A good Core XY machine spoiled by flawed software.
Tom’s Hardware Verdict
The Anycubic Kobra S1 a Core XY machine with multicolor capabilities that I really want to love, but brings me to tears every time I run a four color print. It’s heated “ACE” spool holder is awesome, and the machine is very dependable. But the slicer needs work, as won’t tell me how much material It’s going to waste, which makes setting up prints extremely difficult.
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Pros
- +
Core XY speed
- +
High Flow Hotend
- +
Four Color “ACE” with built-in dryer
- +
Fully Enclosed with activated carbon filtration
Cons
- –
Purge amount is unknown
- –
Filament purge only adjustable mid-print via printer’s touch screen
- –
Filament loading can be a chore
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Anycubic joined the Core XY party with a worthy entry of its own, the Kobra S1. After hundreds of hours of printing, this machine has joined a select group of printers I trust to just set it and forget it. I’ve had very few print fails, and those were mostly caused by filament color bleeding due to insufficient purge. This is quite remarkable because one of my concerns with this machine is the massive amount of filament it wastes while changing colors.
The slicer is the weakest link. I could forgive it for wasting extreme amounts of filament – after all, so do my Bambus’ if I don’t tweak them – but it won’t tell me how much filament is being purged during color changes. This is extremely problematic as it can easily burn through the same amount of filament in “poop” as it does with print. Loading up a big multicolor print becomes a gamble. Will I have enough material? I have no clue.
Like Bambu Lab machines, the Kobra S1 cuts filament before retracting it, which creates chunks of melted filament in the nozzle that have to be pushed out before the new color can start. Light colors need more purge than dark colors. Bambu Studio and Orca Slicer both give the user fine control over these settings from the slicer, where as Anycubic only lets you change the overall amount from the printer itself. This is not as useful as you might think.
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The slicer also lacks the ability to use a “purge object,” which is an extra model made entirely of color swaps to soak up some of that wasted material. The poop problem could be solved with an update to the Anycubic Slicer or by making it compatible with third-party OrcaSlicer.