The Anycubic Delta on AliExpress any good?

Anycubic is selling a Delta on AliExpress that looks similar to the MicroMake Delta - injection moulded parts, pulleys or linear guides for linear motion, etc. I was thinking of getting the MicroMake one based on the thread in this forum but the price of the Anycubic is tempting, especially for the linear guide version. It does not have a heated bed (nor does it list one as an option) but the electronics do support one. There is a version with larger build space as well (230 mm diameter versus 180 for the MicroMake). The electronics are also very alike, both are 2560 + RAMPS integrated boards.

Has anyone built one of these? I have ordered some parts from Anycubic before and, while they did take their sweet time to arrive, all arrived and was well packaged.

Here's the link to the printer: Anycubic-3D-Printer-Pulley-Version-Linear-Guide-DIY-Kit-Kossel-Delta

and for reference the MicroMake one: Micromake-3D-printer-pulley-version-Kossel-Delta-Kit

Well I pulled the trigger on this printer. The seller lowered the price to 200 EUR, including shipping and heated bed with power supply, for the "plus" version with linear guides and 230 mm build plate diameter - basically the 11.11 discounted price before the actual sale. Don't think one can go far wrong for that price.

Hi, siddharta
I'm also interested in a delta printer from aliexpess, but I'm not sure about the total cost. What about import taxes? If you don't mind from which country are you from?
Can you tell us the total cost when you recive the printer?

I'm in the Canary Islands. Will let you know about any import duties I have to pay. The shipment is sent by DHL so I likely won't escape them. Should arrive in a week or so, looking forward to it. I also ordered a Duet Wifi as an electronics upgrade.

Thank you.

The kit arrived today, in about a week all in all. 36,40 EUR in fees for customs. I'll unbox (and build!) it as soon as I have some time. This time I'll be sure to video the unboxing as the Chinese i3 clone I ordered months ago had a missing mainboard and they didn't want to send me a replacement, saying that it was definitely in the box (nooooo it wasn't). So, in total I paid 236,40 EUR for the printer + heated bed and PSU + import duties.

If you have the time it would be nice to write about the upgrade procedure with Duet electronics and how well the printer works/performs. Thank you anyway. Happy printing!

I've finished assembling the printer and am now in the process of setting it up.

- The packaging it arrived in is the best I've seen so far. Everything is really well protected, shipping damage is unlikely.
- All parts and screws are well labeled and the manual together with YouTue videos by AnyCubic walk you through the assembly with ease. Total time around 5-6 hrs.
- The structural parts of injection molded plastic needed some reworking, I had to drill out a few screw holes that were too tight and use a M3 tap drill on some holes where a screw needs to thread in.
- Some bolts are not easily accessible when mounting the printer, specifically to mount the 3 motion stepper motors I had to resort to pliers as you can't get an hex key in.
- The hotend is a J-head clone that doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. The cold end weighs less than half of my E3D V6 despite being physically smaller. You'll need to print a new effector if you want to mount a V6 or other hotend.
- The fan duct of the print fan is too large and the end of the fan duct is lower than the nozzle, so impossible to level the printer with this fan duct. The seller kindly advised to "cut off a part of the fan duct", I would suggest to print a new one instead.
- The electronics are an all in one 2560 + RAMPS board, with better MOSFETs for the heatbed than a standard RAMPS board. I don't have a lot of faith in current rating of the little screw terminals though.
- The supplied firmware is an older build of Marlin that will not build on Arduino IDE 1.6.10. You need to downgrade to 1.6.4 to have it build.
- I swapped the supplied A9488 stepper drivers for DRV8825 and that works fine. The kit ships with a spare stepper driver should you fry one.

I ordered a heated bed but have not mounted it yet as there is no way of mounting it with the included mounting clamps which are for the non-heated bed. You'll need to have another printer or be able to print some new clamps in ABS to mount the heated bed. You'll also want to insulate it on the bottom as it'll be mounted very close to the electronics and wiring.

I haven't received the Duet board yet but want to have the printer up and running with the default electronics before moving to the Duet Wifi.

edit: also wanted to add that the seller (AnyCubic on AliExpress) has been very responsive so far to my questions, replying within 24 hours or even the same day, depending on when you write. So support seems good.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2016 06:11AM by siddharta.

One of the plastic carriages mounted on the linear slides, on which the effector arms are mounted, is broken. The M3 thread in the plastic does not hold the screws, so the effector arms are not fixed. I was not able to rethread them with an M3 tap drill bit and an M4 bolt will not fit on the effector arms. I ordered some alu replacements off AliExpress, the printer cost has just gone up by 20 EUR.

As usual there are some minor (/or major) issues with these chinese printers. The good thing is that the seller is responsive. You couldn't wait for the Duet, but unfortunately now you have to wait for the carriages. Why don't you print the carriages?
Today I ordered a Prusa i3 MkII original kit. I want a reliable, easy to set up printer, with good support for my first one. But deltas are what I really like! So when I pull the trigger on a Delta from Ali-express (or built my own) I will have a working printer as a backup, for everything that will come up. And of course some experience.

To be honest I ordered the Duet sooner than expected as the ordering page was indicating limited availability.

I temporarily resolved the carriage issue with some good old superglue, but in my opinion the aluminium version is one of the more interesting upgrades as I prefer to have structural motion parts in metal rather than plastic. The carriages also have an M3 screw which you'll need for calibration. I do have a backup printer but it's undergoing rework (upgrades) and I'm really not in a hurry. If you take your time setting up this Delta properly, making good use of a framing square, calipers and ruler to assemble it as well as possible within the tolerances of the provided components, you can get the towers well aligned and equidistant, which is crucial for a Delta. My time was a bit limited the last days but it's assembled and calibrated well.

I think these Chinese kits with some careful upgrades can work well enough - in this case a different effector (which you can print), an E3D hotend and the aforementioned aluminium carriages. Possibly an autoleveling sensor, with my i3 I don't really have needed one as the bed stays pretty leveled for a good time and leveling is pretty painless, but with a Delta it's a bit more cumbersome (or perhaps I haven't found the optimal way just yet).

I would probably not recommend this one (and possibly any Delta) as a first printer (unless you're willing to handle a steeper learning curve and likely more time spent tinkering than with an i3 for example) but I feel I'll be able to get decent results from it and (with an E3D V6 with Volcano and the Duet board) good printing speeds, which was why I was looking at a Delta in the first place (that and they just look so awesome ). But indeed if you want a hassle-free (-ish) experience then from what I've read a genuine Prusa i3 would probably not be a bad choice.

Hello Siddharta, i bought the same kit, its my first 3d printer (yes, i know i should be easier a prusa, but i liked this type more ) I had a hard time calibrating everything but is working right now. I bought the same kit as you wit the heat bed, and power supply. I didnt install it yet, im thinking in a way to isnsulate the electronics from the heated bed, and well how to install everything, since the heat bed is smaller than the regular bed , do you have any idea how to do it?

Hi siddharta,
I have had one of these for a while. I cannot fault the kit, one of the better ones. Careful though, there are some mistakes in the manual. I am presently battling with the endstops
and a concave print area. I agree that this sort of printer is not one for a first time user if only because of the calibration issues.
I plan to install a diamond hotend and heated bed but first I would like to get it working correctly.
Let us know how you get on.
Ki,

Sorry for the delay in replying. I did get it to work and it is workibg quite well, in fact I have ordered a second one. To calibrate it I adjusted the endstops (which are somewhat of a pain and may need to look for a better solution for that) with tje effector parked as close to a tower as possible, then adjusted DELTA_SMOOTH_ROD_OFFSET in configuration.h to have the nozzle well positioned in the center of the build surface, then readjusted the endstops again, etc. After a few cycles of rinse and repeat I have it pretty well calibrated. Dimensions of the printed objects were perfect out of the box, no need to fiddle with other parameters. Installing a Z probe would be next, I've recalibrated it three times now and it does take some time. I'm thinking of dc42's IR probe to have the effector as light as possible. Now I'm in the process of upgrading to the DuetWifi electronics and will let you know how that goes.

Regarding the heat bed, the one they added to the order is a MK2Y heat bed that is actually larger than the glass, so it is likely a different model than yours (220 mm diameter). When I inquired how they would suggest to mount it they sent the photo in attachment which may be useful to you. Later on confirmed they had sent the wrong bed and have sent me a MK3 heat bed with an alu surface that can be used without glass, it's coming by slow boat however so I haven't received it yet.
I would definitely insulate the bottom of the heatbed, it will heat up faster and havong a thermal barrier between the bed and the electronics is definitely not a bad idea. I've ordered some thin isolation sheets and 3M thermal adhesive sheets for that

They also sent me the STL for the print cooler air duct, I reprinted it at 92 percent scale so it doesn't come lower than the nozzle. All in all they have been helpful, much more so than the vendor of my acryclic i3 clone (Anet3D, who were not helpful at all.

Actually I _do_ have some calibration issues. When I send the effector to the same location repeatedly (homing between movements) the nozzle height is different every time and it varies quite a bit. I'm not certain why that is and it makes calibration difficult if not impossible. I have recalibrated it several times and it prints well between calibration but after a while things are off again. I've retightened all nuts and bolts and can't seem to find a mechanical cause and I'm wondering if one or more steppers are skipping steps.

Quote
siddharta
Actually I _do_ have some calibration issues. When I send the effector to the same location repeatedly (homing between movements) the nozzle height is different every time and it varies quite a bit. I'm not certain why that is and it makes calibration difficult if not impossible. I have recalibrated it several times and it prints well between calibration but after a while things are off again. I've retightened all nuts and bolts and can't seem to find a mechanical cause and I'm wondering if one or more steppers are skipping steps.

It could be caused by excessive friction or insufficient motor current. I suggest you set the motor currents to at least 50% and no more than about 85% of the motor's rated current.

---

Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Thanks. I swapped in the Duet Wifi and that seems to have had a positive effect, I have the impression there is less variability (and much less stepper noise, it's amazing). Motor current is set to 80% or 1.2A of the rated 1.5A. I noticed the pulleys have what appears to be some shavings of belt rubber in the teeth though I can't see where it's grinding. The belts are not overly tight. Still not perfect though so I'll lower the speed as well to see if that helps.

I've opened a separate thread for my calibration issue to keep things tidy. The second (larger) Kossel Mini is being shipped on Mon so I expect to have it in a week or so. I asked to include all necessary mounting clamps for the heated bed and to change the color of the included filament roll (though all in all it's standard Chinese PLA that does not give very good results compared to the 3D Prima PLA I use, good enough for quick test prints though).

On a sidenote - am VERY happy with the DuetWifi. Configuration was a breeze and it's a delight to use, no more messing around with SD cards...if only there was an "upload" button in Simplify3D to send the gcode over wifi to the Duet that would really make for a one-click print. It's an expensive board (compared to the RAMPS+2560 or other cheaper boards) but I think it's worth it. The stepper motors are now absolutely quiet and movement is butter smooth. I ordered an IR sensor from dc42 and printing an effector and mounting parts for an E3D V6, fan and the IR probe.

hey everybody
i come from france so sorry for my english
i just to buy the xl model and it s my first 3d printer
so i have a lots of questons about calibrate issues
so i would like to buy directly this sensors
[fr.aliexpress.com]
does it possible to use it with the original board?what i need to change in the software to launch calibration?
i have simplify 3d .
other thing that i don t understand..what software the original atmega board has inside?does it compatible with pc software(simplify 3d)


does it possible to plug on the original motherboard this sensor for auto level
[www.geeetech.com]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/31/2016 02:00PM by titeuf007.

The AnyCubic printers with their TriGorilla board use Marlin firmware and work perfectly with Simplify3D. I haven't tried any Z probes (autolevel sensors) with the TriGorilla board, only with the Duet, but both hardware and firmware support Z probe and either probe you linked to would work. Having tried different probe models (inductive, capacitive, mechanical and IR) the one I have found the most reliable and easy to set up is dc42's differential IR probe from escher3d.com. It's a good fit for a Kossel effector due to being very small and light and is exceedingly easy to mount. If you end up getting that probe let me know, I've designed a little mount you can print to attach the differential IR probe PCB to the effector.

Quote
siddharta
The AnyCubic printers with their TriGorilla board use Marlin firmware and work perfectly with Simplify3D. I haven't tried any Z probes (autolevel sensors) with the TriGorilla board, only with the Duet, but both hardware and firmware support Z probe and either probe you linked to would work. Having tried different probe models (inductive, capacitive, mechanical and IR) the one I have found the most reliable and easy to set up is dc42's differential IR probe from escher3d.com. It's a good fit for a Kossel effector due to being very small and light and is exceedingly easy to mount. If you end up getting that probe let me know, I've designed a little mount you can print to attach the differential IR probe PCB to the effector.

i have finished to build mine and i am very interessing by you design for mount ir probe on the original effector
thanks for you help
for the quality the printer is very good but one part is very cheap:the carriage so you need to buy anothers with belt tune than we can find on aliexpress
manual is very clear and well made! i love it

Hi, I've uploaded the mount(s) to Thingiverse, link here. If you mount it on the fan you'll need to add some washers to the bolts to ensure the sensor is not tilted.

thanks for you file it s very nice
could you share you marlin software (to know how you tune you ir sensor)
thanks a lot(you should post some prints it will be nice)

I have gotten this (linear plus model) and finished assembly last week.. Set Z height then end stops (when working X it seemed to be a little off center from the numbers in the video so might have to do that again) and did a calibration cube. Looked thin.. almost transparent. The glass has an adhesive surface that works well with PLA but after alot of issue removing I think I will simply use tape from now on. after the cube one arm broke so they are sending replacements but I think later on I will go magnetic.. as for the autolevel.. I came across this and printed it just havent hooked it all up yet..

Removable Autolevel Probe

I just put one together two weeks ago, I hear they have been improving the kit as they go, I have had some different experiences than Siddharta and thought I'd chime in.

Quote
siddharta
- The packaging it arrived in is the best I've seen so far. Everything is really well protected, shipping damage is unlikely.

- Same experience here

Quote
siddharta
- All parts and screws are well labeled and the manual together with YouTue videos by AnyCubic walk you through the assembly with ease. Total time around 5-6 hrs.

- Same here, surprisingly easy to put together.

Quote
siddharta
- The structural parts of injection molded plastic needed some reworking, I had to drill out a few screw holes that were too tight and use a M3 tap drill on some holes where a screw needs to thread in.

- While I've heard this elsewhere, it seems their parts are getting better as I did not have to do any rework, all worked well.

Quote
siddharta
- Some bolts are not easily accessible when mounting the printer, specifically to mount the 3 motion stepper motors I had to resort to pliers as you can't get an hex key in.

- It seemed that at first this would happen but using the supplied ball-end hex keys I was able to mount the motor.

Quote
siddharta
- The hotend is a J-head clone that doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. The cold end weighs less than half of my E3D V6 despite being physically smaller. You'll need to print a new effector if you want to mount a V6 or other hotend.

- As I'm new to this and it's my first printer I have nothing to compare it to. So far though it has worked great.

Quote
siddharta
- The fan duct of the print fan is too large and the end of the fan duct is lower than the nozzle, so impossible to level the printer with this fan duct. The seller kindly advised to "cut off a part of the fan duct", I would suggest to print a new one instead.

- I have not had this issue it is perfectly sized, and works perfectly as well, so far have been able to bridge a 28.5mm gap successfully.

Quote
siddharta
I ordered a heated bed but have not mounted it yet as there is no way of mounting it with the included mounting clamps which are for the non-heated bed. You'll need to have another printer or be able to print some new clamps in ABS to mount the heated bed. You'll also want to insulate it on the bottom as it'll be mounted very close to the electronics and wiring.

-Also did not have this issue, it does appear at first that the bed mount clips won't hold the glass and heat plate but they have on mine. I have done at least a dozen prints after adding the heat plate and leveling. It has so far kept level and not shifted at all. And oh man the heated bed is GREAT, so much easier than using the blue tape.

Quote
siddharta
I haven't received the Duet board yet but want to have the printer up and running with the default electronics before moving to the Duet Wifi.

- Looks like a very nice board but it is the same price as the pully version of this printer and more than 2/3 the price of the plus version with heatbed. For me this printer works fine as-is don't have any reason to upgrade. Now that I know how these go together I could see building another Kossel from scratch down the road and at that point would consider a better mainboard.

Quote
siddharta
edit: also wanted to add that the seller (AnyCubic on AliExpress) has been very responsive so far to my questions, replying within 24 hours or even the same day, depending on when you write. So support seems good.

- Note there are two "Anycubic" stores on AliExpress; "ANYCUBIC 3D-Printer Store" and "ANYCUBIC 3D Center Store". I purchased mine from the "Center" store, but my research indicates that the " Printer" store appears to actually be the manufacturer, though the prices exactly match and there may be an affiliation. I purchased form the "Center" store as at the time I did not notice the difference.

I did have one issue, the bowden tube supplied was damaged by being zip-tied too tightly permanently putting a kink in it. It also was not Teflon (PTFE) it's some kind of clear plastic (PTFE is opaque white). I was having bad prints until I figured out that this was the issue. I purchased a new PTFE tube from Amazon and immediately was able to print after installing it.
I let the seller know, they asked for proof of the issue, I have not heard back from them after over a week from sending in the pics of the damaged tube.

All in all I am very satisfied with this printer, I'm getting great prints. And despite the issue with the tube I'd do it all over again for sure.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/01/2017 08:17PM by NTTD.

Quote
HarshReality
I have gotten this (linear plus model) and finished assembly last week.. Set Z height then end stops (when working X it seemed to be a little off center from the numbers in the video so might have to do that again) and did a calibration cube. Looked thin.. almost transparent. The glass has an adhesive surface that works well with PLA but after alot of issue removing I think I will simply use tape from now on. after the cube one arm broke so they are sending replacements but I think later on I will go magnetic.. as for the autolevel.. I came across this and printed it just havent hooked it all up yet..

Removable Autolevel Probe

Did you read the end of the manual where you have to change some settings in the slicer and also have to edit and update the firmware?

I missed this at first, the 20x20x10 callibration cube came out too small at first.

If your manual is missing there is a pdf of the changes on their Google Docs page they link to.

It is good to see that they improve quality and take care of some issues. Nice report. Is it easy to post some photos of your prints?

Quote
stamos
It is good to see that they improve quality and take care of some issues. Nice report. Is it easy to post some photos of your prints?

This was one of my first prints after calibration.


This one was a bit later as I dialed in the settings. I'm getting some good prints now.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/07/2017 11:47PM by NTTD.

Quote
NTTD
I did have one issue, the bowden tube supplied was damaged by being zip-tied too tightly permanently putting a kink in it. It also was not Teflon (PTFE) it's some kind of clear plastic (PTFE is opaque white). I was having bad prints until I figured out that this was the issue. I purchased a new PTFE tube from Amazon and immediately was able to print after installing it.
I let the seller know, they asked for proof of the issue, I have not heard back from them after over a week from sending in the pics of the damaged tube.

Update 04/15/2017: The seller got back to me yesterday 04/14/2017 (took a while). They are sending out a replacement Bowden tube. I'm assuming it will be the same clear material (PFA?, vinyl?) as before which is not PTFE.

I'll try it out on the printer when it arrives and note if there are any significant differences.

As it stands right now I'd suggest buying a PTFE Bowden tube when you order this printer, it's still a great deal and so far a wonderful printer.

I actually got autolevel working with the removable probe plan on thingieverse but trying to source the force sensors for under the build plate.. cant find a good deal anywhere