There is a wide range of 3D printers in the market but the price range is just out of hands. But, if you want a cheaper alternative, we have a great option for you that is the Anet A8 3D Printer. Getting a full-fledge 3D printer in this price point even arises questions in people’s minds that weather this will be a smart purchase or a waste of money. Those who have to work with it might get an expensive one, but getting something who does the same job in a lot lesser payment is insane. It’s not just low priced, but also compatible with many kinds of materials for printing.
Well, if you want to know about this 3D printer in detail and how the users are getting crazy about it, you are at the right place because we will completely review the product will all the specifications and features. If you need a 3D printer and you can build one by yourself without spending too much, Anet A8 plus might be for you. The price of this 3D printer fluctuates between $150 to $200 and even falls to $130 during a big sale. In case you are planning to get one, we suggest you wait for some discounted offers.
But, before you think this is the one by just looking at the price, we suggest you dig a little deeper and know if all this money will bring something good or not. There are some limitations in this machine as compared to the ones that are double it’s the price, but comparing it to the same-priced products, we think this one is a great option. Anet a8 cura settings are available and you can apply them in the DIY kit.
DIY Kit Anet A8 3D Printer
In fact, rather than calling it a 3D printer, we would like to call it a DIY kit where you can build your own printer and use it to build your own designs. You will get all the material, tools, and parts that you would have to assemble by yourself from scratch. This fact makes it a little hard to work with, especially for beginners, but in case you are open to learning more about the making process and are willing to get the job done, you can definitely do it.
There is a Facebook group for this product tat has some tips about the installation of this machine and they will really help you. Any little mistake can cause a big problem, some people have even reported the printer catching fore because of the wrong installation.
Pros
- Very affordable price
- Worth buying for this price
- You can modify it according to your needs
- Print quality is terrific
- Compatible with tons of materials
- Great for learning FDM printing
- Each print is better than the previous one
- Installation is a fun DIY project
- Anet a8 cura settings
- Variety of anet a8 upgrades
Cons
- The setting up process takes patience
- You need to regularly maintain the parts
- Unimaginative instructions for assemble
- If you don’t have basic 3D printing knowledge, you will have a hard time using it
- You’ll need to be patient in order to get the best printing results
- You will have to separately buy auto-bed leveling, otherwise manual calibration can be done that is very difficult
- The design might not be the most charming one out there
Design of the Anet A8 3D Printer
The open-frame design of this printer might be appreciable, but the material of the frame has raised questions. It is made up of acrylic instead of aluminum. That is a kind of plastic and that makes it less stable and sturdy to be durable. As compared to the other printers in the market with metal frames, this one way more fragile and breakable. There is one bulge that comes with the heated print bed and thankfully, its base is aluminum.
If you look at the top of the frame, there is an LCD display that you can use for controlling purposes. Like other printers have a knob to input the command, this one is a bit different. There are separate buttons for this purpose at the sides. These buttons are not the best quality buttons out there and sometimes they don’t respond because of being flimsy. Many A8 upgrades are available that you can work with.
Now, we are talking about the spool holder that is totally separate from this setup. If you wonder why, well it is because the fragile plastic frame can’t handle much weight so they have tried to keep as much away from it as they can. The electronic system of this printer doesn’t work perfectly, you can see all the messy wires through the printer and they cover all the space. If there is even a little mistake in the installation and one of these wires come in contact with a heating component, things can get worse in the anet a8 plus.
Giving our final verdict about the printer, we think everything is bare and it doesn’t look pretty. But, at least you can see everything and move around easily. This feature also helps you upgrade the A8 printer easily. The looks might not be great but it is workable.
Features of Anet A8 3D Printer
If you are here fora list of fancy features like other cheap printers have, well you might not get all of them. In fact, there isn’t a power switch to turn it on and off. Just plug it in to turn it on and plug it out to switch it off. This might disappoint you, but this isn’t much of a work in $150-$200. The best part of this printer is that you can build large volume prints unlike other printers in the same price range. You can also print some complex models in this range while other printers in this range only offer mini variants of the designs. That is a win for this Chinese printer.
You will be happy to hear that you don’t have to use only Anet filaments for this printer. In fact, any filament of 1.75 mm size can easily fit into it and they are not upselling other products with that. If you are into tweaking, you can also add wifi and sd card options in your Anet A8 3D printer. Last but not the least, the bed leveling technology is manual, you will have to level the bed all by yourself before starting with a new model.
Main Anet A8 Specifications
The following are specifications of this printer for you to understand what it offers in a glance.
- Acrylic material frame
- 220 x 220 x 240 mm print size
- Aluminum bed platform
- One nozzle
- 0.4mm nozzle
- 0.1-0.3mm layers can be obtained
- SD Card option available
- Comes with LCD screen display
- 100mm/s print speed
- Creates 1.75mm diameter material
- STL, G-code and OBJ file formats available
- 0.012mm accuracy in XY-axis
- 0.004mm accuracy in Z-axis
- Works on 12 Voltage
- Carries FCC, EMC, RoHS and LVD certificates
Print Quality
After a few tries and making mistakes, you can get the first result after a lot of challenges. If you want a properly leveled model, we suggest you adjust the bed corner height and monitor the screwdriver movements. After making a few attempts and getting to know the device better, you can get great printing results from a device that costs just around $200. We think that can be a good call, but if you can spend the money, get a high-quality printer. Whereas, we don’t see Anet A8 plus as a bad option at this price point.
Also, check out our complete guide to Fitbit Alta.