I live in South east Asia which makes MR hard to get, so I took a gamble and boom. A very real looking blitz 30 for the equivalent of 112 USD. It seems very likely to be a original that was meant for the Taiwanese distributor as there was a Chinese "No returns or refunds if tag is cut" on it. Thoughts? Good fake or a genuine MR?
So, in 2022 I had bought the Kobra go. It was great, I learned the basics, modding, repairing, tuning, everything I needed to. It wasn't the fastest or most reliable but it worked quite well and I was happy as a younger teen with their first printer.
The Kobra Go was nice, the traditional cartesian ender type with a leviQ systm that was decent, a working z offset, a dial interface. Just a good starting point to learn from.
In 2024 I made the decision to preorder the Kobra 3 Combo. I got it directly, payed import and everything. It was a bit dissapointing how the import cost had sprung up kinda suddenly and was not cheap at all. But I took the hit and went forward. Then the issues. Horrible first layers (They even sent me a new bed because it turned out my whole thing was bent and definitely not from the shipping), then I was part of the group who got faulty hotends, then there was the toolhead issue which they also replaced (Both didn't work well, and I ended up going through ten or more hotends trying to deal with them), then even more issues with the ACE PRO which went from simple issues to me disassembling it to bare parts and reassembling it tens of times, I also disassembled my toolheads, I also started messing with the firmware.
Not to say that i didn't get some good results with a lot of tuning and maintance before each self destruction. I made my take on the prusacaster, scale replicas, working functional prints, decent miniatures, etc. However I did go through 3 pei sheets, ten or so hotends, 2 hotbeds, 2 toolheads, multiple parts of the acepro, and other miscelaneous pieces I needed in a span of 2 years of on and off printing. I doubt that this is a experience a majority will face but it was mine.
When I started my journey with Anycubic, I absolutely loved them and their support team. However, it's at this point where I take a look at if I wanna stay with them. 2 years since I got my K3, I consider moving on to a different brand as I sit with my 2 toolheads both disassembled and me trying to salvage parts to make one good toolhead. No one sells the parts anymore, I have to pay import fees for anything I get from them including any warrantied parts. I won't trash on the support team because they were generous with the parts even if I had to pay import fees for them. I won't trash on the design team because some things I genuinely did like and appreciate on both the Kobra Go and K3 which I thought were good, but I will say some things were concerning like QC and certain business practices. Now I ponder if I should stay, or leave for another brand.
TL;DR I have spent 4 years with 2 Anycubic Kobras. Support team is good (though I had to pay taxes for parts and my order which I was not ready to face the amount of. I felt like a beta tester for a product I thought would be ready. Anycubic does make good stuff, but make sure to be patient, be ready to tinker, etc.