I recently held a livestream on the Vector 3D YouTube channel to unbox, inspect and do a first print on the Elegoo Neptune 4 Max, linked below, and followed that up with a few additional prints for testing. The following notes are my feedback to Elegoo. I wouldn’t call this a review, it lacks much depth or testing over time but instead provides initial thoughts based on my 3D printing and experience. The printer was sent to me for ‘free’ and I was not paid to create anything.
- Well done on having simple fix for the cable drooping on the bed, this seems to work for the new machine and hope it continues to stay stiff enough over time.
- Well done on adding a light to improve visibility at the nozzle. However, the shroud still makes visibility difficult.
- The electronics bay is good, there was very little I could find significant problems with. I’d prefer not to see hot glue used on the connectors though.
- The klipper implementation is poor.
- Instead of forking Klipper, create a plugin for the custom UI that you need and leave the rest of it alone.
- Do not create macros of marlin commands. This is not an optimal way to use klipper.
- There is no need to create custom homing macros with alternative current settings.
- Sensorless homing has been enabled, but not setup correctly. The TMC2209 settings need to be configured for correct sensitivity of the stallguard.
- Mesh bed leveling does not load correctly when starting a print.
- Manual and automatic leveling are not both needed. You need a mesh and Z offset, that’s it.
- Mesh levelling takes way too long, over 10.5 minutes in my test.
- The hotend and extruder assembly does not mount correctly to the carriage, the right side fan and surrounding housing collide with the M5 screw head on the carriage. The result of this is that the nozzle and extruder assembly is not straight and the plastic housing is all warped. This will likely cause faster wear and poor quality prints.
- The large cooling duct behind the carriage blocks quite a bit of light to the bed.
- The screen would benefit from alternative mounting options such as 90 degree rotation to improve access when the printer is used in a rotated configuration due to its large size.
- There are no markings on the nozzle to show the size. Markings are needed to know what the size is. You can make a guess when its new, but with a bit of plastic on it, its impossible to even see the orifice.
- The included print settings seem to be unchanged for years and don’t represent the capability of the machine. Marketing speed values are misleading if the print profiles included do not reflect them.
- The default nozzle size of 0.4mm is too small for a printer this size, change to 0.6mm minimum. 0.8mm would be sensible.
- Maybe consider working with a performance nozzle/extruder manufacturer such as bondtech or E3D in order to implement a better hotend, nozzle and extruder solution.
- The slicing instructions and profiles suggest incredibly slow speeds of 60-80mm/s. This might have been suitable a few years ago but you marketing suggests much faster is possible. If the two do not match, I would consider this to be misleading marketing. Please improve the profiles to make the most of the machine and be in line with the marketing data.
If you have any questions about this machine, please leave them below and I’ll do my best to answer.