Anet A8 with Included Filament - Prusa i3 DIY 3D Printer - Prints ABS, PLA, and Lots More

For an entry level printer I love it! First thing to do is upgrade a few items for safety. Get a pair of mosfets, 30a power supply, and a fused on/off switch. All parts can be found on Amazon and cost about $40 total. I know older versions of this printer were a fire hazard; I can't say for the new models but I wasn't going to take a chance running it without the upgrades. Upgrades are easy to install and took me about an hour to install everything.I use Cura for my slicing software. Its free and has done everything I have asked of it.Next the fun part, printing!! Print a calibration cube and make necessary adjustments. Next download a couple of upgrades and print them off. Do this before you print anything else. I recommend simple frame braces, idler pulley covers, belt tensioners, micro adjustment limit switch holder, hot bed knobs, spring guides, fan duct, and a filament guide. All things can be found on thingiverse and can be printed off in under 10 hours total. The beauty of this machine is you can print upgrades, install them, and have a machine that can keep up with the expensive printers for a fraction of the cost.ProsI am very impressed with the quality prints I can get. It preformed well on its own but the upgrades make a world of difference. I have had two failed prints that were purely my fault and not the machine(forgot to add supports to print.) Everything else has came out beautiful! My opinion is you get a good base package for the money. You can find it cheaper on other sites however none of them offer the protection Amazon offers and chose to spent the extra $40 as insurance.ConsUnfortunately you NEED to upgrade components for safety. The components are cheap but necessary none the less. I had one other issue but I don't know if it is the printer or the slicing software. When I sent print files directly to the printer from Cura using a USB cable, the files print however the printer has multiple extra steps extending the print time. I currently use the microSD card included with the printer to transfer files. Again, I don't know if the is a printer or software issue.I definitely recommend this to anyone wanting to get into 3d printing as a hobby or as a complement to multiple other hobbies.Happy printing!!P.S. If you or your significant other are colossal nerds and are into D&D, table top gaming, R/C, etc., you may not see them for awhile after obtaining this printer..... I'm not judging... just a friendly warning ;-)

If you haven't already watched the tons of youtube videos and learned all of the intricacies and issues with this printer, I suggest you do so right now before reading this review.This review won't be so much about the printer, as it will be about my experience purchasing, building and dealing with customer service.First off, I LOVE THIS PRINTER. Yes you can buy it for $150 or even cheaper elsewhere (and I may do that to get a second one actually) but I bought this through amazon seller: eGoo because I wanted the amazon assurance that I would be happy with my purchase should anything go wrong. And believe me, a LOT can go wrong with chinese "kits".So if I love this printer so much, why the 4 stars? I'm gonna say that I'm not 100% satisfied with my experience, but I'm happy enough at this point to let things be.These are issues I came across in my experience:- No paper manual or instructions provided, however I knew from watching videos that there should be some instructions on the included SD card which there were- The instructions suck... They are terrible. They is about 95% of the information you need, with that elusive 5% leading you to make informed decisions via youtube or prior mechanical knowledge. I do not wish this on a normal person unless they are mechanically inclined.- I went to youtube to figure out how to wire the thing, and actually did a really good job once I watched it. Before that though... spaghetti everywhere...- Mainboard does NOT read SD cards. Yes, my unit was probably defective, but because I planned to run the printer via OctoPrint, this issue wasn't very high on my complaint list. However a month of printing later, my board is starting to flake out once in a while, although a fresh restart of OctoPrint and the printer usually prevents that.- Included filament was only 0.5kg and not 1kg as stated in the item description. I was pretty disappointed, but after contacting Amazon, they made things right and shipped me a full 1kg roll :D This is the reason this seller doesn't get 1 or 2 stars LOL- Fan duct was printed, and didn't fit at all. Luckily, even with the included PLA, I was able to print a really good fan duct to kickstart my journey! :) One of the awesome things of 3d printing!Despite all of this, I will still say that I LOVE this printer and I feel that it can produce some real quality stuff! I've run PLA, ABS, and PETG through it so far with little to no issues.WORD OF CAUTION:If you haven't already seen the videos or heard about the warnings, DO NOT RUN ABS or other high bed-temperature through this machine unless you have done wiring and/or power upgrades. PLA doesn't require the heated bed to be on constantly unless you live in s super cold environment, but in my experience, hotter temp plastics like ABS make the machine leave the bed on almost 100% of the time. This causes 15 amps or so of power to flow through a tiny molex pin that's subject to vibration, and this causes the connector to overheat and melt/burn, and potentially catch on fire. The connector melting and burning started happening to me after I started printing ABS, but luckily I knew about the issue and knew to look for it so I had a solution already. I would STRONGLY SUGGEST that a new connector (like Deans) or direct wires be soldered to the heated bed to avoid fires in the future. Even if you only print PLA, it's just a good safety precaution.All in all, I feel like this printer can compete with the best, maybe not in speed at least until you do all of the upgrades (and there are probably over 100 different ones out there!). I thought it was really fun to put together, and even the missing instructions made things a bit challenging, I actually thought it kinda added to the fun! Took me about 5 hours to build it, and almost 5 hours to wire it very nicely LOL. As far as end print quality with PLA and PETG, after all of the self-printed upgrades, I feel like my printer can produce objects just as equally beautiful as more expensive printers such as the Ultimaker 3 or the Makerbots.If you are truly technically inclined, and are willing to do things like contact Amazon when things go south, I highly recommend this printer.

This seems like a great printer, it has taken me a bit to realize that some of my issues finding parts and help is that it isn't an A8! I got an A6..... mostly. It is an A6 with an A8 control panel. Seems okay but it is creating some difficulty. It was a challenge to put together but I enjoyed it. Because of the discrepancy with model numbers it was more difficult to find help on line and the instructions were supposed to be on the card but it was blank. This also did NOT come with a spool of filament like stated in the description and shown in the picture but Amazon gave me some credit towards a spool. I am way too deep into this to send it back to get the advertised model.