r/ElegooNeptune4

To be clear I don't mean for this to be just a complaining ramble, I'm genuinely confused about what benefits this printer has over its alternatives.

I got a Neptune 4 Pro and it's been nothing but difficult. I followed all the instructions, levelled the bed according to the A4 paper guide, printed a perfect test Buddha... On my first 'real' print a piece of filament broke off and jammed inside the extruder gear, so I had to take the whole extruder apart to get it. Maybe I messed up the levelling or print settings somehow? Re-levelled, tried again.. Realised that the printer seems to hold files in its memory instead of reading the USB stick so it was preparing to print a file that I had overwritten with one with better supports. No problem, hit cancel before anything gets extruded and try again.

Nope, that causes the printer's instruction queue to break and it can't process the Stop until it's finished the Print. Of course since it's trying to print a file with poor supports, it starts to fail, and since the instruction queue is frozen it can't be stopped, so the only option to save a mess of clogging is to power off and hope for the best. When powered back on, firmware is damaged and needs to be re-flashed. That's my first experience with the Neptune 4 Pro.

A friend lent me his Bambu A1 Mini to try while I was figuring out Elegoo's terrible returns policy. Obviously the bed is smaller, but it's considerably cheaper (full A1 is still cheaper), comes already built, has automatic bed levelling, failure detection, self-cleans, WiFi and app integration, and it works. First print was perfect, using the same Elegoo filament as I'd used in the Neptune, and now it's 8 hours in to an overnight print that I can check on from its (crap, but still) built-in camera.

Genuinely before I sell the Neptune, what are the benefits of having it over the full-size A1 for a pretty similar price? What does it do that the A1 doesn't? Thanks for bearing with me, it is a slight complaining ramble but I'd rather not go to the hassle of selling if I don't have to!

Hello everyone,

I got a neptune 4 max back in April, and I've been plagued with leveling issues ever since. No matter what I do, I can't seem to get a consistent first layer on my big prints. I almost get the feeling my printer isn't actually compensating for differences like it should be, even when the bed variation is around 0.24 - 0.25.

So far, I have:

- Updated the firmware.

- Paper leveling.

- Using tilt screws adjust to level.

- Leveled the X gantry.

- Letting the bed heat up for 30 minutes before leveling/printing.

- Editing my Gcode in Orca slicer so the printer heats up the bed for 25 minutes, auto levels, then starts the print.

I was hoping someone had similar issues or as any insights or solutions on how to deal with leveling. It's not the biggest deal when I'm printing smaller things, but I suspect this might be affecting the quality of my bigger prints (when they don't outright fail).

Just moved into a new place and when I setup my N4 I decided to try Orca. Since I had been using Bambu printers at school I figured Orca would be nice to try since it's a fork of Bambu Studio. It was somewhat of a surprise to me how easy it was to setup compared to Cura. All I did was select the N4 profile and input my printer's ip address then I could network print flawlessly and monitor Klipper directly from the app.

I’m buying my first 3D printer. Total beginner. just for hobby and helping my sister learn 3D modeling, printing small figures, gifts, keychains, and decorations.

Prices available to me:

• Creality Ender 3 V3 SE: $176
• Elegoo Neptune 4 Pro: $264
• Elegoo Neptune 4 Plus: $364
• Bambu Lab A1 Mini Combo with AMS Lite: $480
• Bambu Lab A1: $587 — not sure if AMS is included

my priories easy setup, reliability, low troubleshooting, and good prints

Can't seem to properly cut this into manageable pieces. Most of the time base seems to always break away or forms a blob into the nozzle? Any advice on how to have successful prints. Already have tried the Blue tape, glue stick, and also Glue Spray to help with it.

I have run the bed levelling procedure repeatedly and everything appears correct when done. However, when I send a print the nozzle is about 3mm above the print bed. I am using the paper technique and auto-levelling and nothing helps. Does anyone know what is happening?

### UPDATE ###

I restarted the printer and re-levelled the bed. This time I checked the z-offset again after the automatic levelling had finished and made a minor adjustment, then hit the disk icon to save the settings. I then started my print from a USB stick rather then over WiFi from Orca and the print is working perfectly. Not sure if it was the levelling process or the use of the USB rather than WiFi but I am printing for now.