ANYCUBIC Predator Delta Kossel Review – Buy or Not?
ByMichael DwamenaReading Time: 8 minutes
Introduction
Anycubic is one of the most popular 3D printer brands in the market right now, based in China and founded in 2015. Their aim is to make 3D printers accessible and affordable to most consumers, rather than being for people with big budgets.
It’s great to know that even with their great price points, they definitely do not skip` out on quality or durability.
Now the first thing you’ll need to know is, this is a huge printer, so make sure you actually have the space to let the printer perform its duties. It’s over 1 meter tall and 0.5 meters wide at a weight of near enough 25KG.
If you’ve been looking for a printer with some serious printing dimensions, you’ve come to the right place. The Anycubic Predator Delta Kossel (Amazon) packs a real punch with a whopping 370 x 370 x 455 mm build size which is bigger than most 3D printers out there.
It’s a single extruder, 1.75mm FDM printer with many features that you will appreciate.
It’s fast, reliable and well-built at an amazing price point compared to other similar 3D printers out there. The common consensus when people talk about the Anycubic Predator Delta is how it beats out its competition with ease by being just a top quality printer with all the features you’d want in a 3D printer.
When you compare the features and benefits to other printers in the same caliber, this 3D printer comes out on top.
Features
Anycubic Ultrabase Pro – Glass Surface
Automatic Levelling
Resume from Power Loss Function
Filament Run-Out Sensor Function
Titan (clone) Bowden ‘Flying’ Extruder
Trigorilla 32 bit Motherboard
1000W 24V 41.7A Power-Supply
24V 360W Heated Bed
V6 Clone Hotend
Two Filament Cooling Fans
Carbon fiber arms that connect the print head and aluminum sliding carriages together
Adjustable belt tighteners
Optimal stop sensor limit switch for each carriage
]Anycubic Ultrabase Pro – Glass Surface
The printing platform has great adhesion, easy removal of prints and is very durable. It’s covered by a special layer of microporous coating which gives you that reliable adhesion, a very flat surface and efficient bed heating.
All you have to do is let your object and platform cool down before simple removing the object from the print bed. With larger objects, using the scraper is recommended as they are stuck down a little stronger.
Automatic Levelling
This system will automatically detect 37 points around the surface and supports real-time adjustments and compensation of your nozzle height. You want to avoid 3D printers that don’t have automatic levelling as it’s just more hassle and it takes away your focus into getting high quality prints.
Simply set up the automatic levelling function on the printer and let it work for you.
The good thing about it is in the event that your print surface becomes uneven, your printer will take the levelling results into account while moving around, or in other words, real-time compensation of the nozzle height. This ensures that prints run smoothly.
Resume from Power Loss Function
Simply use the resume button with one click to continue printing from where it left off. This gives you the peace of mind of not having to worry about long prints failing. It doesn’t happen often but there are many cases of prints that last several hours failing due to this exact reason.
The manufacturers are aware of this so they made sure to implement this feature to avoid that frustrating failed print. Your printer will store information from your print, as well as the position of the print head and auto-resume the print, usually as a result of a power failure or something similar.
When power outage or sudden lack of filament, it will automatically stop and can restart from wherever it left off.
Filament Sensor Function
As most 3D printer users know filament can run out during a print, especially with a printer as big as the Anycubic Predator Delta printer.
So, its built-in filament sensor is a life-saver that will auto-pause when filament has run out, allowing you to replace your filament before it continues to print.
Without this function, a printer will keep moving around the print bed thinking it’s printing, wasting a lot of valuable printing hours and filament from having to start the print all over again.
Interactive Touch Screen
The touch screen is a full color, user-friendly and multi-language device that makes the printing process very easy. It’s a nice, bright, sharp and responsive interactive screen which gives users a more intuitive user experience.
Solid Metal Construction & Modular Design
Due to the modular design of the printer, you can be quick to start printing as it can be assembled quickly.
It makes the assembly process simple, fast and convenient and it’s designed specifically so you can have a smooth creation experience.
Many users get plagued with issues that they can’t figure out, and a lot of the time it does come from a loose frame. Anycubic has made sure to keep this in mind when creating this 3D printer. Even the wiring is done very thoughtfully and organized.
The heavy-duty, rigid Delta structure means that you’ll have minimum shaking during the printing process, saving you quality and troubleshooting issues.
Titan (Clone) Bowden ‘Flying’ Extruder
Bet on better results with flexible filaments due to the flying extruder. You’ll get some good retraction on your extrusions without all of the stringing and friction. An important benefit of this extruder is the momentum shifts being made easier.
This printer can print at a fairly high speed and you’ll get accurate extrusions so you can get good results reliably. It supports many materials from PLA, ABS and TPU.
V6 Hotend (Clone)
This hotend is a clone of an E3D hotend which has the PTFE tube leading through to the heat break. It’s advised to upgrade to an all-metal version if you want to expand your variety of filament that you can print with, unless you are fine with printing just PLA.
You also get a spare hotend with this printer as well as brass nozzles in several different diameters, from 0.4mm to 0.8mm.
Trigorilla 32-Bit Motherboard
This is a 32-bit board that can run complex calculations quickly resulting in a faster printer. It’s what gives the printer it’s resume from power loss function.
This motherboard is also used on the Mega i3 but it doesn’t run open-source firmware, instead opting in to run its own firmware called Chitu.
Heated Bed – 24V 360W
High-powered heated bed that aids your printing materials to stay in it’s optimal condition to give you a smooth print. This 24V DC high-powered heated bed will heat at speed up to 100°C. It’s fitted to the printer so it’s more secure and doesn’t have to be held in place by clips.
Adjustable Belt Tighteners
You have a built-in belt tensioner so you no longer have to tighten things up with the compression springs. Even though most people are used to these springs, this setup still works pretty well. They are rigid, tight and will produce great prints time after time.
The belts aren’t anything special, just simple tension belts with toothless idlers across the bottom. They are very easy to adjust.
Software: Compatible with Cura, Simplify3D and Repetier-Host
Technology: FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling)
Extruder Quantity: Single
Filament Diameter: 1.75mm
Supported Materials: PLA, ABS, TPU, HIPS, Copper and Wood fill, PETG, PC
Maximum Extruder Temperature: 250°C
Maximum Bed Temperature: 100°C
Connectivity: Memory card, SD card reader, and USB connectivity
Working Voltage: 24V DC
Printer Dimensions: 580mm×520mm×1020mm
Benefits
Besides the arsenal of features that you get with the Anycubic Predator Delta Kossel 3D printer you can count on getting the following benefits:
Easy to set up to help get printing quickly (color user manual and detailed tutorials)
All tools needed for assembly are included plus many more
Improved packaging to ensure safe delivery to your door
Great customer service and technical support for a lifetime
Excellent print quality with little errors
Competitive price for better quality
Downsides
Nothing is perfect so although it’s a great printer, it does have its cons which I’ll explore in this section.
Reportedly the auto-levelling doesn’t work as good as other 3D printers but still fairly good. The Predator has 37 levelling points, while the Kossel has 68. The Kossel also automatically finds the z-height at the same points.
The motherboard isn’t modular and open so it’s not so easy to get this upgraded with Marlin and TMC drivers, which would potentially solve some issues with this printer.
Reports of the build surface heating up quickly but not evenly. There are accessories you can purchase to reduce this happening so your print quality is as best as it can be.
It comes with A4988 drivers which result in a printer that’s pretty loud. You also have the fans running which also make noise. You can change to newer TMC2208 drivers but you’ll have to get a new controller. Check out my post on how to reduce noise from a 3D printer to combat the issue of loud printers.
Firmware wise it doesn’t run Marlin or other popular firmware, and instead runs on Chitu. You can’t use the regular M codes that you would use Marlin so stick to Chitu’s functions.
The competitive price of the Anycubic Predator Delta Kossel printer is sometimes hard to believe but it’s a solid printer that gives great results. It’s impressive build size is what makes it such a great unique printer compared to most out there.
Users of this printer sing nothing but praises, with its very sturdy design and no movement while printing giving it great quality prints. The construction of it really is outstanding.
If you print with just PLA the hotend is great as the PTFE liner goes straight through to the nozzle, while if you plan to print ABS it won’t do you justice. This is where some modifications can be in your benefit.
The issue with the controller is not being able to swap the drivers around, so you have to stay put with the A4988 and the Chitu software but you can operate at a great level with them. You can still change the controller for a better one but it’s a cost you’ll have to absorb.
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