more testing with capricorn then in the future.
Yep.
TPU Part 4.
It's totally happening.
I suppose the model I have for review has an initial version of the firmware and it's
fine, but I do have a request I guess, it would be nice if I could change the z offset
outside of the levelling menu, you can do it during a print or while levelling.
Also it would be good if you had some control over the strain gauge's sensitivity, and also
finally, if you could turn off the initial leveling each time, so that you can find a
sweet spot and never level again until you need to, this is something the FLSUN delta
does and I find it works really well.
So I guess I can wrap it up with some final points I haven't covered.
The PEI bed is almost a must have these days so that makes this model a very attractive
choice, and the handle on the top saves you a print too.
Octoprint worked fine when testing with no extra steps.
noise levels are fine, exactly the same as the 2S as expected, I believe it's the same
power supply.
I'm also glad to see silent drivers on all axes including the extruder, the 2S had silent
only on x and y.
So really I guess to summarise, this machine is an evolution of the neptune 2S, but it's
a big jump, there's a lot new here, and a lot of really nice quality of life features.
What so you think about this machine?
Will you be happy to convert to a hands off mesh based system like this?
Do you think the other features are interesting?
Comment below.
And I will see you next time.
Thank you for watching.