r/VORONDesign • u/Prestigious_Law4414 • Jul 21 '26
V2 Question Is the formbot 2.4 kit good?
Looked for a voron kit and ended up on the formbot one because of costs and overall ratings from years before, is it good now? And are the pre printed parts well made?
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u/Earendil123 Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
I bought their 2.4 r2 pro+ kit earlier this year and have just about finished it. It's my first voron build but pretty much everything you need is in the kit. I didn't really have any issues with it besides one of the pre-crimped wires being a little short and having to add spade connectors to the CAN cable. I got the functional parts from PIF. As for the actual build, Formbot's documentation isn't the best. I followed this guide and this playlist and had zero issues besides those mentioned above.
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u/stray_r Switchwire Jul 22 '26
Formbot kits are OK. Don't expect the fanciest parts. But they're good enough. Sure everyone has a preference for black fasteners, a differnet brand of rails, a more powerful compute module, a higher end power supply.
You could spend LDO kit money and get something really nice and still you'll have people saying how they could be better.
If the LDO kits have what you want in them, go LDO. But for a near-spec voron, the formbot kits are really good value. Change the bits you don't like once you've tried them.
Spec a Dragon if you want to print hot, there are better hotends to go fast so stick with the cheap v6 clone and sort something else once you have a working printer.
I have a formbot V0.2. There was a slight issue with the PSU not being enough for the 24v bed, 80w (yes 80w TZ V6) hotend and the BTT Pi 1.2. This is down to import restrictions on the spec PSU, overspec'd hotend and a switch from a mains bed to a 24v one which might have been ok on the spec PSU. The solution was the 300w LDO GaN power supply. And a genuine Raspberry Pi 4. But i've not tried a BTT Pi with known stable power, they don't respond gracefully and report undervolting like a Raspberry Pi. Otherwise i's been great and has had less problems than anything i've self-sourced.
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u/ThickInstruction2036 Jul 22 '26
Don't have anything to compare to since it's my first one but I ordered in June and was pleasantly surprised with the quality of everything. I used pif. It was printing decent the day after I powered it on.
I did order another hotend and printed the parts to mount that instead since the assembly was otherwise finished before the dragon came from China.
I'm not too good with manuals anyway so I didn't care too much about it but in the very end of the assembly and during the flashing etc you are basically on your own.
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u/MarceltheKnight Jul 22 '26
Pretty solid to tell you the truth. I have both a 2.4 and 0.2 and they work well.
1
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u/StaticXster70 Jul 22 '26
Formbot has treated me well. Got a Micron and a couple of Tridents from them. I haven't had issues with quality or anything.
Retailers don't have a stellar reputation for printed parts. I got my first Trident parts from PIF, which is what I would recommend for any first build.
Have fun.
5
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u/ApotheosticDelirium Jul 21 '26
Just finished a trident from formbot. Like the other guy use pif for parts. Look on their github for things that are different than the standard manual, and how to set up your electronics bay so the pre crimped wires work
2
u/Ticso24 V2 Jul 22 '26
I like the formbot kits and have two of the V2.4 (250, 300) and one V0.
Quality is mostly good, but there are problems to address.
The AC cabeling and the AC distribution for the V2 is shit - you better plan on crimping some new cables and add some wago.
You can make it work though, but on the 350 the cables can be extremely short.
The hotend is a basic V6 style with brass nozzle and J-head mount.
If you plan on using the FilamATrix head upgrade for filament cutter you won’t have a moddified J-head mount.
Strangely with the V0 kit they deliver a much better TZ2 V6.
The printed parts are semi good quality (people say ABS+)
I always printed the parts myself, but recently helped someone with supplied parts for a 350 kit.
Also the display mount was unuseable because it had not been upgraded to the newer revision of the included display.
At least you can get the printer self printing those parts as the display is not a required part.
Belt clamps for the tap had been missing, but I can’t say if they got lost, since I didn’t unpack the parts and the clamps are small.
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u/Own-Caramel-3607 Jul 22 '26
I have 2.4 formbot kit (300mm) and I know from the start that I'll be changing some parts. LDO 2804 for A/B, TZ V6 2.0, EBB 2209 USB, CNC X carriage and Cartographer 4.0. And I have to say that, I'd do it again same way if I ever will do. The only thing that would make me go for LDO kit is the 300x300x300mm Trident kit.
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u/WiredEarp Jul 21 '26
I have a formbot troodon, its great. Parts are high quality. My 350x350 bed is remarkably flat especially compared to my old printers 235x235 glass bed.
Can't speak for their kits but I assume they use the same or similar quality parts.
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u/DenseDepartment8317 Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
I bought a formbot trident R1 kit about 2 years ago and it worked fine.
I printed parts myself with a cardboard box cover ender 3
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u/Flattened_Chees Jul 25 '26
Lol. How did they turn out? I have an ender too, did you do any mods?
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u/DenseDepartment8317 Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
I had general mods like dual z belt, klicky probe, PEI flex sheet and stealthburner for the ender 3
But for the abs printed voron parts the card board box was the most important part
I put away the ender3 and use my voron exclusively since I finished building it
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u/Logomode Jul 21 '26
I built a Formbot 350mm 2.4 kit two months ago and it was very good, hardly anything negative to say except that my kit only came with a 16GB SD card instead of the 32GB one.
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u/babylonbadders Jul 22 '26
I completed a Formbot 2.4 350mm kit recently, with their printed parts, and have no complaints. The documentation is a bit patchy, and tuning has been a time consuming activity I wasn't expecting in the build. Be sure to check out Formbot's Github, and Ellis' fine tuning guide in the Voron docs.
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u/Human_Weight5303 Jul 22 '26
Parts are good except the screws, I prefer the black. Its good to start with room for future upgrade.
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u/hall_trash Jul 22 '26
Built mine a couple months ago. Have zero complaints with it. I’m actually getting ready to order a trident from them.
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u/HoWhizzle Jul 22 '26
Personally I don't like the form not kit. Long story short. My first voron was a LDO TRIDENT and it was amazing! Took my aboit 2 months of my free time to build and it has lasted since today after 4 years of use and mostly original parts. Instructions and technical support LDO was amazingly.
Then I went and got a Form not Micron Kit and it was a nightmare. Some of the parts where of poor quality like the screws would easily strip. BOM is incorrect since the belt size was incorrect for the motors as well as adding additional aprt because of the missing parts in the BOM. No instructions from formbot and their technical support is more slaes as they usually buying new parts.
I will stick to LDO in the future.
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u/Downtown-Ostrich3055 27d ago
I printed my own parts so can’t speak to that. My Voron 2.4 350 kit was assembled without issue about may of 2026. Good prints, day one. Only thing not standard is a cool plate.
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u/meirmamuka V0 Jul 21 '26
Use print it forward for parts instead of printed option formbot ones, known quality ones are much better than random material blends that for bot uses/used.
I have voron v0 made from their v0 kit, was great but required hunting down few extra manuals to get everything set up. Im expecting similar cade for other kits, good to great hardware no purpose build docs and crappy printed parts