An honest review of controversial Anet E10 3D Printer

When Anet announced their latest printer, Anet E10, it caused an uproar in the 3D printing community. Many people got in an uproar over the fact that it seems to be modeled after the beloved Creality CR-10 and they took offense to that. Which is strange because they didn’t have the same reaction when the Tronxy X3 was released.

Maybe it’s because Anet wanted to spruce up the E10 with the plastic trim which I love the look, to be honest. The E10 is green (my favorite) and the CR10 is orange (ugly in my opinion).

The YouTuber Press Reset did a “review” video where he called it the CR10 Killer and trashed it without even trying it out. And his fan base followed suit. Luckily others with in the community kept a clear head and gave it a fair review. Which is what you will get from me. Preston went on about silly things like the printer having printed parts. What printer doesn’t have printed parts these days? That is what the RepRap project is all about.

Anet E10 Technical Specification

The specifications of this printer aren’t that bad. Great for an entry level printer. The build volume is a good size and won’t take up to much space. If you need a large build volume then this printer isn’t right for you. Although it is larger than the average entry level printer which is typically 220X220X220. The E10 has a volume of 220X270X300.

[go_pricing id=”anet_e10″]

Unboxing

The Anet company does pack their printers well I’ll give them that. But the E10 could have the bed more secure. The E10 was mostly pre-assembled so unboxing was a breeze. It comes out in three pieces and has a small box with the accessories in it.

The company seems to be learning from the community as it goes. But I use that term loosely. For instance. When I bought my Anet A8 over a year ago the printer came with very little in the way of tools. Assembly tools and that is it. Then when I received the A6 and A3 they included a pair of side cutters to trim filament from the printed parts.

Now, most other printer company’s have been doing this for a while and some also include a putty knife for removing prints from the bed. With the E10 however they included the putty knife but didn’t include the side cutters. I for one would have preferred the cutters.

One more thing they included which most people like is the 3M print surface which is similar to Buildtak. This stuff sticks the prints well. Too well in my opinion. I prefer glass myself. This stuff stuck to the print and put a tiny hole so I just removed it.

SD Card files

The SD card comes with the typical things included on the Anet printers. It includes the Cura and Repetier Host software. Also includes the typical sample STL and G-code files, Instruction video and PDF files. The SD is 16GB which is plenty of space to keep lots of files to print. I do suggest you archive them as you go because flicking through them to find the one you want to print can take a while if you have too many. Also, the file name is truncated after so many characters.

I do suggest you archive them as you go because flicking through them to find the one you want to print can take a while if you have too many.

Assembly

Assembling the E10 was pretty straight forward since it comes mostly assembled. The previous printer I reviewed (AnyCubic Kossel) my middle daughter helped me with. So I promised my youngest she could help on the next one as she was away for the last. Even though it was mostly she was still eager to help. It went pretty quick.

You first place the Upper assembly onto the bed assembly and tighten it down and insert the 2 bottom bolts. Then connect the wires. After that you insert the hotend and tighten it down. Last you bolt on the hotend cover, insert the bowden tube and that’s it. The bowden tube is a tube that guides the filament from the extruder to the hotend. Well in a perfect world that would be it anyway. More on that in the pros and cons.

Print Quality

Over all this printer prints very well. Aside from a few hiccups, most prints came out better than I expected.

PLA

PLA prints well on most machines and this one is no different.  The first thing I printed was the included Beymax character and that didn’t go so well. The extruder fan is powerful and cooled the hotend to the point it wouldn’t extrude so I only got the feet.

To fix this I had to put tape over most of the fan to prevent it from cooling it too much. I found this to be a common problem with the other reviewers of this printer. The included filament was so small I couldn’t reprint it because there wasn’t enough left over.

Instead, I printed the lovable benchmark test Benchy. This little boat tests the printer in many ways and I got to say it came out great. A bit stringy but that could be the retraction settings as well as the cheap filament.

Next, I printed the included Chinese chess piece that is on the SD card. It turned out OK but nothing special. And to finish the included PLA I printed the Box that is included on the SD card also. This was a great print but not hard to do as it’s rectangular and simple. This is the print the 3M stuck to and put a hole.

So switch to black PLA I wanted to test the printers tolerances with the model created by the Youtuber Makers Muse. This basically tests gaps in prints at .5, .4, .3, .2, .15, .1 and .05.

I started the print and went to bed. The next day I found that it didn’t even pass the .5 which is very bad. Upon closer inspection, I noticed the bottom was very warped. I’m betting that letting it cool gradually on the bed is what caused this. I found that very interesting.

So I reprinted it and this time was there to remove it. This time the tolerance worked all the way down to .2 which is the best I have seen from an Anet and is pretty good. I also noticed a bit of warping on this one too so I wonder if it could do even better. Tolerances are important if you want to print gears or hinges.

PETG

PETG is a filament similar to PLA but stronger and doesn’t warp in the sun like PLA because of its higher printing temperature. It is very stringy and in my case wraps. At least the blue roll does. So much so that the nozzle knocked it off the bed.

The second PETG print didn’t warp and came out beautifully. It is a storm trooper helmet cracked open showing a skull inside. I have been meaning to print that for a while and I’m glad it turned out so well.

Flexible Filament

TPU is the flexible filament I have and it’s a cool green color. I have been wanting to make the Open RC formula one car for some time. And each printer I try I attempt to print a tire for the car. Thanks to the E10s great extruder design I now have all 4 tires. The design of the extruder puts very little space between the gear and assembly. See image extruder below.

The tire came out great. The top looks like it has holes but it doesn’t. The filament is clear and hard to see.

Anet seems to have learned to use these extruder assemblies recently because It isn’t on any of their other printers I have tried.

ABS

ABS is very hard to print with and without an enclosure there isn’t much sense in wasting your filament. I tried to do an ABS benchie and it failed measurably. It warps easy and doesn’t stick. This is partly due to no enclosure and part from the bed not getting close to 90 deg. The bed should be at 100 or 110. But because the power supply was replaced (More on that soon) it took over 30 minutes to get to 85.

Software

Cheap printers always come with free open source software. Cura comes on the SD card but there are other you can download such as Slic3r and Craftware. But if you want the best it will cost you $150 USD. That is called Simplify3D. It great because you can customize your support structure and it prints well.

E10 upgrades and modifications

As this is a new printer there are no printable upgrades for this printer yet. I’m sure you can use or modify part from other printers using 20X20 extrusions but I didn’t look.

But there is one hardware upgrade I recommend for ANY printer with a heated bed. That is the  MOSFET. This should be included with a printer with this bed size and I don’t know why it isn’t. The Creality CR10 comes with one but their bed size is bigger and defiantly needs one for the current it draws. They are cheap and there is no excuse.

Buy mosfet here | Link 1| Link 2 | (eBay link) Link 3|

Valuation, pros and cons

PROS

Pros, what can I say? Well, this printer prints very well. Better than any Anet printer I have tried to date. The aluminum makes better axis then smooth rods and bearings. They do use the good T-nuts instead of the flat ones that Anycubic uses on their Delta Kossel’s.

For the time Anet has included spare parts. Even an extra hotend. Although printed they do have nice endcaps on the extruded aluminum which is a nice touch. And the green stripes are a nice look even if fans of the competition say they are “copying” them.

CONS

For the cons please see build quality below.

Summary

Print Quality

What can I say here? The print quality is great I can’t argue there. I think it can be better once someone starts designing stuff like a better fan shroud? Not sure that is what it’s called. The current one blows on one side and is probably the reason for the stringing in PLA.

Build Quality

I know I didn’t list many cons but I’m going to go into detail here. The build quality for this printer is NOT good at all. It feels very rushed to market. Here are a few minor issues that I encountered but a person new to 3D printing may not be able to get past.

• The Z motors are facing the wrong way. When they assembled these printers the put the motor wires facing inwards. The bed level knobs hit the wires and will eventually break them. Not a big deal to turn them but why not do that from the start.
• The Z motor connectors are poor and go loose very easily. This image shows how crooked one of mine was. Again not a big deal but this printer is supposed to be mostly pre-built.

• My printer came with the bed screws bent quite a bit. Locking it down with zip ties does not work. They need to pack it with foam to stop the bed from moving. Mine had one knob off in the box with a nut I couldn’t find where it came from and a grub screw from one of the Z motor couplers.

• The extruder carriage is loose and can’t be tightened. I tried moving the bolt in the slide hole to the top most position and it didn’t work. Then I thought maybe the belts were pulling it back as I tightened it. So I removed the carriage completely and did it that way. Then slid it back onto the Z axis and put the belts back on. Nope! Still very loose. The video below shows how wiggly it is. But it doesn’t seem to hurt the prints. Just imagine how well it would print with a proper one on it.

• The control know came dented up. Not a huge deal but come on. They had to see that when they put it on the printer.

• After I finished the assembly I tried to load filament and give it a try. For the life of me I couldn’t get it to load. So after taking the hotend from the heat-break I noticed it was clogged. Clogged hotend? How come it comes with a brand new hotend that is clogged? I thought it was a one off until someone on YouTube had the same problem. The spare will come in handy if you don’t know what to do. You can use a small allen wrench to push it into the nozzle to be melted when you turn on the heat.

• My first attempt at homing this printer made me wonder how it ever got through the research and development phase. The bed adjustment knobs get in the way of the pieces that hold the bed smooth rods to the frame. This prevented the bed from hitting the Y axis endstop. I had to switch it to a printed wheel with a nut in it to get it to home. You can see that even the other side rubs onto the knob.

• Homing the printer wasn’t the only thing stopping me from printing the LCD kept dimming and the printer kept resetting. After a while, it popped and smelled burnt. The fuse blew but didn’t protect the power supply at all. Luckily I had an Anet A8 so I used its power supply for the rest of the review.

User interface and Navigation

I give the interface and navigation a 50 because you can’t do fine control for movement because each click of the dial moves 3-4 positions. So if you want to move the axis .1mm you can’t unless you control it over USB.

Value for the money:

I wish I could give this more. I feel it was rushed to market to compete with Tronxy and to ride the fame of the Creality CR10.

Final judgment

What can I say? It was a bit of a rocky start. And in the end, I am going to have to replace the power supply or tear down the printer for parts.

Where to buy?

If you still want to buy this printer you can find it here:

Conclusion

I can’t safely recommend this printer and here is why.

The fact that Anet pre-builds these printers with the power wires inside a metal housing and their very sketchy assembly makes me worried someone is going to get electrocuted. When changing the power supply I checked the wires attached to the board and to the power supply. I found them to not be 100% secure.

The problem with this is that if the mains voltage wire falls off and touches the housing when someone is touching or holding it they could be killed.

I know the A8 and A6 have power supplies out in the open but those printers are not targeted at people who may not know any better and if they built the kit they know what they are getting. When they put a sticker over the edge of the case people with not open it to be sure in fear of losing a warranty. And we all know there is no warranty on these cheaper printers.

If after all this and you still want to buy one or you have the confidence to make sure the wires are good and tight then that’s on you. Just please check before you even plug it in. Like I said it does print extremely well. Just look at this Superman mold.