Hey guys, I thought this week I'd give a brief review of the printer I have at home, the Cetus3D. A lot of people ask online about affordable 3D printers and in my opinion this one is one of the best value for money printers out there. This will be a very brief review (if you can even call it that) of my experiences with the Cetus3D MK2 3D Printer!!
As you can see from the photo above, this is truly a desktop printer, with a really neat little form factor that focuses on function over looking particularly pretty which I really like.
The company is based in China, but all of the best budget 3D Printers seem to be coming out of China and the limited contact I have had with their customer service has been exemplary.
Specs
Design
The printer is of a cantilever arm design, which has its drawbacks in that it can suffer from vibration which gets worse as the heavy print head moves to the end of the arm, however I really have had very little issues with Z banding or ghosting whilst printing objects on that side of the print bed.
Within the software you get the standard basic print options, which compared to software like Cura or Simplify3D feels fairly limited. You're restricted to; Layer height, infill percentage (at preset options), print quality (Fast, Normal or Fine), Raft and support on or off, and some options allowing you to edit things like number of walls and some support options;
To be honest, for most home prints, these options provide you with more than enough control over the speed and quality of the printed part.
The printer does not take a SD card like some other, instead this printer either needs to be connected to a computer using a USB cable, or you can set it up on the WIFI network, allowing you to send prints to the printer without it being physically tethered to your PC. I love this feature, and it also stores the gcode on the machine once the files have been transmitted across, meaning you can set a print going and then turn off the PC. You can also pause and stop a print in process from the software, even if you're using it over WIFI.
Print quality
The print quality I get on my little Cetus is phenomenal with the results in my mind looking even better than some of the prints I get on the much more expensive Prusa MK2S we have at work. Check out some print examples below, but for a load more check out my Instagram.
Examples
Cost and Verdict
Starting at $299 for the standard size or $399 for the version with extended height, this printer in my opinion is one of the best budget printers out there right now. The Creality CR10 is loved by a lot of people but the size of it really put me off. The Cetus is almost a plug-and-play printer, with the machine optimised for the software that comes with it, making it almost foolproof to get excellent results. You can even get a heated print bed attachment if you wanted to print more exotic materials such as ABS.
In the interest of fairness I do have to come up with some downsides, so here I go... Umm... It can be a little noisy when on, the print volume isn't as big as some similarly priced machines and it really prefers to print on rafts... I think that's about it to be honest. Oh and some people might be put off by the lack of customisation available in the software, but when I'm printing at home I want it to just work and the Cetus does everything I need it to do.
Anyway, I hope that was informative and if you're in the market for your first 3D printer on a tight budget, you could do a lot worse that the little Cetus! If you have any other questions regarding the printer, or have had different results to me, please let me know in the comments below.
See you all next week.
As you can see from the photo above, this is truly a desktop printer, with a really neat little form factor that focuses on function over looking particularly pretty which I really like.
The company is based in China, but all of the best budget 3D Printers seem to be coming out of China and the limited contact I have had with their customer service has been exemplary.
Specs
Design
The printer is of a cantilever arm design, which has its drawbacks in that it can suffer from vibration which gets worse as the heavy print head moves to the end of the arm, however I really have had very little issues with Z banding or ghosting whilst printing objects on that side of the print bed.
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| The bed leveling calibration options |
Changing the print bed is also super easy, with 3 screws holding it to the Y axis. The print beds are consumable so it will be necessary to swap them out after a while (I changed mine after 6 months or so as the first one was starting to look a little scratched, but it probably would have lasted fine for a while longer.).
Ease of use
The Cetus uses proprietary software which may put some people off, but it is simple and intuitive to use and provides excellent results. The only thing I wish was possible which is currently not, is the ability to choose 0.05mm layer heights with the standard 0.4mm nozzle. Currently you can only print at 0.05mm layers with the smaller 0.2mm nozzle which I don't really use.
Ease of use
The Cetus uses proprietary software which may put some people off, but it is simple and intuitive to use and provides excellent results. The only thing I wish was possible which is currently not, is the ability to choose 0.05mm layer heights with the standard 0.4mm nozzle. Currently you can only print at 0.05mm layers with the smaller 0.2mm nozzle which I don't really use.
 |
| Print home screen |
Within the software you get the standard basic print options, which compared to software like Cura or Simplify3D feels fairly limited. You're restricted to; Layer height, infill percentage (at preset options), print quality (Fast, Normal or Fine), Raft and support on or off, and some options allowing you to edit things like number of walls and some support options;
 |
| Print options |
To be honest, for most home prints, these options provide you with more than enough control over the speed and quality of the printed part.
 |
| Maintenance options |
The printer does not take a SD card like some other, instead this printer either needs to be connected to a computer using a USB cable, or you can set it up on the WIFI network, allowing you to send prints to the printer without it being physically tethered to your PC. I love this feature, and it also stores the gcode on the machine once the files have been transmitted across, meaning you can set a print going and then turn off the PC. You can also pause and stop a print in process from the software, even if you're using it over WIFI.
 |
| Timelapse of the print preview function |
Print quality
The print quality I get on my little Cetus is phenomenal with the results in my mind looking even better than some of the prints I get on the much more expensive Prusa MK2S we have at work. Check out some print examples below, but for a load more check out my Instagram.
Examples
Cost and Verdict
Starting at $299 for the standard size or $399 for the version with extended height, this printer in my opinion is one of the best budget printers out there right now. The Creality CR10 is loved by a lot of people but the size of it really put me off. The Cetus is almost a plug-and-play printer, with the machine optimised for the software that comes with it, making it almost foolproof to get excellent results. You can even get a heated print bed attachment if you wanted to print more exotic materials such as ABS.
In the interest of fairness I do have to come up with some downsides, so here I go... Umm... It can be a little noisy when on, the print volume isn't as big as some similarly priced machines and it really prefers to print on rafts... I think that's about it to be honest. Oh and some people might be put off by the lack of customisation available in the software, but when I'm printing at home I want it to just work and the Cetus does everything I need it to do.
Anyway, I hope that was informative and if you're in the market for your first 3D printer on a tight budget, you could do a lot worse that the little Cetus! If you have any other questions regarding the printer, or have had different results to me, please let me know in the comments below.
See you all next week.
Troez.
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