The M1 Ultra is Elegoo’s first entry into the 3D scanner market. It is a feature-rich scanner with five scanning modes, four blue light laser modes, and a NIR binocular structured light mode. Most importantly, the scanner has a 3-in color touch screen and long battery life. It even includes a spare rechargeable battery, so you’re always prepared.

The scanner can’t run without a fairly high end PC or Mac for processing power. It will need to be tethered to the laptop with a UBS-C cable or connected via Wi-Fi. I was able to get about five feet away from my subject in a harsh RF environment. I didn’t test it further than that, so it may go farther. The cable connection provides the fastest connectivity, making tethered scanning worth the hassle.

The scanner’s output rivals any of the scanners I’ve tested, but it did require a little extra work to get there. At a current price of $1,599 at Elegoo, the M1 Ultra has features not found in other scanners at this price point.

Specifications: Elegoo M1 Ultra

Included in the Box: Elegoo M1 Ultra

The Elegoo M1 Ultra comes with a nice hard case for travel, with a padded interior to protect the scanner, glass calibration board, spare battery, NIR filters, and a USB-C cable. Also included are a lens cleaning cloth and a packet of marker dots. Noticeably absent is a turntable for scanning smaller objects. (We borrowed a turntable from another scanner during this test.)

Design of the Elegoo M1 Ultra

The Elegoo M1 Ultra weighs 511g (1.12lbs) with its battery installed. It has a rubber grip below the screen and is nicely balanced. Users with large hands may find their thumbs blocking the screen.

The onboard screen can be used to set the scanning parameters, start and stop scans, and monitor the scans as they progress. The 3-inch screen is small, but the UI is laid out perfectly. When setting parameters for a scan, the touch screen takes precedence over the tethered computer if you’re starting the scan from the scanner itself.

The business end of the scanner has a series of blue, white, and infrared LEDs, blue lasers, and cameras. The included NIR filters are needed when scanning outdoors or in harsh light conditions. The battery and the spare can be charged using a USB-C cable when unmounted, and can be charged from the computer when operating the scanner in USB mode. The battery life is excellent. Almost all of our testing was done with one charge of the battery and its spare.

Getting Started and Calibrating the Elegoo M1 Ultra

Calibrating the Elegoo M1 Ultra is fairly easy given its light weight and the easy-to-follow software. Using the glass calibration board, the scanner is aimed at various angles and heights, following the directions on screen. The software shows an image of where the scanner should be and an image of the scanner as you move it. You have to match the two before moving on to the next spot. Scanner calibration can be a chore, but calibrating the M1 Ultra was simple.

Installing the Software for Elegoo M1 Ultra

Elegoo Scan can be downloaded from Elegoo’s website for Windows and Mac. The software works and looks like CrealityScan, which is a good thing since both make cleaning up individual scans and stitching multiple scans together fairly easy. The software does require a bunch of memory, with the more, the merrier. I tried running the software on an older PC laptop which met the minimum requirements, except it had only 8 GB of RAM, and it was not enough.

Elegoo recommends a PC with Windows 10/11 (64-bit), an Intel Core i7 (13th Gen) or higher, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 or higher (8 GB VRAM), and 32 GB or more of RAM. For Mac, they recommend macOS 14 or later, with an Apple M4 or later, and 32 GB or more of RAM. Minimum specs for both are 16gb of RAM, with Windows 10/11 (64-bit), Intel Core i7 (7th Gen), and an Nvidia GPU (6 GB VRAM) for PC, and macOS 14 or later, with an Apple M2 CPU.

Blue Laser Line 3D Scanning with the Elegoo M1 Ultra

The Elegoo M1 Ultra has 4 blue laser scanning modes: 34 crossed laser lines for quick scanning, 7 parallel lines for finer details, 1 line for scanning deeper, more difficult-to-capture holes, and markerless. The fewer the lines, the more time the scans take. I should point out that the turntable in the photo was borrowed from the Creality Pika Scanner, which we reviewed previously.

One of my favorite use cases is scanning an item for import into a 3D printing project I am working on. I scanned a cheap 895 brushed motor commonly found in drills. The motor required several scans, and the M1 Ultra seemed to have trouble capturing the shinier parts of the object. Ultimately, I captured two scans that had enough data to be useful. The software has an automatic alignment tool which does a good job in most cases. In this case, it was baffled by the geometry. The manual alignment worked perfectly.

Manual alignment requires adding markers matching points on both images. You do not have to be super exact with the placement. The software will smooth out any overlaps.

Part of the mesh processing is hole filling. This also has an automatic and manual mode. Since the automatic mode was going to fill in the screw holes and cooling holes, I had to fill in the holes manually by clicking on them. This is a little tedious, but it worked well.

After hole filling, smoothing, and simplifying, I was able to export the file as an STL and open it in Tinkercad.

The size, and hole alignment were perfect for integrating the motor into a project.

This bust of Michelangelo’s David came with an early Creality scanner and has become my main test file. It took three scans for me to get a good model, which was a recurring theme with the Elegoo M1 Ultra.

Fortunately in this case, the auto alignment function worked perfectly.

Even with multiple scans, there were still a few holes to fill. One of these can be seen in the finished model in the smooth, flat area above David’s left ear.

Overall, the model generated is one of the best I’ve seen, and it printed extremely well once exported. The flaw at the bottom of the print was a bed adhesion issue rather than a problem with the model.

NIR 3D Scanning with the Elegoo M1 Ultra

Since I could not find a willing human victim…I mean, subject…to scan, I tried using the NIR mode to scan Clyde, our family’s favorite stuffed Clydesdale. This is a cautionary tale because 3D scanners in general have a tough time scanning black objects, as they absorb light rather than reflecting it.

The scans weren’t bad, but they did leave big holes where the mane and tail were too dark to read.

I was able to do a much better scan of Ali the Alligator. In NIR mode, the scanner is capable of 30fps. Even with the slower frame rate, the scanner was able to quickly capture Ali in two scans, without a ton of multiple passes. Each time you go over the same spot on an object, it’s possible to generate garbage data that has to be removed in the meshing process. The two scans align together automatically, and the finished model is pretty darn good.

The scanner does feature color texture mapping. Other than the mouth, where a large hole needed to be filled, the color mapping was spot on.

Bottom Line

The Elegoo M1 Ultra is a good scanner that has a good feature set for the price. The light weight, onboard screen, long battery life, and stable Wi-Fi connection make it a joy to use.

The ElegooScan software is fairly intuitive. It makes calibrating the scanner and turning the raw scans into usable models fairly easy. The Elegoo M1 Ultra did require multiple scans to get good coverage of objects, while other scanners I’ve tested could do it in one pass. The added complexity takes up a good deal of time and requires a fair amount of computer power, especially when cleaning up and aligning multiple scans. ElegooScan has the tools to make it work. Even with a pretty good model, you’ll likely also need a CAD program or other design tools to make the best use of the scans.

If you’d like to save a few bucks and get a still excellent scanner, check out the Creality Pika, which is currently $699. If you want a scanner with a little more horsepower, check out the Creality Sermoon S1, which retails for $2,069. Creality also makes the Sermoon P1, which can run completely untethered and retails for $3,299.

The Bambu Lab H3C is the printer we’ve been waiting for: a true Bambu tool changer. It has nine “Swaptek” tools that use a technology similar to the H2C Vortek rack, except each nozzle is built into a lightweight, hardwired tool with a dedicated filament path. The H3C is Bambu’s fastest multicolor 3D printer, and though it reduces waste, it does not eliminate it.

The H3C comes with a surprising “old school” technology: the ability to print 2.85mm filament. This is in response to China’s increasing fascination with 3D-printed shoes made with a wide variety of squishy TPU. Bambu sent along a few spools of their new super soft 75A TPU to show off, and it does make for comfy footwear. Each unit comes with one special 2.85mm tool as a standard feature, though you can buy a “normal” 1.75mm tool for $59 if you’re not into the novelty of phat filament.

You will also be able to add cutting, drawing, embossing, and foil transfer tools to the system. These were not available at the time of review, but we’ve seen these accessories on the H2D and A2L. The 3D printer will NOT come with a laser variant.

Bambu is checking off yet another item from the user wish list: the ability to print with more than one nozzle size. Because this is more of a software upgrade, you’ll also gain the ability to mix nozzles with Bambu’s other dual nozzle systems: the H2D, H2C, and X2D. The H2D will get the ability first, and the other printers will be updated by March.

The H3C has a 330 x 320 x 325mm build volume (the same as the H2C) and a massive “AMS” type module perched atop the main unit that holds nine spools. This gives it a somewhat towering mushroom shape that’s over three feet tall. It did not fit on my studio counter, which is a standard-sized IKEA kitchen countertop with a filament rack three feet off the surface. When we parked it on my industrial-grade shelving unit next to the H2D, even my 6’4” husband needed a step stool to load filament. Bambu was prepared for this problem and created a special rolling cart for the machine to make it more accessible. This is the first time the company has offered custom furniture for one of their printers and is an optional purchase that I highly recommend.

All nine tools are integrated into the bottom of the AMS 3H, which means the H3C only comes as a nine-tool 3D printer. There is no such thing as a single-color H3C. If nine colors aren’t enough for you, the printer can be hooked up to as many as four “normal” AMS units with the help of an optional buffer. Unfortunately, all outside AMS units need to run through the 5th tool slot, so you will lose the purge-free perk of the H3C.

The AMS 3H does not have motorized rollers, as retraction is unneeded on a tool changer. Seven of the slots have a TPU bypass, something we first saw on the single spool AMS HT. Two of the slots are nestled within an interior chamber for drying at up to 85°C. Though you can only dry two spools in the AMS 3H, you can run the dryer while printing, as it has its own power supply. The sealed dryer does not “leak” enough heat to dry the rest of the chamber…we checked. But that also means you don’t have to worry about the dryer melting a spool of PLA left in a nearby slot.

The FlexFeed extruder mounted on the toolhead is amazing. It can self-adjust to handle normal 1.75mm PLA or expand to push 2.85mm TPU quickly and without issue. The Bambu Lab H3C comes standard with eight .4mm nozzles for 1.75mm filament and one .4mm nozzle for 2.85mm filament. The nozzles are held in place with three screws and are pretty easy to swap out. You do need an entirely separate tool (with larger openings) for the 2.85mm filament. Because the H3C can print with multiple nozzle sizes, you could leave one or more tools dedicated to .2, .6, or .8 nozzle sizes if that fits your workflow.

For example, slots 6 and 8 are located inside the dryer and have a TPU bypass. You could dedicate a .6mm nozzle to these tools to better handle TPU, something like PA CF, which both benefit from toasty dry filament and an extra-wide nozzle. All nozzles for the H3C are hardened steel (HRC 55+) by default.

My H3C did have some pre-launch issues and is running Beta firmware that was updated several times during the review. The printer developed an annoying clicking sound coming from the left-side stepper motor, and one of the tools has a tendency to tangle and catch on the other Bowden tubes, causing it to dismount unexpectedly – and annoyingly – during long multicolor prints. I printed a few TPU spacers to try and solve this problem without much success as of yet.

The Bambu Lab H3C is launching with a retail price starting at $2,499 for all nine tools (eight standard 1.75mm and one 2.85mm). This is only $100 more than the launch price of the H2C. Additional tools and nozzle sizes will be available, though we do not have all the pricing at this time. A bundle that includes the Bambu Station (rolling cart) starts at $2,799. This makes the machine a bit on the spendy side, but for a helmet-class, honest-to-goodness tool changer with Bambu Lab’s ease of use, this 3D printer has earned its place on our Best 3D Printer of 2026 list.

Specifications: Bambu Lab H3C

Bambu Lab H3C: Included in the Box

The Bambu Lab H3C comes with a toolkit and the cables needed to assemble your 3D printer, as well as a few spare parts. The printer is preloaded with files, including a scraper that you can build yourself with the included parts. There’s also a quick start guide for both the base unit and the AMS 3H.

For the review, Bambu Lab provided spare printer tools for both 1.75mm and 2.85mm filaments, as well as several spools of PLA Palette and 2.85mm TPU 75A. We also received a Bambu Station for the review.

Design of the Bambu Lab H3C

The H3C is an incredible piece of hardware. The Swaptek system has nine tools, each with its own filament path, heater, and hardened steel nozzle. The FlexFeed extruder has cooling and everything else. Each nozzle stays loaded and is preheated for lightning-fast filament swaps. I clocked it at six seconds from printing one color to printing the next.

The tools and nozzles come in both 1.75 mm and 2.85 mm filament sizes. Each tool has a nozzle attached by three screws, which can be swapped with different sizes. The H3C ships with one 2.85mm tool, but you have the option to purchase more tools if you want to customize your configuration. Though not ready at the time of this review, Bambu Lab will be offering tools for cutting, drawing, debossing, and foil transfer at a later date.

The tools dock on a front-mounted rack that retracts, allowing the build plate to be viewed from the front of the printer. This is a not-so-subtle jab at Prusa’s INDX, which has tools mounted to a fixed rack that one must peer through to see the first layer printing. It adds a layer of unneeded complexity, but it also looks pretty cool in action.

The photo below shows all nine tools lowered, using a maintenance setting. Normally, only one tool lowers at a time while in use.

The AMS 3H

Unlike previous Bambu Lab 3D printers, the AMS is required, not optional. Instead of a box that can be parked here or there, the AMS 3H is designed to screw into the top of the H3C. The plastic sides have a weird organic shape, but are actually quite practical – hidden side panels pop out for maintenance, allowing you to reach into the machine. The massive lid can be propped open, which is good because it’s most likely going to be over your head.

The tools ship attached to the bottom of the AMS. Though the H3C has the same build volume, and the same length and width as the H2 line, it is doubtful that an H2 can be upgraded to an H3C by simply plopping an AMS 3H on top of an older machine.

The AMS 3H has a separate chamber with a magnetically attached lid covering slots 6 and 8, which can dry filament at up to 85°C. All filament slots except 2 and 4 can bypass the AMS feeders through a hole in the bottom to directly feed TPU to the tools. The spool slots are numbered in a zigzag method, with 2,4,6 and 8 on the back row and 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 on the front. All the filament feeders are in the middle of the two rows, with the even-numbered spools feeding forward like always, and the odd spools feeding backward. It can get a bit complicated if you’re not using Bambu-branded filament with RFID tags. Being on the short side, I have to use a step stool to see the feeders.

The body of the Bambu Lab H3C looks similar to the rest of the H series except for the toolhead. The Flexfeed extruder can adjust automatically to push multiple filament widths and does well with some of the softest TPU I’ve tried.

The H3C has active chamber heating, up to 65°C, goes to 350°C at the hot end and 120°C on the bed, which makes printing PPA and PPS, nylons, ABS, and ASA easy. For the smellier filaments, it has active carbon and HEPA filtration.

The ventilation is sufficient to run lower-temperature filaments like PLA with the printer’s door closed.

The printer has an excellent camera that is used for AI detection on prints and can be monitored from the Bambu Handy app as well as the device page of Bambu Slicer. The camera can also capture time-lapses of prints when a USB stick is inserted in the slot behind the touch screen.

The Bambu Lab H3C has a footprint similar to the other H series printers but does require space on both sides to access the side panels of the AMS 3H. With the top-mounted AMS and the space required for the tool wiring and Bowden tubes, the Bambu Lab H3C requires a total of 1306 mm in height (over four feet) to operate comfortably. When resting on a standard-height counter or the 3ft tall racks we normally use for our printers, I needed a small ladder to reach the rear spools in the AMS 3H. Even my husband, who is 6’4,” had to stretch to reach the back. Shortly after I had the printer set up, I received the Bambu Station, which, at 23.5 inches tall on its wheels, is a great solution for keeping this printer in reach. If you don’t have a shelf or table the height of a coffee table, I recommend getting one.

Bambu is also introducing a companion E1 Air Purifier that syncs with the H3C and activates when you start a print job. We did not receive an E1 to test, and we’re not sure if the air cleaner will be offered as a standalone product. It is part of the premium $3,049 combo that includes the printer, rolling cart, and several spools of filament.

Assembling the Bambu Lab H3C

The Bambu Lab H3C arrives in two large assemblies: the main printer and all the things attached to the AMS 3H. After removing the packing material, zip ties holding the tool head in place, four screws holding the bed in place, and two retainers holding the rack in place, the AMS 3H can be hefted on top of the base unit. This is best done while the unit is on the floor or at least somewhere with a bunch of overhead clearance.

The touch screen attaches to the base unit without tools, and the ribbon cable is just long enough to reach the back of the screen. The nine tools have to be manually placed in the front rack, which takes some time until you learn how they attach. At least one needed to be attached once the printer was powered up.

The AMS 3H has its own power cord for the heater and a cable connecting it to the base. There are preinstalled screws to attach the Base unit to the AMS 3H, but I left these unused since removing the front panel requires tipping the AMS 3H back a bit.

Leveling the Bambu Lab H3C

The Bambu Lab H3C performs a bed level as part of its initial calibration suite and again before each print. This works flawlessly in practice.

Loading Filament on the Bambu Lab H3C

When using non-TPU 1.75mm filament, the AMS 3H loads filament just like a regular AMS. Filament is inserted into the feeder, which automatically pulls it into the toolhead when that tool is selected. The RFID tag on Bambu Lab branded filament will automatically enter the filament type and color. Other filament brands need to be entered manually into the printer via the touchscreen.

The AMS 3H does not have powered rollers to retract the filament. You will need to select Unload from the filament screen, and the printer will cut the filament and retract it from the tool head. You will need to manually pull the filament out the rest of the way.

2.85mm filament and softer TPU will need to be manually fed through a port on the bottom of the AMS 3H. All filament slots except 2 and 4 have this port. The filament bypasses the tubing to feed directly into the tools. The standard Bowden tube must be removed from the tool and inserted into a holder on the side. For 1.75mm TPU, a small piece of Bowden tube is inserted into the top of the tool to help feed the filament correctly. 2.85mm filament can be inserted directly into the tool. Once inserted, filament using the bypass must be loaded manually.

Preparing Files / Software for Bambu Lab H3C

Bambu Studio, based on PrusaSlicer and its forbear, is one of the best slicers out there. Working seamlessly with the printer for filament mapping, control, monitoring, and access to all of the files on Makerworld, it is a joy to use.

Printing on the Bambu Lab H3C

The H3C is a much faster machine than its predecessors because it does not need to reel filament back and forth from the AMS. However, it still uses a purge tower, which can waste a bit of time and filament. It only takes about six seconds to swap tools, which is quite remarkable.

The H3C did not come with filament samples, but Bambu Lab did send along several spools of PLA Palette and spools of 2.85 75A TPU to try. You’re going to need a bunch of filament for this beast, so check out our list of best filaments for 3D printing for suggestions.

To get the measure of the Bambu Lab H3C, I loaded up one of my favorite prints, a steampunk dragon by the designer Cinderwing 3D. I had previously printed it in eight PLA colors using two AMS modules on an Anycubic Kobra 3 Max, which is a bed slinger. That first print took 37 hours and 28 minutes and wasted 267g of filament in poop and purge.

Using a .2mm layer height and an average print speed of 140mm/s, the H3C cut that time down to a bit less than 24 hours, and only wasted 68g in its purge tower. The print quality is excellent, and all the colors came out clean. The main color is Prusa Pearl Mouse, Polymaker Panchroma Silver, and black, white, magenta, yellow, and cyan from Bambu’s new Palette PLA, which is actually designed for color mixing.

Eight colors were not enough. I swapped out the 2.85mm tool with the spare 1.75mm tool and printed a nine-color Princess Donut and Mongo from Dungeon Crawler Carl (my latest obsession). I have been using this print to test out other tool changers for a future comparison. The print came out fantastic, with super shiny silks and clean color transitions. I had to “hand paint” this in Bambu Slicer, which took a bit of time. The teeth on the print are a bit shaky, but that is due to the insane amount of support this model required.

This printed in 15 hours and 12 minutes, with a 152.6-gram prime tower, using a .2mm layer height and default settings. For comparison, the same print with the same settings but only 5 colors on the H2C took 24 hours and 44 minutes and used 111.4grams on its prime tower. The Prusa INDX took a similar amount of time (15 hours and 38 minutes) to run the same print in 8 colors, but only needed to waste 24grams of prime purge.

Filaments:

Princess Donut (Cat) Polymaker dual silk sunset gold-red, Polymaker Panchroma Silk Purple, Jessie Elixir Electric Lemonade.

Mongo (Dinosaur): Polymaker silk blue, Polymaker white HT-PLA Pro, Bambu pink PLA basic.

Saddle: Inland brown PLA+, Hobby Lobby PLA wood, Elegoo red silk PLA.

The Bambu Lab H3C is one of the best printers I’ve tested for printing TPU. The AMS 3H bypass ports require a tiny bit of set up, but they are much better than dealing with an external spool holder. With nine slots at my disposal, I can always have a spool of TPU ready to go.

My first TPU print was a strap hinge that combines normal 95A TPU with stiff PLA brackets. The designer wove the two filaments together manually, though you can make your own hinges flexible by using “beam interlocking” in the slicer.

I printed this in Polymaker red PLA and Polymaker red TPU 95A and the hinge is extremely strong. Printed with a .2mm layer height and running at an average speed of 115 mm/s the print completed in just over an hour.

I was excited to try the 2.85mm 75A TPU that Bambu Lab sent, and it did not disappoint. The 2.85mm nozzle comes preset to run filament directly from the bypass and just requires manual loading. This is the softest TPU I’ve ever run, and the FlexFeed extruder handled it perfectly.

I first ran the wrist rest from the printer’s memory using Bambu Lab’s green 75A TPU. The print took 50 minutes to run, used only 20g of filament, and is very squishy. I used the same filament and printed some tires for an RC project I’m working on. Using a .2mm layer height and an average print speed of 75mm/s the tires took 57 minutes per set of two. They look nice and are super squishy. They only have 2 walls and 7% concentric infill, so they are extremely lightweight.

For ABS, I ran a two-color Magic 8-ball-style D20. Dice Studio lets you print custom dice with numbers or text and export it as a 3mf file ready to print. This is printed in Ionized Cobalt Black Matte ABS and Natural Matte ABS from Fusion Filaments. The print was very nice, with just a little roughness on the overhangs on the very bottom of the die, and a little roughness on the text where it becomes very small.

To really test out the heated chamber, I used a filament I struggle with: PA6 GF. I printed a Twist Lock Container using grey PA6 GF from Sunlu. I ran it with 3 walls and a .2mm layer height at an average speed of 140mm/s. The print took nearly 6 hours to complete. The result is a nearly indestructible canister that looks good too.

Bottom Line

The H3C is quite the multimaterial powerhouse and handles every material equally well. I don’t own any filament that it can’t print well, from soft TPU to PPS. Multiple nozzle sizes and multiple filament sizes can all be used together, and you’ve got nine places to put it all. Unless you need a print farm, I can’t really see the need for a different printer. This is a one-stop shop.

With a retail price of $2,499 for the H3C Tool Changer, this is a printer to definitely put on your wish list. In fact, I’m so impressed with the tool changer aspect, I keep forgetting that it’s also a helmet-class printer, which makes this machine capable of handling nearly any print you need to create.

If the Bambu Lab H3C seems out of reach, you can also check out last year’s Bambu Lab H2C, which is no slouch at multimaterial and has the same build volume. It’s currently on sale for $1,899 with a four-color AMS combo. The Snapmaker U1 is the most affordable tool changer we like on the market right now, and though it is smaller and only four-color, the $699 Black Friday price tag is very tempting. And of course, we have the Prusa CORE One INDX eight-color machine for those who want to keep their printers off the cloud, currently retailing at $1,949 as a kit.

Creality has finally caught up with the tool changer fad, presenting us with a speedy, four-nozzle system named “KliTek” mounted on a Creality K3. Tool changers are the way to go, since they do not compromise speed for color and eliminate the need to waste your filament in the form of “printer poop.” The K3 is still programmed to create a purge tower on multicolor prints, but this is a small fraction of the filament wasted using any type of AMS-style color system.

The new KliTek nozzle system supports printing with different-sized nozzles in the same print, which sounds more useful than I actually found practical. Users will also be able to blend colors in Creality Print, a trick picked up from Snapmaker’s open-source Full Spectrum. This method creates the optical illusion of new colors by stacking very thin layers of filament.

The tool-changing system works very well and never dropped or misplaced a tool during the review. Creality has tucked 37 sensors inside the printer, with 12 dedicated to the nozzle swapping process alone. No, I’m not going to name all of them, but they do work. I didn’t get a single bad print during the review, even when running at higher speeds.

However, the K3 looks suspiciously like a Snapmaker U1 clone, departing from the black and grey aesthetic of the K1 and K2 3D printers. It has conveniently placed, side-mounted spool holders that are a tad too large for many 3rd party brands of filament. We’re not sure if they’re trying to herd us towards a walled garden of Creality plastics, or if they simply didn’t check out all the options.

Unfortunately, the Creality K3 needs a lid for printing high-temperature filaments, and this “tophat” was not ready at the time of the review. Creality says the top hat will be packaged with a TPU Kit to enable the printing of super soft materials.

The K3 is currently on preorder with a price tag of $849. The competition for affordable tool changers is pretty stiff, and Creality hasn’t brought anything new to the table, which is keeping the K3 off our list of the very best 3D printers you can buy. But if you’re a fan of the Creality ecosystem, it’s a welcome addition to the fleet.

Specifications: Creality K3

Creality K3: Included in the Box

The Creality K3 comes with everything you need to assemble and maintain your printer. The included tool kit has hex keys, side cutters, grease, and a nice nozzle cleaner. There is also a paper copy of the quick installation guide and a 200g spool of white Creality filament.

Design of the Creality K3

The Creality K3 has four tools, each with a built-in ceramic heater, nozzle with a hardened steel insert, and filament path. The KliTek system supports printing with different nozzle sizes and different materials in the same print. Like the Prusa/Bondtech INDX, the extruder and cooling fan are mounted on a single toolhead.

The rest of the Creality K3 shares its design with the K2. The printer has a solid metal frame clad in white plastic and a glass door with dampened hinges. The motion system is Core XY, with a linear rail for the X axis and linear rods for the Y axis. The bed rides on four linear rods driven by 2 lead screws belted to a single stepper motor on the bottom of the printer. Parts cooling is provided by a blower fan in the toolhead and a large side-mounted blower fan mounted on the left side of the case. The stock Creality K3 comes with an open top, so chamber cooling is not an issue. Unfortunately, this makes the printer rather loud.

The Creality K3 has a 720p camera located at the top right of the printer, which does a great job providing print monitoring from the device tab in the slicer and the Creality Cloud app. There is also an AI camera that monitors for build plate detection, foreign object detection, and spaghetti detection. There were no false positives during the test.

Creality’s most annoying design choice is the overly large spool holders. These things are so big, they catch the rim when loading most cardboard spools and simply do not work with spools I had on hand from Prusa, Cookiecad, and Ambrosia. Polymaker and Bambu spools did work, but there’s no reason for this other than to limit the use of other filament brands, which is not good.

We did not get to review the special TPU kit, which will allow the machine to run super soft TPU, which is becoming quite trendy for those interested in printing shoes. The kit will replace the CFS Nano material handler with a CFS Flex and add dry boxes for the filament and a special high-flow nozzle. The kit will be bundled with a lid/ tophat with ventilation and air filtration.

Assembling the Creality K3

The Creality K3 arrives with some assembly required. After removing the packing material, you need to remove the four screws securing the bed for shipping, and there is a nice reminder to do this when first firing up the printer.

The spool holders twist into the printer’s side panels and are numbered to match the filament slots. Two PTFE guide brackets, also numbered, need to be secured to the rear of the printer with M4x6 screws, as does the bracket for the CFS Nano. There is a communication cable that runs from the rear of the printer to the CFS Nano as well.

The tool cables attach to the top of the printer with 2 M4x12 screws each, with the PTFE tubes running to the CFS Nano. The toolhead communication cable is attached with M3x5 screws on the toolhead and M4x8 screws on the right side of the printer. Attaching PTFE guide tubes from the side brackets up to the CFS Nano completes the assembly.

Leveling the Creality K3

The Creality K3 does an excellent job calibrating and bed leveling as part of its initial self-check. Bed leveling can be repeated at the start of each print.

Loading Filament on the Creality K3

Loading filament into the Creality K3 is pretty simple. Filament is inserted into a port on the side bracket, which guides it up to the CFS Nano, which does the rest. The filament waits in the tube until called for by a print job. It is then loaded into the tool.

To unload, the tool is selected from the printer’s screen. The printer then cuts the filament and retracts it out of the tool, and it can be manually pulled out of the CFS Nano the rest of the way.

All four filament slots can read RFID tags in the spools to load information for Creality-branded filament. For other filament brands, the printer will beep to remind you to manually enter the filament type and color.

Preparing Files / Software for Creality K3

The latest version of Creality Print 7.3 is available from Creality.com. It is based on the Orca Slicer and Ultimaker Cura Engine. The default settings worked well, and there is a new AI assistant mode, which is still labeled as beta. At the time of the review, the only thing missing for the K3 was a button to map the filaments into the slicer. The button is still there for the earlier K-series printers in the slicer. The slicer does have filament mixing for more color combinations.

A link at the top of the page will take you to Creality’s AI Creation tools and Creality Cloud, Creality’s online file-sharing service. If you don’t like the Cloud, you can export files from the slicer and either move them to the printer with a USB stick or move them over your home network by accessing the printer’s FLUIDD interface. To access FLUIDD, you need to find the IP address of your printer and type that into a browser window, followed by:4408 with no spaces.

Printing on the Creality K3

The Creality K3 comes with a 200g spool of white Hyper PLA. If you want more colors and materials, you should check out our guide to the best filaments for 3D printing for suggestions.

For the first print, I was going to run a pumpkin fidget toy, so I grabbed a spool of Prusa orange and was really quite cross when it didn’t fit on the preposterously large spool holders. I decided right then to mod the spool holder with the Creality Pika scanner. I took the scan into Tinkercad and reduced the diameter of the spool holder, then ran the new spool holders in Inland basic white using a .2 layer height and an average print speed of 170mm/s. The print took 8 hours and 34 minutes to complete. I do not usually mod printers while reviewing them, but Prusa Orange is perfect for pumpkins.

Below is the original spool holder (left) and the modded version (right).

For my second print, I did a pumpkin fidget toy I found on MakerWorld using Prusa orange PLA, Elegoo green PLA Pro, and Polymaker black HT-PLA Pro. I used a .2 mm layer height and printed with an average speed of 160mm/s; the print took a little over six hours. It came out nice without a hint of overextrusion. I liked it so much I decided to print it again scaled up to 200%. Using the same settings, the larger print took 16 hours and 28 minutes and is also very nice with a good fidget action.

For PETG, I printed a plate of 3 flexy geckos I found on Creality Cloud using Prusa Carmine Red, Prusa Sky Blue, and Bambu Lab basic white PETG. Using a .2mm layer height and running at 180mm/s, the print took 5 hours 45 minutes to complete. The geckos are smooth and clean, plus all of the links work perfectly with no stringing or overextrusion present.

The Creality K3 did not have its special “flex” CFS at the time of review, but I decided to try TPU anyway. I printed some omni wheels for a Death Racer we’re working on in both hard TPU for MFS from Inland and some 95A Inland rainbow TPU. The stock CFS Nano had no trouble pushing these, and the toolhead extruder had no problem with it. It did well. Trouble came when I tried some 90A TPU from Bambu Lab. I’d stick to the harder stuff until the TPU kit is ready.

I did get good prints with the black TPU for AMS and the rainbow 95A filaments. The prints are omni-wheel rollers from the Deathracer project of Michael Baddeley. Both sets of eight rollers were printed at a .2mm layer height at an average speed of 50mm/s and each took a little over 4 hours to print. There was a tiny bit of stringing, but otherwise the rollers are perfect.

Bottom Line

The Creality K3 is a terrific printer that should become more capable with accessories like the tophat and TPU kit in the future. The oversized spools are a little annoying, but easily fixed. The only thing I worry about is Creality’s track record of releasing a printer, then introducing a better “pro” or “max” model within four months. I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a six- or eight-color K3 variant before next spring.

At its prelaunch price of $849, it’s $100 more than a similarly equipped, slightly larger Snapmaker U1, which is a tough place to be. It is also the same price as the fully enclosed Flashforge Creator 5 Pro, which we didn’t review, but we did check out the budget model Flashforge Creator 5, which is currently available for $699.

MORE: Best Budget 3D Printers

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Anycubic has announced an exclusive partnership with Thingiverse, the world’s oldest and largest repository of free STL models for 3D printing. The move comes roughly eight months after Thingiverse was purchased from UltiMaker by MyMiniFactory. This is clearly a “collaboration,” not an acquisition, as Thingiverse remains part of the MyMiniFactory family and dedicated to the SoulCrafted, human-made art movement.

Instead, Anycubic will gain permission to share the files directly with its own users on the MakerOnline platform. Selected models will be adapted for multicolor printing and converted by Anycubic from STL to 3MF format for compatible printers (such as the Kobra X), helping reduce manual setup and making it easier for users to move from choosing a model to preparing it for printing.

As Thingiverse is an open platform, this partnership aims to make it easier for Creators to have their content enjoyed by Anycubic 3D printer owners around the world, said Romain Kidd, CEO of Thingiverse, in an email to Tom’s Hardware. Kidd said the collaboration will allow Anycubic users to have close to a “1-click” printing experience.

Kidd emphasized that Thingiverse designers would need to opt into the program. “We (of course) plan to respect Creators rights, licenses, and showcase them,” he said. When we spoke to Kidd earlier this year, he insisted that Thingiverse ultimately belongs to the creators and the people who use it, and they would always be involved in the development of the platform.

"As 3D printing reaches more mainstream users, people need more than hardware,” said James Ouyang, co-founder of Anycubic. “They also need quality content and simpler ways to turn their ideas into successful prints. Building a more integrated 3D printing experience is an important part of our long-term strategy, and working with Thingiverse helps us take another step toward that goal."

With creator trust a central concern across the open-source community, both companies have stressed that existing Creative Commons and Non-Commercial (NC) licensing terms will be strictly preserved across all converted 3MF files.

The partnership between Anycubic and Thingiverse highlights an industry-wide scramble to build custom ecosystems for consumers to keep them locked into brand loyalty. It would seem every manufacturer craves to provide the same friction-free experience as Bambu Lab has with MakerWorld and shops full of branded filament. Consumers new to 3D printing expect a “just push play” experience, with models flowing from app to printer without thinking. Leveraging Thingiverse’s model library will fast-forward over the long process of courting designers and hosting contests to build up a pool of ready files.

The program will launch on November 17, which is notably the opening day of Formnext, the world’s largest trade show for additive manufacturing. Tom’s Hardware will have a reporter at the show to see what else Anycubic and other 3D printer manufacturers will be announcing that day.

Bambu Lab’s long-anticipated tool changer will launch on November 3rd. Dubbed the H3C, the 3D printer has 9 tools held by a Vortex-like rack mounted on the front of the chamber. Tool changers are the wave of the future, as they can switch colors faster and with less waste than Bambu Lab’s current AMS system.

Unfortunately, most of the information about the new 3D printer is shrouded in secrecy, but there are plenty of details that are already public knowledge. Bambu Lab is quite proud of this latest engineering feat, which you can see in the video below, and I’ll admit, I’m pretty impressed, too.

Here’s what we can confirm about the H3C: It is a member of the H-line of flagship printers, which includes the H2S, H2D, and H2C. As you can imagine, it is most similar to its namesake, the H2C, which is a 7-tool induction-heated “nozzle swapper” with a motorized Vortex rack to hold tools not in use. The H2C is one of the larger Bambu Lab machines, with a 330 x 320 x 325mm build volume.

The 11-second-long teaser video shows the tool rack dropping down, along with a satisfying metallic snick. As you might imagine, tool heads that are stored above the build plate are not going to get in your way when you’re watching that first layer go down. This is an annoying problem with the Bondtech INDX system, which we reviewed paired up with a Prusa CORE One, which forces you to peer through the tool rack to see what's going on inside the printer. Visibility on the Bambu H3C is probably better.

If you type “H3C leak” on YouTube, you can find several YouTubers who do not have machines under review dissecting the clues sprinkled around the internet. One “AI-enhanced” image showed 10 spools, which I can now finally confirm is completely wrong. Today’s video clearly shows only nine colorful Bowden tools arching over the top of the printer. We’re not at liberty to say what’s holding the spools, but I think it’s safe to acknowledge that it's a very Bambu sort of system.

The H2 line has been touted as a home manufacturing hub, so you might wonder if the H3C is the same? Perhaps it is. I had an opportunity to talk to Dr. Tao at Formnext last year when the H2C was fresh, and he was very interested in creating multitasking machines that could do more than just 3D print.

Sadly, not everyone was impressed with adding a laser to the H2D, but since the Bambu Lab A2L has an optional blade cutting and embossing tool, we can safely assume that the notion of multitasking is alive and well. I once programmed an Ender 3 to pick up Sharpie markers, so just think about the things a much more sophisticated machine with a team of sharp engineers could program.

I can’t wait to tell you more about the H3C. There are definitely a couple of surprising things about this printer that are going to come out of left field. We’ll let it all out on November 3rd.

A 3D scanner is an amazing tool to add to your 3D printing workflow, allowing you to scan real-life objects to import into sculpting or CAD software, then print out your own modified copies on a 3D printer. In the past, a good scanner cost thousands of dollars, but Creality has finally given us a device within reach of hobby-level consumers. The Creality Pika is easy to use, with the look, feel, and size of a point-and-shoot digital camera. It can wirelessly tether to a mobile phone running a Creality scanning app, which makes scanning on the go easier than ever before.

It can also be tethered to a laptop wirelessly or with a cable for more stable scanning, but marker-free laser scanning can only be performed while physically tethered to a computer. The scanner runs on AA-sized rechargeable batteries, which are provided.

It weighs just 260 grams (just slightly over a half-pound) with the batteries installed, reducing arm fatigue when operating without a tripod. A tabletop tripod and manual turntable are included for scanning small items. While not as precise as Creality’s Sermoon series, the Creality Pika, currently on pre-order for $699, is a fraction of the price. The best part is that both use the same software, Creality Scan, which is excellent.

The Creality Pika’s portability and price make this one of the best scanners we’ve reviewed in 2026.

Specifications: Creality Pika

Included in the Box: Creality Pika

The Creality Pika comes with a very nice tripod. Also included are the glass calibration board, a manual turntable, marking blocks, batteries (including a spare), a generous pack of marking dots, and a mostly useless quick start guide. The Quick Start guide is just a packing list in eleven different languages and QR codes to Creality’s website and Facebook community.

Design of the Creality Pika

The Creality Pika is a small handheld scanner that weighs only 260 g with its battery. It has a 3-inch touch screen on the back that shows the scan in progress while paired to a phone or PC on Wi-Fi, or allows exposure and zoom adjustments when scanning via cord. There are two buttons on the top of the scanner for power and start/stop, and a selector switch for USB or Wi-Fi.

The scanner has a play button to start and stop scans, as well as a button to adjust the lights and a toggle for zoom. The front of the scanner has an RGB camera, two 3D scanning cameras, a DOE projector, a parallel-line laser, four blue and white fill lights, and four infrared fill lights. There is an always-on cooling fan with grills on the top and bottom of the scanner. Two batteries are included, which can be charged in the camera or via a USB-C port located near the top of the battery.

The batteries, curiously, have both positive and negative terminals on top of the battery. Care should be taken when carrying these to avoid shorting them together with anything metal in a purse or pocket.

Getting Started and Calibrating the Creality Pika

The Creality Pika uses a glass calibration board to do an initial calibration of the scanner. The calibration process involves holding the scanner above the board at various heights and at various angles. The process takes about ten minutes.

Installing the Software for Creality Pika

Creality Scan app can be downloaded from Creality's website, with versions for PC, Mac, Android, and iPhone. A really good user guide with links to tutorials and troubleshooting help is located on the Creality Scan homepage. The discovery tab has links to items scanned by other Creality users.

The Pika must be tethered by cable or Wi-Fi. Though the Pika does have an onboard 8-core 2.0 GHz CPU, it passes along a big chunk of computer processing to whatever it’s connected to. My iPhone 15 has just enough oomph to power the scanner, so you may have an even better experience with a newer device. Either way, using a wireless connection is slower, and using it with hardware near the minimum requirements can be frustrating.

My old laptop, with only 8GB of RAM, did not work, despite being enough to run previous scanners. Thankfully, my admittedly low-end gaming laptop, with 16GB of RAM, was good enough to run the scanner quite well. The software installed on the computer is used for both scanning and processing.

Creality Scan can export scans as STL, PLY, OBJ, or ASC files. These files can be tidied up in other modeling software or uploaded directly to your 3D printer’s slicer.

Blue Laser Line 3D Scanning with the Creality Pika

The Creality Pika uses blue laser line scanning for detailed geometry capture, with seven parallel laser lines. The provided manual turntable works well when plastered with a bunch of the included marker dots. Unfortunately, it has a few millimeters of play in the center bearing, which can lead to a rough surface texture if not careful.

The photo above shows the raw scan of a copy of Michelangelo’s David. I did get much better scans later, but even this one is easily made usable in the software. The first step is fusing the model, which allows you to remove the marker dots and noise from the scan.

After fusing, the model is much smoother. There are still some unattached pieces and holes, and the bottom of the model is not flat. The lasso tool can select and remove the unattached pieces, and a clipping plane can be generated by choosing markers surrounding the scan. The plane can then be raised or lowered to give you the best base of the model.

The next step is mesh processing of the model. In this step, you can further smooth the model, simplify it, and fill small holes shown in yellow. Don’t select “make watertight” if you have a large hole (like the bottom of a model), as it will cover the holes by ballooning out a good bit. After running the mesh processing, you will have another opportunity to simplify, smooth, and fill holes.

Use Plane type hole filling for large flat surfaces.

The final model: filled, smoothed, simplified, and ready to export for printing.

This bust of David came with an early Creality scanner, so I’ve been using it as a test model for some time now. This may be the best scan I’ve gotten of it. The main reason is that the Creality Pika is small and lightweight, and tracks well enough to scan the underside of David’s hair and chin for the most part. The software’s hole filling and smoothing did the rest, with phenomenal results.

The above image on the right was printed on the Prusa Core One L with Inland Bone White PLA. The model looks nearly perfect.

Since the Pika did so well with David, I decided to try a smaller model. This little guy (below) came with my kid’s Fisher-Price castle. He’s only 62 mm tall and was just too small to paint for 3D printing. He was also printed in Inland bone white on the Prusa Core One L.

Both the print and scan are nicely detailed.

I swiped my husband’s vintage Saint Louis University Billiken bobblehead for more tests. I had to put some sticky tack on his head to keep it steady on the turntable. Creality Scan did a terrific job smoothing out the wrinkles, and the model is perfect. I used the clipping plane to remove the logo of an old wireless company that provided the game day freebie. I gave it a quick coloring job in PrusaSlicer, but skipped doing the face.

The model was printed on the Prusa XL using Anycubic turquoise and orange PLA, with Creality white and black PLA.

NIR 3D Scanning with the Creality Pika

I spent a ton of time putting random dots on the included turntable, which made Blue light scanning a breeze. NIR 3D scanning doesn’t use them. Scanning a person seems to work well until you get hair involved. Then it gets dodgy.

I ran two good scans using NIR. This time I borrowed my husband to operate the scanner, since scanning yourself is a bit more difficult than taking a selfie. I stitched together two scans of my foot, which I’ll use later to size some TPU shoes. I was able to further clean up the scan in Nomad Sculpt, since the scan wasn’t very flattering. It works quite well for sizing, however. The shoes will turn up in a future printer review.

After the less-than-stellar scan he took of my head for the Creality Sermoon S1, my husband graciously volunteered to have me scan his head for this review. Using any of the modes available, hair just seems to flummox the scanner. Fortunately, my husband has less hair than I do, so the scan did complete, and no, I’m not going to 3D print it. 3D scans are quite brutal, but if he ever wants a custom driver for his Death Racer, we’re covered.

Bottom Line

The Creality Pika is a small and light, yet totally capable scanner. It needs a good mobile phone or fairly decent laptop to drive it. The software backing up the hardware is easy to use and really does an excellent job cleaning up the rough areas of your scans. Currently, it is available at a comparatively bargain-basement pre-order price of $699.

If you want a scanner with a little more horsepower, check out the Creality Sermoon S1, which retails for $2,069. Creality also makes the Sermoon P1, which can run completely untethered and retails for $3,299.

California is taking another swing at banning 3D-printed “ghost guns,” and this time the target is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of 3D printing filament. Polymaker LLC, headquartered in Shanghai with U.S. operations based in Houston, was named in a civil lawsuit filed October 5, 2026, by San Diego County Counsel on behalf of the People of the State of California. The complaint alleges that Polymaker marketed its filament in such a way as to appeal to gun enthusiasts and thus transform harmless PLA into a regulated “firearm precursor part.”

Under California law, a firearm precursor part is “defined to include any article marketed or sold to the public to become or be used as the frame or receiver of a functional firearm once completed, assembled or converted,” according to the civil complaint filed in San Diego County Superior Court. The County seeks disgorgement of profits, civil penalties and injunctive relief.

The complaint acknowledges that 3D printing filament itself is not illegal. But prosecutors argue that Polymaker actively cultivated and monetized the “ghost gun” community by supporting and then hiring Sean Aranda, who goes by The 3D Print General on social media. Aranda, a 3D printing expert, book author, and gun enthusiast, was banned from YouTube in 2023 over firearm policy violations. His YouTube channel at the time had 123K subs. Polymaker, which had been sponsoring his channel with a special edition creator spool of khaki colored PLA Pro, came to his rescue with a job offer. He became the Head of Customer Experience, which entailed fostering Polymaker’s online community and attending community festivals with the company. He is now a Senior Technical Account Manager for Polymaker.

Aranda is mentioned 65 times in the 39-page People v. Polymaker complaint. The prosecution implies that Aranda was specifically hired for his connection to the 3D printing gun community and not that he was simply a qualified individual searching for a job away from content creation.

The prosecution attempts to link a common marketing tactic used within the online creator community to the illegal proliferation of ghost guns: affiliate links. Affiliate links are used by content creators to promote the products they use, be it spools of PLA, energy drinks, or dog food. When an audience member clicks a link and makes a purchase, the content creator is awarded a small percentage of the sale.

Polymaker supports all manner of 3D printing content creators, and the application for affiliate links is publicly posted on its website. The application asks for your name, location, and number of followers on assorted platforms. It does not ask what type of content you create or how big your audience might be. “Whether you run a YouTube channel, a TikTok account, or a niche 3D printing blog, you're welcome here. If you love Polymaker, you qualify.”

The lawsuit is presented by San Diego County’s new Consumer Fairness and Public Protection Division. If it prevails, the ramifications will extend far beyond 3D-printed firearms. If a manufacturer in Texas can be held civilly liable in California because a YouTuber used that product to do something that is not against the law in their home state, every raw material supplier, software developer, and desktop hardware manufacturer operating in the digital age could find itself in the crosshairs.

Amazon's Big Deal Days 2026 event is here, and so are the savings on our favorite 3D printers. We've sifted through Amazon to find the best bargains you can get on brands like Bambu Lab, Prusa Research, Snapmaker, Anycubic, and Elegoo. These prices won’t last long, so you'll need to act quickly.

There are plenty of great deals on FDM and resin 3D printers, including machines you’ll find on our list of best 3D printers. We're also rounding up deals on filament and resin, so you can stock up now.

Bambu Lab A1 Mini

Bambu Lab A1 Mini: $249 at Amazon

The Bambu Lab A1 Mini is our favorite beginner printer for kids and teens because it is easy to use, super affordable, and doesn’t take up a lot of space. Right now, you can get the A1 Mini Combo for $315.50, or get a single-color A1 Mini for $249. The single-color machine comes with a bonus LED lamp kit, so you can make cool projects right away with the help of free files from MakerWorld, Bambu’s file-sharing site.

Original Prusa MK4S

Original Prusa MK4S: $1,299 at Amazon

The Prusa Research MK4S, the old-school workhorse of the Prusa lineup, is $1,299. This machine comes fully assembled and ships from Prusa’s US Amazon warehouse in Delaware for free with your Prime Membership.

Original Prusa Core One

Original Prusa Core One: $1,499 at Amazon

The Prusa Research Core One is our favorite premium 3D printer and comes fully assembled and pre-tested for the best out-of-the-box experience. Prusa 3D printers are built to last a lifetime, with updates for years to come, and can be easily repaired or modded with the help of open-source parts. This machine ships for free from Prusa’s US Amazon warehouse in Delaware.

Original Prusa CORE One L

Original Prusa Core One L: $2,399 at Amazon

The Prusa Research Core One L is a beast of a machine, with a 300 x 300 mm build plate and high marks for secure, cloud-free printing. Prusa’s US Amazon warehouse is located in Delaware, so these Prime Big Deal machines are in stock and ready to ship for free with your Prime Membership.

Snapmaker U1

Snapmaker U1: $849 at Amazon

Ranked the best multicolor 3D printer, the Snapmaker U1 is our favorite four-color tool changer. Snapmaker is leading the way on Full Spectrum printing, a way to squeeze a whole rainbow of color from only four spools. An optional lid makes this an all-temperature powerhouse.

Anycubic Kobra X

Anycubic Kobra X: was $359.99, now $299.99 at Amazon

The Kobra X is a terrific four-color 3D printer, and our pick for the best budget machine. This machine is a real steal with a price tag under $300 and would make a great gift to stash away for the holidays.

Creality SPARKX i7 Combo

Creality SPARKX i7 Combo: was $429, now $359 at Amazon

Ranked the best 3D printer for beginners, the SparkX i7 is a four-color bed slinger with an automatic material handler that can load any spool, from tiny coils up to 3kg spools.

Elegoo Centauri 2

Elegoo Centauri 2: $279 at Amazon

The bare-bones Centauri 2 does an excellent job of printing in four colors of PLA, PETG, or TPU. Coming in well under $300, this is a great machine for testing the waters of 3D printing with a full-sized 256 x 256 mm build plate.

FlashForge Creator 5

FlashForge Creator 5: was $839, now $699 at Amazon

The FlashForge Creator 5 is a no-nonsense four-color tool changer with great quality. It can handle PLA, PETG, and TPU, but can’t be upgraded to an enclosed machine for high-temperature filaments.

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Also, you can join the Tom's Hardware deals Discord for up-to-the-minute hardware deals.

Bambu Lab has swung for the fences with its second go at making a laser cutter, and this time, it knocked it out of the park. The Bambu Lab R1 is a standalone, 55W CO2 laser with a roomy 600 x 300 mm work area, a bird’s eye camera for remote positioning, and a well-designed software suite. Priced at $2,499, the laser is a steal compared to other CO2 lasers of the same size and caliber.

You might recall the company’s first laser, a 40w diode packaged inside the H2D, was met with skepticism. Though the company pitched the H2D as the ultimate mini manufacturing machine for makers, many people felt a laser was too dirty to house in the same box as an expensive Core XY printer. Bambu must be listening, because they took everything that was good about the H2D’s diode system and gave it a standalone case with a massive CO2 laser.

The R1 has the same simple unboxing and setup experience as a Bambu Lab printer, making it easy to get started without a ton of prior experience. The only thing it is currently lacking is a more comprehensive set of material presets. Bambu Suite really shines in a market where good hardware is often let down by bad software.

While the Bambu Lab R1 is not a small machine, it does have a smaller footprint than other lasers with a similar work area. It requires a stout work table – and two people to cart it into position – as the machine is over 70 pounds. In its base configuration the R1 has a work area of 600mm x 300mm. With the optional conveyor and riser base, that 300mm can be extended to 3000mm, or 9.8 feet. Of course, you’ll need a lot of space in front of and behind the machine to pull that off. Bambu Lab did a wonderful job putting all of the controls and frequently used ports near the front of the R1 since you won’t want to move it much unless you are lasering something large.

The only flaw I found was the need to manually change focus lenses to cut thicker material. The process to change lenses is tedious, with six screws needing to be removed and replaced with the new lens. The two screws for the toolhead cover are ridiculously small. This process is reminiscent of the early Bambu Lab printer nozzles that required the heater and thermistor to be detached, then reinstalled with thermal paste. Hopefully Bambu Lab will come up with a quick-release lens at some point in the future.

Specifications: Bambu Lab R1

Bambu Lab R1: Included in the Box

The Bambu Lab R1 arrives fully assembled with its accessory pack bundled inside the laser enclosure. Accessories include a tool kit, exhaust hose, ventilation fan, antifreeze, funnel, laser alignment sensor, calibration board, and a material pack of basswood plywood and clear acrylic. You will need to supply 1500ml of distilled water to dilute the antifreeze. For the review, we also received the medium and long focus lenses, the conveyor and the riser needed for its use, the auto fire extinguishing system, and a smoke purifier.

Design of the Bambu Lab R1

The Bambu Lab R1 is a beast of a machine, but a well-thought-out one. It’s more compact than other CO2 lasers with the same working area, despite this, weighing over 70lbs. It’s not an easy machine to move. Bambu Lab put all of the controls, ports, and the safety key thoughtfully within easy reach at the front of the machine. The color touchscreen and start button are on top of the machine.

The automatic fire extinguisher ports, USB-C, and safety key are located on the left side of the laser.

The emergency stop button is located on the right side of the laser.

Only the power switch, the exhaust fan, and the coolant filling point are located on the rear of the unit.

Unlike most other lasers, a CO2 laser has a large, glass, liquid-cooled laser tube at the rear of the unit. Antifreeze is mixed with distilled water for the coolant to prevent the glass tube from freezing should it be kept in a garage, basement or even if you lose power in your house during the winter.

The laser fires a beam which is directed to the tool head with mirrors.

On some lasers, calibrating these mirrors can be a chore. Bambu Lab developed a laser alignment sensor, which clips to the toolhead and allows the laser to align the mirrors itself in just about a minute.

The Bambu Lab R1 has an excellent positioning system. There is a bird's eye camera on the lid of the laser, which requires that the lid be up when measuring. This takes a little getting used to since I reflexively shut the lid of a laser when I walk away from it. There is a camera mounted on the toolhead as well as a distance-measuring laser, instead of a clunky mechanical probe. The R1 tracks the toolhead position with XY encoders. The system worked great out of the box with no camera calibration needed. The camera is listed as having a .2mm positioning accuracy.

The Bambu Lab R1 is rated to cut up to 18mm wood and 20mm acrylic but doing so requires changing the focus lens in the tool head and then doing a five minute vision accuracy calibration. To change lenses, you need to remove two extremely tiny 1.5mm screws from the toolhead cover and four screws from the focus lens. It would be nice if they could develop a quick release for the lens, since as it is, this is not a process I’d want to have to do frequently.

A built-in air assist works to keep charring down and keep the laser lens clear. It is not adjustable, being either on or off, and it's powerful enough to move lightweight objects if they are not stuck down.

Given its size, the R1 is not likely to be used anywhere other than a shop or workroom, which is great because this thing is loud. The cooling fans in the laser don’t ever stop, and they are pretty loud on their own. When the laser is activated, it sounds like a jet engine spooling up. Between the noise of the laser and the air purification, it’s the loudest laser I’ve reviewed.

Assembling the Bambu Lab R1

The Bambu Lab R1 is fully assembled out of the box. Setup requires removing the accessory box, removing a cage around the tool head, and removing two stops holding the XY carriage in place for shipping. At initial power up the printer walks you through these steps from the touch screen.

There is a short calibration routine that automatically calibrates the laser’s mirrors by clipping the laser alignment sensor to the toolhead. In no time at all, you are ready to go.

The riser base comes in four large assemblies that are screwed together. You need to remove the base plate from the laser before setting it atop the riser. A data cable runs from the laser to the riser base, and requires deft hands to attach. Rubber feet on the bottom of the main laser unit hold it the correct position

The laser is cooled with a mixture of distilled water and antifreeze, which is poured into the rear of the laser with an included funnel. Pay close attention to the instruction booklet when adding coolant. The instructions call for “preparing” 1500ml of distilled water, then adding antifreeze to an indicated level on the rear sight window. But what it means is to pour in the antifreeze, then add as much of the 1500ml of water as needed to hit the correct level. Getting this backward makes a bit of a mess. After mopping up, I added the correct amount of water and coolant to the laser. The coolant must be topped off after turning the laser on, so don’t move the laser into a position where you cannot access the coolant port until you do this.

Safety Precautions for the Bambu Lab R1

The Bambu Lab R1 is a fully enclosed and safe Class 1 laser by itself. When running with the riser base and conveyor, it moves to a Class 4 laser. Operating a Class 4 laser requires laser-safe glasses that are not provided with the laser. I was not able to see any leakage of laser light through the riser base, but it is unavoidable when running with the conveyor. Laser light can cause severe damage to eyes and skin, and care should be taken to keep small children and pets away while the laser is in use.

The R1 has a number of built-in safety features. There is an equipment key preinstalled on the left side of the laser. When not in use this key can be pulled to prevent unauthorized access. The laser will not operate with the enclosure’s lid up and will quickly pause the job if the lid is raised while in use. If there is a problem with the job, the machine can be stopped from the touch screen, and for major problems, there is a red kill switch on the right side of the machine, which will quickly cut power to the machine completely. The laser has flame sensors which will stop the job if they detect any issues. Bambu Lab provided its optional auto fire-extinguishing system for the review. This unit has a replaceable gas canister and plugs into the left side of the laser.

Even with a good air purifier, some materials should not be burned with a laser due to their chemical makeup. Dallas Maker Space has published a list of safe and hazardous materials to use with their laser. The list of no-nos includes some plastics like PVC, fiberglass, and certain types of foams.

Software for the Bambu Lab R1

Bambu Suite was developed to run the lasers on the H series and also handle the cutting function on H2 and A2 printers. It might be the easiest to use laser software I’ve seen. The laser is connected to Wi-Fi from the touchscreen, and Bambu Suite connects to it just like a 3D printer. You import whatever you want to cut or engrave, choose the process type, hit Prepare, then select Measure, line up your art with the material, and pick the material you are using. Finally, you press Make and off it goes.

The only thing that the software doesn’t have is a large list of default materials. The basics are there, but hopefully more will be added over time. As it is, a number of the projects I did required internet searches and guesswork to find material settings that worked.

Makerworld is accessible directly from Bambu Suite, and it has an expanding group of shared laser projects to help you get started.

Engraving / Cutting with the Bambu Lab R1

For the first job, we used the test file from Bambu Lab that includes line drawing, engraving, and cutting on 3 mm basswood plywood. The test file did not list the settings, but the overall job took under two minutes to complete and looks really good. The cuts show much less charring than you would see on a diode laser.

Next, I tried a really intricate butterfly decoration from PabloLab on Makerworld.com. Using the default material settings for 3mm basswood, 75% power at 30 mm/s, the cut was perfect. The butterfly and the interior cuts dropped out of the material with no weeding needed. I should point out I broke off one of her antennae in handling.

The Bambu Lab R1 is rated to cut up to 18mm black walnut and 20mm acrylic, but the thicker wood requires the optional medium or long focus lenses. I tested cutting on a piece of pine lumber that is 19.5mm thick but is much softer than black walnut. There was no material default for anything thicker than 3mm. The cut on the left used the long focus lens and did the best cut at the lowest power, using 80% power at 10mm/s and 4 passes. The cut in the middle used the medium focus lens at 85% power at 5 mm/s and required 5 passes. The short focus lens really did not totally punch through the bottom of the material. The cuts are charred due to using 100% power at 4 mm/s through multiple tries.

For cutting out stickers out of sheets of sticker paper, we used the material preset for 200g kraft paper, 45% power at 250mm/s. The cuts were perfect and only took a few seconds. With a jig mounted on the cutting plate, the results are repeatable page after page.

There was no material preset for PETG so with a little trial and error we stepped that down to 65% power at 35mm/s for 2mm PETG and 20% power at 20mm/s for 1mm PETG. With air assist, the results were terrific, with just a very little smoke cloudiness at the edges of the PETG cuts. At these speeds, the cuts all took less than a minute.

Where most lasers just pass right through clear materials, CO2 lasers run at a high enough frequency to cut and engrave them. Using the shape library in Bambu Suite for the designs, we cut a bunch of blanks for use with our UV printer out of clear PETG sheets and clear acrylic. The material settings in Bambu Suite were perfect for 3mm clear acrylic at 80% power at 10mm/s speed.

CO2 lasers can also engrave glass with no masking needed, though a thin smear of liquid soap is suggested to keep chipping down. There was no material preset for glass, so a quick internet search led to settings from a competitor’s 55-watt CO2 laser. Using 30% power and 250mm/s, with air assist on, the engraving took just seconds and looks excellent.

CO2 lasers can’t cut metal, but they do a good job engraving coated metal. The Bambu lab R1has a curved surface machining mode for curved surfaces like this flask and tumblers. The auto measure function creates a 3D map of the material’s surface and shows the engravable area. Using the settings for aluminum business cards, 70% power at 400mm/s, the job took less than a minute and looks sharp and clear.

Bottom Line

The Bambu Lab R1 is an impressive step into the laser market. Good hardware with even better software makes the R1 an excellent choice for makers and small businesses needing an easy-to-use CO2 laser. It’s simple enough for a beginner to use, leaving you with more time to focus on making art, not fussing over settings.

Retailing at $2,499, the R1 is more expensive than a hobby-level diode, but a downright bargain compared to the competition. If you’re serious about making cool things or running a small business, the price is worth it.

By combining a 55W CO2, a generous 600 x 300 mm work area, and automated mirror calibration, it delivers high-grade cutting performance through wood, acrylic, and glass with minimal charring. While the manual lens swap process is a minor hassle and the operational noise requires a dedicated workspace or shop environment, its performance outclasses most competitors in its price range.

If you’re not ready to invest in a professional-grade machine, check out the Creality Falcon A1 Pro, a very capable 20W for $1,099. If you’re thinking about engraving glass or handling materials without charring, the xTool F2 Ultra UV is a great “cold” laser that runs for $4,299. If you want to take your laser with you, a portable xTool F1 laser is a heck of a deal at $819.

A Texas jury found Bambu Lab liable for patent infringement in the creation of the X1, P1, and A1 series of 3D printers, and awarded Stratasys, Inc. $27.6 million dollars in damages. The patents in dispute cover prime towers and bed leveling methods used by consumer 3D printers of multiple brands. Bambu Lab has issued a statement to Tom's Hardware about the developments.

Stratasys, Inc., invented FDM 3D printing. Its co-founder Scott Crump held US5121329 filed in 1989, for the "Apparatus and Method for Creating Three-Dimensional Objects. That patent expired in 2009, opening the doors to consumer 3D printing.

No injunctions have been placed on the machines named in the suit, which are all from Bambu Lab’s “first generation” of 3D printers. An anonymous source said Bambu Lab has been working on an alternative to prime towers should the need arise, but that information has not yet been made public.

The X1, Bambu Lab’s first 3D printer, launched in May 2022, was retired earlier this year. The P1S is not officially retired, but was nominally replaced by the P2S in October 2025. The A1 and A1 Mini are still part of Bambu’s active lineup, though a larger A2L was introduced this summer.

The first-gen Bambu Lab machines use single-nozzle filament purging, covered by Stratasys US 9421713 patent. They also rely on specific strain-gauge and force-sensor implementations targeted by Stratasys's US 9168698 patent.

The newer H2 lineup, as well as the X2, are all dual-nozzle machines, which have side-stepped US 9421713. They also employ optical sensors and re-engineered bed probing that avoid the force-detection feedback loops claimed by Stratasys.

We asked the team at Prusa Research if this ongoing patent dispute had any impact on the development of the INDX, a multi-nozzle toolchanger that does not require the use of a prime or purge tower.

“Our motivation was to have minimal waste,” said a Prusa Research rep. “In our eyes, this is a better solution than a prime tower.” The INDX nozzles prime filament by wiping tiny pellets no larger than a grain of rice into a waste cup inside the printer.

A representative from Bambu Lab reached out to Tom’s Hardware with the following statement:

"We appreciate the time and effort of the jury in considering this matter. While we respect the judicial process, we disagree with the verdict reached in this case. The law provides Bambu with the right to seek post-trial review and to appeal, and Bambu intends to avail itself of these legal processes."

Bambu Lab has a sticky situation on its hands, as this ruling only covers US patents, and thus machines sold in the United States. In Europe, the company successfully defended its use of the technology held under similar European patents. This means an X1-Carbon in New York would violate a Stratasys prime tower patent, but the same machine in Germany would not.

In April of this year, the European Unified Patent Court (UPC) The Hague Local Division dismissed Stratasys’ preliminary injunction application against Bambu Lab. The court rejected Stratasys’ attempts to broaden its claims, and Stratasys did not appeal.

The Texas judgement handed down Friday is part of a larger multi-patent dispute. Bambu Lab successfully invalidated patents US 9592660 covering the use of heated build surfaces and flexible spring steel plates. Bambu Lab argued that this is not one singular invention but a combination of designs that were later patented by Stratasys after it acquired Arevo, Inc. These designs were revealed in prior art, making them fair game.

It was also able to defend its use of networked, cloud-connected 3D printing with remote camera monitoring, covered by US 8562324.

Four more patents are still awaiting judgement in Texas. These cover RFID tags on material, remote networking, LiDAR scanning and automatic printer detection. Notably, the LiDAR has only been used on the now defunct X1 Carbon.

Stratasys filed two civil lawsuits in 2024 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas against Bambu Lab for the alleged infringement of ten different U.S. patents regarding 3D printers. Stratasys was founded in Eden Prairie, MN, and has its North American headquarters there. Bambu Lab, a Chinese company, maintains offices in Austin, TX, which is in the Western Texas District Court. The Eastern District has a reputation for being friendly to patent holders, with U.S. District Judge Alan Albright at one point hearing over 25% of the nation’s patent cases.

The Prusa INDX is a revolutionary new toolchanger capable of printing up to eight colors of various materials. INDX stands for Induction Dynamic Extruder, with each slim toolhead having no moving parts, just a nozzle and filament path. The extruder, or “smart head,” does all the work.

INDX is a collaborative project between Prusa Research and Bondtech. Prusa makes the platform, in this case a CORE One+ Gen 2, while Bondtech produces the toolhead system. The two companies have a long history of working together, going back to 2017’s MK3 bedslinger. The INDX can also be purchased separately on Bondtech’s site as a DIY kit to be mounted on any open-source 3D printer you feel like modding.

There are definite advantages of going with the Prusa INDX. You can buy it ready to roll, premounted on CORE One that’s ready to print ten minutes after removing it from the box. Even purchasing it as a kit from Prusa removes a lot of hassle and headache, as the kit is custom-fitted to CORE One, with all the wiring, programming, and whatnot done for you.

Sorting through the website to figure out what combination of kit and printer you need is the hardest part of the INDX experience. If you already have a CORE One, prices start at $749 for a four-color INDX “conversion” kit. Prusa optimistically says the kit takes 5 to 6 hours to install, but it took me the better part of a weekend to disassemble my machine and rebuild it as an INDX when I tested out the early Founder’s Edition.

The Prusa INDX is the first multicolor 3D printer to ditch the prime tower, making it practically waste-free. While all toolchangers can seriously cut down on wasted material by virtue of having a nozzle for each color, they still need to “prime” the nozzles before printing. This priming creates a tower of wasted material. Prusa has circumvented the prime tower with a new wiper mechanism that quickly shoots out a tiny blob of filament that’s about 13 milligrams in size – smaller than a grain of rice.

In my testing, I found the Prusa INDX was faster and less wasteful than any other toolchanger in the workshop. I ran the same model with similar settings on both the Prusa INDX and the Bambu Lab H2C, the closest machine to a toolchanger that Bambu currently has in production. The INDX was able to run it nearly nine hours faster, with 83.58 grams less wasted material (not counting supports) and 3 more colors.

The CORE One+ INDX starts at $1,699 for a DIY kit with four toolheads and goes up to $2,119 for an assembled 3D printer with eight toolheads, plus a Buddy Cam and Advanced filtration. If you already have the printer, the conversion kit is $749 for four toolheads and $999 for eight. There is no pricing for individual toolheads at the moment, but you can start with four toolheads and later add more. Individual tools are currently $45 on the Bondtech website.

The Prusa CORE One+ INDX lives up to its reputation and is one of the best 3D printers we’ve tested to date.

Specifications

Prusa CORE One+ INDX: Included in the Box

The Prusa CORE One+ INDX we received was pre-assembled and included eight toolheads. It only needed to be unpacked, have its screen mounted, then snap on the spool holders and Bowden tubes. Besides tools, the printer comes with a full spool of Galaxy Black Prusament PLA, a USB Stick, a handbook on 3D printing with your new machine, and a bag of Gummy Bears. The USB stick contains several models, while PrusaSlicer is available for free download from the website.

We also received a Buddy Camera and several boxes of filament to perform the review.

Design of the Prusa CORE One+ INDX

The CORE One+ INDX is a Core XY 3D printer converted into a toolchanger. It has a slim, steel exoskeleton with indents on either side. The right side holds a 3D-printed waste container on the outside for the tiny bits of filament the machine drops from the wiper system inside the chamber. We’re unsure if this mod is a permanent feature or an apology bonus for being unable to deliver fully hardened steel nozzles at launch.

Like the original CORE One, the door and upper parts of the side panels are translucent black polymer. The top panel is now replaced by a “top hat” to give the multitude of Bowden tubes room to work. Since the shell is made of folded steel, it’s not exactly airtight, but so far we haven’t had any trouble printing ASA or ABS in the machine.

The exoskeleton is an interesting concept. It provides a strong, stiff frame for the printer while also minimizing materials and avoiding that cheap plastic feel that plagues many other designs. The indented sides do more than slim down the printer’s silhouette; they reduce the interior space of the printer, allowing the chamber to be sufficiently heated (when needed) by only the heater bed.

Like every other Prusa printer before it, several of the CORE One+ parts are 3D printed with PC Blend Carbon Fiber, though more pieces are moving to in-house injection molding. Most of the machine is manufactured at the main factory in Prague, though printers assembled in the United States will have some parts printed locally in Delaware.

The CORE One+ has a door that can be flipped to open on either side. And thankfully, that door can remain closed at all times thanks to an active cooling system and automatic top vent.

The INDX ditches the Nextruder extruder for the Bondtech induction-heated toolhead. The toolhead looks way too exposed out of necessity, as it picks up the passive nozzles by simply ramming itself onto the rack and grabbing the toolhead with magnets. The motion system is extremely accurate, and I had no problems with it during testing. You can see the copper coils of the induction heating system very plainly.

Unlike the Prusa XL, the toolheads mount on a rack in the front of the chamber. They take up very little space, but you will lose 15 mm of Y and 2 mm of X on the build plate compared to the CORE One+.

The rack does make seeing inside the printer a bit of a challenge, but the optional Buddy Cam has a clear view from the inside.

The wiper is located to the side, on top of the indent. In the Founder’s Edition, the wiper dumped into a small removable cup clamped to the side panel. Our review unit has a hole drilled into it to dump into a large exterior container, which is a huge improvement.

Anyone who’s had to calibrate an XL will rejoice at the new automatic tool offset calibration system. A calibration sensor sits in the front corner of the machine, and you don’t need to do a thing but keep it clean.

The CORE One+ has active chamber temperature control, which is NOT the same as chamber heating. Instead, the machine’s interior geometry is optimized to capture heat thrown from the bed to heat the chamber up to 55C. A fan and smart ventilation system likewise keep the chamber cool enough for PLA even with the door closed.

Assembling the Prusa CORE One+ INDX

The Prusa CORE One+ INDX we reviewed came fully assembled and only needed to be unpacked. Simply pull it out of the box, remove the packing materials, snap the screen on and the spool holders, and plug it in.

Once the machine is turned on, you’ll see a cartoon version of Josef Prusa to guide you through setup. However, calibration is now handled at the factory, so there’s nothing left to do but make sure you’ve removed the zip ties and carry on your merry way.

Leveling the Prusa CORE One+ INDX

Bed leveling is a no-brainer, as the Prusa CORE One+ is fully automatic. There are no manual adjustments and no need to adjust the Z offset. The printer uses a load cell sensor connected to the nozzle, which physically taps the print surface for precise measurement.

The printer trams the bed and calculates the required Z height before each print. And yes, if you need it, live Z adjustments are available in the control panel.

Loading Filament on the Prusa CORE One+ INDX

Loading filament is very simple. Simply place the spools on the side-mounted rack and feed the plastic into the reverse Bowden tube until it reaches the hotend. You’ll need to open the printer menu and tell it which toolhead you’re loading, since the toolheads themselves are passive. The carriage will zip over, grab the requested tool, and take it to the nozzle wiper to purge a small amount of filament into the cup. It will wipe the nozzle and park the toolhead when you’re done.

The inductive heater brings each nozzle up to temperature in a matter of seconds.

Unfortunately, the printer only asks what kind of filament you’re loading (PLA, ASA, Flex, or more) but not what color. This is probably due to the fact that the slicer does not constantly communicate with the printer over the cloud, but I’m hoping that this feature will become available with a future firmware update. For now, you’ll have to manually enter your filament colors into the slicer. There is a remapping option on the control screen, but shifting around eight spools' worth of information in this fashion is tedious.

The spoolholders are sturdy manual devices that can hold literally any brand of filament you might be using. They even expand to hold 3KG spools.

Preparing Files / Software for Prusa CORE One+

The Prusa CORE One+ uses its native slicer, PrusaSlicer. This open-source slicer is developed by Prusa Research and serves as the foundation for many other slicers. It comes with dozens of profiles for every material and nozzle size that Prusa Research makes.

The slicer also has built- in Color Mixing, which allows you to blend two or three colors with ultra-fine layers to create the illusion of more colors.

The CORE One+ can also use Prusa’s web-based slicer, EasyPrint, to print directly from Printables, Prusa’s free library of files, or from a mobile device.

Printing on the Prusa CORE One+ INDX

The fully assembled CORE One+ comes with a full 1 KG roll of Prusament PLA Galaxy Black. If you want more colors and materials like silks and multicolor filaments, you should check out our guide to the best filaments for 3D printing for suggestions.

I used some of the sample rolls sent my way, plus a couple more lying about the workshop, to Prusa’s new calibration butterfly, Otto. This eight-color sample test print took 1 hour and 14 minutes. The wings are a first-layer test and are only two layers thick. A tab on the wing slots into the body to prove that tolerances and extrusion flow are correct. The multi-colored wing segments act as a visual test for first-layer quality, belt tension, and toolhead alignment, as any tiny offset in color boundaries or axis motion will show up instantly. This is a lot more useful than a Benchy for multicolor printing, and it makes a cool decoration you can keep on the shelf.

I printed this 100%, 150mm tall, Cinderwing3D Butterfly Dragon that I could never get to stick to the bed with other multicolor machines. Sitting next to it is a small container with all the waste this print produced from 1646 tool changes: 18 grams. When you look really close, they look like Nerds candy.

This printed in 25 hours, 41 minutes, using a .2 mm layer height, 3 walls and 10% gyroid infill. It took a little longer to print because I slowed it down to 100mm/s across the board due to the precarious wing situation. The filament is Prusament PLA in Orange, Yellow, Simply Green and Galaxy Black; Inland Purple, and Bambu Lab Basic Pink.

For PETG, I printed a planter I designed. I’ve been trying to learn Nomad Sculpt, but I still need to rough things out in Tinkercad. For that reason, please excuse the rough layer line near the bottom, which is entirely a design flaw and not the printer’s fault. PETG doesn't color swap quite as cleanly as PLA, and I had to pick a few stray flecks off the print. Otherwise, it’s pretty darn good. This is printed in Prusament Galaxy Black and Yellow Gold PETG, with Deepwater Blue from Greengate. This print took 6 hours and 14 minutes to print using default settings and a .2mm layer height. There was 6.84 grams of filament wasted with 537 tool changes.

For high-temperature testing, I made these pumpkin containers, again with a mash-up of Tinkercad and my fledgling Nomad Sculpt skills. You really don’t want to see the insides of these things. But they printed really well in Prusament ASA Orange and Galaxy Black, with Ambrosia Armored Turtle Green ASA. I couldn’t find any white ASA, so I found a random spool of white ABS to fill in. The printer had no problem mixing the two materials as they are quite similar. I don’t think this photo does the orange justice; it’s possible it’s a bit fluorescent. Most importantly, there was no odor while these ran, as the printer remained closed and filtered. The large pumpkin took 13 hours and 45 minutes to print using a default .2mm layer height. It had 9.4 grams of waste over 632 tool changes.

A note on TPU: The Prusa INDX does not have an official profile for flexible materials as yet, but it is listed as being TPU-capable. I wrote up my own profile, copied from a standard CORE One+, and had mixed luck. It had difficulty with oozing and would occasionally jam up when trying to print with more than one color. This needs further work and experimentation.

Bottom Line

The Prusa CORE One+ INDX is the machine Prusa Research needs right now to compete in the modern marketplace. Is it a bit of a splurge? Yes, but the company’s reputation for reliability, right to repair, data security, and continued support through the years makes it a safe splurge.

Starting at $749 for a four-tool conversion kit and going to $2,119 for a fully assembled machine with the works, the CORE One+ INDX offers flexible price points for Prusa fans. Once assembled, the 3D printer itself is easy enough for families and school kids to use, but capable enough for small businesses and workshops. Plus, the ability to take the machine completely offline means it's a secure work partner for those who are mindful of data security or simply have unreliable internet service.

If you're a tinkerer and already have a CORE One or heck, even a MK4S, there is an upgrade path that could be a fun project that will net you the latest printer at half the cost.

If a Prusa machine seems just a bit too spendy for your budget, the $849 Snapmaker U1 is an awesome four-color toolchanger with an evolving ecosystem and a thriving community of users. The Bambu Lab H2C nozzle swapper is a touch more expensive at $2,499, but has a larger 330 x 320 mm build plate, even if it only does five colors.

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How do you make a really good printer even better? How about a $25 upgrade kit? Recently, Prusa Research rolled out a series of upgrades to the big three: the CORE One, CORE One L, and the XL 3D printers. Since the CORE One L is the newest printer of the batch, it only needed a tweak rather than a full overhaul to earn a “+” designation. No one was surprised by this update, as Josef Prusa has a reputation for upgrading his machines rather than letting them fall by the wayside. In fact, the CORE One L is only the third major variation of Prusa-designed printers since the company was founded in 2012.

As we were wrapping up this review, Prusa Research announced the CORE One L+ is now compatible with the Prusa INDX conversion kit, which is $799 for four tools, or $1,079 for eight. We’re currently reviewing the INDX on a standard-size CORE One + (Gen 2), and spoiler alert: it’s running spectacularly.

The Prusa CORE One L never left my workshop since its introduction nearly a year ago. In over 1000 hours of hard use, it’s been quietly printing abrasives like carbon and glass fiber, and even a pinch of Prusa Ultra Glow, with no problems. It’s been a real workhorse for practical prints.

The “plus” upgrade removes a super annoying flaw that has spoiled an otherwise perfect machine: nozzle wiping failures. Before this upgrade, all Prusa machines would clean the nozzle before bed leveling by tapping the bed, leaving little dots of filament on the plate. When you’re running higher-temp filaments, oozing is a real problem and nozzle wiping fails are more frequent. The error itself isn’t a big deal, and I would often choose to ignore it as I still get excellent prints. The problem is the time I’d lose if I wasn’t watching the printer like a hawk, as the printer would shut down bed heating while it waits for you to come tend to it.

We’ve had nozzle wipers on other brands of 3D printers for years now, and it’s a relief that Prusa has finally gotten on board. With a simple addition of a silicone brush, the CORE One L+ is now one of the few printers I trust to set it and forget it.

The Prusa CORE One L+ upgrade also came with a set of GT1.5 timing belts. The tighter tooth spacing on the belts and drive gears makes an already precise system more precise, resulting in smoother surfaces.

Another update is that this 3D printer is finished at the factory. When firing up the Prusa CORE One L+ for the first time, you’ll notice one thing right off the bat. A winking Josef Prusa pops up to help you set up your printer (as usual), but now there isn’t much set up to do. All the calibration has been done at the factory, and you get your first print going in about five minutes after ripping into the box. You can eat your complimentary package of Gold Bears while watching the first layer go down.

One thing that Prusa Research did not change is the 290 °C hot end limit. Most printers in this class can go 300 °C, with the Bambu H2S good to 350 °C and the Qidi XPlus 5 capable of 370 °C. Prusa offers an HT hotend upgrade that hits 400 °C and is listed at $199, but it's currently out of stock. 400 °C is hot enough for PEKK and more than enough for PPS CF. But I’d like to see the CORE One L+ do at least 300°C from the get go.

This is one of the few printers that can be operated entirely offline, making it the 3D printer of choice for businesses and government entities who need to keep data extra secure. Yet the machine itself is mostly online and open source, to make sure users can freely repair and mod their own devices.

Plus, the CORE One L+ has an optional Advanced Filtration Module with HEPA and Active Carbon filters to make sure whatever fumes your filament produces stays out of your home or office. That same vent can also be attached to an HVAC system.

For these reasons, we’re happy to put the Prusa CORE One L+ on the list of best 3D printers we’ve tested as the best Cloud Free/Open Source 3D Printer we’ve seen so far. The CORE One L+ is retailing at $1,999, the same price as before the upgrade. It’s only being offered as a fully built machine, no kits this time.

Specifications

Prusa CORE One L+: Included in the Box

The Prusa CORE One L+ is 99% assembled at the factory. Also included are a bag of Haribo Goldbears, a toolkit, a USB stick, country specific power cord, a PEI flex plate, a spool holder, and a full spool of Galaxy Black Prusament PLA.

Design of the Prusa CORE One L+

The CORE One L+ is a tank of a machine, weighing almost 50 lbs and built with a rigid metal frame, metal side panels, a plexiglass door, and top and side windows. The side panels jut into the interior of the machine to both allow clean lines on the outside and to get rid of useless space on the interior that would need to be heated. The filament spool nests neatly inside the recessed panel.

With a build volume of 300 x 300 x 330 mm, the CORE One L+ has a lot of heat area. This is accomplished with a thick aluminum heatbed that runs on line current, switching automatically from 110V to 220V. The chamber is heated with two fans mounted under the bed to create a convection effect, blowing cold air over the bed. The toolhead is now driven by finer-toothed GT1.5 belts that run on a linear rail for the X-axis and two linear rods for the Y-axis. The bed is driven by three independent stepper motors with lead screws.

The toolhead has a planetary-geared Nextruder, which does a great job pushing plastic. A large cooling fan is on the front, and a large parts cooling blower on the back leads to a duct that wraps almost completely around the nozzle.

The CORE One L+ comes with a .4 brass CHT high flow nozzle installed, and a bonus hardened steel nozzle included. The first thing I did after a quick test print was to switch to the hardened nozzle. These nozzles are not exactly quick release, but are fairly easy to replace. The two thumb screws on the left side of the tool head release the nozzle, which then must be unscrewed from the heater block. Care must be taken since, once the nozzle is removed, the only thing holding the heater block is the wiring. I haven’t run into any issues yet, but I’m very careful with the wiring.

The hotend can reach a temperature of 290 °C, and as mentioned earlier, there's an optional HT hotend that hits 400 °C if you really need the extra heat.

The door on the Prusa CORE One L+ has a switch, which can be disabled, to safely stop the printer if it is opened while running. I really love that the door can be mounted on the opposite side of the machine, in case that works better for your setup.

The top vent on the printer is opened and closed automatically as needed. There are two fans on the back of the case to help ventilate the chamber. This is quite enough to run lower-temp filaments like PLA with the door shut. There is an optional HEPA filter that mounts over the rear case fans.

The Buddy3D camera provides excellent video for monitoring your prints from Prusa Connect and the Prusa App. The one thing it can’t do is send a timelapse video to your computer. To record a timelapse video, you must add an SD card to the camera.

Assembling the Prusa CORE One L+

The Prusa CORE One L+ arrives mostly assembled. After removing three screws holding down the bed, you can put the tool kit away. The screen and trim panel slot into the front of the printer and are held in place with magnets. The wiring for the buddy cam is preinstalled, and the camera mounts to the printer’s inner wall with magnets. The spool holder attaches to its base with a quarter turn. The toolhead is freed by removing the cardboard holding it in place. Within just a minute or two, you are ready to print.

Leveling the Prusa CORE One L+

The Prusa CORE One L+ is calibrated at the factory. So there is no need to run through the usual 30 minutes of calibrating and leveling when powered on. The printer does check the level before each print.

Loading Filament on the Prusa CORE One L+

Loading filament on the Prusa CORE One L+ is simple. Filament is pushed past the runout sensor and into the toolhead, where it is grabbed automatically by the extruder. The printer then asks what kind of filament you are loading and heats the nozzle to the appropriate temperature.

Loading TPU is the same, but there is a switch to disengage the filament runout sensor. This really helps loading noodly TPU. I tried TPU from several companies, and 95A TPU loaded just fine. For softer TPU, I couldn’t push it past the 90 degree bend in the Bowden tube at the toolhead. I needed to remove the Bowden tube and load the filament directly.

Preparing Files / Software for Prusa CORE One L+

Prusa printers run on PrusaSlicer, an open-source slicer based on Slice3r that serves as the foundation for most of the other slicers out there. While the Prusa CORE One L+ can be run completely offline, PrusaSlicer can directly access Printables, Prusa’s vast and curated file-sharing service, and can directly control and upload files to the printer through Prusa Connect.

Initially, the buddy camera only produced still photos that were updated frequently, but after a firmware update (which was already present on the camera for this printer), the live video quality is excellent. Prusa has also developed its web-based EasyPrint slicer, which can be used for slicing files on mobile, and it offers a more comprehensive set of options than any other app or online slicer I’ve seen.

Printing on the Prusa CORE One L+

The CORE One L+ comes with a full 1 KG roll of Prusament PLA Galaxy Black. If you want more colors and materials like silks and multicolor filaments, you should check out our guide to the best filaments for 3D printing for suggestions.

First, I printed an Articulated Cobra + Pencil Holder from McGybeer. I used the provided Galaxy Black PLA for the snake, and the pencil holder was run in Meta Taro Purple PLA from Sunlu. Both were printed with a .2 layer height with an average print speed of 100 mm/s. The pencil holder took 9 hours and 44 minutes to print, with the cobra taking 16 hours and 44 minutes. The snake is wrapped around the pencil holder when you’re not playing with it. Both look absolutely perfect.

I printed a plate of carpenter pencil sharpeners from Anakel. They use a standard utility blade and work really well. Printed at a .2 layer height and an average print speed of 120 mm/s, they were completed in 3 hours and 35 minutes. They look great in grey high-speed PETG+ filament from Inland.

Next, I ran two plates of weapons for our battle tops, which are listed on Printables.com. Printed in Prusa Orange ASA with a .2 mm layer height and running at an average of 120 mm/s, the plates took a little over 5 hours each. They are printed solid with a bit of overextrusion to lock everything together and look really good, if I do say so myself. The bed leveling and adhesion were perfect out to the edges of the build plate.

To test the Prusa CORE One L+ on a more technical filament, I printed a plate of clips from Afrie using PA6-CF20 from Polymaker. This is not the easiest filament to print, and one that I normally run at 300C, which is hotter than the CORE One L+ can go. Using a .2mm layer height and an average speed of 50 mm/s, the clips took almost four hours to print. The parts are print-in-place, and there is some roughness on the unsupported overhangs, but for PA6-CF they still look fantastic. After a few hours of annealing, they are in use all over my house at this point.

TPU is easier to print on the CORE One L+ than on many printers on the market today. I printed weapons for our DeathRacer combat robots using Cookiecad Witches Blue 95A TPU and white Polymaker Polyflex TPU 90A. With a .2mm layer height and an average print speed of 35 mm/s, these blades took a little over 6 hours each and look great with just a tiny amount of stringing.

Bottom Line

The CORE One L+ is a fast, quiet, easy to set up printer that is a joy to use. If it could get a little hotter on the nozzle without an upgrade, it would be nearly perfect for a wider range of practical filaments.

With a retail price of $1,999, the CORE One L+ is a significant investment when compared to the more budget-friendly Core XY machines from other brands. However, the legendary 24 hour 7 days a week, English speaking customer service and rabid fan base willing to share tips and tricks are a huge perk. So is the knowledge that when you buy a Prusa today, you’ll still be running it in 10 years or more because it is infinitely repairable and moddable.

If a Prusa CORE One L seems just a bit too spendy for your budget, the smaller Prusa CORE One comes in at $999 for a kit. The slightly more budget-friendly, but equally sized Bambu Lab H2S Combo is currently on sale for $1,399, and if you need some massive CORE XY size, the Creality K2 Plus is worth checking out at $1,199.

xTool says its new X1 laser will be the last one you’ll ever need. The machine is modular, allowing users to add every style of laser xTool makes to the system: CO2, Diode, UV, Fiber, and MOPA. It will also be xTool’s first flying-galvo unit, combining the large size of a gantry system with the speed of a galvo.

And if that isn’t interesting enough, it's also a dual-head system, meaning the galvo will sit side by side with a CO2 laser. The unit will be able to pick and choose which head to deploy for the job – both if needed.

The announcement was made at The Next Level Maker Conference in Grapevine, TX. The event is a combination of maker retreat and expo, with a wide variety of classes and motivational talks by experts who have turned maker hobbies into successful businesses.

Disclaimer: xTool provided travel accommodations for this trip. Coverage remains editorially independent.

Previous “all in one” machines have used swappable toolheads, but these have been limited to various powers of diode and IR lasers. The X1 will use a swappable backpack system to provide the different laser frequencies routed to the galvo toolhead. This means the galvo can be a wood-burning diode, a crystal engraving UV, or a metal etching MOPA.

The machine’s default build will be a powerful 55w CO2 laser paired with a 20w diode for the galvo head. No price was mentioned at the reveal, so we’ll have to wait until closer to the laser’s October launch date to learn more.

A representative from xTool said the company wanted to embrace all forms of making, and be more than “just” a laser manufacturer. To that end, they announced an upcoming embroidery machine, the SE1. The machine, capable of both normal stitching and single-color embroidery, is presented as an entry point to embroidery for those already within the xTool ecosystem. The machine can be paired with the O1 Omni to paint the threads with DTG color.

This may seem to be an overly complex way to achieve colorful stitching, until you consider that full-color embroidery is accomplished with multi-needle machines costing thousands of dollars. They are also insanely complex and require high levels of skill to manage and maintain, whereas a single-color embroidery machine can be purchased for way less and operated by a beginner.

The SE1 will also use the xTool design suite, which makes transferring designs between the sewing machine and UV printer fairly straightforward. During the demo, a piece of fabric was stitched on the SE1, removed from the hoop, then placed inside the UV printer to add color. It was finished with a heat press to set the DT ink.

xTool wasn’t the only company presenting at the show. The vendor hall was full of makers turned small business owners, something that xTool actively encourages with its products and ecosystem.

Makerflo

Marc Pendergraft and John Modi started selling laser-cut products right out of college, and now own Makerflo, a wholesaler that provides “the kind of materials we wish we had.” They sell premium laser-ready merchandise that comes with upscale gift packaging. Their booth also has several new items seeking feedback from shoppers. I was impressed with a coaster that consisted of absorbent stone with a laser-ready metal disc embedded in the center.

Marc and John also led several popular breakout sessions on running a successful laser business.

Smokey Hill Designs

Angela Cruise, owner of Smokey Hill Designs, brought pallets full of high-quality plywood, acrylic, leatherette, and other sparkly laser substrates. Most were custom printed in eye-catching designs using a diode-safe material. Her goal is to use premium materials, like natural wood and pre-finished acrylics, that require less effort to turn into amazing, high-value products. Nearly everything she sells is manufactured in-house at her company’s North Carolina shop and is held to strict quality standards for use in lasers.

One of the unique materials they had for sale was Freshy Sheets, a thick absorbent material with a colorful printed surface, designed to hold essential oil and act as an air freshener. Naturally, the sheets are designed to be cut in shapes and encased in laser-cut designs.

BurnForge Software

Aaron Pratt created BurnForge, a subscription-based business tracking system for crafters. The app lets makers track customer orders every step of the way so you stop “ruining expensive blanks.” The program helps you remember machine settings and tracks your inventory and orders. He’s offering a 30-day free trial with the code NEXTLEVEL30 for a limited time.

Brothers Elias and Isaiah Grey designed Maker Studio, a suite of apps that create custom maps you can reproduce with a laser cutter, CNC, or 3d printer. The maps come in either a layered style that looks great when laser cut and stacked, or 3D terrain relief maps that can be 3D printed or CNC carved. Their product lets makers easily turn real locations into design files without needing CAD skills.

Maker Studio is a subscription service that will soon include a box maker, a fit sheet for help with packaging, and a tumbler art maker. You can sign up for a 14-day free trial to test out the program before you commit.

The xTool F2 Ultra UV laser is not your ordinary laser. Normally, lasers mark, engrave, and cut by burning the material. Instead, a UV laser uses a shorter wavelength of light (355 nm) that produces a photochemical reaction that breaks down the material instead of simply setting it on fire. These are called “cold” lasers, but I still wouldn’t put my hand in there.

The UV laser generates extremely clean cuts and engravings in wood and plastic that are simply not possible with other types of lasers. It's also able to etch glass and crystal, and can actually engrave the INSIDE of glass for some fantastic effects.

The F2 Ultra UV is a galvo laser. Instead of moving around on a gantry, the laser is stationary while the beam is directed by galvanometer mirrors. It’s extremely fast and capable of “moving” at 15,000 mm/s. The downfall of many galvo lasers is that they lose focus the farther away from the center point the beam travels. At the edges of the 200 x 200 mm work area, the F2 Ultra UV still does a great job.

The F2 Ultra UV is part of a family of lasers. The F2 is a portable “standard” diode laser, the F1 Ultra has both a diode and a fiber laser for etching metal, and the F2 Ultra is a 60W MOPA with a 40W diode. I wish the UV laser had been given its own class, as this is a confusing cluster of machines.

The retail price for the F2 Ultra UV starts at $4,299. It's pricey, but it can handle everything but metal and is the only laser that can handle crystal. This makes it a good all-around machine for many home and business uses. For that, it’s going on the best laser cutter list for a small business.

Specifications: xTool F2 Ultra UV

xTool F2 Ultra UV: Included in the Box

The xTool F2 Ultra comes fully assembled, with the surface engraving lens in place. The inner engraving lens and riser are packed in a reusable foam box. Also included is a slatted cutting plate, corded touch screen, equipment safety key, surface engraving material pack, tool kit, cables, and paper copies of the quick start guide and safety instructions, For the review, we also received the optional button and pedal switches, rotary attachment, the xTool SafetyPro AP2 fume extractor, and a bunch of glass and crystal materials for testing.

Design of the xTool F2 Ultra

The xTool F2 Ultra UV is a galvo laser with a 355-nanometer wavelength. At this wavelength, the laser marks by way of a cold photochemical process rather than just burning. Unlike a flat bed laser, which has the laser on an XY carriage and moves across the work area, a galvo laser is fixed in place and moved with two galvanometer mirrors. Since these mirrors are small and light, they can be used to move the laser beam extremely fast, up to 15,000 mm/s.

The only downside is that the laser’s work area is roughly cone-shaped, and the beam tends to lose focus the farther it moves from the center. The xTool F2 Ultra UV does an excellent job cutting and engraving throughout the entire 200 x 200 mm work area.

The xTool F2 Ultra UV comes with a lens for surface engraving and cutting and a lens for inner engraving. These attach to the laser with a quarter turn.

The inner engraving lens requires the installation of the included riser, which is attached to the baseplate of the laser with two thumb screws.

The xTool F2 Ultra UV has a nicely counterbalanced cover which slides down for protection against direct or scattered laser radiation. The laser will not operate without the cover in place, unless this safety feature is disabled in the printer’s software. We only needed to do this while using the optional rotary attachment.

On the right side of the machine, there is a large red emergency stop button, the regular power button, A USB-C port for attaching a PC to the laser, and a USB-A port for moving files to the laser from a USB drive.

The machine has an excellent corded touch screen which is used to start each print and resume after an alarm or other pause in printing. It shows files available to print from a USB drive and can reprint the last file without the need to resend it. While printing, the screen shows elapsed time and time remaining on the current job.

The xTool F2 Ultra UV has dual 48 MP cameras for positioning, with an accuracy of .2 mm. For surface engraving, the camera did not require calibration, as the positioning was perfect. After attaching the Inner engraving lens, it’s a good idea to calibrate the Z-Axis, which will also require calibrating the inner engraving work area. Our Z-Axis starting point was pretty far off the mark.

The auto focus function works perfectly on everything except glass. Since the beam goes through the glass, a piece of tape or scrap paper needs to be held to the surface to be lasered, and the focus can be set manually from the touch screen. Once the focus is correct, you can subtract out the thickness of the paper, but that level of precision is not really necessary.

The bottom plate of the laser is anodized aluminum, with threaded holes for positioning jigs and the inner engraving riser. Also included is the black plate for cutting material.

For fume extraction, we received the Safety Pro AP2 air purifier. While the xTool F2 Ultra UV does engrave cooler, it still produces a good deal of smoke when cutting and engraving wood and plastics. Engraving glass doesn’t produce smoke, but it does produce a fine powder of glass, which is mostly sucked into the purifier. The laser has a fan to extract fumes from the chamber, but it must be vented to the outside.

If you aren’t up for installing an exterior vent, the Safety Pro AP2 is a great, though somewhat pricey, choice. It has a six-stage filter that removes every trace of smoke from the air. With the F2 Ultra UV, the Safety Pro AP2 can be set to run automatically when needed, and the filter life cycle is monitored in the xTool App. The filters last between 100 and 600 hours and cost between $20 and $60 presently. The top SuperCyclone filter is cleanable and reusable.

Assembling the xTool F2 Ultra UV

The xTool F2 Ultra UV is fully assembled from the factory with the surface engraving lens installed. Setup requires removing the metal bracket which secures the laser head for shipping.

The power cord, touch screen, and exhaust hose attach to the rear of the laser, as does the equipment key. With those in place you are ready to go.

Safety Precautions for the xTool F2 Ultra UV

The xTool F2 Ultra UV is a Class 4 laser, which is the highest and most hazardous class of laser. Direct and reflected laser light can cause damage to eyes and burns on skin. The processing of certain materials can produce toxic fumes. Care should be taken when operating this and any laser.

The F2 Ultra UV has an impressive list of safety features to make your experience less hazardous. The enclosure traps both dangerous light and fumes inside it and is set to stop the current process if opened. This safety stop can be overridden in the software, and needs to be for larger jobs and jobs requiring the rotary attachment. The safety will need to be turned back on manually. The machine has a flame sensor which is needed for cutting and engraving wood and plastic. Though the UV laser cuts and engraves cooler than the usual diode and CO2 lasers, it is still possible to cause a fire at higher power levels. If the laser is moved or tilted while in use, it will shut off automatically. As is usual with larger power tools, the xTool F2 Ultra UV has a USB equipment key plugged in the rear of the unit. If little hands are about or if the machine will be idle for a while, this key can be pulled, rendering the laser unable to function. There is also a large red emergency stop button on the side of the machine that can be used to quickly turn the machine off in the event of fire or other immediate issue.

For smoke and other potentially toxic fumes, the xTool F2 Ultra UV has an exhaust fan on the rear of the unit, which needs to be vented to the outside or to a purifier like the Safety Pro AP2. Some materials like PVC and fiberglass should not be burned with a laser due to their chemical makeup. Dallas Maker Space has published a list of safe and hazardous materials to use with their laser.

One necessary safety precaution xTool has stopped providing is safety glasses. They are a good idea if you are operating the laser without the cover in place and are available from xTool on their website.

Software for xTool F2 Ultra UV

xTool Studio was frustrating when it was first launched and replaced xTool Creative Space. It took some time for all of xTool’s tutorials, material settings, and the maker community as a whole to catch up with the new program. Studio is now what I’ve come to expect and love about xTool. It is the most intuitive and powerful design software I’ve used from any of the major manufactures. It is also simple enough to get good results without being an expert.

While xTool offers a bunch of free tools to make your projects easier, they also have some excellent tools that cost credits to use. I despise microtransactions in all software. In this case, the credits are not super expensive and can be earned for posting your projects to Atomm, xTool’s file-sharing platform, and for other tasks. There are also currently 3 free uses a month. At best, I can say that there isn’t an annual subscription required to access these tools. They are optional and work well if you don’t have other options for things like removing the background from an image or converting it to a vector.

Atomm is available from the home page and offers a ton of projects, mostly free, to give you ideas or just something to create outright. It also has a bunch of tools to create everything from custom key chains to puzzles to boxes.

Engraving / Cutting with the xTool F2 Ultra UV

The xTool F2 Ultra UV is a powerful laser. Five watts doesn't sound like a lot, but it can cut through 15 mm of basswood and 12 mm of acrylic using multiple passes, which is respectable, and it can cut without the usual charring you expect with a diode or CO2 laser.

The UV laser can engrave metal but is really not up to cutting it. For metal cutting, you may want to check out the MOPA-powered F2 Ultra.

xTool has excellent material profiles that cover nearly everything you might want to cut or engrave. They also sell almost everything you might want to engrave, with an eye toward using your F2 Ultra UV as a business.

The first test I ran was engraving and cutting out a picture of my dog Ripley. The material is 3mm bass plywood, and I used the default settings. For the engraving, I used 90% power with a dot duration of 800 and using Jarvis mode. For the cut, it was 100% power at 146 mm/s for 44 passes.

To prep the photo I used the AI background remover in xTool Studio which cost 6 credits and sharpened the photo using the free tools. The resulting image is really nice. Using the offset function, I put a cutline around the image and the laser cut it with no charring at all. It might be the cleanest laser cut I’ve ever seen. 44 passes sounds like a lot to cut 3mm plywood but, with the speed of this laser the entire process took only 4 minutes and 28 sec.

I was intrigued by the F2 Ultra UV’s marking ability on plastic, since it’s much cooler than other lasers. I printed some generic squares to test this out of Bambu Lab silver ABS and Inland white high speed ABS+. Since there is such a wide variety of plastic out there I ran some test arrays using xTool’s black 3D printing ABS material preset as a starting place. The grids were generated by xTool Studio and took only 2 minutes each to print. I learned three things from these tests: It is possible to finely engrave/mark plastic with the F2 Ultra UV. It is also possible to set it on fire. Lastly the Safety Pro AP2 is fantastic at keeping the smell of burning ABS from overwhelming my workshop.

The xTool RA3 rotary attachment can be set to use rollers for cylindrical objects or a chuck to grab onto the inside or outside of items, from rings to tumblers. It works perfectly well; just make sure you choose the correct node since the calculations needed are wildly different.

Using the text editor in xTool Studio, I engraved an old coffee mug. Using the white glazed ceramic board material preset, the laser was able to break through the glazing and fairly deep into the ceramic at 100% power at 88 MM/s in 2 passes. It took a while: 40 minutes total. The resulting cut had a nice light blue left over from the glaze. I ran a silver Sharpie permanent marker over the letters to make them pop.

The xTool F2 Ultra UV does an excellent job engraving directly on glass. I used clip art and text from Canva and inverted the image using the free tool in xTool Studio. The image must be inverted to etch correctly on glass. Using 80% with a dot duration of 400 and 1 pass, this took 4 minutes and 15 seconds and looks fantastic. Sadly we were out of bourbon to show it off.

The switch to the inner engraving lens is mostly painless. Mostly. It’s a little unsettling since the lens is far inside the body of the laser housing, so I was working by feel to make the swap. The riser bolts easily onto the middle of the base with two thumb screws.

Because inner engraving is three-dimensional, you can use “normal” 3D printing STL files. For the first inner engraving, I chose a classic: Aria the Dragon by Loubie3D.

I also added text to the bottom of the engraving. This was when I realized that the Z-axis needed to be calibrated for inner engraving, so now I have Loubie3D etched on the surface of the riser permanently. After calibrating the Z-axis, the inner engraving work area must be calibrated too.

The inner engraving looks like magic and takes quite a bit of time to process. Using the dotting engraving method at 70% power and 200 dot duration, with a .01 layer height and a .02 point spacing, the engraving took 5 hours and 7 minutes. The result, other than the riser being engraved too, was amazing.

Probably the most impressive thing I’ve ever engraved is this crystal ball. Engraving a crystal ball is more of a production than the other inner engraving, since it requires the ball to be immersed in liquid that is approximately the same refractive index as the crystal. We used mineral oil and initially attempted to use a Pyrex measuring cup to hold everything in place.

Based on that experience, I highly recommend the xTool kit, which includes the silicone pad to keep things centered and a beaker with easily read measuring lines. It was nearly impossible to center the engraving without this. Even with the xTool kit, it requires a steady hand to avoid slopping oil around.

The engraving took 5 hours and 7 minutes at 40% power and a dot duration of 180 with a .04 layer height and a .02 point spacing. The resulting detail is just phenomenal.

Bottom Line

I feel like I’ve just scratched the surface of what the xTool F2 Ultra UV can do. While it cuts and engraves wood as well as most of the lasers I’ve tested, its ability to engrave glass and plastic is unusual. The inner engraving is just magic, bordering on witchcraft. It does not take a rocket scientist to see the sales potential of items easily crafted with this machine.

Starting at $4,299, the F2 Ultra is a bit of an investment. But it earns its keep by delivering outstanding crystal engravings that no other laser can deliver.

If you’re not ready to make such a sizable investment, the portable xTool F1 laser is still available for $819 and is great for taking to festivals for personalizing merch on the go. If you want to laser large things safely tucked inside an enclosure – including clear acrylic – check out the xTool P2 CO2 laser, which is on sale for $3,399.

The Elegoo Centauri 2 Combo is a stripped-down version of the Centauri Carbon 2, but we’re left wondering if losing the camera, lights, enclosure, and ventilation is worth the $60 you’re saving. This printer is so affordable, one wonders if Elegoo is making any profit at all.

The math and naming convention are downright puzzling. The Centauri 2 Combo is currently on sale for $319, while the single-color Centauri Carbon is $309, the Centauri Carbon 2 is $329, and the Centauri Carbon 2 Combo is $379. Forgive us if we need an evidence board and spool of red string to make sense of all this.

You’re still getting a lot of printer for your money. It’s a fast Core XY machine with the rock-solid CANVAS four-color system and a 256 mm cubed build volume. The toolhead can get to a toasty 350°C with 110°C on the bed, which is great for a bunch of technical filaments that you ultimately can use without an enclosure, but it does come in a pinch for printing less finicky high-temperature filaments like PET-GF and PCTG.

The big question is, is it worth the savings? A lot of beginners only use PLA, and see a four-color machine as a toy printing factory. But you might regret not getting that enclosure when you start getting into more practical prints and could really use the strength of an ASA print.

Ranking this printer was difficult, because yes, the print quality is great and it’s easy to use. But with so many other, even better, Centauri options available, this one just falls short of making our list of Best 3D printers.

Specifications: Elegoo Centauri 2 Combo

Elegoo Centauri 2 Combo: Included in the Box

The Elegoo Centauri 2 Combo comes nicely packaged with almost everything you need to get started. There is a bag of tools, hardware, and a coil of white PLA. Noticeably absent is a nozzle wrench. There is a paper copy of the manual along with a USB stick containing a PDF of the manual and a copy of ElegooSlicer. The spool holders, touchscreen, and CANVAS system are also packed inside the printer.

Elegoo sent spools of black, red, yellow, and white PLA equipped with RFID tags to test for this review (but you'll need to buy those separately).

Design of the Elegoo Centauri 2 Combo

The Elegoo Centauri 2 Combo is an open-frame Core XY printer with both the X and Y axes running on linear rods. The Z axis runs on three linear rods and is driven by three lead screws, belted at the bottom, driven by a single stepper motor.

The Centauri 2 Combo uses the same brass high-flow nozzle with a hardened steel insert as the rest of the Centauri line, and the hot end can get up to 350°C.

Since the printer is open frame, the single-part cooling fan in the toolhead cover is more than sufficient.

One of the only frustrating things about the Centauri 2 Combo is the filament hub attached to the top of the toolhead. The collets holding the Bowden tubes into the top are almost impossible to compress enough to remove the tubes. Elegoo has a tool that can be printed to make this easier, but it does not work well. Even if you can remove the Bowden tubes, every clog I’ve had on any of the Centauri has required the removal of the hub. On the Centauri Carbon 2, I was able to do this without removing the toolhead wiring, but not on the Centauri 2 Combo.

The toolhead wiring is a USB-C cable that is held down, inexplicably, with two Phillips-head screws. The hub is held on with two screws threaded directly into the plastic of the hub. Fortunately, the Centauri 2 Combo does not clog often, and I’ve yet to strip out the holes in the hub.

Elegoo suggests printing a one-color hub for use with TPU, and includes a press-fit collet for this purpose. However, I had no problem feeding 95A TPU directly from the CANVAS into the four-port hub. I tried using a softer TPU, and it also fed into the hub, but it ended up clogging the extruder.

The CANVAS system for four-color printing is pretty much bulletproof. The only quirk in the system is the way the spools are numbered. It makes sense for the way the filaments enter the CANVAS, but it’s easy to confuse spools three and four when assigning colors on the printer.

The spool holders on the Centauri 2 have a return spring that draws filament back onto the spool when it is retracted from the CANVAS system. They work well with many brands of filament - but not all. We had to print alternative spool holders to run Prusament and a few others that did not fit.

The Centauri 2 has a very nice 5 in touch screen with a well thought out and intuitive UI.

Assembling the Elegoo Centauri 2 Combo

The Elegoo Centauri 2 Combo is shipped mostly assembled. After removing the packing material, you must remove three screws that hold down the bed. There are stoppers attached to the lead screws that must be removed as well. The touch screen is connected via a ribbon cable and slots into place on the front of the printer without tools.

There is a bracket to mount the CANVAS system to the top of the printer with two M3x50 screws, and the CANVAS mounts to the bracket with three M3x8 screws. The filament hub attaches to the toolhead with 2 M3x6 screws, but also requires the removal of the toolhead wiring, which is attached with 2 Philips head screws. The CANVAS cable attaches with the right-angle connector going into the back of the printer and the straight one into the CANVAS. The four Bowden tubes run from the top of the CANVAS to the ports in the toolhead, and the order does not matter.

When powered up for the first time, the printer gives you a reminder to unlock the bed and remove the lead screw stoppers.

Leveling the Elegoo Centauri 2 Combo

The Elegoo Centauri 2 Combo does a self-check and full calibration when initially powered up and offers to level the printer at the start of every print. The system works perfectly.

Loading Filament on the Elegoo Centauri 2 Combo

Loading filament on the Elegoo Centauri 2 Combo is simple. For Elegoo RFID-labeled filament, the spool can be held against the reader on the CANVAS until it beeps, and then the spool can be assigned to any of the four slots. For other filament brands, the type and color must be chosen manually from the touchscreen. The filament is inserted into the Bowden tube corresponding to its spool holder. It’s easy to confuse spools three and four, with spool four being in the top rear position.

Preparing Files / Software for Elegoo Centauri 2 Combo

The Centauri Carbon 2 Combo comes with a copy of ElegooSlicer, which is based on OrcaSlicer and Bambu Studio. The program will feel like home to anyone familiar with those programs.

ElegooSlicer now features Nexprint, Elegoo’s online file sharing service, which is currently listed as beta. Nexprint allows users to select files directly from the slicer’s home screen. It currently has a more limited selection than its rivals, but should grow over time.

Printing on the Elegoo Centauri 2 Combo

The Elegoo Centauri 2 Combo comes with the usual sample of white PLA. You should go to our guide of the best filaments for 3D printing to begin printing in earnest

For the first print, I chose the pre-sliced two-color bed scraper that is included in the printer’s memory. The print took 1 hour and 30 minutes and looks fantastic in Elegoo’s red PLA and white PLA. One thing I noticed on this and other multicolor prints is that Elegoo seems to have refined the default purge values to reduce purge waste, which is very welcome.

For a large multicolor print I chose a collapsible star fidget from Makerworld. I painted it in the slicer to use all four colors on the printer and it turned out very nice using Elegoo white, black, red, and yellow PLA. Using a .2mm layer height, and running at an average of 120 mm/s, the print completed in 5 hours and 13 minutes.

I decided to fill the smooth cool plate with a bunch of small pieces, and the results weren’t great, even after using some glue stick. Fortunately, after cleaning the plate and flipping it back over to the textured side, things worked much better. I printed Leonjong’s 6 wheel antweight combat robot from printables.com. By US classes it’s called a “fairy weight” robot and fits with room to spare on the Centauri 2’s build plate. The entire plate printed perfectly on the first try and looks terrific in Polymaker’s gray HT-PLA. The print took a little over four hours, with a .2mm layer height and an average print speed of 70 mm/s.

To try out PETG, I printed a set of three funnels from Makerworld using red Polymaker PETG and the default Anycubic PETG profile. The print came out perfect, with just a tiny bit of stringing across the mouths of the funnels. With a .2mm layer height, the medium funnel took 2 hours and 30 minutes to print with an average print speed of 90 mm/s.

The large and small funnels ran together and took 4 hours and 48 minutes at the same settings.

For TPU, I tempted fate by trying some LW TPU that turned out to be way too soft for the extruder. It loaded just fine through the filament hub, but clogged in the gears almost immediately.

After clearing the problem, I printed a boomerang I found on Printables. Using a .2mm layer height and an average print speed of 50 mm/s, the print completed in 1 hour and 56 minutes. It has a few strings, but the boomerang looks great in Cookiecad pale blue elixir. Sadly, it didn’t really work when I tried tossing it around the yard. Maybe next time we’ll try PETG.

Lastly, I had to try a print that would take advantage of the high hotend temperature the Centauri 2 can reach. Polymaker’s PET-GF is a nice, semi-technical filament that is right in the sweet spot for the open frame Centauri 2. Running at 350 °C and using a modified PETG profile with 1 mm of retraction was perfect. I printed steering parts for my husband’s RC dragster that we’ll show off at 3D Printopia this fall. Using a .2mm layer height and an average print speed of 65 mm/s, the parts took 1 hour 23 minutes to print. The quality of the parts is just perfect.

Bottom Line

Currently on sale for $319, the Elegoo Centauri 2 Combo is the most budget-friendly four-color Core XY printer I’ve seen. From the well-designed UI to the rock-solid CANVAS 4-color system, the printer is really a joy to use, especially if your main interest is 3D printing colorful toys, decor, and gadgets.

For only $60 more, you can get the fully enclosed Centauri Carbon 2 Combo, which is a heck of a deal for a machine you won’t outgrow. For $10 more, you can get the single-color, fully enclosed Centauri Carbon, which is still our favorite budget 3D printer. But you have to admit, it’s quite a bargain when you compare any of the $899 Centauri printers to the current reigning champion Core XY machine, the Bambu Lab X2D, a machine with dual nozzles, five colors, and one of the best ecosystems around.

If you want to see the bleeding edge of 3D printing tech, you go to FormNext in Frankfurt, Germany. If you want to see the latest in consumer electronics, you go to CES in Las Vegas. If you want to see what it’s like to microwave your own head, you go to Open Sauce in San Mateo, California.

The decidedly quirky maker festival marked its fourth year a few weeks ago, bringing together inventors, makers, artists, cosplayers, YouTubers, and yes, a number of sponsors. Founded by science YouTuber William Osman, the festival has become a must-see event for the maker community.

I attended this year’s festival as an exhibitor, with my “freakishly large, 3D-printed fighting tops.” For full disclosure, Prusa Research sponsored my travel costs and also partnered with me on a contest hosted on Printables, where I provided the example model and was on the judging panel. Polymaker sent an insane amount of filament for printing the tops and arenas.

We received some amazing and creative entries; even YouTuber and maker Jeff Geerling stopped by to join in on the fun.

Besides the obvious 3D-printed robots, 3D-printed printers, and 3D-printed violins (see above), a lot of exhibits used 3D-printed parts as an easy method to prototype and manufacture their project. Here are a few gems we found on the show floor.

Positron 3D

Even with a modest display, you still can't help but notice Positron 3D's amazing LDO Positron upside-down 3D printer. Designed to fit into a 1kg filament box, this printer can be folded down to 200 × 200 × 70 mm in size, making it easy to store or travel with.

PrusaWire

Also from Positron, 3D printing enthusiast @joescalon brought his Prusawire R1 project to the show. For the full assembly guide and 3D configurator, go here.

Unlayered 3D

Although still in the development phase, seeing Unlayered 3D's non-planar 5-axis 3D printer in action is very impressive. It defies the traditional FDM layered printing process with its tilting print head and rotating bed feature, eliminating the need for supports. This results in a stronger, smoother output.

Now, for the professionals.

Prusa Research: the INDX and Killer CORE One+

Prusa Research’s booth was a hub of activity, with the new CORE One+ INDX on display, next to Prusa’s CORE One L, MK4S and XL machines. They also brought along several creators and their projects, such as a giant cardboard Core One+ (with a working touchscreen) photo booth and an axe-wielding CORE One bot that printed while it zipped around the venue.

Elegoo: emoji x Centauri Carbon 2

Elegoo booth featured some amazing creations, like a functional “web harp” and a battle bot built by the University of Washington Advanced Robotics team using the Centauri Carbon 2 and Elegoo filaments. They had an emoji x Centauri Carbon 2 on display with many emoji-themed props for visitors to use for selfies.

Snapmaker: U1 toolchanger

Snapmaker brought their U1 toolchanger, which printed this mostly 3D-printed, fan-made Star Wars speeder bike, built with an electric scooter cleverly hidden underneath so it appears to float along the road. See it in action here.

The Snapmaker team also showed off the latest from the Full Spectrum project, which can mix four filaments into an unlimited color palette with no obvious layer lines by using subdivided layers. We’ll be checking that one out soon.

Three for UV

UV printing is an industrial technology just now landing on home users’ desktops in the form of somewhat affordable machines. It’s like a cross between 2D photo printing and resin 3D: it uses UV-cured ink to print photographic color on nearly any material you can place inside the machine’s compartment. This can be flat stickers and photos or “2.5D textures” that are generally limited to a few millimeters in height. Some machines are even venturing into full color 3D printing.

The tech is very new, with most machines still at the prototype stage or lurching its way through Kickstarter.

We are aware of five companies making the attempt to shrink these $50,000+ machines down to something a small business or garage-based entrepreneur can wrap their budgets around. Three of the companies were at Open Sauce: xTool, EufyMake, and Morpho.

xTool: O1 Omni Printer

xTool had the largest visible presence of any of the sponsoring companies, with a huge display of hands-on stations in front of the outdoor stage, which it sponsored. The company brought out all its lasers and creator tools, with plenty of team members standing by to run demos. I was particularly interested in the new xTool O1 Omni, a four-in-one UV printer that can print on any material you can stuff in the print zone.

We’re waiting on a production-quality review unit for the Omni, which should be arriving soon. However, this one looks pretty good and is backed by xTool’s tremendous experience in similar categories. Machines start at $1,699 for a single UV head and go up to $3,969 for the works.

EufyMake: E1

EufyMake, formerly known as AnkerMake, was the first company to get a desktop UV printer to market. Unfortunately, being first is not always best when it comes to technology, and the company had some supply chain issues when their Kickstarter was overwhelmingly successful. We reviewed the E1 last November.

Morpho

Morpho is the dark horse in this race, with one of the best-looking machines we’ve seen. The unknown startup took a modest booth in the main hall and brought their founder and CEO, Brett Wang, to personally demo the unit. Wang comes from DJI, where he was the former VP of R&D and founder of the company’s camera division. If that sounds familiar, Bambu Lab’s CEO, Dr. Tao, headed up consumer drones for DJI before launching his own 3D printer company. We’re looking forward to reviewing this open-source UV printer as soon as it’s ready.

But this was Open Sauce, and though we love to see what's coming to our retail shelves, the real draw is the projects. From the experimental to the unexpected, they are all incredible creations.

Resin Printing in a Flash

Students from UC Berkeley showed off an experimental method of resin printing their department has worked on since 2017. Dubbed OpenCAL, the open-source resin printer uses a video projection method to project an entire model at once, and flash-cure it in a special resin in just a few minutes.

The specialized resin will be commercially available through FormLabs, and the printer’s specs are available online for anyone who wants to push the science forward.

Recycling All the Plastics

Some projects were a little less high-tech, but just as worthy. Peninsula Precious Plastics showed how they support STEM and the arts with a focus on sustainability. They demonstrated how plastic can be shredded, melted, and injection-molded into new products. This certainly gives me some ideas for recycling my failed prints.

Mini 3D Printers

@TheBasedDoge came out with an array of mini 3D printers he designed, from an Encore Mini Core XY 3D printer with a 3D-printed chassis to miniature 3D printers made with DVD motors and CD drives.

A Different Kind of Engineering

Sometimes it's not even obvious which projects were 3D printed, like this giant 1/8th scale model train, large enough to take twenty adults for a ride. This built-from-scratch train had tons of 3D-printed parts to give the steel body detail for a cheaper price: the lights, the numbers, the latches, air tanks, suspension, and more. If you want to see how it’s done, you can watch a video here that shows how the train is painted and detailed.

If you’re feeling sad that you can’t afford a new 3D printer this summer, perhaps you can swing an upgrade instead? Prusa Research just announced that its “entire lineup” of 3D printers is getting second-generation upgrades and a “+” designation. This includes the XL, Core One, and Core One L.

All “plus” upgrades will be automatically added to printers being sold today. If you have an order in progress, you will receive the plus version at no extra charge. Prusa Research is not increasing the price of any machine receiving a “plus” upgrade.

Upgrade kits will soon be made available for Prusa owners. The components can be purchased à la carte if you want to pick and choose your upgrade. Prusa Research said all upgrades will be available on its webstore by September.

The bedslinging MK4S was notably left off the list, but while the descendant of Josef Prusa’s original i3 printer may have hit the end of the upgrade line, the company has not pulled support for the machine. Prusa Research supports every machine they’ve made for years.

“If there’s one thing worth knowing about how we develop our printers, it’s this: we don’t expect you to replace a working machine just because we’ve come up with something new. Most tech becomes obsolete over time. Our printers keep getting better,” said Mikolau Zuza, the Head of Content at Prusa Research, in a recent blog post.

All three machines will now have a nozzle wiper, which Zuza says is the most requested upgrade. There have been several community mods to do just that, but these also require adjusting your slicer’s g-code to teach the printer to use it.

The XL has received several small tweaks and firmware upgrades since its release in 2023, but this is the first major upgrade. Prusa’s original large-format toolchanger will get the same 360-degree cooling system introduced on the MK4S. It will also get the INDX’s Tool Offset Sensor for toolhead alignment to replace the cumbersome pin tapping. The eddy-current sensor is 20 times faster and will be permanently mounted to the machine. It is also compatible with the Silicone toolhead showcased last October during Prusa Day, which will be released this fall.

The XL will also get GT1.5 belts to improve surface areas, and new machines will ship with high-flow nozzles standard. Prusa is also upgrading the optional XL enclosure with a chamber heating and better seals.

The Core One+ (Gen 2) will receive the same nozzle wiper and GT1.5 belts as the XL+, plus improved heatbed mounting, and the same snap-on top panel as seen on the larger CORE One L.

The Core One L is Prusa’s most recent design and will get the new GT1.5 belts and integrated nozzle wiper.

An optional HT Hotend for the CORE One lineup will be available in September. This hotend is specifically designed for finicky engineering filaments, which are often brittle and require higher melting temperatures. The swappable hotend hits 400°C, which unlocks materials such as PEKK-CF and PPS-CF.

• HT Hotend Upgrade (for CORE One/+ and CORE One L) pre-order for $199.99

Zuza said Prusa Research has been working on upgrading the entire user experience for all of their 3D printers. This includes not only hardware, but firmware and slicer software as well. Prusa Slicer 3.0, also teased last October, will be released in a few weeks. Lastly, connecting your Prusa 3D printer over LAN will be easier with the introduction of Prusa Connect Local. This will replace the outdated PrusaLink.

The QIDI Plus5 goes toe-to-toe with Bambu Lab’s H2 series for nearly half the price. At first glance, the QIDI Plus5 looks pretty much like the QIDI Plus4, but it’s so much more. With TARDIS-like engineering, the Plus5 has a smaller footprint, yet gains 18% more build volume than the previous model by comparison. The Plus5 can go a little hotter on the nozzle, up to 370 °C, which makes it great for tackling engineering-grade filaments.

The UI on the Plus5 is sleek and feels like a more expensive printer. It has a helpful status light on the bottom of the bed, which you guessed it, looks a lot like the Bambu H2 series. If QIDI could just get their QIDI Box to swap colors consistently, Bambu will have a serious fight on their hands.

The debut price of the QIDI Plus5 is $749, which is $50 less than the Plus4 was at launch, and is considerably less than a Bambu Lab H2S, which is currently $1399. This is definitely my favorite high-temp workhorse and one of the best 3D printers we’ve seen.

Specifications: QIDI Plus5

QIDI Plus5 : Included in the Box

The QIDI Plus5 comes with everything you need to get started. Included is a tool kit for assembly, a scraper, a glue stick, and a USB stick with a copy of QIDI Studio and a PDF copy of the quick start guide. A paper copy of the manual is also included.

Design of the QIDI Plus5

The QIDI Plus5 is a nice upgrade to the QIDI Plus4 with an extra 20mm of print area in all dimensions, with nearly the same footprint. The Plus5 is a hefty 64lbs, so you may need some help to get it in the door.

The Plus5 has a Core XY motion system, driven by a beefy 9mm 1.5GT belt, riding on a linear rail for the x-axis and linear rods for the y-axis. The z-axis runs on 4 linear rods and is driven by stepper motors turning two independent lead screws. The Plus5’s tool head is compact with an all-metal nozzle, which is shared by the QIDI Q2.

The nozzle includes the heat throat and features a hardened steel insert. The filament path is accessible in multiple locations, which should make clearing jams easy. The toolhead includes a cutter with a nearby waste chute and nozzle wiper, in case you want to try your luck with a QIDI Box for multimaterial printing. We were not provided one for this review, but we did test it out on the QIDI Q2 and found it lacking.

A black plastic tube is attached to the toolhead for an optional active cooling system dubbed the QIDI Polar Cooler. This is a little AC box which can be strapped to the side of the printer and pump cooler than room temperature air directly on the extruder. This is meant to prevent heat creep when you need to keep the rest of the chamber toasty. We didn’t get to test this add-on, but it sounds intriguing.

The chamber heater and the air circulation fan, with an activated carbon and HEPA filter, are located at the rear of the printer. The HEPA filter keeps the fumes from ABS and ASA trapped inside the machine. A large parts cooling fan on the left side augments the fan on the toolhead.

The QIDI Plus5 has an excellent 1080p chamber camera, which is accessible for monitoring the printer from the device page in QIDI Studio and from the QIDI Maker app. It can be used to make time-lapse videos and is for AI anomaly detection (aka the dreaded spaghetti monster).

The printer has a glass top that is designed to slide back for ventilation while printing lower temperature filaments like PLA and PETG, and the glass front door opens a full 180 degrees. This is a simple feature that I wish more companies would adopt.

Running lower temperature filaments in the PLUS5 seems like taking a race car on a shopping trip. With a bed that heats to 120 °C, an active chamber heating to 65C and a hotend capable of 370 °C, the PLUS5 was made for PPS, PA, and PC.

Assembling the QIDI Plus5

The QIDI Plus5 is almost completely assembled. The only thing you need to do is attach the spool holder to the rear, then attach the bowden tubes to the spool holder and tool head. If you are assembling the printer in low light conditions, take care to avoid attaching the filament line to the inlet for the optional cooling system – they’re the same size.

The UI on the QIDI Plus5 does a great job of walking you through the removal of the packing screws and the shipping material, so you don’t forget anything.

Leveling the QIDI Plus5

The QIDI Plus5 auto levels as part of the initial calibration and offers to relevel at the start of every print. The system worked perfectly.

Loading Filament on the QIDI Plus5

Loading filament on the QIDI Plus5 is both simple and frustrating. QIDI really took pains to make the UI on the PLUS5 intuitive and simple. Two clicks from the touch screen, and loading is right there. The annoying part is reaching around this behemoth to load filament into the Bowden tube located at the back. The filament will almost always catch on the coupler, which needs to be uncoupled to allow the filament to pass through it. Then if you are using a full spool, it’s super awkward to push a few centimeters of filament at a time toward the tool head.

Preparing Files / Software for QIDI Plus5

QIDI included a copy of QIDIStudio, which is based on BambuStudio, which is based on PrusaSlicer. If you are familiar with Bambu Studio or ORCA Slicer, you will feel right at home.

The device tab in QIDI Studio allows you to control the printer and monitor printing through the camera. It also allows you to skip parts of your print that might have failed. The QIDI Maker App offers the same functionality on your mobile device.

Printing on the QIDI Plus5

The QIDI Plus5 does not come with a sample coil of filament, which is just as well. You’ll want to pick out a spool of filament from our guide to the best filaments for 3D printing for suggestions.

To get warmed up, I printed the pre-sliced Benchy provided by QIDI using red Creality Hyper PLA. The print completed in 32 minutes and was technically flawless, with just a little stringing.

Next, I printed a vase I whipped up in Tinkercad, using a mystery spool of Fusion Filament PCTG. If you like the color, too bad, Fusion mystery spools are created when they change colors on their filament lines and thus are unique. It’s worth the gamble because these spools are also about $10 off, dropping the price from $26.99 to $16.99. This is printed in vase mode, with a .28 layer height and a chunky .65 line width. At an average speed of 65 mm/s, the print completed in 3 hours and 11 minutes. The quality of the print is excellent, and the PCTG makes it flexible enough to withstand use.

QIDI sent us a spool of their TPU GF 67D for the review, and I used it to print a plate of parts for my RC Death Racer. Using a .2 layer height and running at an average speed of 50 mm/s, the parts took 4 hours and 25 minutes to print. Using only 2 walls, the parts are light, yet very hard and darn near indestructible. These parts are, by their nature, a stringing test, and despite this, the quality is really good. I was pleasantly surprised when the supports popped right off, a blessing from the glass fiber.

I printed this bird feeder I found on Printables using faded desert brown and armored turtle green ASA from Ambrosia. I whipped up the hanger in Tinkercad. Using a .2 layer height and running at an average of 120 mm/s, the base of the bird feeder was completed in a little over 7 hours. The top took 5 hours 30 minutes running at an average of 100 mm/s. The hanger took only 2 hours running at an average speed of 180 mm/s. The print quality is really good, with just a little rough patch on the top where better supports could have helped. It’s currently hanging outside my office window, so I can see how well ASA holds up to the sun…and squirrels.

Jumping into the deep end of the pool, I printed this sanding block I found on Printables using QIDI’s PPS-CF filament. The Plus5 takes a while to heat up to 350 °C on the nozzle, 100 °C on the bed, and 65 °C on the chamber. I got out an infrared thermometer to read the temp on the printer’s top glass and decided not to store PLA there while the machine ran. It read 56C. I should point out that I did not get good results with the QIDI Plus4 when I tried to run this filament. The Plus5 printed this just perfectly, with a glorious surface finish and without a hint of a warp. The texture is from the carbon fiber, which also helps the PPS stay flat on the bed.

Bottom Line

The QIDI Plus5 printed everything we threw at it and is the best 3D printer we’ve seen from QIDI. This hits the sweet spot for makers and engineers who need a serious high-temp 3D printer without breaking the bank. The lack of color capability won’t disappoint you when all your filament only comes in black anyway.

At its current price of $749, it’s an attractive addition to the large-format printer market. Filament loading could be better, but it’s a trade-off we’re willing to deal with for a machine that’s otherwise very pleasant to use.

If you like what you see in the QIDI Plus5 and you want to compare notes, then check out the Bambu Lab H2S, which is pretty similar but with a more robust ecosystem and a functional AMS system. It’s $1,399 for a Combo and $1199 as a standalone printer. If you need a printer that’s just plain big, the Sovol SV08 Max with an enclosure can handle practical prints the size of a hubcap (500x500mm) for $1,298. And if you just want a bit of elbow room at an affordable price, then you should check out the Bambu Lab A2L, which can do four colors on a 330 x 320 build plate for $569.

Bondtech, the inventor of the INDX toolchanger system used to create the highly anticipated Prusa CORE One+ INDX, admitted to a significant mistake. The nozzles, which are nitrocarburized steel, do not meet industry standards for “hardened steel” as advertised.

Prusa Research has pumped the brakes on the INDX project, and has delayed shipping INDX conversion kits until mid-August. They issued a statement on Reddit:

“Bondtech has recently confirmed that the nozzles currently supplied with the INDX system are surface-hardened rather than fully hardened as originally planned, and has not yet finalized the compensation plan for affected customers. We believe it is better to wait until both we and you have clearer information, rather than ship the kits while this important question remains unresolved.”

r/prusa3D

The statement was also emailed directly to everyone with an active INDX order in the system. The company said this delay will also give customers a chance to cancel their orders if they wish. As an olive branch, Prusa Research INDX conversion kits will included extra hardware free of charge. The statement didn’t say what the gift would be, but that specifics would be shared before shipping.

Prusa engineers immediately began testing the INDX nozzles and determined that little wear could be seen after running five kilograms of carbon fiber PETG through the nozzles. However, after just 100g of super-abrasive Ultraglow filament, the protective coating began to fail.

Nitrocarburized steel is tougher than the standard brass nozzles that come with a stock Prusa CORE One+, but not as durable as hardened steel. The real problem is not that they went with a lesser nozzle, but that they kept the “hardened steel” wording in promotional materials. If Bondtech said from the beginning (or before customers locked in their pre-orders) that the INDX shipped with ordinary steel nozzles, no one would have blinked.

Information on the nozzle quality began to surface after a Reddit user posted a support email from Bondtech founder, Martin Bondeus. The email stated that “during production, we encountered manufacturing challenges that prevented us from machining that material reliably – the cutting tools simply did not withstand the process. Rather than releasing a product with inconsistent quality, we decided to supply the nitrocarburized version for the time being.”

These nozzles are not of poor quality, but they fall short of the standards set for hardened steel. According to a statement by Bondtech, the Founders Edition shipped with nitrocarburized steel, which is steel treated to obtain a hard shell. They’ve batch tested the nozzles and found them to be around 30-32 on the Hardness Rockwell C scale (HRC). For comparison, true hardened steel lands at 55-60 while an everyday brass nozzle comes in under 10 HRC.

For most users, and most materials, these mid-tier steel nozzles work exceptionally well and will last for an extremely long time. But once you start to feed your INDX abrasive filaments like glass-fiber, carbon-fiber, glow in the dark and metal filled filaments, things get dicey. The treated steel nozzles will last longer than brass, but Bondtech said they will experience “accelerated wear” when printing abrasives.

Bondtech has stated on its website that a “concrete solution” to the problem is not ready and that manufacturing truly hardened INDX nozzles could take months. They are also not offering any form of compensation before knowing the cost of the replacements. They are requesting that customers hold off on returning the kits and simply enjoy using non-abrasive materials until a solution is found.

The INDX takes a bespoke induction heated nozzle that has no off the shelf replacement at this time.

The news has hit the Founders Edition buyers quite hard, as many have already found difficulty with the kits they so eagerly purchased months ago. Some assembly problems can be expected with such a product, as they are being mounted on CORE One printers already in service. The INDX is a separate upgrade kit, and it requires stripping down a CORE One, removing the Nextruder and replacing it with the INDX carriage, then mounting a rack to hold the eight tool heads.

One “founder” was so upset he vibe coded an entire website in protest: Nozzlegate.com. The website outlines what the perceived problems are with Bondtech, and what consumers can do about it. We contacted the website owner, who asked to go by his handle “Daddie0.”

He told me that, like others who purchased Founder Edition kits, he’s disappointed in the quality of the product. He said his INDX was suffering from multiple mid-print crashes and layer shifts, and after two weeks of troubleshooting, it was finally fixed with a firmware update from Prusa. “Then nozzlegate hits. My EU right-given two-week return window ends a day after the news breaks.”

Realizing that his window for a standard, hassle-free return had closed on a machine he felt was a lemon, he shifted strategies. He began digging into Bondtech’s official documentation to see what recourse he had for a defective product.

What he found sparked a new battle. Disagreeing with Bondtech’s listed 90-day warranty policy, which he claims misleads consumers by failing to mention Sweden's mandatory multi-year consumer protections, he channeled his frustration into the NozzleGate website.

The INDX kit is a collaboration between Prusa Research and Bondtech, with the first wave of Founders Edition kits a limited edition run going to early adopters.

Tom’s Hardware received a Founders Edition INDX kit, which we installed on a Prusa CORE One we previously reviewed. Though the build took over the kitchen table for an entire weekend, our resulting INDX is printing non-abrasive filaments with excellent quality.

Printed Solid, the Delaware-based filament manufacturer acquired by Czech Prusa Research in 2022, is now known as Prusa USA, Inc. I chatted with Prusa Research team members at Open Sauce, who confirmed the name change was largely window dressing, with nothing changing in the company’s day-to-day operation. Josef Prusa will remain CEO of both companies, with a new Marketing Officer moving up the ranks internally.

During the changeover, Printed Solid will be known as “Printed Solid, a Prusa Company”. The website now proudly states that Prusa Research is a “European-American” company with U.S. production capabilities. The company has a duplicate print farm at its 100,000-square-foot Delaware factory for the production of 3D printers and filament. The printers are not yet fully “Made in the USA,” as some parts are still needed from the factory in Prague. This helps overcome supply chain issues for American customers.

Josef Prusa states, “We wanted to be closer to our customers. Expanding to America was the natural next step to support the most important market in the world.” His booth at Open Sauce proclaimed Prusa to be the biggest 3D printer manufacturer in the USA. Though Prusa Research ships well over 10,000 printers a month from both Prague and Wilmington, it’s a fraction of what its Chinese competitors produce overseas. 3D printing is simply getting bigger as more businesses and individual makers discover the ease of additive manufacturing.

The change comes at a difficult time for 3D printing enthusiasts, as several anti-3D printing bills are sprouting up around the country. These bills are trying to impose government oversight by installing spyware on new 3D printers to prevent the machines from manufacturing firearms. This is the antithesis of Prusa Research, which stands firmly on the side of Open Source, the right to repair, and proudly produces 3D printers that meet the high security needs of the US military and government agencies. Delaware, Prusa Research’s new home away from home, has just introduced House Bill 399, which would place so-called “blocking technology” on all 3D printers.

The Wilmington, Delaware facility manufactures Original Prusa MK4S and the Prusa CORE One+ 3D printers, plus Prusament and the Jessie line of PLA and PETG (named after Randolph’s dog). When we toured the facility in 2025, only three filament lines were established, with a massive space left clear for future expansion.

It is also the American fulfillment center for Prusa Research’s Amazon sales and the official US Service Center for printer support, which includes repair and maintenance.

The corporate restructuring follows some major leadership changes at Printed Solid. David Randolph, the former CEO of Printed Solid, stepped down in February, and Chris Pelesky, the company’s Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, stepped down earlier this month. Both veterans are still deeply involved in 3D printing, with Randolph taking the reins at Cocoa Press and Pelesky still leading 3D Printopia, one of the biggest consumer-focused 3D printing expos set to take place this fall in Philadelphia.