Elegoo has just unveiled their first-ever coreXY 3D printer: the Centauri Carbon. Elegoo sent me a unit to evaluate, so let’s jump right into the review!
Specs
The Elegoo Centauri Carbon is an FFF (fused filament fabrication) 3D printer with coreXY kinematics, which are known for enabling high-speed printing. The official specifications list the maximum speed at 500mm/s and the maximum acceleration at 20,000mm/s^2. Those are respectable numbers that match what I see from other coreXY printers on the market.
It has a build volume of 256×256×256mm and that has become something of the “standard” for consumer printers in this segment.
The Elegoo Centauri Carbon is fully enclosed, with a steel chassis and a shell made of aluminum and glass. Integrated filters cut down on fumes and odors. An enclosure fan (in addition to the part cooling fan) helps to regulate chamber temperature.
As I’ve come to expect on modern printers, this has a flexible magnetic PEI build plate. It is textured on one side and smooth on the other.
Of note, both the extruder gears and nozzle are hardened steel. Together, those make the Centauri Carbon suitable for printing abrasive materials, such as those containing carbon fiber. The hot end can reach 320°C and the bed can reach 110°C, further increasing filament material options.
Software
Most users will want to take advantage of the free ElegooSlicer software, but that isn’t a requirement and users are free to use other slicers if they prefer.
ElegooSlicer is based on Orca Slicer, which is an open-source fork of Bambu Studio, which is a fork of PrusaSlicer …which is a fork of Slic3r. Unsurprisingly, all of those slicers have a similar GUI, with comparable features and performance.
I generally found ElegooSlicer to be pleasant to use and don’t see any reason to use another slicer. The built-in profiles worked well and the “device” tab provides access to the printer’s web interface.
Users can also access that web interface from any device on the same local network as the printer through a web browser. It has controls, print history, a live webcam view (from the built-in camera in the enclosure).
Elegoo’s official information doesn’t say so, but I suspect that the Centauri Carbon runs Klipper or a derivative. That’s a good thing, as Klipper’s input shaping capability is fantastic. However, I haven’t found an obvious way to access the Klipper configuration if that is the case. The web interface looks similar to many Klipper interfaces, but doesn’t provide configuration access.
That won’t matter to most people, but it is worth considering if you like to tinker with your printer.
Features
The Centauri Carbon has all of the features I like to see on a new printer. It has automatic bed leveling via strain gauges (121 points). It has a filament run-out sensor and power loss recovery, plus WiFi connectivity and a nice 4.3” color touchscreen. There is 8GB of internal EMMC storage, which is plenty for keeping a history of all your print files.
However, as a more budget-friendly model, Elegoo didn’t outfit the Centauri Carbon with all the sensors you might find on, say, a Bambu Lab X1 Carbon. I’m of the opinion that most of those sensors are unnecessary anyway, but they can be useful.
I also found myself a little annoyed with the top lid of the enclosure. Elegoo recommends taking that off when printing with PLA, which means you need to put it somewhere. It would have been nice if they had added hinges so users could simply lift the lid up.
Performance and print quality
Overall, I found both the performance and print quality of the Elegoo Centauri Carbon to be very good. I performed tests in PLA, PETG, and ABS, and it handled all of them well.
All of my test prints in PLA turned out great — even when printing at “ludicrous” speed. There was occasionally some very light stringing and shadowing, but that is on-par with the most popular printers in this segment.
I printed the same Buggy model in all four modes: silent, balanced, sport, and ludicrous. I would be hard pressed to find a quality difference between the first three. Ludicrous had slightly poorer quality, but it was still quite good. Silent was, sadly, not silent at all. To my ears, it wasn’t any quieter than the balanced mode — despite taking almost 50% more time to print.
ABS also worked well, though I did experience the expected warping with a large rectangular part.
The only way to avoid that with ABS is with either extreme adhesion or chamber heating. In this case, the heat from the bed and hot end weren’t enough to warm up the chamber to a high enough temperature to combat that. So, typical wisdom with warp-prone material still applies.
PETG ended up being a bit of an ordeal. I initially tried printing some older Prusament PETG that I had on hand and it worked, but the quality was poor. So, I ordered some Elegoo PETG Pro and tried that. The quality was good, but the print failed towards the end.
I still don’t know why it failed, as the error message was enigmatic and I couldn’t find any hardware issues. I tried again with the same model and settings, and it worked fine with nice results.
Issues
That enigmatic error message was, unfortunately, reflective of some of the frustrations I ran into while evaluating the Elegoo Centauri Carbon.
To be clear: the printer worked as it should have most of the time. But it wasn’t completely reliable.
Problems I encountered include: file upload failures, interface connection errors, the printer’s screen/control interface freezing, and that aforementioned mystery error.
It seems to me that these are all firmware bugs and that the hardware is fine. Elegoo will likely iron those out with future firmware updates. But all I can do is base this review on my own experience with the unit I evaluated.
And this is nitpicky, but I was also annoyed by the speed mode (silent, balanced, sport, ludicrous) setting. If you don’t wait until the printer actually starts printing, that setting won’t “stick.” If you set it while the printer is still in the preparation (leveling/calibration) phase, it will revert to the default when the printing starts. The result is that you have to sit there for several minutes waiting for the preparation to complete before you can change the setting.
Price
Information on the official retail price of the Elegoo Centauri Carbon isn’t yet available. However, based on what Elegoo’s representative told me, I can say that I expect the price to be very enticing.
With the coreXY kinematics, the full enclosure, and all of the other features, I would have expected the Centauri Carbon to have a price slightly below the Bambu Lab P1S. But it seems that it will actually be substantially lower than that, which could very well make the Centauri Carbon the best value on the market.
That price information should become available on February 17th and I think it will make some waves in the 3D printing community.
Final thoughts
As I wrapped up my testing, I came away with a firm opinion of the Elegoo Centauri Carbon: that it has very good hardware, but unreliable firmware that needs some work.
I don’t want to overstate that last bit too much, because the issues were infrequent. And, as I said, it is entirely possible that Elegoo will fix the bugs before the Centauri Carbon reaches consumer hands. But it would be dishonest if I didn’t mention them.
And the hardware is quite good — amazing even, if the price ends up being as low as I’m expecting it to be.
Elegoo is most known for their resin printers, because their Neptune series of FFF printers hasn’t exactly caught on very well. But the Centauri Carbon could definitely change that and make Elegoo a major competitor in this space.
