Anet ET4 3d Printer Review 2020

Hey folks, Tech Nervous here, and today we're going to do a full review of the Anet ET4 3D printer. So we'll go over all the bells and whistles, as well as ease of use, capabilities, and print quality. Stay tuned. Alright, welcome back folks. Now before we dive into the review proper, I've got to ask you guys to drop a subscribe on the channel. Here you'll find all sorts of techy videos, with over 200 videos and counting on 3D printing alone. And while you're down there clicking the subscribe button, don't be afraid to give the notification bell a pop as well, so you can stay up to date with the latest and greatest the channel has to offer. If you're feeling extra generous, go ahead and leave a like on this video. Not only does it make you feel good, but it's one of the best ways you can do to help this video be found by other people. Now that we've gotten through the necessary formalities, let's get to the real subject of this video, my review of the Anet ET4. With the size and build comparable to the popular Ender 3, and added functionality the Ender 3 doesn't have built in, one might wonder, how could it be cheaper? And if it is cheaper, it can't possibly be as good, right? Wrong. Well, mostly. The Ender 3 is a pretty popular beginner printer, and I happen to have one on hand, so I figured it would be a good benchmark test to see if this printer is up to snuff. I've had the Ender for a while, I know it runs consistently, and I know what quality of prints to expect. So, right off the bat, I set my ET4 up right next to the Ender 3. Let's take a look at these specs side by side, and basically you're going to get a pretty clear picture of what's going on here. The frame of both of these machines is made out of aluminum. Print volume for both of these machines is 220x220x250 stock. The nozzle size is a .4mm nozzle, and it is a single extruder machine. Both of these machines use a 1.75mm filament, and on the Ender 3 the heated bed will go up to 110, on the ET4 it only goes up to 100, so there is a 10 degree difference there, but the max print speed of the Ender 3 is 180mm per second, that's the recommended. On the ET4, they say it can do up to 300mm per second, that is just ridiculous. I can tell you right now, it will go pretty fast, it won't go that fast, and the faster you go, because some of the issues I'm going to show you in a minute, you get some warpage and wobbling. However, at 180mm per second, so far it seems to print just as well as the Ender 3 at that speed. Layer resolution on both these printers is going to be between .1 and .4, that is 100 to 400 microns, and they both have a micro SD card slot. One of the other major differences here is that the, and this is actually a pro for the Ender 3 and a con for the ET4 in my opinion, is the Ender 3 has an LCD screen with a control knob which gives you a lot more Marlin functionality. The ET4 unfortunately does not have that capability. It comes with a pretty cool color LCD touch screen, but you lose a lot of the functionality you get from having that actual control knob and being able to fiddle with the Marlin yourself. So that's kind of a con, but if you're into, if you're just getting into printing for the first time and this is your first printer, you will probably actually enjoy the LCD touch screen a little bit more because it is pretty simple and intuitive. We'll go over that a little bit more in just a few minutes. So now that we have a pretty good idea of what these two printers have in common, let's discuss some of the subtle differences that you'll notice right out of the package. Now the first thing I want to point out is the X carriage or the gantry that rises up the Z axis is completely redone on this ET4. There's some things that I love about it and there's some things that I am not too fond of. First off, let's take a look at the eccentric nut. Now it did take a little bit of fiddling to get it exactly where I wanted it. After that, I didn't have any problems, but I do have the feeling I'll be going back and adjusting these as vibration and stuff starts to loosen everything up. But that said, not a big deal. It's just an extra nut to tighten. And one of the other interesting things about this crossbar here, this gantry is the backside. There is a clip that comes up from the bottom that is basically just a wire harness that clips into the actual raising part of the bar. So there are some interesting things back there as well as a little micro board with connectors for the end stops and motors and things such as that. If you'd like to know more about the details of that, I do have a little bit of video here from my opening video where I unboxed this and you can see that there is quite a lot going on back here. And while we're back here taking a look at the extra stuff they put in here, there is one more extra piece of equipment that comes stock on this machine and it is this piece right here. Now this is a filament runout sensor. It's a great addition to any printer and it does not come stock on the Ender 3. So this is one of those things where it's an advance that you end up paying less money for. So great, great addition and always comes in handy, especially if you're trying to run out the last lengths of a couple of spools without failing. In that same vein, as you can see, another item that they've loaded onto this crossbar here on the X gantry is the actual Z end stop, which means that because of the positioning of this end stop being at the top of this bar, it is going to raise all the way to the top to home instead of homing to the bottom like the Ender 3. This is quite interesting and I was worried I would have a couple of complications between the slicer and the printer not communicating properly. But after some testing, I found that even just sending G code that was meant for the Ender 3 directly to the ET4, it printed fine and didn't give me any issues. So that's not a problem. It's just a little bit different than most of the things you see. And while we are still looking at this packed X axis, let's take a look at the automatic bed leveling sensor. Now, this is another feature that's built right in, and of course, you're going to want to adjust by hand with a piece of paper first, but then you can go ahead and pop the sensor onto the hot end and press a button and it will level itself, giving you a more accurate printing surface and making adjustments for the differences in the bed as it prints. Alright, so it may seem like I am knocking the Ender 3 and repping this ET4 pretty hard here. Well, it's not necessarily the case. While there are a lot of things I like about the ET4, it does have a couple of cons versus the Ender 3, such as, in my opinion, the hot end. I am a big fan of the Ender 3 hot end. It is substantial, fully functional, it works well, and is easy to deal with. Anet hot ends that I've seen so far, I have not really been most pleased with. This is, however, the best hot end I have seen from Anet, and it does function pretty well. I haven't actually had any problems with it yet. I haven't had to remove it or check for clogs or anything like that. I also have only changed the nozzle once, so it hasn't been too difficult to get in there and do what I needed to do. I just want something a little bit more solid. The Ender 3 has those two screws that screw it to the plate through the cooling bracket, and basically, it's one unit. When you look at the hot end on an ET4, it's basically four or five different pieces that usually seem cobbled together. Now, on this one, it does have those screws through the bottom of the heating block that go up into the radiator to hold it a little bit more stable, which I appreciate. So, it is an improvement versus something, say, like the Anet A8 or the A8 Plus, but I would still prefer the hot end on the Ender 3, personally. And another thing that is different on this printer, and not necessarily a bad thing or a good thing, just different, is the belt setup. The tensioners on this, I think, are a little bit weak on the Y-axis. Some of these bases aren't exactly how they should be, and seeing as how you move the motor in order to tension the belt, there was one instance where I had a case where the motor was back as far as it could go and there was no tension on the belt, and there was no way to shorten the belt because they come pre-wrapped at a certain length. So, I was able to fix that error. I kind of cobbled some things together. That was a different printer than this one, so this one is actually pretty tight. There was a point where I over-tightened the belt on the Y-axis, and it was really easy to do without realizing what was going on, which caused a lot of wobbling and vibration lines. So, the X-axis tensioner is not as bad. It is on the crossbar, again. You can loosen up the motor, pull it tight, and then tighten it back down, and this actually works pretty well. So, we've gone over their similarities, and we've gone over their differences, but let's take a look at some prints that we've gotten off the ET-4. The first print I'm going to show you is the one that made me decide to ditch the glass bed. Now, as you've probably noticed on my ender, I am running a magnetic mat, and I also upgraded the ET-4 to do the same. It's just my preference. If you like glass, feel free to roll with that, but I have real releasing problems no matter what I use for adhesion, as demonstrated by this leaning tower of Pisa that has been stuck to this piece of glass for a couple of weeks now. The first model I printed was the dog test model that comes on the SD card. Now, this SD card comes with a couple of test models, which I thought was cool. A lot of the ones I've seen only had one, so it was nice to have options to choose from, and they are actually listed in there according to the length it takes to print them. So, one of the first things you want to do when you get a new printer is print one of those test prints. One of the last things you want to do is wait seven, eight hours before you can print something of your own. The idea here is to print the test print as they have it sliced to see the capabilities of the printer dialed in, because in theory, that G-code is as perfect as it's going to get. Now, the dog did come out brilliantly. It is gorgeous, and I really enjoyed the look of it, so I decided to go in and print a couple of my own models. At first, I did a couple of chess pieces, and the quality wasn't quite there, so with the base profile for the ET-4 that I was using in Kira, I found that I needed to increase the shell layers in order to prevent this infill that you see here from showing through. Even though this is a somewhat translucent filament, I did try printing this in a opaque blue, and I also had the same issues where you could see those infill lines crossing through the outside of the outer wall. After adding another shell, I did improve that quite a bit, and then we went ahead and slowed it down just a little bit. So here you see two obelisks. One of them is pre-slowing, and the other one is after. Now this is the point where I started to get my profile dialed in, and started to be happy with the results. So from here, I went on to print a few things, like some extruder knobs and the leaning tower that you saw earlier. Now, while the hotend of this printer zooms around just as fast, if not slightly faster than the Eander-3 for the same amount of quality, I did find that the ET-4 was significantly quieter, which is a big deal when you have a lot of printers running at one time. Kind of really nice to have those silent stepper motors really, really quiet, and basically you just hear the music of the plastic being laid down instead of all the grinding of the motors, which is really, really enjoyable from a printer perspective. So that is basically the gist of it. You've seen some pretty nice prints. I've told you some of the pros, the cons, the differences, and similarities of this machine and the Eander-3. So how does it stack up? Well, here's the thing. If you are an avid printer, you print a lot, you already own a printer, you're probably going to enjoy the Eander-3 a little bit more simply because it does have that added Marlin functionality. However, if you are a new printer, this is your first printer, you're looking for ease of use or something a little bit more simple, that touchscreen will go a long way for a new user of a 3D printer. So basically what I'm saying is, it is every bit as good as the Eander-3, and it is cheaper than the Eander-3, absolutely give it a shot. This printer is great, and I invite you to make your own opinion and let me know how you feel about it, but honestly, I have had little to no issues with this, and it seems to run amazingly, and I waited a couple of weeks here, I wanted to test it thoroughly to do the review, I didn't want to just open the box and print one thing and throw the review out there. I really, really wanted to put it through its paces next to the Eander-3 and see if it could hold up, and it turns out that if you don't mind losing a little bit of that Marlin functionality and adaptability, this printer is actually a better choice, not only because of the automatic filament runout sensor and the automatic bed leveling, but it is just a little bit more robust electronically, it has more functions built in, and the print quality, speed, and all of that is pretty much identical. So, just like the Eander-3, we are going to give the Anet ET-4 a 5 out of 5, definitely recommend playing around with one if you get the chance to try it out, it is a very fun printer to play with, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. That's going to be it for this review guys, just so you know, if you are checking out the Anet ET-4 or you decide to get one, I do have a playlist, I'll put a link to it up here, where I have gone over all of these separate features in separate videos to explain how they work and exactly what they are, so if you'd like to know more about the automatic bed leveling system or the filament runout sensor on the Anet ET-4, check out this link right here. Other than that, don't forget to subscribe guys, hit that like button down below, and we'll see you in the next review. As always, this channel is brought to you by these fine Patreon supporters. If you'd like to support the channel on Patreon, head over to www.patreon.com slash technivorous. That's going to be it for this video, as always, I am Technivorous, and thanks for watching. Don't forget to check out our main channel page, where we do a free giveaway for our subscribers every month. 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