I'm new to the hobby and this is my first printer, i was very frustrated going through everything trying to get better results and basically came around to the same solution you showed here, just not as efficiently, i was just manually heating my bed setting a 15 timer and then coming back and doing bed leveling before starting each print. it was really cool to see actually evidence of what what i thought was happening and hear someone that actually knows what they are talking about explain it.
Would you recommend it for a beginner? Also, what is its current status, have the mentioned issues been resolved? this probbly be my first 3d printer but first ı want to ask.
Thank you so much, this starting GCODE has made this printer usable to me again. My first print was flawless and then I had nothing but problems. Now using your Gcode, I am able to print again. It's not perfect on the extreme edges of the plate, but its usable!
I bought my first FDM in 2013 as a kit, have been printing as a hobbyist/freelancer since, but my last 6 years have been devoted to resin printing. This video was so informative now that I'm searching for a new FDM, not just for considerations of this printer but for every printer I've been looking at.
Very nice, Thank you, I really enjoy my 4 max, I see it's quirks as a challenge, when I finally got it tuned up, it does really good, what you have discovered explains some of my issues
I ordered this printer yesterday and it will arrive tomorrow. Although it is going to need a lot of modifications, I'm NOT disappointed in my choice. I am glad that you have pointed out these issues AND the fixes so that I can address them. It is intended to be my only 3D printer and so I didn't want to run into size constraints for some of my projects. Thank you for this information.
You guys having any luck. I got mine last week and if I print basic geometry I'm fine but anything fancy I'm fucked. Print in place collapsible sword became a giant fused paper weight. Tried breaking it up into pieces and printing them together but the supports on the blade are stronger than the blade. I'm using their slicer provided.
I'd come to the same conclusion, but my bed also has enough distortions that a 9x9 grid doesn't capture enough detail for good part adhesion. My solution has been to install KAMP and use the adaptive bed mesh, which only probes the parts of the bed that will be printed on, then I turned *up* the mesh density to 25x25. If the print area is smaller than the full bed, it only goes to those points on a 25x25 that fall inside the area. For temperature, I just pre-heat and let the printer sit for half an hour or so. But wow did I go through some machinist-related contortions to come to that conclusion, as you did!
Yes, the time before the print is definetly important. I mentioned this when i moved my Printer in the basement before i got an enclosure. Before, I had just under 21-23°C (69.8-73.4°F) in the apartment. The temperature in the cellar is 15-18°C (59-64.4°F). The prints immediately became worse until I accidentally left the printer on for a while and the print bed probably settled during that time. Since I got a case, the prints have been significantly better overall.
Thankyou soo much I modified for Cura based on your G-Code.This was an awesome find. Nice Work. ;ELEGOO NEPTUNE 4 MAX M220 S100 ;Set the feed speed to 100% M221 S100 ;Set the flow rate to 100% M104 S140 ;set nozzle to 140C, but don't wait for it M190 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0} ;set bed temp and wait for it G4 P1500000; wait 25 minutes for the bed temp to stabilize further G29 ;auto bed-leveling G90 ;absolute positioning G1 Z10 F300 G1 X1.5 Y10 F6000 G1 Z0 F300 M109 S{material_print_temperature_layer_0} G92 E0 ;Reset Extruder G1 X1.5 Y10 Z0.4 F300 ;Move to purge start position G1 Y110 E30 F400 ;Draw purge line G1 Z0.6 F120.0 ;Move up a little G1 Y105 F3000 G92 E0 ;Reset Extruder
I am using the plus this code is making mine try to go past the frame on the x+ side can you help? ;{current_cura_version} ;{machine_name} M220 S100 ;Set the feed speed to 100% M221 S{print_flow_percentage} ;Set the print traffic percentage M104 S140 M190 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0} G4 P600000 G29 G90 G28 ;home G1 Z10 F300 G1 X115 Y0.5 F6000 G1 Z0.4 F300 M109 S{material_print_temperature_layer_0} G92 E0 ;Reset Extruder G1 X115 Y0.5 Z0.4 F300 ;Move to start position G1 X215.0 E30 F400 ;Draw the first line G1 Z0.6 F120.0 ;Move to side a little G1 X210 F3000 G92 E0 ;Reset Extruder
So tldr - pre heat your bed, remember thermal expansion is a thing so let it get its wiggles out, auto level, profit. What’s up with the single frame of the Benchy in the last couple videos? By the way, you did a phenomenal job reviewing that unit. I hope other companies see this level of attention to detail and invite you to review more moving forward.
*Im thinking about buying this as my second 3d printer coming from a ender 3 v2. Im looking for an upgrade thats bigger and faster. Its good to hear you had great luck with it being your first printer!*
First things first, I bought this thing back in October of 2023. It was my 2nd 3d printer after I started having issues with how slow my Flashfire Guider 2 was. I could not for the life of me get good prints out of this printer. I was positive I had a bad gantry out of the box and was trying to work with Elegoo forever to get a new gantry shipped. After watching this video, I was positive I had a bad gantry. Yours was the first video of someone running a print on it so I could hear what it sounded like normally. The second thing was back layers as I got near the edges of the build plate. Hallelujah, you have found the issue. I don’t know why I did not think of this myself. My dad claimed he would dream about a car problem and diagnose it in his sleep. I guess it is true if you dream it it will become reality. After almost 6 months of this thing collecting dust and my moving on to now 4 Bambu Lab Printer I tried this with a new gantry, and I have a good print. Thanks so much for finding this fix. I now can print large prints like I wanted to when I bought this thing.
Very useful!! I inserted your gcode, I also don't care about waiting 30 minutes more when with this printer I print huge things that require more than 24 hours. Half an hour is nothing and if I want more speed, I use other printers. As soon as it arrived I leveled, immediately inserted your gcode and started the print I wanted. The first layer was already precise (among other things, the printer was bought used). Excellent and useful! Thanks!
It's great to see folks join the hobby and find issues we've banged our head against back 8-10 years ago, and heat soaking was always advised. Even if you're using mic6 beds on corexy machines, heat soak for a good 20-30 min. Let the bed stabilize, especially on large beds. I know everyone wants fast printers, but pretty sure can't fight physics.
Bambu made everyone's marketing dept. over-pivot to speed. The N4MAX is a flatbed truck trying to wear a Porsche wrap. There's nothing wrong with just admitting it's a flatbed truck, we need those too, but marketing dept's don't think like that.
@@FunctionalPrintFriday I heat soak bambu too. Even best heated bed surface we've found - mic6 aluminum needs heat soaking, see my response to another post.
I have a CR-6 Max which has a 400x400 bed. I encountered this same issue with that bed as well. It wasn't quite as much variance due to the stiff spacers that hold the bed to the carriage, but it did cause inconsistent extrusion and layers. I had to do MANY things to get consistency from the printer. The first thing was to add insulation to the underside. That made a huge difference in the stability of the bed. I also removed the stiff plastic spacers and added rigid silicon spacers that allowed me to adjust the roller coaster surface of the bed as it was quite uneven when i got it with a high point of 2.8mm and a low point of 3mm using the 7x7 mesh. I increased the mesh but that just added more time to the startup as you did. I eventually learned I needed to heatsoak the bed for about 15 minutes and then invested in a Beacon3D bed scanner. That allows me to now pull a 40x40 mesh in about 90 seconds. Unfortunately that meant I had to redesign the whole printer to eliminate the strain gauge leveling system which had it's own issues as plastic extruding from the nozzle would lift up on the hotend as witnessed by the probe triggering during extrusion and would cause uneven top surface layers. By going to a rigid hotend without the strain gauge (used a Micro Swiss NG setup) and the Beacon 3D scanner for a very detailed mesh that takes almost no time to do, I now get perfect adhesion and layers. I am loathe to invest in a bed slinger in the future after all the experiences I've had in making then consistent. My latest printers are coreXY and although more expensive and more complex, are super consistent and have had zero down time with them.
Second time I have watched your video. I have a neptune 4 pro as my first real printer and it has been great with very little tweaking. Wanted a bigger printer for a few projects and finally jumped on a 4 max. Will be starting my first large scale prints and will be integrating your findings to get my best prints possible. Love your videos
I have a Neptune Max, I totally agree this printer is not a out of the shelf printer, but the community is good and we have all the feature you would expect from a printer for reasonable price and the build volume is my biggest selling point. Build Plate: I been scratching my head to make the build plate flat, literal spend a month and write to Elegoo about the issues, for me the Firmware and Cura 5.6 update had some success it started print flat still not a good result, STILL THE BUILD WAS NOT FLAT, I ripped of the entire build plate to check each nut and bolt and the moving the Spirit level all over the place, still not make it work, after seeing your video i can imagine what did i miss and your brilliance and in depth knowledge in the subject is appreciated, i am going to try your solution and i am very positive, Thanks for this in-depth review with a solutions. 👍 Love your Bro 😎
@26:40 on my cr10 v1, I installed a cltouch and set up the gcode to where it heats the bed, levels the bed, and then begins to execute. I’ve always leveled the bed POST heating to the maximum I was going to heat for the current filament temp. Always a good idea to try and best replicate your working environment on these machines when dialing in
I bought this printer a while ago and had nothing but problems with it. I just found this video and I can now try to solve my issues. For months it has just sat and done nothing and I bought a bambu P1S. I don't care about the heat up time, I just want to be able to print large items. Thank you so much.
I have the Neptune 4 I heat soak for about 10 minutes prior to starting my prints and I do notice it has helped. Not thrilled about the Klipper implementation of this machine but once I worked the little issues out it’s been a solid machine.
I recently purchased the 4Max. I am new and as green as it gets. I value you input and love your channel. I have printed caned stuff and had great quality but all small stuff. I bought it to print oscale buildings so I will need to preheat.
I just took a look at mine with a thermal camera. It's 3 hours into a print job, so presumable has stabilized by now. The bed is set to 60C. The temp of the back third of the bed is registering as 58C on the thermal camera, whereas the front half varies between 48 and 51C. This is with ambient temperate in the space at 18C. Pretty clear the large part fan is managing to cool the bed itself, which cannot be good for avoiding the bed distorting. This is the first proper job I've printed on it, but I think I'll be turning the part fan off for now until the summer comes round.
I had this issue with an Anet A8. Re-engineered the Y carriage and the bed, added heat insulation and calibrated the mesh at the temperature i'm printing on (this printer doesn't have ABL). I also took the calibration in the same way displayed here. My printer has been super reliable since. Reducing the print area to within the area where the bed is screwed down will help a lot.
Saw this video today. Just got my 4 Max last week. All the issues you mentioned seem to be fixed. Dont care for the 120 point level but I am enjoying this gal. Shes got a huge ass, but she is rocking away
I tried out the gcode profile for orca slicer and for some reason after the heat up and autoleveling processes, the x and y axis for the prints seemed off and it tried to print off the bed for some reason. abandoned the gcode update and now I just preheat the bed manually before I level and print and haven't had an issue since. thanks for shedding light on something I would never of picked up on.
i can't say much about the n4 max but i got the n4 pro and it took me a while to get this to lvl the way i want. The thing is with the neptune4 pro that the leveling of the auxiliary (the 4 knobs) bed corners are done in cold condition when you start the leveling from the menu. It only heats up for the auto leveling part which is not helping at all. First I tighten the 4 corner knobs completely and then loosen it a few turns so that i have some play. My fix is to manually heat up the nozzle to 150 - 200 and also the bedplate to 50-60 and then do all the leveling. But be aware if you finish a part of the leveling and save it ...your heating will be reset so keep an eye on the temps and maybe heat up again if it was reset. Then i start Auxiliary leveling the 4 corners but if its way off then do it on every corner 2 or 3 times this is where i got the best results. Then after the auto leveling starts let it finish and do the z offset also in heated state. In heated state i do the leveling with paper if you feel a slight resistance its good. That helped alot so that i can print flawlessly for a few days and then if a print starts to fail i will do it again. That is ok for me maybe it helps someone. I don't have to wait 20-30 minutes... i just start and it prints perfect if lvled
you have save my soul, i kept having first layer issues and bed leveling problems, used your gcode and other advice you gave. I no longer have this issue thank you
Awesome content, thank you! I pre-ordered this printer within the 1st 5 min of the pre-order going live. Printed pretty much non stop October thru Christmas then let it sit for 3 months. Between sickness and life I just didn't feel like dealing with all of this machines little quirks so mainly stuck to printing on my smaller and more worry free printers. I've had time recently again to tackle the big boy and make some upgrades, added Oldham couplings to the Z lead screw nuts to help with Z banding and updated the FW. My biggest issue now is with parts warping, PLA parts. I've got my N4 Max on a bottom shelf in my basement, it might just be too cool down there. I wrap the shelf in a drop cloth as a makeshift enclosure but it doesn't help a lot. I'm going to move it to my dining room tomorrow and give it a shot as the temperature is more stable there. I've been printing for 5 years but printing big is a whole new set of challenges.
Nice video, thanks. It confirms some of my suspicions and validates some advice I was reading in the various support communities around ensuring your printer is fully heat soaked before printing. Heat soak I think by your measurements means heat the bed to 60F for 30 minutes. I think some good advice for any that don't want to get into modifying print start GCODE for every print, and furthermore to avoid running a bed mesh prior to every print would be to simply heat soak your printer prior to running a standalone bed mesh, and then heat soak your printer prior to each print. That should align the variances well enough for the average person.
This was my first printer. I got it because I wanted to do large prints, but started out with small prints for practice. Got blob death 1 week into owning it. Fixed it, and I've been tuning it and tuning it video after video, and even my small prints either end up not sticking to the bed or over extruding somewhere. Warming up the bed and waiting now to level. I hope this works. I have a huge back log of prints I want to do in the weeks I was waiting for my new hot end.
Use a little silicon grease on the rollers, works great. Just make sure it's plastic safe. Also make sure there isn't a nub of plastic hanging off the nozzle when doing Z-offset calibration. Every time I've done a Z-offset 9 out of 10 times there was a nub which affects offset directly.
Hi. Your video saved my sanity... I dont have a Neptune, I have a Flashforge Adventurer 4. I suspect that bed heating is the answer for MANY other 3d printers. I had a few other printers before this one and had similar issues. I had upgraded everything on the machines without much success. As luck would have it, I was interested in buying the Neptune 4 MAX and found your video. I would recommend that you re-visit this topic and solution for general 3d printer adhesion issues. I have trouble finding this video because its not the name that I associate with it. I have been recommending your video to others with similar issues.
Hi, I have just bought the Neptune 4 Max last week, and I had it sent to me, to the UK. In Europe we do use Cura a lot... Basically I printed out of the box, just after making a manual bed levellling and then an automated one. So far, I have only been printing small objects (the biggest is a drawer adaptor for the little drawer on the side of it, which goes inside the drawer and you can store the L keys etc), a filament out sensor bracket, to place it a bit more centered, two spool holders (a rotating one and a 3KG one), the extruder clip adaptor (The original one is indecent). The only times the print failed, was on four occasions: on three of them, I did not put any support during the slicing process in Cura, so the object did not have support in some areas; the fourth case, during a print job of a corner camera adaptor, at 50% (several hours), I have decided to switch off the led lights on the top, and for some reason the printer crashed, returning an error about reaching the max extrusion... I pressed the emergency stop on the webpage of the printer administration area (I have been experimenting both physical touches on the pad and the LAN management), and restarted the whole services a couple of times. In some cases, like when I tried to print a small nut and a bolt for a cosplay caliper, the threads did not come out well. It is too early for me to tell you if there are other issues. I did not upgrade the firmware or do any of the annoying things you mentioned, which made me think that probably I have no idea of the printer's flaws yet. This is my third printer, after a Prusa MKII Ephestos and a Creality Ender 3 S1 Plus which went on fire and smoke - seriously - last week, while trying to install a Sonic Pad (Still waiting for Creality to reply back to me about that) . I will follow you and keep your video as a reference, shall I have to do all the stuff you said. I really hope I do not have to upgrade the firmware or open the pad because it is very annoying... -- 15 February update -- Actually I tried a 10 hours' job with PLA/carbon fiber, and at 87% I had to do a stop, because the printer started printing off Z-axiz, and it was all screwed up. Also, all the prints were opening in half, like a toast :-( I have experienced also that part of the first bed layer, in some areas was having visible spots in it, as described by someone, and after some time the fans bar, attached behind the extruder, started scratching the printed layers, when the bed was going back and forth. I had done a manual calibration before starting any job, and also an automated one. So, probably I will have to change the printer configuration as you guys said. How can I check if the firmware is the latest version?
Great video. So many videos people giving up. Finally someone made it through. I'm looking for something larger for occasional big prints, beside my X1c and A1 mini. Neptune 4 Max might be it.
This is my first printer, and I have been having bed adhesion issues. I found if I scrapped a part early in the print process, and immediately reprint, the issue seemed to evaporate. I also noted bed temperature variance with a non-contact thermometer when performing the auto leveling task. I had not yet done the dial indicator test. Still running Cura 4.8.xx that came with the machine. Printing a part about 3x10 inches, I found the corners and edges curling up away from the bed. My first thought was thermal residual stress due to the cooling of the molten plastic away from the bed. My fix was to place engineered breakaway supports in the model, and this was relatively successful. So far only tried PLA filament from Elegoo. I would like to see detailed tech info provided by Elegoo ( schematic, wiring diagrams, parts lists, to aid in accurate troubleshooting). Have had two incidents of death blobs requiring parts from Elegoo, which were promptly supported by Elegoo warranty. It was just a bit unnerving to appear to be throwing parts at it without my understanding exactly what had failed and why.
Most people in 3D printing aren't using cutting edge technology. My guess is Cura is still the most popular. I sell 3D printers for a living and do a lot of trouble shooting. My customers only use Orca when I tell them to unless they have used multiple printers in the past and are into upgrades.
Yep, most people I know use Cura or some version of Prusa Slicer. I've used a ton of slicers. I always go back to Cura, maybe it's familiarity, but it just seems to be the easiest to use. I'm currently trying to get used to the software that comes with the Bambu Lab X1-C.
I've been looking to add a larger format fdm printer to my collection, and been waffling between something like the neptune 4 max/plus vs the neptune 3 max/plus. This video has sold me on the 4 series, not because they are issue free but because it shows that you can tackle the problems they present with a little critical thinking and experience. I've been using an ender 3 s1 pro for almost 2 years, and have enough experience in fdm printer maintenance and operation, I think, to tackle the challenges of the 4 max/4 plus, in order to achieve the faster printing speeds and larger build volume that I want to add to my repertoire. I always let my bed heat up, even on my ender 3, for like 15-20 minutes before leveling or before a print, so doing so on the larger printer not only sounds logical but would have been part of my process anyway even without seeing this video - and if you're printing at 250mm/s instead of 50-80 anyway, that extra 30 mins on the front end, to get a 3 day print done in 20 hours, will have been worth it!
I think Cura is actually still quite popular. Not sure if you have actual statistics for market share. I think especially for Marlin users, like anyone just using an Ender, it's still very prevalent. I personally prefer the Cura interface to most other slicers, but I have moved over to Orca slicer quite a bit because there are certain aspects which allow me to get better print quality, especially on certain prints. Sometimes, I actually find Cura provides a more logical slice of a part, but it is also missing features like support and seam painting that I really appreciate in other Prusa based slicers.
Ya I don't know where this guy is coming from with that. Maybe most enthusiasts aren't using cura? I think 90% of people who buy an out of the box printer are going to go get cura.
I like Cura because is works on all my different machines, and yea I'm used to it. _(Love the lightning infill)._ That was a factor when buying the machine.
This is my first printer. It still sits in the box, unopened. I'm researching as much as possible. You say at the beginning this isn't a good 1st printer. Hopefully following instructions like these, before my first print, will help from me being instantly discouraged and throwing the 4Max into the dumpster. I'm going to do several upgrades before I even power it on, like X & Y linear rails, and a pair of front stabilizer bars. I'm undecided on a better (?) hotend like a Micro-swiss.
Just pull it out and print. Don't be scared, don't do upgrades before you understand the printer. Print, diagnose, fix. I'm not new to printing, I purchased this and I'm happy. I'm running into under extrusion so I'm playing with that. But I got 4 great prints already with nothing done.
Thanks for the video. Cura has been a staple of the low-end printer market for years. It shipped with the Creality machines and most of the other clones that came after. Cura is also used for both Resin and FDM printers. I got it with my Mars 2Pro and the Npttune 2S. Most people do end up switching to more advanced slicers.
I'm glad I found this video, my 4Max is coming in post right now. Coming from a Flashforge 5M pro which, after tuning through orca is a great printer, I needed a larger vol for prototype parts for work. I've seen sooo many videos on why this machine sucks hahaha but I've seen the same amount of videos showing amazing prints. Tbh I have no clue how to work klipper. I actually only know a very small amount of gcode...but knowing the info in this vid was actually a huge boost on what to look for
I've had mine for 8 months, never had a problem sourcing larger nozzles - the app actually does give info on print times and jobs. For those who are wondering about the neptune 4 - rubber wheels, and levelling system were deal breakers for me
I just bought one myself and I'm hoping it works out. I had another brand before but had to return it after an issue with the threaded rod ultimately resulted in the printer having to be returned. I got this one since the threaded rods are pre-installed in the uprights but all the stuff I'm going to have to try and remember is making my head spin. I'm grateful this video is here I just hope I can figure it out.
Thanks to you and others doing similar content I think I will be ok. The issue I am having at the moment I feel may have more to do with a bad model or my inexperience with Cura (Elegoo says it's the most popular but I see maybe 1% of people online saying they use it) but sadly the model I found was distributed as a Cura project instead of STL or SCAD. I am going to try a simple benchy in the center of the bed to examine for irregularities. The model was a test for after you do auxiliary leveling that prints the 11 x 11 mesh patter in connected squares. Sadly it went horribly wrong and I had to stop immediately.@@FunctionalPrintFriday
Thanks for doing this in depth review. It solves a lot of the issues I had with this printer.I think it will also help a lot of people struggling with this printer. I really appreciate the way you include all the software and code changes. Unfortunately early on I was just pushing through before I understood all the issues and ended up with a massive blob of death on an early long print. Elagoo did send me a new nozzle and heat sink but it was very difficult to get the old one off. It's a shame that the companies themselves don't find a way to resolve the issues and release a video like this. I find it hard to believe they don't realize what the problems are. Thanks again and keep up the good work. I will also subscribe to your channel I have already liked the vid
Considering the size, even with that bed issue it's been amazing printer. Coming from CR-10 S5 30minute wait is no go for most prints. Only for say 5kg+ prints -- at which point just the weight of the print is going to affect level over time, fortunately spread over the full print. Right now doing ~2kg print. Insane how fast these new printers get stuff done, that's only 1½ days.
So I got mine around the same time you got yours and I have had all the issues.Blob of death yup had it 4 times to the point where they sent me new heads. Firmwear def fixed a lot of the issues for sure. The issue I noticed that you did not mention was the back bed level screw knob backing off after a while. Like the movement would cause it to shimmy and next thing you know you have so really bad prints or worse the nozzel toughing the build plate something horrible Great tip thanks.
I honestly just bought one, so I have not got to try it out yet. But thank you. I can see the issues by your video. I will. most likely be putting on one of my H2O's or H2 v2s extruders in place because I already seen multiple blobs of death as a complaint. but this helps me a lot. Thank you very, very, very much.!!!! It's nice knowing what to expect.!
Thank you. Was about tobuy this but yousaved me. Don‘t wanna gamble with qc. Would love a bigger printer but I think I will just get the p1s as my first one.
First guy I've heard to relate 3D printing to machining and started adjustjng the machine as such. Subbing. I appreciate that you also acknowledge that you've been pondering this for weeks. I think 3D printing is a great intro to machining and the processes involved, but I think manufacturers are trying not to intimidate new users with how much effort goes into zeroing equipment. My primary example is the "piece of paper" height setting for the z offset. I think it would be better to assign a designated gap and send people an appropriate feeler gauge. Personally, I use a .7 mm feeler gauge. The same applies to belt tensions. There should be a designated tension set by the manufacturer and a simple tool included or for affordable purchase. Torque value for carrier wheels... I digress. 😂 Again, these machines are a great value to introduce people to machining processes, but manufacturers need not fear specific tolerance, and consumers need to understand better prints require more setup time and constant machine "maintenance". You don't win Lemans in a daily driver where you change the oil once a year.
I was loving the printer (4 Plus) until today. Now I can't get anything to print. I did about 100 perfect prints out of the box just making sure everything was tight but today the nozzle just hits every print about 10 layers into it causing it to fail. I verified the Z offset and tried multiple files and different filaments and every setting I could think of in Cura to no avail. I just updated the firmware to the latest and doing a 30 minute heatup on the bed before I do a new level. I have no idea why it worked perfect for so many prints and now just fails every time now. I will try some of your fixes in this video and hope something changes for the positive. If nothing changes I will try replacing the nozzle. Thanks for the great video!
Thank you man for such explaning For me im waiting my machine to reach but i had already 5 Neptune 4pro and i have some of that issues Any time im printing and keep the machine running i have no issues what so ever Thank you again for that information and i really wish you good luck
Nice video! One thing to mention is, that is not a dial test indicator! That in fact is a test indicator, non linear and very sensitive over a short range. The other type is a dial indicator with a plunger type probe, those give linear measurements and generally have a much larger range. DTI is basically slang workshop language for a small distance measuring device that looks like a clock.
I normally don’t comment on videos like this, but you kept me from going insane. I’ve spent the past week trying to get a “level” print out of this printer. Coming from an ender 3, but I’ve been out of the 3d printing game for like 3 years lol.
I've had 0 problems out of the box with mine. I've got a 60 hour print on it now and I've done nothing but go through the configuration settings and hit print. I did relevel before this 60 hour print. Because it takes up the entire build area. But that's it. It's run great
I will be getting mine tomorrow and this video is scaring me but then I read some comments and people say they are having no issues. Could it be some are better than others? I've also watched other videos about this printer and no one is mentioning this stuff. Because if this printer is this messed up, Elegoo should be working on fixing these issues.
Thanks for posting this video, I'm very new to 3d printing! This is my 2nd Elegoo Printer I now have the 4 Pro and the 4max. I have not had very good luck with this 4 max so far, I have only been able to print 1 piece with it. I am hoping this video instruction will fix my problems.
When I first took mine out of the box the bed was so loose that I could rock/twist the bed about 1/4" It was a simple turn of the nuts on the rollers to take the slack out. It was very obvious that whoever assembled my machine could care less though.
watching this video and using cura while your saying no one uses it. i use cura and prusaslicer for a ender 3 v2. {marlin} cura profile is great for supports and xy compensation . prusaslicer tends to weld print in place functional parts.
Appreciate the reply. The comments section is proving to me that a lot more people are using Cura than I would have otherwise thought. I do find that the supports seem to work a lot better in Orca over prusaslicer, even with the same settings. Not sure why.
This would make sense why I was having issues. I was trying to do smaller prints quick and notice the first one would be amazing. Then the second ones would having first layer issues. I'm guessing from not having the bed warmed up enough after cooling down.
I've been using an Ender 3 for a few months. It works fairly well, but the size limitations are.... Well, limiting. I've been very tempted to pick up one of these. Still undecided, but this helps.
Thanks so much for putting this info out! Would appreciate seeing how you've modified your printer.cfg? I'm still also a little unsure how to add screws tilt for the max... Thanks!
Excellent video - very informative and detailed. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. This specific problem has had me very frustrated for a while. The usable volume on the Neptune 4 Max is now within reach of reliable & repeated use. Like and subbed. I'm also adding a metal extruder gear and the Microswiss hotend for the Neptune 4 Max. Hope to get it to reliable workhorse status.
If I am not mistaken Cura is still the most used slicer. The UI experience of Orca slicer, also Bambu Slicer is still far from Cura. My wife who isn’t technical doesn’t even know how to change the print temp on Bambu slicer, just select the filament profile and print and if doesn’t work, then uses a different printer. Also I have a 500x500 printer and have up on Bicubic bed leveling and just do a 6x6 lagrange, it does a way better job when the big is multiple mm off between everything.
@@FunctionalPrintFriday That depends on the tension of the springs under the bed, the heat will warp the bed differently based on the end-point tension. When the springs do not have enough tension and you do a multi-day print, the bed level over time doesn't stay the same (while its printing). So not only does heat affect this, but original bed level no longer applied. I printed some PLA washers to go under the springs to ensure everything is super tight, and then leave it heat for a while. I also have locknuts under each spring to ensure as little of the bed changes while printing. The locknuts make it a pain in the butt to level the bed so I made some custom nobs to go over the locknuts to act as the original nobs. I then run it with a polypropylene glass fiber bed, so it needs about 15 minutes of heating after. The high tension springs ensure multi-day prints have a relatively level bed throughout its print. I found that by using lagrange instead of bicubic the mesh can be super unleveled (mine was 3-4mm difference) and still print on every inch of the bed without issue. Bicubic seems to need the bed within 0.3mm to work as expected or maybe some additional more advance settings to work correctly.
THANK YOU!! I was about to freaking hammer-throw this printer out in to the street and give up on printing completely! I was letting it pre-heat before prints but z-offset and bed mesh were always inconsistent I should've known there was a better way. Thanks for the G-code! The bed mesh before every print has helped a ton. Smaller prints are turning out fine now, haven't tried a large print yet but I have faith now that it will turn out fine :)
That's really interesting. I've got the N4Pro as our first printer, and was suddenly getting layer shifts on the Y axis on small (3in by 4in in bed center) but tall (6in) prints. The shifts would happen about 45 minutes into the print in a room that's typically about 50 degrees F. Temp fluctuates a lot when the furnace heat kicks on and off throughout the day. I fiddled with the y axis belt a lot to try to fix the shifting, until it eventually broke. Elegoo is replacing it for free, but I'm suspecting that the thermal changes in the various parts might be the culprit. I'll have to try preheating once the new belt arrives.
I have had so many issues getting my prints to work properly. I noticed the exact same things you did, but I don't have enough experience to have identified the issue as you have here. In fact, recently my printer had the dreaded blob of death, and ruined my hot end, one of the wires came off when trying to remove the blob. I was leveling non-stop and I also noticed the issue with Screw_tilt_adjust not being accurate. I hope this resolves my issues, once my new nozzle comes in. I have also ordered some of the new nozzles form Elegoo for the 1mm size, and I hope to be able to make larger objects more quickly and accurately with your guidance here. Thank you.
Very cool review. I have two of the Neptune 3 Max, and have thought about a 4 Max. Yet, I see a lot off issues with it that keeping from getting it. I'll probably just pickup another 3 Max. Oh, I jump around on slicers with using Simplify3D, Cura, and Orca (though I'm still learning it) 😅
I prefer cura as another said I like its interface over the others. As for the 25 min wait I’m use to that with my Voron printers I heat soak them for different amounts of time based on the filament type and temps.
Interesting. What is the primary reason you're heat soaking the bed on your voron? Is it dimensional stability of the bed, bringing chamber temp up, or something else?
@@FunctionalPrintFridaymainly to get the chamber temp up but does help settle any flex in the bed etc from the heat. Also not sure with the Neptune I run KAMP (for klipper) you can have it bed mesh and prime in just the area you are printing in so you don't have to mesh the entire bed unless you are always printing a full bed.
First and foremost great video! I appreciate all the time and effort that you put into this machine. However, I believe the only way manufactures are going to learn, is the hard way, and have customers return machines that simply do not work as advertised out of the box. A 25min heat soak? The when it already takes forever and a day for the bed to heat up. For a bed of this size, maybe it should have been an AC heated bed? To me this machine was rushed to the market, and didn't have a proper QC process. Keep up the great work!
I find it a miracle printers of this bed size manage to print half-decently at all. It is to be expected that heat expansion, bed movements, wear on belts and bearings will have a major effect on z height, especially when we are looking for precision of 0.1mm! Look at your metal lathe, then look at this printer. The difference in rigidity and moving part quality is immense, yet the printer (and others like it) still manages to print at a reasonable quality. It is impossible to tune perfectly and for this tune to remain perfect long term, so I think we should cut Elegoo some slack here. As you said, the only way to counter this is to smartly compensate for the inevitable mechanical inaccuracies, in software. It is most likely what printers of other manufacturers achieving "perfect" results do without us realizing.
If you cant return the Printer, I would build an enclosure and add 10 degrees to your bed temperature. I build for me a craft paper box. My last autoleveling was 3 month ago when i added the box. But I would check the heatbed circuit too.
Thankyou for all your effort. I believe you've helped point me towards a solution for getting decent prints on my N4 Max. A few observations though: 1) 0.004 inches is 0.1016 mm, which translates to 1/2 a layer height. 2) Would an enclosure help? 3) The default tolerance is 0.05, which incidentally lets it accept almost all samples, regardless of deviation 4) With 3 samples taken, wouldn't 'average' be better than 'mean'? 5) With bed levelling done on every print wouldn't it make sense to look into the Beacon probe? Regardless, thanks! I didn't fully realise the amount of heat expansion on such a large bed
Awesome video. Thank you. I got a neptune 4 max and I've been printing cosplay props like weapons and helmets and some parts of the bed print with a layer where I can see the bed thru it and some points on the same layer are rippled so its too close. I gotta give this a try.
I wanted to post an update. I implemented your advice and I'm getting successful prints now, but I have discovered a new issue. Every time I start a new print, the z-offset changes. It seems like the previous Z-Offset is not being saved, and each successive print I have lower the z-offset further and further. In my first print, the offset was about -0.4mm, with the second print, exact same model, the z-offset is -1.1mm. Any ideas?
All I did to fix this is alter the ending g code to set the hotbed to the same temp instead of turning it off so it is always hot when turned on. And just do the autoleveling every print only waiting 2 minutes. ANother theoretical way I want to try but have not had the chance is to have the bed heat up 5-10 degrees more than the printing temp. Then lowering to the temp to printing before leveling, so it is all heated up
EPIC video, well what can I say you are totally correct....the only thing I can add to this is that I have the same issues with my Ender 3 S1 plus and my CR10 Smart Pro - I think you are going to have similar issues with any large area 3D CONSUMER 3D PRINTER WITH A cheap 6061 alloy print bed... - I think you will have Dimensionally a totally new print bed very time you heat cycle it. so you can't call this a Neptune 4 Max problem...... Before every print job I heat up the bed to 90 and then auto bed level, mesh save to memory, and then the print job starts ( this adds 8 minutes to every print job )....Epic video thank for making it ! keep the technical content flowing ! I just bought a 4 max - frikkkk - any way to upgrade the psu to the 500wt psu from the 3 max
I had similar problem with leveling different printer. Sorted by changing yellow springs to silicone. Now happy days and ya heated bedneed some time equalise heat before print. And maybe will help fir someone my tip - clean your bed cold with very warm sponge to absorb all plastic fats. I long time cannot figure out where is problem, tried dish washer, isopropyl alcohol, different pastas e.t.c. , nothing worked because I cleaned warm surface. Now I use cheap sugar soap what sell in DIY stores, need just few drops. I also use sometimes pva glue diluted, just thin layer for better adhesion and if problem get part off sprinkle water around edges on 70C warm plate
I'm new to the hobby and this is my first printer, i was very frustrated going through everything trying to get better results and basically came around to the same solution you showed here, just not as efficiently, i was just manually heating my bed setting a 15 timer and then coming back and doing bed leveling before starting each print. it was really cool to see actually evidence of what what i thought was happening and hear someone that actually knows what they are talking about explain it.
Yeah 3D printing right now can be a pain. It is a long learning process.
Would you recommend it for a beginner? Also, what is its current status, have the mentioned issues been resolved? this probbly be my first 3d printer but first ı want to ask.
I am in the same shoes, beginner+first large printer. Couldn't figure what happened for few weeks. Now I will give a try on this. Thanks
Thank you so much, this starting GCODE has made this printer usable to me again. My first print was flawless and then I had nothing but problems. Now using your Gcode, I am able to print again. It's not perfect on the extreme edges of the plate, but its usable!
I bought my first FDM in 2013 as a kit, have been printing as a hobbyist/freelancer since, but my last 6 years have been devoted to resin printing. This video was so informative now that I'm searching for a new FDM, not just for considerations of this printer but for every printer I've been looking at.
Very nice, Thank you, I really enjoy my 4 max, I see it's quirks as a challenge, when I finally got it tuned up, it does really good, what you have discovered explains some of my issues
I ordered this printer yesterday and it will arrive tomorrow. Although it is going to need a lot of modifications, I'm NOT disappointed in my choice. I am glad that you have pointed out these issues AND the fixes so that I can address them. It is intended to be my only 3D printer and so I didn't want to run into size constraints for some of my projects. Thank you for this information.
how it's going? I got mines on monday.
You guys having any luck. I got mine last week and if I print basic geometry I'm fine but anything fancy I'm fucked. Print in place collapsible sword became a giant fused paper weight. Tried breaking it up into pieces and printing them together but the supports on the blade are stronger than the blade. I'm using their slicer provided.
I'd come to the same conclusion, but my bed also has enough distortions that a 9x9 grid doesn't capture enough detail for good part adhesion. My solution has been to install KAMP and use the adaptive bed mesh, which only probes the parts of the bed that will be printed on, then I turned *up* the mesh density to 25x25. If the print area is smaller than the full bed, it only goes to those points on a 25x25 that fall inside the area.
For temperature, I just pre-heat and let the printer sit for half an hour or so. But wow did I go through some machinist-related contortions to come to that conclusion, as you did!
Hi! How did you do that? Klipper is only 9+ on neptune 4, [exclude_object] is only on 10+. I struggle to install it myself now
Yes, the time before the print is definetly important. I mentioned this when i moved my Printer in the basement before i got an enclosure. Before, I had just under 21-23°C (69.8-73.4°F) in the apartment. The temperature in the cellar is 15-18°C (59-64.4°F). The prints immediately became worse until I accidentally left the printer on for a while and the print bed probably settled during that time. Since I got a case, the prints have been significantly better overall.
I'm using my 4 Max now, and printint like a charm, 250 mms without any issues. Using Orca Slicer, latest firmware !
Same here so far
Thankyou soo much I modified for Cura based on your G-Code.This was an awesome find. Nice Work.
;ELEGOO NEPTUNE 4 MAX
M220 S100 ;Set the feed speed to 100%
M221 S100 ;Set the flow rate to 100%
M104 S140 ;set nozzle to 140C, but don't wait for it
M190 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0} ;set bed temp and wait for it
G4 P1500000; wait 25 minutes for the bed temp to stabilize further
G29 ;auto bed-leveling
G90 ;absolute positioning
G1 Z10 F300
G1 X1.5 Y10 F6000
G1 Z0 F300
M109 S{material_print_temperature_layer_0}
G92 E0 ;Reset Extruder
G1 X1.5 Y10 Z0.4 F300 ;Move to purge start position
G1 Y110 E30 F400 ;Draw purge line
G1 Z0.6 F120.0 ;Move up a little
G1 Y105 F3000
G92 E0 ;Reset Extruder
thanks for your comment, and thanks for sharing your modified version for Cura
I compared the G-code of the orca listed to your Cura version. I do not see anything different between the 2. Am I missing something?
So do I just wipe out the code? And put this? How do I?
@@aw111986 I agree, need a quick step by step where to insert or copy the code for newbies
I am using the plus this code is making mine try to go past the frame on the x+ side can you help?
;{current_cura_version}
;{machine_name}
M220 S100 ;Set the feed speed to 100%
M221 S{print_flow_percentage} ;Set the print traffic percentage
M104 S140
M190 S{material_bed_temperature_layer_0}
G4 P600000
G29
G90
G28 ;home
G1 Z10 F300
G1 X115 Y0.5 F6000
G1 Z0.4 F300
M109 S{material_print_temperature_layer_0}
G92 E0 ;Reset Extruder
G1 X115 Y0.5 Z0.4 F300 ;Move to start position
G1 X215.0 E30 F400 ;Draw the first line
G1 Z0.6 F120.0 ;Move to side a little
G1 X210 F3000
G92 E0 ;Reset Extruder
So tldr - pre heat your bed, remember thermal expansion is a thing so let it get its wiggles out, auto level, profit.
What’s up with the single frame of the Benchy in the last couple videos?
By the way, you did a phenomenal job reviewing that unit. I hope other companies see this level of attention to detail and invite you to review more moving forward.
i bought this as my first 3d printer about a month ago and its been amazing
Same here, first on Neptune 3 Pro, second one Neptune 4 Max
*Im thinking about buying this as my second 3d printer coming from a ender 3 v2. Im looking for an upgrade thats bigger and faster. Its good to hear you had great luck with it being your first printer!*
I got two of these for slow relible printing on a large bed, But have found it a a constant battle to keep leveled. Thank you for the info!
First things first, I bought this thing back in October of 2023. It was my 2nd 3d printer after I started having issues with how slow my Flashfire Guider 2 was. I could not for the life of me get good prints out of this printer. I was positive I had a bad gantry out of the box and was trying to work with Elegoo forever to get a new gantry shipped. After watching this video, I was positive I had a bad gantry. Yours was the first video of someone running a print on it so I could hear what it sounded like normally. The second thing was back layers as I got near the edges of the build plate. Hallelujah, you have found the issue. I don’t know why I did not think of this myself. My dad claimed he would dream about a car problem and diagnose it in his sleep. I guess it is true if you dream it it will become reality. After almost 6 months of this thing collecting dust and my moving on to now 4 Bambu Lab Printer I tried this with a new gantry, and I have a good print. Thanks so much for finding this fix. I now can print large prints like I wanted to when I bought this thing.
Very useful!! I inserted your gcode, I also don't care about waiting 30 minutes more when with this printer I print huge things that require more than 24 hours. Half an hour is nothing and if I want more speed, I use other printers. As soon as it arrived I leveled, immediately inserted your gcode and started the print I wanted. The first layer was already precise (among other things, the printer was bought used). Excellent and useful! Thanks!
It's great to see folks join the hobby and find issues we've banged our head against back 8-10 years ago, and heat soaking was always advised. Even if you're using mic6 beds on corexy machines, heat soak for a good 20-30 min. Let the bed stabilize, especially on large beds. I know everyone wants fast printers, but pretty sure can't fight physics.
Bambu made everyone's marketing dept. over-pivot to speed. The N4MAX is a flatbed truck trying to wear a Porsche wrap. There's nothing wrong with just admitting it's a flatbed truck, we need those too, but marketing dept's don't think like that.
@@FunctionalPrintFriday I heat soak bambu too. Even best heated bed surface we've found - mic6 aluminum needs heat soaking, see my response to another post.
I have a CR-6 Max which has a 400x400 bed. I encountered this same issue with that bed as well. It wasn't quite as much variance due to the stiff spacers that hold the bed to the carriage, but it did cause inconsistent extrusion and layers. I had to do MANY things to get consistency from the printer. The first thing was to add insulation to the underside. That made a huge difference in the stability of the bed. I also removed the stiff plastic spacers and added rigid silicon spacers that allowed me to adjust the roller coaster surface of the bed as it was quite uneven when i got it with a high point of 2.8mm and a low point of 3mm using the 7x7 mesh. I increased the mesh but that just added more time to the startup as you did. I eventually learned I needed to heatsoak the bed for about 15 minutes and then invested in a Beacon3D bed scanner. That allows me to now pull a 40x40 mesh in about 90 seconds. Unfortunately that meant I had to redesign the whole printer to eliminate the strain gauge leveling system which had it's own issues as plastic extruding from the nozzle would lift up on the hotend as witnessed by the probe triggering during extrusion and would cause uneven top surface layers. By going to a rigid hotend without the strain gauge (used a Micro Swiss NG setup) and the Beacon 3D scanner for a very detailed mesh that takes almost no time to do, I now get perfect adhesion and layers. I am loathe to invest in a bed slinger in the future after all the experiences I've had in making then consistent. My latest printers are coreXY and although more expensive and more complex, are super consistent and have had zero down time with them.
Thank you, I am a beginner bought this 4 Max....struggled a lot.....really an eye opener.
Thanks for this in-depth review with actual solutions. 👍👍😎👍👍
this is what youtube should be.
Second time I have watched your video. I have a neptune 4 pro as my first real printer and it has been great with very little tweaking. Wanted a bigger printer for a few projects and finally jumped on a 4 max. Will be starting my first large scale prints and will be integrating your findings to get my best prints possible. Love your videos
I have a Neptune Max, I totally agree this printer is not a out of the shelf printer, but the community is good and we have all the feature you would expect from a printer for reasonable price and the build volume is my biggest selling point.
Build Plate: I been scratching my head to make the build plate flat, literal spend a month and write to Elegoo about the issues, for me the Firmware and Cura 5.6 update had some success it started print flat still not a good result, STILL THE BUILD WAS NOT FLAT, I ripped of the entire build plate to check each nut and bolt and the moving the Spirit level all over the place, still not make it work, after seeing your video i can imagine what did i miss and your brilliance and in depth knowledge in the subject is appreciated, i am going to try your solution and i am very positive,
Thanks for this in-depth review with a solutions. 👍 Love your Bro 😎
@26:40 on my cr10 v1, I installed a cltouch and set up the gcode to where it heats the bed, levels the bed, and then begins to execute.
I’ve always leveled the bed POST heating to the maximum I was going to heat for the current filament temp.
Always a good idea to try and best replicate your working environment on these machines when dialing in
I bought this printer a while ago and had nothing but problems with it. I just found this video and I can now try to solve my issues. For months it has just sat and done nothing and I bought a bambu P1S. I don't care about the heat up time, I just want to be able to print large items. Thank you so much.
I have the Neptune 4 I heat soak for about 10 minutes prior to starting my prints and I do notice it has helped. Not thrilled about the Klipper implementation of this machine but once I worked the little issues out it’s been a solid machine.
Just because of your „we don’t do multicolor garbage of the week“ i subscribed to you. Thanks a lot.
I recently purchased the 4Max. I am new and as green as it gets. I value you input and love your channel. I have printed caned stuff and had great quality but all small stuff. I bought it to print oscale buildings so I will need to preheat.
Welcome aboard!
I just took a look at mine with a thermal camera. It's 3 hours into a print job, so presumable has stabilized by now. The bed is set to 60C. The temp of the back third of the bed is registering as 58C on the thermal camera, whereas the front half varies between 48 and 51C. This is with ambient temperate in the space at 18C. Pretty clear the large part fan is managing to cool the bed itself, which cannot be good for avoiding the bed distorting. This is the first proper job I've printed on it, but I think I'll be turning the part fan off for now until the summer comes round.
I had this issue with an Anet A8. Re-engineered the Y carriage and the bed, added heat insulation and calibrated the mesh at the temperature i'm printing on (this printer doesn't have ABL). I also took the calibration in the same way displayed here. My printer has been super reliable since.
Reducing the print area to within the area where the bed is screwed down will help a lot.
Saw this video today.
Just got my 4 Max last week.
All the issues you mentioned seem to be fixed.
Dont care for the 120 point level but I am enjoying this gal. Shes got a huge ass, but she is rocking away
I tried out the gcode profile for orca slicer and for some reason after the heat up and autoleveling processes, the x and y axis for the prints seemed off and it tried to print off the bed for some reason. abandoned the gcode update and now I just preheat the bed manually before I level and print and haven't had an issue since.
thanks for shedding light on something I would never of picked up on.
i can't say much about the n4 max but i got the n4 pro and it took me a while to get this to lvl the way i want. The thing is with the neptune4 pro that the leveling of the auxiliary (the 4 knobs) bed corners are done in cold condition when you start the leveling from the menu. It only heats up for the auto leveling part which is not helping at all. First I tighten the 4 corner knobs completely and then loosen it a few turns so that i have some play. My fix is to manually heat up the nozzle to 150 - 200 and also the bedplate to 50-60 and then do all the leveling. But be aware if you finish a part of the leveling and save it ...your heating will be reset so keep an eye on the temps and maybe heat up again if it was reset. Then i start Auxiliary leveling the 4 corners but if its way off then do it on every corner 2 or 3 times this is where i got the best results. Then after the auto leveling starts let it finish and do the z offset also in heated state. In heated state i do the leveling with paper if you feel a slight resistance its good. That helped alot so that i can print flawlessly for a few days and then if a print starts to fail i will do it again. That is ok for me maybe it helps someone. I don't have to wait 20-30 minutes... i just start and it prints perfect if lvled
I too also have a N4 Pro and noticed the same thing as you and also did my levelling with the nozzle and bed pre heated.
you have save my soul, i kept having first layer issues and bed leveling problems, used your gcode and other advice you gave. I no longer have this issue thank you
Great to hear!
Awesome content, thank you! I pre-ordered this printer within the 1st 5 min of the pre-order going live. Printed pretty much non stop October thru Christmas then let it sit for 3 months. Between sickness and life I just didn't feel like dealing with all of this machines little quirks so mainly stuck to printing on my smaller and more worry free printers. I've had time recently again to tackle the big boy and make some upgrades, added Oldham couplings to the Z lead screw nuts to help with Z banding and updated the FW. My biggest issue now is with parts warping, PLA parts. I've got my N4 Max on a bottom shelf in my basement, it might just be too cool down there. I wrap the shelf in a drop cloth as a makeshift enclosure but it doesn't help a lot. I'm going to move it to my dining room tomorrow and give it a shot as the temperature is more stable there. I've been printing for 5 years but printing big is a whole new set of challenges.
This is what I’m struggling with. Super glad I stumbled across this. Thanks!
Nice video, thanks. It confirms some of my suspicions and validates some advice I was reading in the various support communities around ensuring your printer is fully heat soaked before printing. Heat soak I think by your measurements means heat the bed to 60F for 30 minutes. I think some good advice for any that don't want to get into modifying print start GCODE for every print, and furthermore to avoid running a bed mesh prior to every print would be to simply heat soak your printer prior to running a standalone bed mesh, and then heat soak your printer prior to each print. That should align the variances well enough for the average person.
I have the same problem, I hope that by recalibrating it and with the help of the video it can be solved.
I’m using Elegoo Cura 5.4 and it works great. Planning to try other slicers out of curiosity.
Same
This was my first printer. I got it because I wanted to do large prints, but started out with small prints for practice. Got blob death 1 week into owning it. Fixed it, and I've been tuning it and tuning it video after video, and even my small prints either end up not sticking to the bed or over extruding somewhere. Warming up the bed and waiting now to level. I hope this works. I have a huge back log of prints I want to do in the weeks I was waiting for my new hot end.
this video was exactly what i needed right now! thanks buddy
Use a little silicon grease on the rollers, works great. Just make sure it's plastic safe. Also make sure there isn't a nub of plastic hanging off the nozzle when doing Z-offset calibration.
Every time I've done a Z-offset 9 out of 10 times there was a nub which affects offset directly.
Hi. Your video saved my sanity... I dont have a Neptune, I have a Flashforge Adventurer 4. I suspect that bed heating is the answer for MANY other 3d printers.
I had a few other printers before this one and had similar issues. I had upgraded everything on the machines without much success.
As luck would have it, I was interested in buying the Neptune 4 MAX and found your video.
I would recommend that you re-visit this topic and solution for general 3d printer adhesion issues. I have trouble finding this video because its not the name that I associate with it.
I have been recommending your video to others with similar issues.
Hi, I have just bought the Neptune 4 Max last week, and I had it sent to me, to the UK. In Europe we do use Cura a lot... Basically I printed out of the box, just after making a manual bed levellling and then an automated one. So far, I have only been printing small objects (the biggest is a drawer adaptor for the little drawer on the side of it, which goes inside the drawer and you can store the L keys etc), a filament out sensor bracket, to place it a bit more centered, two spool holders (a rotating one and a 3KG one), the extruder clip adaptor (The original one is indecent). The only times the print failed, was on four occasions: on three of them, I did not put any support during the slicing process in Cura, so the object did not have support in some areas; the fourth case, during a print job of a corner camera adaptor, at 50% (several hours), I have decided to switch off the led lights on the top, and for some reason the printer crashed, returning an error about reaching the max extrusion... I pressed the emergency stop on the webpage of the printer administration area (I have been experimenting both physical touches on the pad and the LAN management), and restarted the whole services a couple of times. In some cases, like when I tried to print a small nut and a bolt for a cosplay caliper, the threads did not come out well. It is too early for me to tell you if there are other issues. I did not upgrade the firmware or do any of the annoying things you mentioned, which made me think that probably I have no idea of the printer's flaws yet. This is my third printer, after a Prusa MKII Ephestos and a Creality Ender 3 S1 Plus which went on fire and smoke - seriously - last week, while trying to install a Sonic Pad (Still waiting for Creality to reply back to me about that) . I will follow you and keep your video as a reference, shall I have to do all the stuff you said. I really hope I do not have to upgrade the firmware or open the pad because it is very annoying...
-- 15 February update --
Actually I tried a 10 hours' job with PLA/carbon fiber, and at 87% I had to do a stop, because the printer started printing off Z-axiz, and it was all screwed up. Also, all the prints were opening in half, like a toast :-( I have experienced also that part of the first bed layer, in some areas was having visible spots in it, as described by someone, and after some time the fans bar, attached behind the extruder, started scratching the printed layers, when the bed was going back and forth. I had done a manual calibration before starting any job, and also an automated one. So, probably I will have to change the printer configuration as you guys said.
How can I check if the firmware is the latest version?
Great video. So many videos people giving up. Finally someone made it through. I'm looking for something larger for occasional big prints, beside my X1c and A1 mini. Neptune 4 Max might be it.
This is my first printer, and I have been having bed adhesion issues. I found if I scrapped a part early in the print process, and immediately reprint, the issue seemed to evaporate. I also noted bed temperature variance with a non-contact thermometer when performing the auto leveling task. I had not yet done the dial indicator test. Still running Cura 4.8.xx that came with the machine. Printing a part about 3x10 inches, I found the corners and edges curling up away from the bed. My first thought was thermal residual stress due to the cooling of the molten plastic away from the bed. My fix was to place engineered breakaway supports in the model, and this was relatively successful. So far only tried PLA filament from Elegoo.
I would like to see detailed tech info provided by Elegoo ( schematic, wiring diagrams, parts lists, to aid in accurate troubleshooting). Have had two incidents of death blobs requiring parts from Elegoo, which were promptly supported by Elegoo warranty. It was just a bit unnerving to appear to be throwing parts at it without my understanding exactly what had failed and why.
Most people in 3D printing aren't using cutting edge technology. My guess is Cura is still the most popular. I sell 3D printers for a living and do a lot of trouble shooting. My customers only use Orca when I tell them to unless they have used multiple printers in the past and are into upgrades.
Yep, most people I know use Cura or some version of Prusa Slicer. I've used a ton of slicers. I always go back to Cura, maybe it's familiarity, but it just seems to be the easiest to use. I'm currently trying to get used to the software that comes with the Bambu Lab X1-C.
I've been looking to add a larger format fdm printer to my collection, and been waffling between something like the neptune 4 max/plus vs the neptune 3 max/plus. This video has sold me on the 4 series, not because they are issue free but because it shows that you can tackle the problems they present with a little critical thinking and experience.
I've been using an ender 3 s1 pro for almost 2 years, and have enough experience in fdm printer maintenance and operation, I think, to tackle the challenges of the 4 max/4 plus, in order to achieve the faster printing speeds and larger build volume that I want to add to my repertoire.
I always let my bed heat up, even on my ender 3, for like 15-20 minutes before leveling or before a print, so doing so on the larger printer not only sounds logical but would have been part of my process anyway even without seeing this video - and if you're printing at 250mm/s instead of 50-80 anyway, that extra 30 mins on the front end, to get a 3 day print done in 20 hours, will have been worth it!
How did Elegoo not catch any of this? Up to the community to fix poor quality again. Great job and thanks!
I think Cura is actually still quite popular. Not sure if you have actual statistics for market share. I think especially for Marlin users, like anyone just using an Ender, it's still very prevalent. I personally prefer the Cura interface to most other slicers, but I have moved over to Orca slicer quite a bit because there are certain aspects which allow me to get better print quality, especially on certain prints. Sometimes, I actually find Cura provides a more logical slice of a part, but it is also missing features like support and seam painting that I really appreciate in other Prusa based slicers.
Ya I don't know where this guy is coming from with that. Maybe most enthusiasts aren't using cura? I think 90% of people who buy an out of the box printer are going to go get cura.
@@saitekh Yeah just a bit of confirmation bias I think. I do think Orca is superior in a few ways, but I think Cura is very competent.
I have used other slicer, Cura is still the one I like. Especially, the rich set of plug-ins. It's really a nice software.
I like Cura because is works on all my different machines, and yea I'm used to it. _(Love the lightning infill)._ That was a factor when buying the machine.
This is my first printer. It still sits in the box, unopened. I'm researching as much as possible. You say at the beginning this isn't a good 1st printer. Hopefully following instructions like these, before my first print, will help from me being instantly discouraged and throwing the 4Max into the dumpster. I'm going to do several upgrades before I even power it on, like X & Y linear rails, and a pair of front stabilizer bars. I'm undecided on a better (?) hotend like a Micro-swiss.
Just pull it out and print. Don't be scared, don't do upgrades before you understand the printer. Print, diagnose, fix. I'm not new to printing, I purchased this and I'm happy. I'm running into under extrusion so I'm playing with that. But I got 4 great prints already with nothing done.
Thanks for the video. Cura has been a staple of the low-end printer market for years. It shipped with the Creality machines and most of the other clones that came after. Cura is also used for both Resin and FDM printers. I got it with my Mars 2Pro and the Npttune 2S. Most people do end up switching to more advanced slicers.
I'm glad I found this video, my 4Max is coming in post right now. Coming from a Flashforge 5M pro which, after tuning through orca is a great printer, I needed a larger vol for prototype parts for work. I've seen sooo many videos on why this machine sucks hahaha but I've seen the same amount of videos showing amazing prints. Tbh I have no clue how to work klipper. I actually only know a very small amount of gcode...but knowing the info in this vid was actually a huge boost on what to look for
I've had mine for 8 months, never had a problem sourcing larger nozzles - the app actually does give info on print times and jobs.
For those who are wondering about the neptune 4 - rubber wheels, and levelling system were deal breakers for me
Is it springs warming up and expanding or just the bed? Would nylon spacers help with leveling?
That’s what I was thinking as well.
OMG bro I have been pulling my hair out with my 4 plus trying to get a solid 1st layer.... Thank you.
Glad I could help
I just bought one myself and I'm hoping it works out. I had another brand before but had to return it after an issue with the threaded rod ultimately resulted in the printer having to be returned. I got this one since the threaded rods are pre-installed in the uprights but all the stuff I'm going to have to try and remember is making my head spin.
I'm grateful this video is here I just hope I can figure it out.
it's *not* a turnkey machine, but it's still a great deal for the overall size and capabilities once you've tuned it
Thanks to you and others doing similar content I think I will be ok. The issue I am having at the moment I feel may have more to do with a bad model or my inexperience with Cura (Elegoo says it's the most popular but I see maybe 1% of people online saying they use it) but sadly the model I found was distributed as a Cura project instead of STL or SCAD. I am going to try a simple benchy in the center of the bed to examine for irregularities.
The model was a test for after you do auxiliary leveling that prints the 11 x 11 mesh patter in connected squares. Sadly it went horribly wrong and I had to stop immediately.@@FunctionalPrintFriday
Thank you for this video and sharing your finding.
Thanks for doing this in depth review. It solves a lot of the issues I had with this printer.I think it will also help a lot of people struggling with this printer.
I really appreciate the way you include all the software and code changes. Unfortunately early on I was just pushing through before I understood all the issues and ended up with a massive blob of death on an early long print. Elagoo did send me a new nozzle and heat sink but it was very difficult to get the old one off.
It's a shame that the companies themselves don't find a way to resolve the issues and release a video like this.
I find it hard to believe they don't realize what the problems are.
Thanks again and keep up the good work.
I will also subscribe to your channel I have already liked the vid
Considering the size, even with that bed issue it's been amazing printer. Coming from CR-10 S5
30minute wait is no go for most prints. Only for say 5kg+ prints -- at which point just the weight of the print is going to affect level over time, fortunately spread over the full print.
Right now doing ~2kg print.
Insane how fast these new printers get stuff done, that's only 1½ days.
So I got mine around the same time you got yours and I have had all the issues.Blob of death yup had it 4 times to the point where they sent me new heads. Firmwear def fixed a lot of the issues for sure. The issue I noticed that you did not mention was the back bed level screw knob backing off after a while. Like the movement would cause it to shimmy and next thing you know you have so really bad prints or worse the nozzel toughing the build plate something horrible Great tip thanks.
I honestly just bought one, so I have not got to try it out yet. But thank you. I can see the issues by your video. I will. most likely be putting on one of my H2O's or H2 v2s extruders in place because I already seen multiple blobs of death as a complaint. but this helps me a lot. Thank you very, very, very much.!!!! It's nice knowing what to expect.!
finally honestly saying not for beginners
Thank you. Was about tobuy this but yousaved me. Don‘t wanna gamble with qc. Would love a bigger printer but I think I will just get the p1s as my first one.
First guy I've heard to relate 3D printing to machining and started adjustjng the machine as such. Subbing. I appreciate that you also acknowledge that you've been pondering this for weeks. I think 3D printing is a great intro to machining and the processes involved, but I think manufacturers are trying not to intimidate new users with how much effort goes into zeroing equipment. My primary example is the "piece of paper" height setting for the z offset. I think it would be better to assign a designated gap and send people an appropriate feeler gauge. Personally, I use a .7 mm feeler gauge. The same applies to belt tensions. There should be a designated tension set by the manufacturer and a simple tool included or for affordable purchase. Torque value for carrier wheels... I digress. 😂 Again, these machines are a great value to introduce people to machining processes, but manufacturers need not fear specific tolerance, and consumers need to understand better prints require more setup time and constant machine "maintenance". You don't win Lemans in a daily driver where you change the oil once a year.
I was loving the printer (4 Plus) until today. Now I can't get anything to print. I did about 100 perfect prints out of the box just making sure everything was tight but today the nozzle just hits every print about 10 layers into it causing it to fail. I verified the Z offset and tried multiple files and different filaments and every setting I could think of in Cura to no avail. I just updated the firmware to the latest and doing a 30 minute heatup on the bed before I do a new level. I have no idea why it worked perfect for so many prints and now just fails every time now. I will try some of your fixes in this video and hope something changes for the positive. If nothing changes I will try replacing the nozzle. Thanks for the great video!
Did you fix it?
@ace25805 any updates?
Thank you man for such explaning
For me im waiting my machine to reach but i had already 5 Neptune 4pro and i have some of that issues
Any time im printing and keep the machine running i have no issues what so ever
Thank you again for that information and i really wish you good luck
Glad I could help
Nice video! One thing to mention is, that is not a dial test indicator! That in fact is a test indicator, non linear and very sensitive over a short range. The other type is a dial indicator with a plunger type probe, those give linear measurements and generally have a much larger range. DTI is basically slang workshop language for a small distance measuring device that looks like a clock.
Thanks for the info!
Спасибо! Благодаря твоим исследованиям я сегодня получил полноценную печать на всей поверхности стола Neptune 4 Max !!!
so glad to hear, thx for sharing!
It takes a while for all the corners of the bed to heat up equally and fully expand to do an accurate mesh leveling = 42:48
I normally don’t comment on videos like this, but you kept me from going insane. I’ve spent the past week trying to get a “level” print out of this printer. Coming from an ender 3, but I’ve been out of the 3d printing game for like 3 years lol.
yeh it's a frustrating experience with this machine
I've had 0 problems out of the box with mine. I've got a 60 hour print on it now and I've done nothing but go through the configuration settings and hit print. I did relevel before this 60 hour print. Because it takes up the entire build area. But that's it. It's run great
I will be getting mine tomorrow and this video is scaring me but then I read some comments and people say they are having no issues. Could it be some are better than others? I've also watched other videos about this printer and no one is mentioning this stuff. Because if this printer is this messed up, Elegoo should be working on fixing these issues.
Thanks for posting this video, I'm very new to 3d printing! This is my 2nd Elegoo Printer I now have the 4 Pro and the 4max. I have not had very good luck with this 4 max so far, I have only been able to print 1 piece with it. I am hoping this video instruction will fix my problems.
Glad it was helpful!
When I first took mine out of the box the bed was so loose that I could rock/twist the bed about 1/4" It was a simple turn of the nuts on the rollers to take the slack out. It was very obvious that whoever assembled my machine could care less though.
watching this video and using cura while your saying no one uses it.
i use cura and prusaslicer for a ender 3 v2. {marlin}
cura profile is great for supports and xy compensation .
prusaslicer tends to weld print in place functional parts.
Appreciate the reply. The comments section is proving to me that a lot more people are using Cura than I would have otherwise thought. I do find that the supports seem to work a lot better in Orca over prusaslicer, even with the same settings. Not sure why.
This would make sense why I was having issues. I was trying to do smaller prints quick and notice the first one would be amazing. Then the second ones would having first layer issues. I'm guessing from not having the bed warmed up enough after cooling down.
I've been using an Ender 3 for a few months. It works fairly well, but the size limitations are.... Well, limiting. I've been very tempted to pick up one of these.
Still undecided, but this helps.
Thanks so much for putting this info out!
Would appreciate seeing how you've modified your printer.cfg? I'm still also a little unsure how to add screws tilt for the max... Thanks!
Excellent video - very informative and detailed. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. This specific problem has had me very frustrated for a while. The usable volume on the Neptune 4 Max is now within reach of reliable & repeated use. Like and subbed. I'm also adding a metal extruder gear and the Microswiss hotend for the Neptune 4 Max. Hope to get it to reliable workhorse status.
If I am not mistaken Cura is still the most used slicer. The UI experience of Orca slicer, also Bambu Slicer is still far from Cura. My wife who isn’t technical doesn’t even know how to change the print temp on Bambu slicer, just select the filament profile and print and if doesn’t work, then uses a different printer.
Also I have a 500x500 printer and have up on Bicubic bed leveling and just do a 6x6 lagrange, it does a way better job when the big is multiple mm off between everything.
Thanks for your comment. Do you heat soak the 500x500 before printing? Do you notice any deflection?
@@FunctionalPrintFriday That depends on the tension of the springs under the bed, the heat will warp the bed differently based on the end-point tension. When the springs do not have enough tension and you do a multi-day print, the bed level over time doesn't stay the same (while its printing). So not only does heat affect this, but original bed level no longer applied. I printed some PLA washers to go under the springs to ensure everything is super tight, and then leave it heat for a while. I also have locknuts under each spring to ensure as little of the bed changes while printing. The locknuts make it a pain in the butt to level the bed so I made some custom nobs to go over the locknuts to act as the original nobs. I then run it with a polypropylene glass fiber bed, so it needs about 15 minutes of heating after. The high tension springs ensure multi-day prints have a relatively level bed throughout its print. I found that by using lagrange instead of bicubic the mesh can be super unleveled (mine was 3-4mm difference) and still print on every inch of the bed without issue. Bicubic seems to need the bed within 0.3mm to work as expected or maybe some additional more advance settings to work correctly.
THANK YOU!! I was about to freaking hammer-throw this printer out in to the street and give up on printing completely! I was letting it pre-heat before prints but z-offset and bed mesh were always inconsistent I should've known there was a better way. Thanks for the G-code! The bed mesh before every print has helped a ton. Smaller prints are turning out fine now, haven't tried a large print yet but I have faith now that it will turn out fine :)
Thank you, i look forward to trying this out.
That's really interesting. I've got the N4Pro as our first printer, and was suddenly getting layer shifts on the Y axis on small (3in by 4in in bed center) but tall (6in) prints. The shifts would happen about 45 minutes into the print in a room that's typically about 50 degrees F. Temp fluctuates a lot when the furnace heat kicks on and off throughout the day.
I fiddled with the y axis belt a lot to try to fix the shifting, until it eventually broke. Elegoo is replacing it for free, but I'm suspecting that the thermal changes in the various parts might be the culprit. I'll have to try preheating once the new belt arrives.
I have had so many issues getting my prints to work properly. I noticed the exact same things you did, but I don't have enough experience to have identified the issue as you have here. In fact, recently my printer had the dreaded blob of death, and ruined my hot end, one of the wires came off when trying to remove the blob. I was leveling non-stop and I also noticed the issue with Screw_tilt_adjust not being accurate. I hope this resolves my issues, once my new nozzle comes in. I have also ordered some of the new nozzles form Elegoo for the 1mm size, and I hope to be able to make larger objects more quickly and accurately with your guidance here. Thank you.
Very cool review.
I have two of the Neptune 3 Max, and have thought about a 4 Max. Yet, I see a lot off issues with it that keeping from getting it. I'll probably just pickup another 3 Max.
Oh, I jump around on slicers with using Simplify3D, Cura, and Orca (though I'm still learning it) 😅
I have a 3 Max and a 4 Max and I definitely wish I had just bought a second 3 instead of the 4.
I prefer cura as another said I like its interface over the others. As for the 25 min wait I’m use to that with my Voron printers I heat soak them for different amounts of time based on the filament type and temps.
Interesting. What is the primary reason you're heat soaking the bed on your voron? Is it dimensional stability of the bed, bringing chamber temp up, or something else?
@@FunctionalPrintFridaymainly to get the chamber temp up but does help settle any flex in the bed etc from the heat. Also not sure with the Neptune I run KAMP (for klipper) you can have it bed mesh and prime in just the area you are printing in so you don't have to mesh the entire bed unless you are always printing a full bed.
First and foremost great video! I appreciate all the time and effort that you put into this machine. However, I believe the only way manufactures are going to learn, is the hard way, and have customers return machines that simply do not work as advertised out of the box. A 25min heat soak? The when it already takes forever and a day for the bed to heat up. For a bed of this size, maybe it should have been an AC heated bed? To me this machine was rushed to the market, and didn't have a proper QC process. Keep up the great work!
This is very smart, i guess it will also effect other big printers and something we all should know that using big printers.
I find it a miracle printers of this bed size manage to print half-decently at all. It is to be expected that heat expansion, bed movements, wear on belts and bearings will have a major effect on z height, especially when we are looking for precision of 0.1mm!
Look at your metal lathe, then look at this printer. The difference in rigidity and moving part quality is immense, yet the printer (and others like it) still manages to print at a reasonable quality. It is impossible to tune perfectly and for this tune to remain perfect long term, so I think we should cut Elegoo some slack here.
As you said, the only way to counter this is to smartly compensate for the inevitable mechanical inaccuracies, in software. It is most likely what printers of other manufacturers achieving "perfect" results do without us realizing.
I never shut the heat bed off, so no complaints over here!
If you cant return the
Printer, I would build an enclosure and add 10 degrees to your bed temperature. I build for me a craft paper box. My last autoleveling was 3 month ago when i added the box. But I would check the heatbed circuit too.
That make total sense... I don't have the 4 but I have the 3, I'll be looking into this.
Thankyou for all your effort. I believe you've helped point me towards a solution for getting decent prints on my N4 Max. A few observations though:
1) 0.004 inches is 0.1016 mm, which translates to 1/2 a layer height.
2) Would an enclosure help?
3) The default tolerance is 0.05, which incidentally lets it accept almost all samples, regardless of deviation
4) With 3 samples taken, wouldn't 'average' be better than 'mean'?
5) With bed levelling done on every print wouldn't it make sense to look into the Beacon probe?
Regardless, thanks! I didn't fully realise the amount of heat expansion on such a large bed
Awesome video. Thank you. I got a neptune 4 max and I've been printing cosplay props like weapons and helmets and some parts of the bed print with a layer where I can see the bed thru it and some points on the same layer are rippled so its too close. I gotta give this a try.
I wanted to post an update. I implemented your advice and I'm getting successful prints now, but I have discovered a new issue. Every time I start a new print, the z-offset changes. It seems like the previous Z-Offset is not being saved, and each successive print I have lower the z-offset further and further. In my first print, the offset was about -0.4mm, with the second print, exact same model, the z-offset is -1.1mm. Any ideas?
have you updated the firmware as well?
@@FunctionalPrintFriday yep
But if you implemented the start code changes, isn’t it running a bed mesh at the start of each print?
All I did to fix this is alter the ending g code to set the hotbed to the same temp instead of turning it off so it is always hot when turned on.
And just do the autoleveling every print only waiting 2 minutes. ANother theoretical way I want to try but have not had the chance is to have the bed heat up 5-10 degrees more than the printing temp. Then lowering to the temp to printing before leveling, so it is all heated up
Thank you for your inisights, this printer has given me a lot of grief, especially with surface quality and over extrusion.
How do I add this starting GCODE to my project in orca slicer?
All I use is Cura. I was thinking of branching out to Orca but I am fully integrates with Klipper and Cura.
This worked perfectly for me. I did enable adaptive mesh every print. but same file , same config, failed start from cold, perfect after 30 min heatup
EPIC video, well what can I say you are totally correct....the only thing I can add to this is that I have the same issues with my Ender 3 S1 plus and my CR10 Smart Pro - I think you are going to have similar issues with any large area 3D CONSUMER 3D PRINTER WITH A cheap 6061 alloy print bed... - I think you will have Dimensionally a totally new print bed very time you heat cycle it. so you can't call this a Neptune 4 Max problem...... Before every print job I heat up the bed to 90 and then auto bed level, mesh save to memory, and then the print job starts ( this adds 8 minutes to every print job )....Epic video thank for making it ! keep the technical content flowing !
I just bought a 4 max - frikkkk - any way to upgrade the psu to the 500wt psu from the 3 max
I had similar problem with leveling different printer. Sorted by changing yellow springs to silicone. Now happy days and ya heated bedneed some time equalise heat before print. And maybe will help fir someone my tip - clean your bed cold with very warm sponge to absorb all plastic fats. I long time cannot figure out where is problem, tried dish washer, isopropyl alcohol, different pastas e.t.c. , nothing worked because I cleaned warm surface. Now I use cheap sugar soap what sell in DIY stores, need just few drops. I also use sometimes pva glue diluted, just thin layer for better adhesion and if problem get part off sprinkle water around edges on 70C warm plate