Anet A8 Desktop FDM 3D Printer

Quick reliable Prints that are as detailed as a Makerbot second gen device. Overall I have built over a dozen parts and they all turned out fantastically. When I first got the machine I didn't have it leveled as well as I should have and the first print or 2 was a little off. But after I got that taken care of and the extruder temperature level set correctly then it was all perfect after that.

I would recommend that anyone who purchases this Anet 3d printer goto thingiverse and find the mods for the extruder blower and the belt tensioner. They make the device much much better and the prints are easily on par with a makerbot 2 which is 5 times more expensive the last time I checked the prices. The only differences that I can tell with the machines is that one has an enclosure that helps keep the prints the same temperature and it also has a much easier leveling process. But if you buy the auto level add on and print your own piece for it go onto the a8 then it can be auto leveled as well. I intend on purchasing one of those next (if I do get one I will add an updated review here).

The third thing I will talk about is filament. My machine never came with any free filament so you will need to make sure you purchase some of that before you can print anything. I already had some PLA so it was nothing for me to install. I also would recommend going to youtube and looking over first prints so you can get an idea of what software you will need to master. I have been using Cura 15.04.6 and its not let me down yet. I love my 3d printer and think it was one of if not the best items I have bought in a long time. Before long I honestly believe everyone will have one and they will be able to print about anything. I look forward to that day! I intend on building a much lager 3d printer from scratch now that I have a printer to make the pieces I need.

Once you get one you will have people asking you tons of questions about them. Every friend I have wants one now and I am the go to guy for advise or free prints. So far I have had 3 free roles of filament sent too me to print stuff off.

Everything you need to build the 3d printer is in the box. You may need a ruler or something to help you level it out but most people have one of those already.

Suggestion

No real cons on my part but if you aren't that good at building things then you may need some help putting this together. It did take me around 8 hours building it a little every night after work. Overall it wasn't that hard if you follow directions from the YouTube videos. All of the required tools are in the box, so you don't need to buy anything.

Oct 26,2016

Got the 3D Printer After a very long 45 days, the shipping speed was appalling...

But i was met with a very nicely packaged box, very well packaged and so i set it aside for a few days as i am severely mobility impaired and it took a few days to recover from just going to a doctors appointment.. ugh..

So it took me about 3 and a half hours to assemble and about 45 minutes to figure out how to setup the bed and level it, then maybe another hour to clean up all the cabling and make it look tidy and all important wires out of the way of the moving parts.

i also had some 8mm cable braid, about 2 meters, so i had took the pins out of the stepper motor connectors after taking a few photo's of which colour pins went in the connector, as this was the best way to sleeve the LONG stepper motor wires to get them all threaded into the cable braid, it looked so much better this way, i highly recommend buying some cable-braid as theres 4 wires per stepper motor, and 4 stepper motors, so thats 4 x 4 =16 wires all bundling together - made it look like a mess !!

i hope these printer manufacturers send out cable braid included with these type of machines

okay so i got my first print out and it was terrible lol

Straight to thingiverse and printed the first of the most important upgrade parts, the X and Y belt tensioner things !!

NOW i could print circular things !!

Amazing how just these two upgrades corrected this MAJOR problem, the belts were extremely loose with no way of tensioning them.

So i fell in love with this lil 3D Printer - its absolutely awesome as a first-time entry level printer !

been printing for 3 weeks now but....

Suggestion

disaster struck :(

1. Y Carriage Stepper Motor Stopped Working,

2. Blower Fan Stopped Working (the part cooling fan),

3. Hotbed Stopped Heating,

4. Error Code on LCD:
THERMAL RUNAWAY

PRINTER HALTED
PRESS RESET

5. SD Card NOT RECOGNISED BY LAPTOP or DESKTOP computers and i tried 3 of my own SD Cards, now all 3 are corrupt as well, computer doesnt recognise my 3 or the SD Card that came with the 3D Printer :(

This is such a shame, im at a real loss at the moment, have contacted the support team and waiting for replacement parts if they will send them to me, but their customer support has been excellent so far so i will wait for them to reply and give them a fair chance to solve these problems.

After painstakingly going through diagnosis procedures (i am an Electrical Engineer) on the parts, one stepper motor has definitely failed, the blower fan and the heatbed thermocouple which should be an NTC 100K ohms reads as a 48K Ohms instead and the heatbed no Longer heats up...

Theres a small burn spot on the Heatbed power connector that connects to the heatbed too, so be very aware of this - before turning on, ive researched that this is a major design flaw of the Anet A8 heatbed connector - because too much current was going through that 1 pin of the connector, so approximately 12 AMPS when those pins are rated for max 2-3 amps..

Solution was to use more wire, same gauge as the power wires going to the heatbed and solder them to the other pins marked positive and negative then connect those to a mosfet module, then the mosfet module to the power supply and theres two wires that go from the mosfet module to the main Anet A8 board.

The mosfet module is not included, i bought these two modules separately, one for the heatbed and one for the extruder 40 watt heating element, this is for extra safety and so it doesnt put too much strain on the Power Supply

Mar 11,2018

Отличный 3D принтер за очень небольшие деньги. Упакован хорошо, все внутри коробки в отсеках из пенопласта, повредить детали нереально даже с нашей почтой. Очень прост в сборке - пошаговая инструкция есть на youtube. Крепежа отсыпано с запасом - что хорошо, т.к. в процессе сборки запросто можно уронить какую-нибудь гайку и потерять.
Лично я был поражен, когда включив принтер в первый раз и заправив 10м. отрезок пластика (был в комплекте) - все заработало с первого раза, и отпечатанная деталь (какая-то коробочка, была на флешке в комплекте с принтером) получилась даже качественней, чем я ожидал.
Принтер имеет изначальный конструктивный недостаток - низкая жесткость конструкции и еще немного по мелочи. Все недостатки легко исправляются распечаткой усовершенствованных деталей (уйдет примерно 150-200 грамм пластика, т.е. несколько сотен рублей) - и после пересборки принтера, получаем устройство, выдающее отпечатки такого же качества, как принтеры ценового сегмента 30-50 тыс. российских денег. Модели деталей можно бесплатно скачать с Thingiverse.
Есть отличие некоторых деталей в комплекте принтера от изображений на сайте. Некоторые детали видимо более новых версий, так, основание для нагревающегося стола сделано полностью из алюминия, а не из акрила - что намного лучше.
Однозначно рекомендую!

Suggestion

Низкая жесткость конструкции, но как писал выше - на раз исправляется допечаткой усовершенствованных деталей на нем же.

Nov 19,2017

Era da tempo che volevo acquistare una stampante 3d ma essendo alla mia prima esperienza in questo settore non mi andava di spendere molto in quanto non sapevo se poi gli avrei dedicato del tempo, è stato così che mi sono avvicinato all'acquisto di questa stampante entry level, dal basso costo.
Chiariamo subito non è una stampante per tutti, se pensate che basti attaccare la spina e lanciare la stampa per avere il vostro fantastico modello 3d in materiale plastico vi sbagliate di grosso e di ciò ve ne renderete conto già dall’apertura del pacco.
Si perché la stampante vi verrà recapitata ben imballata ma completamente smontata in ogni sua parte (meccanica ed elettronica), e quindi il primo passo sarà mettersi pazientemente a montarla.
Ciò però non è un male perché dopo aver lavorato per 4-5 ore con la sua componentistica saprete perfettamente come è composta e ciò vi aiuterà in futuro.
Comunque montarla non è affatto difficile l’occorrente e tutto al’interno del pacco (cacciaviti e chiavi di ogni genere compreso) sulla pennina troverete una guida e online su youtube ci sono una miriade di video che vi mostrano passo passo come fare, ciò che vi serve è solo tempo e pazienza.
Inoltre la Anet8 ha una vastissima comunità di discepoli ed utilizzatori online racchiusi in vari gruppi (facebook e non) a cui potersi iscrivere e chiedere qualsivoglia consiglio.
Finita la fase di montaggio inizia la delicata fase di settaggio e calibrazione (assi, piatto, velocità, acc.)(anche qui puoi trovare innumerevoli video tutorial su youtube), ed infine dopo aver trovato un soggetto 3d da stampare ed essere passati dallo slicer di fiducia (programma che “affetta” in liveli il modello 3d) per la generazione del gcode (file che la stampante riconosce) potrai finalmente lanciare la tua prima stampa 3d che come risultato finale (oltre al soggetto 3d stampato) ti restituirà una soddisfazione ed un estasi difficilmente descrivibile a parole.
Consiglierei l’acquisto??? Se non sei uno che si arrende alle prime difficoltà ed hai voglia di entrare in un fantastico mondo in cui potrai crearti praticamente tutto ciò che vuoi, la risposta è assolutamente si, ce l’ho da un po’ di tempo e sono pienamente soddisfatto del mio acquisto.
Vi lascio con un piccolo esempio di ciò che può fare :)

Suggestion

ci si deve applicare molto prima per assemblarla, poi per calibrarla, ed infine per migliorarne le stampe

Jun 12,2018

A great machine, I love it!

It suffered a few major design problems you needed to fix yourself that made it rather unsafe to operate in the long run (no crimped connectors, no strain relief on the hotbed cable, 2 hotbed wires instead of 4), but as far as I see they've fixed most of those by now. The only thing left to do now (9/2018) to make it safe is add a (printed) hotbed cable strain relief, fix the heater cartridge so it doesn't get pulled out accidentially and install Marlin with thermal runaway protection. You'll also need to insulate the heat bed from below if you want it to reach temperatures beyond 106°C!

Print quality is quite insane for the price. If you build it properly, adjust your belts well and slow down a little, you can get absolutely amazing prints on a stock A8 even without any of the countless available printable and aftermarket/kit upgrades (aluminum frame, IGUS bearings etc).

I have printed down to 0.05mm layers with it and the quality can match a Prusa i3 MK2/3 (see picture, left is the Prusa print, middle and right my A8!) - the A8 just prints about 25% slower, cause the frame is after all still acrylic, which isn't the most sturdy material. The A8 also has A4988s stepper drivers, which aren't the most precise (or silent), but they're reliable work horses and good enough for really nice prints!

I already bought two A8s, one of which I turned into a Bowden Diamond Hotend color mixing printer. Don't expect customer support from Anet, but there's a great community out there to help you with it!

Sep 27,2018