Test of the Elegoo Neptune 2, a 150€ FDM printer

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You might have thought that Elegoo only sold resin printers, but no! In fact they were already selling FDM printers long before Mars, they were mainly white label machines. Today I’m going to introduce you to the Neptune 2, which will be sold very soon on Amazon at 150€.

No link to buy this printer for now, it has just been released, Elegoo sent a few test units to their partners and a small stock was available on Amazon US, but they were all sold out within minutes. The announced price is 160$ for the US market, and 150€ for the European market. A very aggressive price for an Ender3 like with some interesting features.

Main features of the Neptune 2:
– 220x220mm heated bed, 250mm print height
– Silent 32bit motherboard (TMC2225)
– Flexible buildplate
– Touch screen, with multilanguage interface (English, French, German….)
– End of filament detector
– Resume printing in case of power failure

So we have a printer with relatively interesting features, not found on a classic Ender3, all for only 150€! I insist again on this price, because it is really a very attractive price for a sale via Amazon, this machine is likely to become very popular and sell very quickly.

Regarding availability, Elegoo told me that it could be available early/mid April, they have started mass production.

Unpacking the Neptune 2

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The machine is well protected and partially assembled, on the same level as an Ender3 with the X axis carriage to be fully assembled, the materials seem to be of good quality, with a nice finish (black power supply box as the printer frame).

Note that there is no filament supplied with the printer, so you will have to buy a spool at the same time as the machine!

Assembling the Neptune 2

Count on about 1 hour to assemble this machine, maybe a bit more if it’s your first 3D printer, if you are a beginner don’t panic the instructions are relatively well detailed and it’s not very complicated, no need to be a great handyman!

The most delicate part being the assembly of the X axis, look carefully at the instructions so as not to make a mistake!

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First print with the Neptune 2

Once the machine is assembled, before launching the first print, it will be necessary to adjust the plate, there is no self-levelling sensor on this printer (don’t dream for this price!), but the operation is not complicated, you just have to put the 4 corners of the plate at the same level using a sheet of A4 paper, leaving a thickness of sheet between the nozzle and the plate, you will find many video tutorials on youtube!

Once the buildplate is set up, I strongly advise you to print the sample model provided on the printer’s micro-SD card.

Here is the result for this first impression! The result is really clean, printed with Sunlu blue PLA+.

Slicer and settings for the Neptune 2

I will use Prusa Slicer for this printer, even if no profile is currently available, I will simply choose a profile for Ender 3, without modifying anything, we will see the result!

First print with Prusa Slicer

The result is really clean, with a layer height of 0.15mm and still using Sunlu PLA+ filament. So I’ll stick with these settings for now for my next prints.

Other 3D prints for the Neptune 2

Here are the other prints I made with the Neptune 2, I will update the article as I go along. Overall the result is really clean, I didn’t have any print failures, and the plate has a good grip.

To finish, I’ll take a picture of the touch screen while printing, the interface is easy to understand and you can even choose the language (I stayed in English).

To conclude

This Elegoo Neptune 2 is a good surprise, first of all because of its very aggressive price, one could have imagined having a rather average 3D printer at this price, but it is far from being the case, it is perfectly functional and reliable, an unbeatable quality/price ratio!

This machine is perfectly suitable for a beginner, and for a first experience in 3D printing, if you already have a resin printer like the Elegoo Mars, this FDM will be a good complement!

I would recommend this machine without hesitation to people who want a machine at a lower cost through Amazon, the only problem is that there may be very little stock available, it will be complicated to get your hands on this printer!