Anycubic Kobra 3 Combo – Multicolor 3D printer review

Anycubic Kobra 3 Combo – Multicolor 3D printer review

3D printers are an integral part of the DIY sim racing community. Initially used almost exclusively by enthusiasts, they have become easier and easier to use over the years and are now much more user-friendly and equipped with many convenient functions. The Anycubic Kobra 3 Combo tested here offers multi-color printing with a build volume of 250 mm x 250 mm x 260 mm at a price of less than 400 euros.

Ordering and shipping

The Anycubic printer is available both directly from the manufacturer and from various third-party suppliers. The model tested here was provided by Geekbuying and shipped directly from the EU. Additional taxes and customs duties are therefore not incurred.

Geekbuying currently offers the following prices:

• Anycubic Kobra 3 3D printer with ACE Pro Combo: 379€
• Anycubic Kobra 3 3D Printer with ACE Pro Combo + 4kg Pantone Filament: 449€

The product tested here was provided by the manufacturer. No influence was exerted on this review at any time.

Offers at Geekbuying

There are currently also various voucher codes available to save money when buying various Brundles:

• ANYCUBIC KOBRA 3 COMBO: 354€ – Code: NNNDE09061 
• ANYCUBIC KOBRA 3 COMBO + 4kg Pantone Filament: 400€ – Code: 9J8Q4LQZ99
• ANYCUBIC KOBRA 3 COMBO +  6kg Creality Hyper-PLA Filament: 400€ – Code: ANK3C6
• ANYCUBIC KOBRA 3 COMBO + 3kg Creality Hyper-PLA + 3kg Ender-PLA+ : 429€ – Code: ANK3C9
• ANYCUBIC KOBRA 3 COMBO + 5kg Creality Ender-PLA+: 419€ – Code: 9J8Q4G58VR

Specs

Scope of delivery

In addition to the printer itself and the associated ACE-Pro system, the scope of delivery naturally also includes the corresponding power cables and the accessories that are becoming typical for 3D printers, such as a filament sample, tools and a USB stick. A second brush for cleaning the print nozzle is also included as an additional consumable.

Assembly

The Anycubic Kobra 3 is modelled on the current generation of printers and is delivered to the end customer almost completely pre-assembled. For setup, only the print head, monitor and poop chute need to be screwed on and the printer is ready for operation.

All that remains to be done is to check the individual axes and the smooth running of the rolls and, if necessary, re-tension the belts. Once the power supply unit has been connected, the preparations on the hardware side are complete. Overall, the manual does a solid job here, the illustrated instructions are clearly understandable and set-up is completed in just a few minutes.

The printer can then be connected to the Wi-Fi network via the display, which can also be used to install updates in just a few minutes.

Hardware (Features)

The printer with a build volume of 250 mm x 250 mm x 260 mm offers various Quality of Life features designed to make life as pleasant as possible for the user. The printer is based on specially manufactured aluminium profiles and therefore has a much higher quality appearance than, for example, an Anycubic Vyper a few years earlier. The manufacturer’s design language is based on various shades of grey and additional orange accents, for example on the print head or on the power cables used for the axis and print head.

Direct Extruder / Print Head

A direct extruder equipped with a replaceable hotend is used as the print head. To change the hotend (a 0.4 mm standard nozzle is fitted as standard), the cables of the heating cartridge and the thermistor must be removed beforehand. Similar to the A1 from Bambu Lab, the assembly can then be removed after loosening the clamping device.

On the top of the print head is the holder for up to four different filaments, which can be used alternately.

In addition, Anycubic installs a small LED to illuminate the print area (sufficient to recognise a failed print attempt), which can be switched on in combination with the illuminated ‘Anycubic’ lettering on the front.

The built-in fan is quite powerful with a speed of up to 7000 rpm and ensures adequate cooling, but can also be correspondingly loud. Thanks to a temperature of up to 300 degrees, the printer can process the following filaments: PLA, PETG, ABS, ASA, PET, PA, PC, PP and HIPS.

Display

A tilt-adjustable color display with touchscreen is integrated on the right-hand front, which is large enough with a diagonal of 4.3 inches to display the basic functions of the printer sufficiently well. The menu navigation has been significantly improved compared to previous models and offers clear added value compared to, for example, a BambuLab P1P/P1S without such a display. The filament (of the ACE Pro) can be managed here as well as the print settings and the last prints.

Auto-Leveling

One function that has become indispensable in modern printers is undoubtedly autoleveling. Here, the process is carried out in combination with an automatic Z-offset setting and vibration compensation for the X and Y axes, whereby the nozzle is first heated to operating temperature before the process runs fully automatically. The process can then be repeated each time a component is changed or alternatively before printing.

Overall, a very good first layer was achieved over the entire test period, which did not have to be reworked. The installed hardware in combination with the software does a good job here.

Print bed

No big surprises await us with the print bed. It consists of a spring steel plate with a PEI surface. This ensures good adhesion of the print bed and a slightly textured underside for the prints. To remove the prints later, the magnetically adhesive plate can be easily removed as usual and bent slightly.

The print bed can be heated up to 110 degrees for better print bed adhesion and offers surprisingly even heating (values between 58.0 and 60.5 degrees were measured at a set temperature of 60 degrees).

Axes

The Anycubic Kobra 3 is based on the classic “i3” design, in which the print bed (Y-axis) is fixed in height and driven by a toothed belt, with power being transmitted via a cogwheel on the motor.

The Y-axis is also driven by a toothed belt and moves the print head sideways. As with the X-axis, SG15 deep groove ball bearings were installed here to ensure that the print head runs as smoothly as possible.

The third axis in the bundle is the Z-axis. Here, Anycubic relies on a double threaded rod that is synchronized via a timing belt on the top of the printer.

Manual adjustments were not required for any of the three axes on the test printer. Nevertheless, the smooth running of the axes should be checked and corrected if necessary before the printer is used for the first time.

Cleaning / Poop Chute

When cleaning the nozzle, Anycubic seems to have orientated itself on the Bambu Lab design and relies on a purely mechanical poop chute, which is triggered by the movement of the print head and flings the ejected filament to the side at high speed. This works very reliably, and thanks to the large community, a large number of suitable collection containers or deflectors are already available to download from the usual portals for print files.

In addition to the Poop Chute, an interchangeable brush has been installed on which the print nozzle can be wiped. A suitable replacement brush is included in the scope of delivery, whereby the wear is very limited.

Connections

There are three ports on the front of the printer, with the left one being for the connection between the printer and ACE Pro. Although the ports are easily accessible due to their position at the front, they also somewhat spoil the otherwise clean look of the printer. The cable for the connection to the ACE Pro unit in particular could be positioned much more elegantly on the side.

The two USB ports are probably used in most cases for the USB stick supplied and a USB webcam. The latter is not included in the scope of delivery, but can be purchased as an alternative for a fair price of around €15. In keeping with the DIY concept, an STL file for a suitable camera mount is provided on the USB stick for printing.

ACE Pro

A highlight of the Anycubic Kobra 3 Combo is undoubtedly the ACE Pro unit, which is designed for use with a maximum of four filament rolls. This enables multi-color printing with up to four (eight with combined ACE-Pro) different colors and/or materials. For this purpose, a separate Bowden tube is laid between the printer and ACE-Pro for each filament, which is inserted into the print head accordingly. Several small adapters for aligning the tubes are supplied so that the tubes can be laid neatly. There is also a feed-through on the left-hand side of the printer that additionally secures the tubes. There should be enough tubing left so that the print head can move freely without being held back by the cables.

To change the filament, the current filament is pulled out of the ACE Pro unit and the new filament is pushed into the hotend. The filament residues are then disposed of via the poop chute, which unfortunately leads to a considerable amount of filament waste. Especially when printing with many changes, this results in a filament consumption that should not be underestimated, which in some cases can even exceed the material of the actual printed model. The filament change itself is carried out in an acceptable time of approx. 1.30 minutes. No problems occurred during the entire test (approx. 1000 filament changes).

In addition to simply supplying the filament rolls (in contrast to Bambu Lab’s AMS, slightly wider rolls such as Amazon’s own brand also fit here), the ACE-Pro can also be used to dry the rolls. Thanks to the built-in heating elements with up to 200W, a temperature between 35 and 55 degrees can be selected. This completely eliminates the need for an external drying station, a real added value!

Software

While Anycubic’s software was still somewhat unpolished shortly after its release and had a few teething problems, these were almost completely eradicated a few months later and with Anycubic Slicer Next (for Mac OS and Windows), Anycubiy now offers a slicer based on the OrcaSlicer, which is very popular in the 3D printing community. However, you need an Anycubic account and an active Internet connection to use the full range of functions and to manage it via the network.

In principle, the slicer offers everything you could wish for and presents the individual options clearly. However, beginners may well be overwhelmed at the start, so only learning by doing will help.

Using the “Color painting” option, you can access the filaments previously synchronized with the ACE Pro and color the models to be printed relatively intuitively. After starting the print, you can monitor the printer parameters via the Workbench and use the webcam (if installed) to monitor the print from the next room, for example.

Using the Anycubic app in combination with the company’s own free marketplace for print files, it is theoretically possible to work without a PC, although the range and selection of ready-made print profiles is not yet on a par with competing platforms. A PC is therefore still almost unavoidable (especially for simracing DIY).

3D printing

With a build volume of 250 mm x 250 mm x 260 mm, the Anycubic Kobra 3 offers a sufficiently large build space for 99% of all current simracing DIY projects. During the test period, PLA was printed almost exclusively, but the printer also had no problems with PETG and TPU (without ACE-Pro).

The only point of criticism here is definitely the noise level. Even when idle, the printer is so loud that it should not be used in an office or even in the living room. Other printers are much quieter here. There is also some catching up to do in terms of print preparation, which by default takes around 5 to 15 minutes (with additional auto-levelling and resonance compensation), significantly longer than would be possible with small adjustments in the start G-code.

Print quality

The printer already delivers very decent print quality with the standard preset print profiles, which can be further improved with slight tweaks. For example, the speed of the first layer and the visible parts of the print (top surface / outer wall) was reduced slightly for the test prints and the number of wall loops was increased by one to three.

Otherwise, the printer delivers a truly remarkable performance for its price range. This applies both to the dimensional accuracy of the XYZ Calibration Cube with 19.99mm (x) / 20.01mm (y) / 20.01mm (z) and to the Impossible Pyramid. There were no major printing errors at all; only minimal, barely avoidable ghosting was observed within the usual tolerances. The cooling performance can also be classified as solid, overhangs within normal limits are not a problem.

Multi-color printing also works very well. Before each layer, a layer is automatically printed in the cleaning block so that the nozzle is ready for the next print. The simracing DIY project shown, for example, combines white PLA filament (as a diffusion layer) with black PLA filament for an LED cover.

Print speed

In addition to quality, speed also plays a major role in 3D printing. If you think back to the early days of 3D printing, 50 mm per second was already on the good side; the Anycubic Kobra now promises speeds of up to an impressive 600 mm per second. It is clear that this marketing value cannot be permanently achieved in everyday operation, but it is definitely not just theoretically possible. As a demonstration of extremely high speeds, a high-speed benchmark is pre-printed on the USB stick supplied, which requires a pure printing time of just 15 minutes with acceptable quality (see images below).

However, the following values are used in the regular preset profile for PLA, which are significantly more realistic:

• First Layer: 45 mm/s
• Outer Wall 130 mm/s
• Inner Wall: 200 mm/s
• Gap Infill: 250 mm/s
• Sparse Infill: 300 mm/s
• Top Surface: 130 mm/s

Conclusion

With the Kobra 3 Combo, Anycubic has released a printer that combines comparatively high speeds, multi-color printing with the help of the heated ACE-Pro unit and a very good price-performance ratio. The initial software problems no longer play a role and the printer now impresses with its reliable operation despite being quite noisy.

Overall, the Kobra 3 Combo is currently one of the cheapest options for multi-color printing with a build volume of over 250 mm x 250 mm x 250 mm and a recommended purchase for price-conscious DIY simracers.