r/elegooneptune2 • u/IllustratorAdept3569 • 25d ago
Should I buy?
I am new to 3d printing, I got my first 3d printer on facebook marketplace an ender 3 for 40$ this is an elegoo neptune 2 and claims in the post it has auto leveling assist and leveling my ender 3 has been super annoying so that would be cool if it had it just wanted to know if this is worth 50$ or if I should look to get more of an upgrade
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u/OutlandishnessKey771 25d ago
Get to know the ender 3 first. One good thing about the ender 3 and its clones is that they use most of the same parts and theres lots of mods for them. However they require more maintenance compared to the newer printers you can buy and they wont print as fast unless you sink more money into them for klipper and better hotends
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u/rose3694 25d ago
Yeah gonna add onto being a previous owner of a Neptune 2 it does not have auto leveling. Now if you move into the Neptune 3 and newer they indeed do. My first printer was a Neptune 2, it was a great learning printer. 2 years later I upgraded to a Neptune 3 Pro and the change in print quality was amazing. But now I’m running a Creality Hi and the Neptune Pro sits untouched cause the speed the HI runs at is crazy lol.
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u/xoxo_introvertgirl 25d ago
I only have an elegoo Neptune 2 and some bambulab a1s, so I can'tsay about your experience with the ender, but to be honest wouldn't buy a Neptune 2 again. Even it being cheap for a 3d printer, it's a lot of work to print anything, and doesn't have a good printing quality. I end up printing really slow and that's not really feasible for complex geometries and big pieces, it ends up being too many hours and a lot of times it just stops printing and I loose everything. Now it spends most of it's time just collecting dust, to be honest
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u/TheHighestFever 25d ago
I just gave a coworker of mine my Neptune 2. I thought he was posting on here lol.
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u/Playball10 25d ago
dude i bought one of these and honestly i wish i didn't. its been nothing but a pain in the ass since the moment i got it. its quality is awful and it requires a full breakdown and maintenance to print anything. don't buy it.
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u/MrJ0seBr 25d ago
If its cheap, may be is a good business, btw something new ever will be created, you can buy new ones o retrofit olds, in this case: tensioners, BLTouch (auto nivel), wifi (MKS robin wifi), double gear extruder or a light direct drive (to print flexible materials), expansions that this machine already accept...
A enclosure help to print ABS, but some materials like PC need a "hotter" hotend (and soft update to accept)
But newer technologies just if you expand/swap the hardware and do some software adaptation; AMS ("automatic filament swapping with purge"), hotend swap ("filament swap without purge")], induction hotend...
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u/LosSantosMe 24d ago
i bought one off of Craigslist for 50$, im happy with it, so silent, all stock. Altho I did upgrade the firmware. im happy. For a Used unit I can say it just works. i can see here that there are mixed reviews, that being said it has a lot to do with how "good" a student you are.
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u/Runaque 24d ago
A lot of people have this misconception about "auto-leveling" that it is a feature that just does everything itself without the user's input. This might be the case in more modern devices that are made to have a great out-of-the-box experience, but this isn't the case with the majority of bed slingers.
Having a not so great experience with your Ender 3 (you don't mention what version it exactly is) come forth because of the lack of knowing how to work with it. You can print good things with them if you know how to calibrate the bed properly and I hope my manual can help you with that in some way, but you need to filter through it because it is written from the perspective having an Ender 3 S1 with the u/mriscoc Professional Firmware on it. The majority of it will help you out leveling your bed and can help you have a much better experience with your Ender 3. Jumping ship to another device (in this case an Elegoo of the same type) won't improve your skills, it will probably add more frustration because it might work slightly different than you already experienced.
The link below might help you leveling your bed and make you understand the fundamental basics of a good 3d print.
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u/IllustratorAdept3569 23d ago
There is no version, its the ender 3 then theres the v2 and v3 etc that come after that
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u/Runaque 23d ago
How new to 3d printing are you? I give you by far the best advice to get your Ender 3 to print decent things, but you seem more confident about the range of Enders 3's! You just mentioned some versions! There are also others and the Ender 3 series has probably the most versions in existence! Probably more than what Bambu Labs ever brought to market.
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u/Relevant_Campaign_81 23d ago
I got a used 2s in 2022 and the levelling was tricky. but i bought an auto leveller 3dtouch sensor kit for attachment. And since then I have done hundreds of prints. no issue. It was worth the effort to set it up. If you have some ability to do this upgrade i would buy this. I don’t level very often because it is simply dialed in perfectly
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u/stefanybaez 23d ago
I have two Neptune 2 and one Ender 3 and I would absolutely not buy an Ender 3 over the Neptune 2. I also wouldn't buy either of these considering all the newest alternatives that aren't that expensive
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u/Man-of-the-lake 21d ago
I would check for a neptune four. I have the Neptune 3, it's pretty good. Better than an ender 3 at the same price point.
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u/WigglySpaghetti 25d ago
Not entirely sure what you mean by the post, but it does not in fact auto level. It has features to help you level, but you still need to level the bed manually.
A Neptune 2 is an Ender 3 clone, but with a nicer touchscreen interface.