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3D printers

Elegoo Neptune

6owners with an opinion
60%of verdicts positive
2/2positive/negative since 2024
0happy after 3+ years

Praised for performance and value; criticized for ease of use and reliability.

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Neutral
Full disclosure: I've never owned a Bambu because I've never loved the idea of a "closed" ecosystem 3D printer, however I have used them, and am very familiar with the 3d printing space beyond Bambu. For anyone considering alternatives: You should know that almost all other 3D printers expect you to know a little more about how they actually work than Bambus. Bambus are as close as you can get to a "just works" type experience, but modern alternatives from others are nowhere near as hard as they used to be. The closest "easy" alternative is probably Prusa, but you'll pay significantly more for a Prusa machine than you would a Bambu. They're an excellent company, and the complete opposite of Bambu when it comes to Openness. If money is no object, Prusa is highly recommended. Beyond Prusa, there's a lot of other options. https://auroratechchannel.com/#section2 This list is a good one. I personally run an old Elegoo Neptune 4 pro - but my needs are quite low. If I were buying today, a Snapmaker U1 or the Creality K2 Plus is probably where I'd end up going.
Likes it
Bambu's marketing (handing them out like candy to every YouTuber) has propagated a lie that there's "Easy and locked down Bambu" and "Yucky hard to use custom printers". I have an Elegoo Neptune 3 Pro. It was like $220. I have put approximately $30 into it for the Raspberry Pi I installed Octoprint on, and even that's a stretch since I already owned the Pi. It prints just fine. Sits for months. Fires up every time. First layers perfect every time. The "printer being the hobby" is only true if you let it. Even cheap no name open source printers are really good these days, and in the high end there are plenty that are competitive with Bambu on print quality, out of the box experience, and features, often exceeding them. I dunno, I guess I just don't think having to let a printer talk to some fucking cloud service in China so I can start an STL print from my phone is all that important of a feature.
Doesn’t like it
I also found my printer (Elegoo Neptune 3 Pro) to be flawless for about a month until it started needing more conscious levelling and bed cleaning between prints, started getting fussier about temperatures (ended up replacing a possibly faulty thermistor that was making my bed temp fluctuate), and dealing with waterlogged filament and needing to solve that with filament driers etc. I'm not saying it /can't/ be smooth, but I contrast it to my dishwasher, which I expect to wash dishes, correctly and successfully, about 99/100 dishes (assuming I rinse them well), and then when it starts to decline in 3-5 years, that it's time for a new one. 3D printers are not to that level of reliability yet, nor are their support systems around slicing/supporting/etc.
Likes it
Bambu is surely the best option if you have the money to spend, but I wanted a budget option, so I got a used Elegoo Neptune 3 Pro for 150€ and I'm extremely happy with it. I'm shocked by how well the prints come out and how little fiddling it requires. I've set it up with Klipper now with an old mini PC I had around and a Playstation 3 Eye camera, feels nice to put old hardware to use and controlling / monitoring prints remotely is neat.