When I have had the time over the past couple weeks, I have tried to make a few prints with the Anycubic Kossel Plus. The results have been mixed. I have had several good prints, and many failed ones. It seems that this printer has some very buggy firmware. I am looking into moving to Marlin firmware but have not yet made the jump. This printer seems most happy when printing in the center of the build plate, when I have filled it up there have been problems within an inch and a half or so of the edge of the build plate. The latest strangeness is that it will just skip some spots in the prints on one side - just leaves a gap in the print. I have lost count of the number of times I have had to re-run the autoleveling and z-height sequences for this printer (about 10min per). So far I have seen the following problems:
* Printer will loose the z-offset calibration (simple, write it down)
* Sometimes the z-offset will be totally lost, and even when resetting it, the z zero ends up an inch or more above the print bed - which requires re-running the z-height and auto-leveling routines.
* Stopping a print seems to cause the loss of calibration and sometimes worse, requiring a re-autoleveling
* Gaps in prints along the right side of the build plate
* Screen goes nuts at times
So repeatability and even hanging onto the settings seems to be a problem for this printer - the firmware at least.
There are probably more issues than that, but those are the top problems so far. I am looking at upgrading to Marlin, but I may just dump the board and get something better. Looking at the MKS SBASE or possibly a board that can run Smoothieware since it does not seem like Anycubic is updating the firmware, which it really needs. The tri-gorilla board this printer comes with is an 8-bit board which is probably running at the limit of what it can do. The newer boards run on 32 bit processors which let them run smoother and some are designed on open firmware that is kept updated. There are also things like microstepping and better drivers (like the TMC2100 drivers) that would really help smooth out the steppers.
I am not sure if the autoleveling feature is enough to stick with the factory firmware, and I'm not really sure it works well anyway. I think this printer has a good base to start from, but it is by no means ready to rock and roll, not by a long shot.
* Printer will loose the z-offset calibration (simple, write it down)
* Sometimes the z-offset will be totally lost, and even when resetting it, the z zero ends up an inch or more above the print bed - which requires re-running the z-height and auto-leveling routines.
* Stopping a print seems to cause the loss of calibration and sometimes worse, requiring a re-autoleveling
* Gaps in prints along the right side of the build plate
* Screen goes nuts at times
So repeatability and even hanging onto the settings seems to be a problem for this printer - the firmware at least.
There are probably more issues than that, but those are the top problems so far. I am looking at upgrading to Marlin, but I may just dump the board and get something better. Looking at the MKS SBASE or possibly a board that can run Smoothieware since it does not seem like Anycubic is updating the firmware, which it really needs. The tri-gorilla board this printer comes with is an 8-bit board which is probably running at the limit of what it can do. The newer boards run on 32 bit processors which let them run smoother and some are designed on open firmware that is kept updated. There are also things like microstepping and better drivers (like the TMC2100 drivers) that would really help smooth out the steppers.
I am not sure if the autoleveling feature is enough to stick with the factory firmware, and I'm not really sure it works well anyway. I think this printer has a good base to start from, but it is by no means ready to rock and roll, not by a long shot.
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