JGAurora A5 Review

Is the JGAurora A5 just a bigger copy of the A3S? Let’s find out!

After reviewing the JGAurora A3S and liking that printer very much, the A5 is welcome. This printer was sent to me for review, and I haven’t been paid for doing it, nor have received anything except the printer to review. The findings are therefore based only upon my opinion and experience. 

The A5 looks slick and professional. When I first reviewed the A3S JGAurora I had a problem with the power supply, and their customer support. Since then, they have been on top of things and are listening to their customers. From the Facebook group talks they learn what is wrong with their products – and improve these as they go. For instance, the Z-axis smooth rod upper supports were 3D printed, and kept breaking during shipping. They since replaced this with aluminum parts.

Technical Specifications

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Unboxing

I really don’t grasp why those unboxing videos are so popular! I understand that people are curious, though. I’m more into looking at the finished product and it functions.

The A5 comes in three pieces: its base, the upper portion, and the spool holder. Also included in the box are a few Allen keys, a 16GB SD stick, and  250g roll of PLA filament. It’s nice they include filament, as the most companies do not, or they just throw in a 10m piece that can’t print much. Also, the added length usually is not very good and often jams in the printer.

USB Stick

Most 3D printers use micro SD, or standard SD cards. These are okay, but are typically harder to access as these are placed in the motherboard, or behind the LCD screen. The A5 uses standard USB stick which is cheap and easier to deal with. Not all computers have SD slots, and very few have micro SD slots.

The USB comes with the JGAurora-branded Cura. Also on the stick is the User Guide, and a 4-seconds long (!) assembly video; the same as with the A3S.

Assembly

Assembling this printer is so easy that anyone can do it. It consists of placing the two pieces together and fixing 4 screws into the bottom. After that, simply screw in the filament holder to the side, and plug in four wires to the side of the base. The entire thing was ready for operation in less than 5 minutes. As I said, there is an assembly video on the USB Stick, but it is only 4 seconds long, and why they made it so short is beyond me.

Print Quality

I have been 3D-printing for quite a while. Almost any printer can print well, given enough understanding, time, and effort. It’s always a surprise when some model prints extremely well right out of the box. The A5 does it, and so is the perfect beginner’s printer. At least that has been my experience with it. It’s right up there in output quality with the prints of the Tevo Black Widow and Tornado. Even better, in my experience. With the Tornado I had to install the TL Smoothers on the X and Y motors to remove the salmon skin from the prints. Salmon skin are lines on the print that look like a piece of sliced salmon. It’s no big deal and easy to fix.

I’m sure the PLA filament that comes with the printer is probably some cheaper stuff, but it printed the Chinese Money Cat that comes pre-sliced on the SD card very well. I’m sure I’ll find a good use for this filament.

Select PLA

PLA being the easiest to print, there has been an influx of PLA types recently. A Canadian company asked me to review their Select PLA. The filament prints beautifully and is premium at a good price.

What is a 3D printer review without printing a 3DBenchy? Benchy (short for benchmark) is a little boat that was developed to test print aspects; such as the text on the bottom, and overhangs like the front of the boat. You can find out more about it at www.3dbenchy.com. The Benchy I have printed came out perfect!

One issue people have while printing things is tolerance. Most of 3D printing is printing many parts of an object, and putting the pieces together. If you print a 5mm peg that needs to be inserted into another part with a 5mm hole you can’t just print them the same size. The size of the filament being extruded will vary. So you need to either make the hole bigger, or the peg smaller. To figure out how much, you need to print a tolerance test. A Youtuber named Maker Muse created a good one that has the biggest gap in the center. It makes the printout double as a fidget spinner. It consists of 6 outer circles and 1 inner one. Each has a different gap – from .5mm down to .05mm. The A5 printed a tolerance of .2 with ease. Most printers struggle with the .2mm precision.

Many model makers on the internet didn’t keep the tolerance in mind when they made their models. Items like the wrench that actually works are hard to print on printers valued below $500. But it works on this printer and it makes the A5 a great value. I also printed a 20mm cube that was off by a fraction of a millimeter only.

After I have printed a drawing robot and an articulating horse for my daughter, I then printed some highly detailed things; like the Moon, Tyrannosaurus Rex, and a Batman bust. As you can see they  all look great.

PETG

The A5 prints well with every filament that I tried. PETG doesn’t shrink like PLA and is stronger, like ABS. But ABS is being used less and less. I won’t print with it because I read it was toxic to inhale its vapors. PETG is a good alternative but it’s stringy and hard to get the retraction settings right.  I printed parts I needed for the Tesla phone-charging station. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1585498 and it came out with zero stringing. Which is in big part due to settings.

Flexible Filament (TPU)

Printing flexible filament is very cool and I like to test how well a printer copes with it! I print squishy little Pokemon or such figures for the kids. If the extruder gear has a lot of space between it and the Bowden tube, then it could get wound around it and ruin the print. To print TPU properly you should print it at 15-20mps with no retraction. The A5 prints flexible filament with no problems at all.

Software

Cheap printers always arrive with free open-source software. JGAurora re-branded their own version of Cura 2.5 which is open source and comes on the USB stick. I, for one, do not like Cura 2 and 3 at all, but Cura 14 and 15 seem OK. But luckily there are others you can download – such as Slic3r and Craftware.

Upgrades and Modifications

Being almost perfect out of the box, this printer doesn’t need much in the sense of upgrades. I printed new part cooling nozzle that cools the print from both sides (which is important).

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2757866

I opened my printer because of its bed size. When you are using cheaper printers it’s always best to install an external MOSFET if the bed is over 200 by 200mm in size. This one being 300 x 300mm, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Reviewing these printers I like to have extra MOSFETs at hand. Some companies, like Tevo and Creality3D, include these with their printers. It helps to keep the  high current draw of the beds from going through the motherboard MOSFETs. (Here’s one from aliexpress)

Pros, cons, and evaluation

PROS:

• Full-metal construction makes this printer solid and heavy.
• The A5 does have a heated build plate. Heated build plate is not necessary, but is recommended.
• Full-color touchscreen. The touchscreen is a nice feature and makes the printer look more high-end. After using this touchscreen for a while, dealing with buttons and knobs becomes annoying.
• The A5, also the A3S, is the easiest kit printer I have built to date. No assembly knowledge is needed for this printer and it gets built in minutes.
• The printer looks great in black and with white side panels. It looks great beside the A3S
• Filament run out sensor! This is an awesome feature. I love how it pauses and uses a filament load and unload feature to change the filament. No more worrying whether there is enough filament to finish the job.
• Power Off recovery. I love this because I have had to use it already. Living out of the city, you are prone to experience frequent power cuts.
• USB stick instead of the SD card. Using USB is great. USB is faster than the SD cards when writing the Gcode to the drive. Sticks are easy to get and harder to lose than the tiny cards.

CONS:

• Black Diamond Bed. This didn’t last on my A3S. I had to cover it with glass and use hairspray. After the third print didn’t stick, I covered the A5 with a mirror and every print has stuck since.
• Hard to work on. The nice metal frame and enclosed bottom half make this printer difficult to work on. For instance, when I tighten the belts I have to carefully disassemble quite a lot to gain access.
• While I love the touchscreen controls and it being the same as the one on the A3S, the A5 screen is more sensitive and one-touch often results in two touch responses.

Evaluation

The A5 is a great printer. Unlike the Tevo Tornado and other larger volume printers, it’s in one piece. This makes it easy for me to move. I know most people don’t move their printers but I do it often, as I frequently get new printers and have to get rid of older ones. I’ll say this; I will be keeping the A5 for a long time, if not for good! It will have to be a special printer to replace this as my new go-to printer.

All that being said, I don’t think you can go wrong with the JGAurora A5 printer. I know there are reviews out there that are more critical, but I’m a member of the official JGAurora Facebook group and they are listening to their members. For instance, after my Power supply issue on the A3S, they have updated it with a better unit that can handle the 100deg C temperature on the bed. Also, the first A5’s had issues. Like the 3D printed parts holding the Z axis smooth rods breaking in shipping. Now those parts are machined aluminum. The users complained the white panels were not fixed well and rattled. Now thes eare screwed in an are very secure.

One thing I have to criticize is that the filament run-out sensor has changed from the A3S, and isn’t as user-friendly. I had issues feeding the filament at the beginning, but I have since figured it out. The A3S extruder was easy to feed from the beginning. After leveling the bed and followed by weeks of constant printing, it has stayed level. The design makes it secure and keeps it level.

PRINT QUALITY: 9.5/10

Again, the quality of the prints is impressive. It prints as well as the industrial printer we use at work.

BUILD QUALITY: 9/10

The build seems to keep space in mind. There is no wasted space like the other larger volume printers that keep the electronics in a tethered box attached to the printer. Simple to pick up and move, and doesn’t take much room on the desk.

USER INTERFACE AND NAVIGATION: 7/10

Although it has a nice colour touchscreen display, the sensitivity is an issue to me. I can’t say it’s a one-time deal as I have seen it in other reviews. But I know it can work as great as it does on my A3S.

VALUE FOR THE MONEY: 9/10

At $320 USD this printer is a steal. You can’t go wrong. It’s cheap but packed with features.

Where to buy:

UPDATE: After a couple of weeks I received 2 power supply’s. It’s great that I got a response from the company as well as themselves. While slow the costumer support works out great.

3D printing was invented in the 1980s and has come a long way in a short time. That is since the Stratasys patents expired in 2009. In 2005 Dr Adrian Bowyer started the Rep Rap project which basically means printers which can create the parts to make other printers.

Joseph Prusa came up with the simplistic i3 design in 2012 which started the Chinese clone frenzy which, in turn, brought cheap sub-$500 printers to the mainstream. Since then, there has been little advancements in the cheaper printers. Creality came out with the CR-10 , a large volume printer under $500, using an extruded aluminum frame. Now the main Chinese printer companies have been copying one another, and pushing prices lower and lower. Reviewing basically the same printers with different volumes is OK, but I have been craving some advancements.

In comes the Jgaurora A3S. This is a standard i3 design with some new features which come mainly on the higher end printers. A3S comes with a full metal powder-coated frame that looks great. I prefer this look over the cheap acrylicli frames and the basic-looking extruded aluminum. With the exception of the awesome looking Tevo Black Widow , which I reviewed back in September.

The A3S also comes with a filament run out sensor that pauses the printer and lets you insert a new roll to continue the print. That should be on EVERY printer regardless. I don’t know how many times I had filament snap and come to find a partial print on the bed. We did review a printer called AnyCubic i3 Mega which has that feature and is in similar price-range as the Jgaurora A3S.

Another awesome feature which I’m not sure how much it would cost to include, is the touchscreen display. The display is colored and uses a 4X2 square block menu which works great. But after all that, they added my favorite feature which blows me away. As I’m living in the countryside, where power outages are frequent, with the A3S I no longer need to worry. When the power fails, or if someone trips the plug, the printer will ask if I’d like to continue the next time it powers up.

On top of all that, the printer comes with what they call the Black Diamond Bed. It is a glass bed with a special coating similar to the BuildTak surface. So far it has been very durable. Hopefully, it stays that way, because it doesn’t look removable.

All these features on a sub-$500 printer gives me hope that the community isn’t sitting still. Joseph Prusa even added those features to his newest printer, along with many other things for around US$800.

Technical Specification

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Unboxing

Unboxing this printer is pretty straightforward. It comes in two main parts, plus accessories that include power supply, spool holder, filament, and all the tools to put the printer together.

USB Stick

Most 3D printers use micro SD or standard SD cards. These are okay, but are typically harder to access as these are in the motherboard, or behind the LCD screen. The A3S uses standard USB stick which is cheap and easier to deal with; as not all computers have SD slots – and very few have micro SD slots. The USB comes with the Jgaurora-branded Cura. Also on the stick is the User Guide and a 4-second assembly video.

Assembly

Assembling this printer is so easy that anyone can do it. It consists of placing the two pieces together and fixing 4 screws into the bottom. After that, simply screw in the filament holder to the side, and plug in four wires on the side. The entire thing was ready for operation in less than 5 minutes. There is an assembly video on the USB Stick, but it is only 4 seconds long. Why they made it so short is beyond me.

Print Quality

The print quality with this printer is OK. Not the best I’ve seen, but the other features make up for it. With some slicer setting tweaks, it can improve. I have a few different types of filaments I’d like to test, starting with PLA as it comes with a 250g roll. Many don’t come with more than 10 meters of material.

PLA

The included PLA is definitely not high-end quality material, but it’s nice to have it. It reduces the cost to get printing right away. The first print I tried was a fan shroud that is an STL model on the USB stick. This failed miserably, but that was my fault because I forgot to add the supports into the slicing software.

I don’t know why I print those little cubes. People say they measure accuracy to 20mm cubed but I don’t think it should be done at such a small size. There are better means of calibrating the axis. I print it to see how smooth it prints walls. With this one I didn’t put infill and not enough top layers, so it has holes in the top. Holes could also result from insufficient part cooling and too much heat.

It’s always good to know the tolerances of your printer. It means how far apart your pieces and walls need to be in order to print without fusing together. This print has gaps from .05 to .5. Typically printers have a .2 tolerance with a .4 nozzle. This printer struggled at .2 which isn’t the greatest but not too bad either.

This little guy is cute, so I wanted to print it to see how it fared without supporting it. Big overhangs do show artifacts. This is the baby Grim Reaper found on Thingiverse or MyMiniFactory.

ABS

ABS shrinks while cooling, so the bed needs to be minimum 100 C° but 110 is recommended. The power supply included is very underpowered. My one-and-only attempt fried the power supply. After popping it open, I discovered a very bad burn on the PCB.

After my incident with the power supply, I reported the issue to the manufacturer. For the reasons which I will explain a bit later, my replacement part delivery was quite delayed. Luckily, at work, they had a 24V power supply, so I borrowed it to finish the review. At the time of writing, my replacement part is traveling from China to my location.

So with PSU replaced, I continued my print quality tests on the Jgaurora A3S.

PETG

PETG is the go-to for parts that need to withstand higher temperatures like ABS, but without the warping that comes with printing ABS. Very common for parts people print for their 3D printers. Since it withstands the heat required to print ABS, it also does not require the bed to be over 80°C. It’s my only blue filament, so I printed the TARDIS from Doctor Who. It didn’t turn out that great. I also printed a corner bracket I’ve designed in Fusion 360 for my life-size TARDIS chicken coop.

Flexible Filament (TPU)

Flexible filaments are one of the coolest filaments out there. I purchased a roll not knowing what I wanted to do with it. I did print a set of tires for the Open RC Formula 1 project. But now that I have 4 of them, I’m going to print squishy Pokemon. I first printed a small one from the Jgaurora download page. It had an issue with the mouth of the model. After fixing it with Microsoft 3D Builder, I scaled it up and reprinted. Hard to see in pictures, but it looks awesome in person. The pictures don’t do it justice because it’s so glittery.

PLA+

For this review, I opened 2 rolls of PLA+ that I haven’t used until now. What a surprise! PLA+ (also known as PLA Plus) is PLA that uses higher temperatures like ABS without all the headaches of ABS. This is going to be my new go-to filament because it prints much better than ABS, and even PETG. For my first print, I printed this cool optical illusion on Thingiverse. This was created by a guy with the YouTube channel called Make Anything. I encourage you to look him up.

Software

Cheap printers always come with free open-source software. Jguarora had re-branded their own version of Cura 2.5 which is open source and comes on the USB stick. I, for one, do not like Cura 2 and 3 at all, but Cura 14 and 15 seem OK. But there are others you can download – such as Slic3r and Craftware.

If you want the best it will cost you $150 USD. That is called Simplify3D. It is great because you can customize your support structure, and it prints well: www.Simplify3d.com

Upgrades and Modifications

The A3S is new on the market and there are no updates and Mods for it, yet. There is also A5 model which is the same as the A3S, but with a bigger build volume, so modifications for them should be interchangeable.

Customer service

This is a new section of the review; a process I have yet to write about. I thought it important because of how things went with the power supply. Not because it stopped, but because of the process of getting tech support from Jgaurora. Their website has an email address, and they have a Facebook group. I emailed them and joined the group. I got a bit worried when I read a post saying they would give a full refund for positive reviews.

That’s just wrong. Knowing their target audience is people spending under $500 for their printer, they would likely be happy to oblige. Full disclosure, my printer was sent to me from for a review. They don’t expect me to be biased. So after contacting the company and days wasted by them telling me to go through for a warranty replacement part, they finally gave me a tracking number for the power supply.

I would like to talk about the Facebook group, though. After a few days there I was, having a discussion with another member about the problems he was having. I simply didn’t think the issues were as bad as he was saying. So they removed the entire conversation and said they don’t allow comments that are negative toward their products. Imagine people going there for help, and not being able to say what is on their minds – from fear of getting removed from the group!

We formed a Non-biased group for Jgaurora owners to get help. You can find it here if you buy one of their printers.

Pros, cons, and evaluation

PROS

CONS

Evaluation

I really like this printer. The under-powered Power Supply and poor customer support is a big minus. The new power supply is on the way. They finally got it sorted, but I shouldn’t have had that much trouble dealing with them. Beyond that, it’s a good printer and I’m pleased with the prints. My scoring probably would have been higher if it weren’t for said issues. Although, those issues are dwarfed by the power failure, filament run out, and all the other positives of this machine.

PRINT QUALITY: 

The quality is good and will likely be better with the tightened belts. So far no one has mentioned loose belts in the Facebook groups, so it could be a one-off with my machine.

BUILD QUALITY: 

The quality of this printer is good. Could be better – with a proper power supply and the side panels being properly installed.

USER INTERFACE AND NAVIGATION: 

I can’t say enough about the touch screen. Easy to navigate and understand.

VALUE FOR THE MONEY:

The printer is more than enough for the money. Having higher-end features and a solidly built frame makes this printer a great buy.

FINAL JUDGMENT:

While I love this printer, it is hard to look past the customer service issues. That said, it is ahead of the curve and I hope those features become more mainstream with the printers under $500. Even with the customer support, you can’t go wrong with this printer because there are plenty of friendly people willing to help on the internet.

Where to buy