A Great Next Step In 3D Printing

As before, Anycubic impresses me with the packing. I originally got into 3D printing because I bought a Creality printer for a partner’s birthday, so she could make her own gaming stuff, and it was a reminder that it can be a pretty intimidating hobby. She had such a hard time assembling and calibrating that very first Ender 3 that she quit, and though I later got her an Anycubic Photon S, the barrier was already there from that first frustration and she ended up giving up on the idea of 3D printing altogether. In short, a subpar experience when it comes to the packaging and assembly of FDM printers can drive a new person entirely away from the hobby.

The Kobra Plus comes in just four pieces: the bed, the gantry, the glass build plate, and the touchscreen panel. Assembling it means attaching the gantry to the bed with four screws — they’re thumb screws, making it even easier — clipping the glass bed on, slotting in a handful of screws for the touchscreen, and then removing lots of zip ties and foam bits.

Kimberly Leatherman/SlashGear

Even with that straightforward process, Anycubic’s documentation goes above and beyond. It even details the specific number of zip ties to be found and removed in each spot, the zero insertion force connectors for the cables, includes basic if/then troubleshooting steps right in the manual, and then lists clean instructions as to how to adjust for the z-index height, belt tension, bed wobble, extruder force, and more. There is an art to providing clean, concise, and thorough information without being overwhelming and I was very impressed with their efforts: as a printer targeted at the intermediate user, it’s perfect.