- Anycubic Kobra S1 Combo Multicolor 3D Printer with Anycubic ACE PRO, 4 Multicolor, Drying and Printing at the Same Time, 600mm/s Fast Speed with 320℃ Hotend, Built-in Camera 44dB Quiet 250*250*250mm

Prior to this purchase, I have been using my Creality CR6-SE for 4-5 years with great success, but I wanted to start doing multi-color printing. Like many of you, I read some worrisome reviews and held off buying the Anycubic Kobra S1 Combo until just recently. Now that I've used it for a few weeks, including doing multi-color printing of my own (Openscad-based) designs, I thought I'd write a review and let you know I find this printer to work wonderfully with PETG (which is what I always use). Mine was delivered by Amazon's "heavy item" team and arrived in great shape. No dents or other issues. Assembly was easy and I took my time to make sure I did it all correctly. I felt the instructions were clear and adequate. My first prints of the Benchy failed due to poor bed adhesion, but I then washed the bed with Dawn detergent and hot water and haven't had any issues since. I do wash the bed now and then, just to be safe. I've printed some pretty challenging, small, multi-color keycaps that really came out great. See photo. These have very fine text lines that need good bed adhesion and I'm very impressed with the results. I've also printed some large items (adapters for small 250g reels) and didn't have any warping or lifting (with brims turned off). The ACE Pro has worked well with cardboard reels so far, but I do intend to print the thin plastic "rims" to avoid the potential of cardboard dust creating some issue down-the-road. Some people have complained about this or that, but I think it's easy to configure the ACE Pro with generic filaments and you can also set the order the colors are printed in the slicer and adjust the purge waste. There are two places you set the bed type. The first one seems stuck on "Smooth Plate", but scrolling down there is another place to select "Textured PEI". I adjust PETG to print at 240C rather than their default 230C which seems a bit too cool in my experience. I have found the bed-levelling to work well almost every time. Strangely, a couple times it somehow started with "zero" Z so that the nozzle basically scraped the build plate, but did no harm. I can't explain how/why this can happen, but it did. I just aborted the print and restarted and the auto-leveling worked fine on the second try. I certainly suggest you monitor your print jobs as they start and see that all is well. When you gain more experience with your machine then you might launch print jobs remotely with your phone, but that's not my workflow. BTW, I don't use Anycubic cloud service to print. The Anycubic Next slicer is able to connect to my home Wi-Fi network and I can submit print jobs directly from the slicer. So, this is a great printer and seems really well built to me. I'm fine with the clear/lexan/lucite door and top cover. Glass would have just made the machine even heavier. Also, I've directly compared prints from the Kobra S1 Pro and a Bambu Labs and I'd say they're equivalent.

When it comes to the product it has great features and seems very sturdy, however when it comes to customer service Anycubic is not very good. I had issues with this machine from the start with adhesion to the build plate. Small prints were fine but anything large never worked right. Many times, I would report the problem and get a response of how I should do the same diagnostic prints and changes I should make to remedy the problem. These e-mails went on over and again. I explained to them that I am very familiar with 3d printing as I have been doing it as a business for many years. The companies solution was to send me a spool of filament so I could continue with the process of diagnosing the problem. Then they decided that I would require a new heated print plate. I waited and the product didn't show up, so I contact them again and was told that the product was out of stock. I was also told that the product was slowed because of the Chinese New Year festivals. I suggest that they replace the product and was told that at this time I was out of product replacement time. This is very obvious due to the fact that I was strung along for so long. Bottom line is if you get a good one then congratulations but if it is faulty good luck. I will take my business elsewhere being as I am losing money on my small business in this situation.

So, I’ve been using my Kobra S1 for 8 months now, and have roughly 1,000 hours of print time on it. I have had no mechanical issues with my unit and once I got past a brief learning curve (had not used a 3d printer previously) things have been pretty much a breeze. Occasionally I have had to do some additional study on slicing and set-up but that has even been a fun challenge. I’m a believer in Anycubic filament, and I have tried several brands and filament types, but always back to the Anycubic product. I’m an old guy and this is a hobby for me, printing mostly projects for my wife. It has been a great purchase, a fun purchase, and one where I continue to learn. I am also quite impressed by the quality of build and reliability of this unit. Count me as a happy printer!

This printer when it works is really nice. However, it seldom works without jamming and finally, after just 3 months of light printing, the extruder broke. I contacted Anycubic for assistance, and they just closed my tickets without a response. The return period is only like 30 days with Amazon, but they were extremely helpful in what my options are. For now, I am waiting for an extruder that I had to purchase myself even though the printer is still under warranty. My overall experience with this product has not been great at all. Right now i have a $800 boat anchor. There are much better printers for the price and the customer service from Anycubic is horrific. UPDATE: After writing this review, I finally did get in contact with customer service and they were more than helpful. The immediately shipped out another extruder and gave me a partial refund for my troubles. I dont have the extruder yet to see if it fixed my problem, but they have been pretty good throughout all of this. It doesnt change the experience with the printer either. Perhaps I just got a bad printer.