[ { "id": "ki-anycubic-ace-pro-clog-kobra-s1", "subject_id": "anycubic-ace-pro", "date_first_reported": "2025-03-19", "description": "Clog, filament-cut and feed errors on the Kobra S1 specifically when printing through the ACE Pro. The reported pattern: the ACE Pro loads and retracts filament correctly right up to the print head, then the printer throws a clog or 'unload time out' error, or the internal cutter snips the filament instead of purging, and clearing it means partly disassembling the extruder. Owners describe it recurring after one or two prints and persisting for months. Error codes cited by owners include 11504 and 11511. It is the dominant complaint behind the Kobra S1 Combo's 3.6/5 lifetime rating on Amazon (66 one-star ratings out of 254), and one-star reports of the same failure mode continue into 2026-08, so it is NOT confined to the launch cohort. PHASE 2 UPDATE 2026-09-06 - the same failure mode is now documented on the ACE Pro's other host machines by independent reviewers, so it is an ACE Pro problem rather than a Kobra S1 problem. Creative Bloq's four-month Kobra 3 V2 test: 'the Ace Pro was the source of 99% of errors and problems that occurred ... Tangled filament? The Ace. Stuck filament? The Ace. The wrong colour filament printing? The Ace. Unknown filament in the extruder? The Ace snapped it', with layer separation from underextrusion caused by 'endless Ace Pro clogging' and false 'Error: Tangled Filament' stops on filament that was not tangled. Tom's Hardware, testing the Kobra S1, traces part of the cause to the hardware: the ACE Pro has one shared feed motor rather than a motor per slot, so it 'can only load one filament at a time and will occasionally have problems with filament not feeding or misfeeding', and slots 3 and 4 in particular can take several attempts. Anycubic has since fixed that specific design point - the ACE 2 Pro shipping with the Kobra 4 has individual feeders per slot and 'is a vast improvement over the earlier ACE generation, which often required multiple attempts' - which is a hardware revision on the ADDON, not a firmware fix for existing ACE Pro owners. A Kobra 3 Max owner separately documents constant ACE Pro feeder jamming under a support ticket that ran six months without resolution.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "open on the ACE Pro as of 2026-09-06 - one-star Amazon reports of the same failure were still arriving in 2026-08 and Creative Bloq's four-month test ended 2025-12 with it unresolved. The single-shared-feed-motor design that causes the loading half of the problem is superseded in the ACE 2 Pro (per-slot feeders), which ships with the Kobra 4, Kobra S1 Max and Kobra 3 Max V2; existing ACE Pro units are not upgraded.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-ks1-clog-1jep8or", "src-reddit-ks1-clogfix-1nxkbv2", "src-reddit-ks1-common-1lg3cyg", "src-amazon-kobra-s1-combo-reviews", "src-amazon-kobra-s1-combo", "src-creativebloq-kobra-3-v2-4months", "src-toms-kobra-s1-review", "src-toms-kobra-4-combo-review", "src-reddit-k3max-warranty-1w472r3" ], "notes": "Evidence is four independent community sources plus a 254-rating retail listing - T4 depth without a T2 long-term teardown, so this does not meet the study's 'one T2 plus one T4' bar for a reliability claim and should be treated as strong but not measured. Wirecutter's hands-on notes say the opposite for their unit ('The Kobra S1 had no trouble swapping filament'), which is recorded here as a conflict rather than suppressed; their sample is one machine over one review period.", "_file": "anycubic.json" }, { "id": "ki-anycubic-k3-bed-adhesion-and-z-offset", "subject_id": "anycubic-kobra-3", "date_first_reported": "2024-09", "description": "igor'sLAB's instrumented test of the Kobra 3 concluded that the machine's central weakness is bed adhesion: 'Waeren nur nicht die staendigen Probleme mit der Betthaftung' - if only there were not the constant bed-adhesion problems - with one print sticking perfectly and the next failing outright, and a multi-color print aborting two-thirds of the way in. The reviewer had to reset the Z-offset by hand at the printer each time even though the built-in load cell is supposed to do that job, and reports that Reddit owner threads show he is not alone. He also found the Klipper start macros badly sequenced: the PLA preheat preset sets the nozzle to 210 C, then the start routine waits for it to cool to 170 C before heating it again. Overall verdict: 'in Sachen Ausgereiftheit und Zuverlaessigkeit hapert es noch' - it still falls short on maturity and reliability.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open at the time of test (2024-09). igor'sLAB notes Anycubic was shipping regular firmware improvements but declines to recommend on the strength of fixes that may or may not arrive. No later independent Kobra 3 retest was found for this study.", "source_ids": [ "src-igorslab-kobra-3-test" ], "notes": "Scope kept at 'isolated' deliberately. igor'sLAB says Reddit corroborates, but this study did not fetch and verify those threads, and a reviewer's report of other people's reports is not a second source.", "_file": "anycubic.json" }, { "id": "ki-anycubic-k3max-stock-nozzle-clogging", "subject_id": "anycubic-kobra-3-max", "date_first_reported": "2025-05-28", "description": "An owner one month into a Kobra 3 Max Combo reports the supplied 0.4 mm nozzle clogging 'nearly every other print' on PLA alone - 'before this printer, I'd get a clogged 0.4mm nozzle maybe once a year' - with cold pulls failing to cure it and normal printing resuming permanently only after fitting a different nozzle. Support asked for photos and then shipped a replacement hotend plus unrequested ACE Pro spares. THE EVIDENCE IS GENUINELY SPLIT: in the same thread one owner reports 'almost 1000 print hours and no real clog', another has 280 hours with clogs traced to under-temperature PETG profiles rather than the nozzle, and Tom's Hardware's 600-plus-hour test of the same machine had exactly one clog in the entire review, cleared by pulling the nozzle and cutter.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as a record; no vendor acknowledgement or hardware revision identified. Cheap replacement nozzles are sold individually by Anycubic.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-k3max-1month-1kxlusx", "src-toms-kobra-3-max-combo-review" ], "notes": "Recorded as 'isolated' on purpose. It would be easy to write this up as a pattern from one loud thread; the second-hand reports in that same thread and the 600-hour independent test both point the other way, and the honest summary is a unit-to-unit or profile-dependent nozzle lottery rather than a systemic fault.", "_file": "anycubic.json" }, { "id": "ki-anycubic-k3max-warranty-refusal-eu", "subject_id": "anycubic-kobra-3-max", "date_first_reported": "2026-09-01", "description": "A Kobra 3 Max Combo buyer from Anycubic's own online store documents an out-of-the-box geometric defect (ovals instead of circles, acknowledged under ticket #1093949 and never fixed), constant ACE Pro feeder jamming (#1467172), a warranty replacement printhead that arrived dead, and more than six months of support-directed home repairs. With the machine inoperable, he says Anycubic formally refused return and refund, citing an internal '30-day return policy' and disregarding EU Directive 2019/771. The case has gone to a card chargeback and to the Italian competition authority.", "severity": "policy", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-01 per the reporter; no Anycubic response is on the record in the thread.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-k3max-warranty-1w472r3" ], "notes": "ONE reporter. He cross-posted the identical text to r/3Dprinting, r/anycubic and r/AnycubicOfficial the same day; those are one report, not three, and scope stays 'isolated'. Relevance to a US buyer is indirect - the EU directive does not apply here - but the '30-day return policy' posture and the DIY-repair expectation do, and the brand record already lists a 14-day no-reason return plus a 30-day after-sales guarantee.", "_file": "anycubic.json" }, { "id": "ki-anycubic-k3v2-purge-wiper-fouls-print", "subject_id": "anycubic-kobra-3-v2", "date_first_reported": "2025-08-10", "description": "The Kobra 3 V2's mechanical purge wiper/divider misbehaves and puts waste filament where it does not belong. Notebookcheck found the multi-color function 'fails out of the box due to a simple design flaw: the mechanical cleaning slide is too far away from the nozzle', so it 'repeatedly pulled filament residue onto the print object and ruined the print', with the only remedy a rubber strip the owner has to attach. Creative Bloq's four-month test describes the same part from the other side: 'the poop flinger divider would also sometimes get stuck on the wrong side of the nozzle while purging and fling poop onto the print bed, which is a recipe for disaster'.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; both accounts postdate the launch firmware and neither reports a vendor fix. Notebookcheck's page carries an update stamp of 2026-02-18 with the flaw still described.", "source_ids": [ "src-notebookcheck-kobra-3-v2-review", "src-creativebloq-kobra-3-v2-4months" ], "notes": "Two independent publications describing the same mechanism, so scope 'common'. It matters more than it sounds: the wiper is on the path of every color change, so it fouls exactly the workflow the Combo is bought for.", "_file": "anycubic.json" }, { "id": "ki-anycubic-k3v2-weak-bed-magnets", "subject_id": "anycubic-kobra-3-v2", "date_first_reported": "2025-08-10", "description": "Notebookcheck reports that on the Kobra 3 V2 'the magnetic force of the print bed is too weak to reliably hold large prints'. Creative Bloq's four-month test independently reports 'prints flung off the build plate due to adhesion errors' and the need to babysit the machine. Tom's Hardware reports the neighboring Kobra 3 Max has the related problem from the plate side - 'the build plate was not 100% reliable for prints past 12 hours long, so I needed to slather it in gluestick'.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06. Workarounds are a stronger plate, glue stick or brims; no revision identified.", "source_ids": [ "src-notebookcheck-kobra-3-v2-review", "src-creativebloq-kobra-3-v2-4months", "src-toms-kobra-3-max-combo-review" ], "notes": "The Tom's citation is for the Kobra 3 Max, not the 3 V2, and is included as corroboration of a family-level plate/adhesion weakness rather than as a second report on the same SKU; the two Kobra 3 V2 sources stand on their own for the 'common' scope.", "_file": "anycubic.json" }, { "id": "ki-anycubic-k4-tpu-cannot-run-through-ace-2-pro", "subject_id": "anycubic-kobra-4", "date_first_reported": "2026-05", "description": "On the Kobra 4 Combo the ACE 2 Pro will dry TPU but will not feed it: 'even when I used \"made for AMS\", it refused to run through the ACE.' The workaround is to run TPU from a single spool holder straight into the extruder - and the review unit did not include one, so the reviewer borrowed the Kobra X's. Anycubic told him a printable 'single hub' would be added to the printer's memory; until then he removed the four-way hub and fed the filament in by hand. Independently, 3DWork reports the earlier ACE Pro also does not get on with TPU and that Anycubic advises against running PLA-CF/GF and PLA Silk through it because they can break inside the unit.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of the Kobra 4 review; Anycubic promised a printable single hub, and this study did not confirm it has shipped.", "source_ids": [ "src-toms-kobra-4-combo-review", "src-3dwork-kobra-s1-combo-review" ], "notes": "Two independent sources, but on two different ACE generations - Tom's on the ACE 2 Pro with the Kobra 4, 3DWork on the original ACE Pro with the Kobra S1. Scope 'common' is a claim about the ACE family's handling of flexibles, not about a single SKU. It bites this buyer only if TPU is on the list; PLA, PETG and ASA are unaffected.", "_file": "anycubic.json" }, { "id": "ki-anycubic-kobra-s1-bed-adhesion", "subject_id": "anycubic-kobra-s1", "date_first_reported": "2026-09-06", "description": "Small parts failing to stick to the bed on the Kobra S1. Wirecutter reports 'we had some issues with small prints' adhering to the bed on their test unit. As of 2026-09-06 this is understood to be the visible symptom of a deeper mechanism recorded separately as ki-anycubic-ks1-bed-deformation: the 2 mm bed plate deforms and flexes, and because the S1 levels by pushing the nozzle into the bed and sensing resistance, the flex corrupts the mesh, worst at the rear corners. For context, Anycubic's own first-start procedure requires PID tuning, then feedback compensation, then auto-leveling, in that order, before the first print.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06. No vendor fix; the community remedy is a home-made steel brace under the bed plus the third-party Rinkhals firmware to read the height map.", "source_ids": [ "src-wirecutter-best-home-3d-printer", "src-reddit-ks1-bedmesh-1qdvt08", "src-yt-3drevolution-kobra-s1-max" ], "notes": "Kept at scope 'isolated' as a SYMPTOM record with Wirecutter as its own evidence; the pattern claim lives in ki-anycubic-ks1-bed-deformation, which carries three sources and scope 'common'. Do not count the two records twice. date_first_reported is the retrieval date of the Wirecutter capture, not the date of their test, which the captured page does not state.", "_file": "anycubic.json" }, { "id": "ki-anycubic-kobra-s1-max-clog", "subject_id": "anycubic-kobra-s1-max", "date_first_reported": "2026-06-12", "description": "Repeated clogging on the Kobra S1 Max with any material other than PLA. The owner report describes filament melting near the base of the nozzle and then solidifying, where reheating the nozzle does not soften the plug enough to push it out, forcing nozzle removal and external heating. The thread drew 39 comments.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; no vendor acknowledgement or firmware fix identified.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-ks1max-clog-1u3wznh" ], "notes": "Recorded as 'isolated' because only one independent source was found, even though the thread's 39 comments suggest it is not unique. It matters disproportionately for this buyer because the Kobra S1 Max's entire case rests on non-PLA materials. This is exactly the gap a Phase 2 verification pass should close before the machine is recommended or dismissed.", "_file": "anycubic.json" }, { "id": "ki-anycubic-kobra-x-clog", "subject_id": "anycubic-kobra-x", "date_first_reported": "2026-03-12", "description": "Nozzle and ACE Gen 2 toolhead clogs, plus ACE 2 Pro feed failures, on the Kobra X. The community issues megathread opened within days of the machine shipping and collects print-head clogs alongside slicer bugs: a broken built-in temp tower, no g-code validation, and the slicer freezing if the PC sleeps mid-print. Amazon one-star reviews from 2026-07 to 2026-09 report the nozzle clogging on day five, constant jams, false clog alarms, an ACE 2 Pro that stopped powering on, and uneven bed heating causing lifting. Tom's Hardware's reviewer, by contrast, had one jam in the entire test and blamed a brittle old spool, but noted that disassembling the extruder is 'a fairly complicated process'.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06. Anycubic support is reported as responsive in some cases - a replacement print head and hotbed shipped for one reviewer - and unreachable in others.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-kx-megathread-1rrwhs8", "src-amazon-kobra-x-reviews", "src-toms-kobra-x-review" ], "notes": "Recency check, because a lifetime star average hides cohort effects: of the 36 Amazon reviews sampled, the May-July 2026 cohort is almost uniformly five-star while four of the eight reviews dated 2026-08-22 or later are one-star. That is the opposite of the usual launch-cohort bias and deserves a re-check before this machine is recommended - but 36 of 120 reviews is a small sample and the split could be noise. The machine has only been shipping since roughly 2026-03, so no long-term ownership evidence exists yet and the study's own rule caps its reliability score accordingly.", "_file": "anycubic.json" }, { "id": "ki-anycubic-kobra-x-colour-bleed", "subject_id": "anycubic-kobra-x", "date_first_reported": "2026-09-06", "description": "Color bleed between filaments on the Kobra X's built-in four-color ACE Gen 2 system when the default flushing volumes are used. RESOLVED ON 2026-09-06 BY TWO FURTHER INDEPENDENT ACCOUNTS, and they side with Wirecutter. Wirecutter reported that swapping between light and dark filaments bled the darker color into the lighter areas and that red into white 'turned a significant portion of the model pink'. A 400-hour review of a self-purchased retail unit (Elevated MakerSpace, 2026-05-22) found the same thing at default settings, cut a test print open to prove the unwanted color was in the printed walls rather than showing through from infill, and concluded 'the default flushing volumes are clearly tuned to hit an impressive waste reduction number, but in my testing they were way too aggressive out of the box'; raising the flush multiplier from 0.7 to 1.0 only lightened the band, and clean prints needed per-transition purge volumes set by hand. All3DP (2026-07-31) reports it as well: 'the color bleeding is, ultimately, a quick fix, but it totally undermines Anycubic's \"2x the speed, 2x the savings\" claim'. Kobra X owners on Reddit describe the same dark-into-light failure and the same fix. TOM'S HARDWARE REMAINS THE DISSENTER: its multi-color PETG test, including clear filament, was 'free of color bleeding using the default settings in the slicer'. The most economical reading that fits all five accounts is that the stock flush volumes are adequate for some color pairs and not for high-contrast ones, especially dark into light, and that the cure - more purge - eats the waste advantage the machine is sold on.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06 in the sense that the default profile still under-purges; it is fully fixable by the owner by raising the flush multiplier or setting per-transition purge volumes, at the cost of the low-waste advantage. No firmware or profile update addressing it was identified.", "source_ids": [ "src-wirecutter-best-home-3d-printer", "src-toms-kobra-x-review", "src-yt-elevatedmakerspace-kobra-x-400h", "src-all3dp-kobra-x-review" ], "notes": "Scope raised from 'isolated' to 'common' on 2026-09-06: four independent accounts of the bleed (Wirecutter, Elevated MakerSpace, All3DP, Reddit owners) against one that did not see it (Tom's Hardware). The disagreement is recorded rather than resolved away - Tom's ran PETG, the others largely PLA, and nobody tested the same color pairs. For this buyer the practical consequence is that the Kobra X's headline low-waste number and clean high-contrast color changes are not available at the same time.", "_file": "anycubic.json" }, { "id": "ki-anycubic-kobra-x-firmware-signing", "subject_id": "anycubic-kobra-x", "date_first_reported": "2026-09-01", "description": "Signed-firmware lockdown on the K4 platform. The Rinkhals community custom firmware, which supports the whole GoKlipper / K3 family (Kobra 3, 3 V2, 3 Max, S1, S1 Max, plus the Kobra 2 Pro) but no K4-family machine - the current Kobra 4 is not listed anywhere in the README either - states that the Kobra X is 'Not supported' because Anycubic moved from the K3 GoKlipper base to a 'K4 software base using a C++ Klipper port' and because 'the SWU update flow requires a trusted certificate for package acceptance', so third-party firmware cannot be installed even though the firmware packages and the SWU password are already public. Anycubic has published no source for the Kobra X. The practical consequences: no Mainsail or Fluidd, no Moonraker, therefore no Home Assistant integration, and no community rescue if Anycubic stops updating the machine.", "severity": "policy", "scope": "widespread", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; Rinkhals says support 'is not expected to be a simple port' and is waiting on a reliable signature bypass.", "source_ids": [ "src-rinkhals-community", "src-anycubic-github" ], "notes": "This is a design property of every unit shipped, hence scope 'widespread'. It is the reason the cheapest genuine multi-color machine in this study is also the most locked-down Anycubic, and it cuts directly against this buyer's stated preference for open software - though he has said 'it just works' outweighs it for this purchase.", "_file": "anycubic.json" }, { "id": "ki-anycubic-kobra-x-in-head-jam-blocks-all-paths", "subject_id": "anycubic-kobra-x", "date_first_reported": "2026-05-22", "description": "Because the Kobra X's ACE Gen 2 four-input switcher lives inside the print head rather than in an external box, a jam in one filament path takes the whole multi-color system down. Twelve hours into a 28-hour print, a jam in path four failed the print and 'made all four filament paths unusable ... you can't just ignore one blocked path and keep printing with the other three'. Clearing it meant removing the filament hub from the top and the nozzle from the bottom and pushing the broken fragment out - not a full teardown, but 'definitely more involved than I would want for a beginner-focused machine'. The reviewer's summary of the trade-off: 'when something jams ... that complexity becomes a part of the problem'.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06. Anycubic sells Kobra X consumables and spares in the US and publishes a wiki teardown procedure; the reviewer confirms parts availability was not the problem.", "source_ids": [ "src-yt-elevatedmakerspace-kobra-x-400h" ], "notes": "One occurrence in 400+ hours on one machine, so 'isolated' as a frequency claim. The architectural consequence - one path down means four paths down - is a design fact, not an incident, and applies to every Kobra X.", "_file": "anycubic.json" }, { "id": "ki-anycubic-kobra-x-petg-squeal", "subject_id": "anycubic-kobra-x", "date_first_reported": "2026-04-11", "description": "Kobra X owners report the machine being far louder than expected out of the box: hotend fan noise, stepper drivers audible at low speeds, the waste-removal mechanism creaking into resonance with the frame, and squealing from the axis guides - 'louder than the Ender 3 with an SKR mini e3 motherboard'. Four commenters in the same thread confirm it, attribute it to minimal factory lubrication, and report that PTFE grease on the friction points plus a re-run of the noise-cancellation calibration cuts it substantially. Several add that the squeal is specific to PETG - 'PLA is silent ... lots of others reporting the same noises' - and one suggests lowering slicer travel acceleration from 10000 to 5000.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; owner-side mitigations (lubrication, recalibration, lower travel acceleration) are reported to work.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-kx-noisy-1sikntl" ], "notes": "Scope 'isolated' strictly on the source-count rule: four owners agreeing, but all inside ONE thread, which is one source. No dB figure anywhere in it, so it cannot be used to set noise_db - it only shows the vendor's sub-48 dB claim is contested by owners.", "_file": "anycubic.json" }, { "id": "ki-anycubic-kobra-x-z-banding-left-side", "subject_id": "anycubic-kobra-x", "date_first_reported": "2026-05-22", "description": "A repeating horizontal banding artifact every 4.68 mm of Z height on a retail Kobra X, strongest on parts printed on the left of the bed, fainter in the center and absent on the right. The reviewer ruled out slicer, tuning and resonance causes by the position dependence, re-trammed the gantry (the left side was slightly high) with no change, and concluded the fault is in the left, belt-synchronized lead-screw side of the Z system - a bent or eccentric screw, a misaligned Z nut, or side loading from the top synchronization assembly, made worse by the lead screws being constrained at both ends rather than allowed to float. Consequence he states plainly: prints from the machine are not saleable as premium finished pieces.", "severity": "cosmetic", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open and unresolved at time of publication; the reviewer was still in a support dispute, Anycubic's first two replies were generic, and he expected to need replacement parts rather than another calibration pass.", "source_ids": [ "src-yt-elevatedmakerspace-kobra-x-400h" ], "notes": "One unit. Severity is 'cosmetic' on the reviewer's own assessment ('mostly a cosmetic defect'), but for a buyer choosing the cheapest machine in the study partly on print quality, a QC defect that survives correct tramming is worth seeing. Balancing evidence: a separate unsponsored reviewer reported zero failures of any kind on his Kobra X.", "_file": "anycubic.json" }, { "id": "ki-anycubic-ks1-bed-deformation", "subject_id": "anycubic-kobra-s1", "date_first_reported": "2025-03", "description": "The Kobra S1's print bed is a 2 mm plate that deforms and flexes, and because the S1 family probes the bed by pushing the nozzle into it and sensing resistance, the flex feeds straight back into the mesh and corrupts the leveling - worst in the two rear corners. A community mod thread (158 upvotes, 61 comments, 2026-01-15) opens by conceding 'the stock bed has 2mm thickness and it will deform' and only claims to make the deformation consistent; owners in that thread quote their own measured bed ranges of 1.1 mm and 0.8 mm, one reporting 0.17 mm after fitting steel bracing. A reviewer testing the larger Kobra S1 Max independently diagnosed the same mechanism, showed the bed visibly flexing under finger pressure at the rear corners, and said 'there have been quite a few reports online over the last year of people with the Kobra S1 ... saying that the beds aren't flat ... this has been a known issue for months with the S1, so the fact that it still exists with the S1 Max, a brand new product is not a good sign'. Wirecutter's hands-on notes the practical symptom: trouble getting small prints to stick.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06. No firmware or hardware revision identified. The community workaround needs the third-party Rinkhals firmware plus a home-made steel brace and costs 10-20 mm of Z height.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-ks1-bedmesh-1qdvt08", "src-yt-3drevolution-kobra-s1-max", "src-wirecutter-best-home-3d-printer" ], "notes": "Three independent sources, one of them a technical diagnosis of the mechanism rather than a symptom report. The older ki-anycubic-kobra-s1-bed-adhesion record captured the same symptom from Wirecutter alone and now cross-references this one.", "_file": "anycubic.json" }, { "id": "ki-anycubic-ks1-hotend-thermal-runaway-review-unit", "subject_id": "anycubic-kobra-s1", "date_first_reported": "2025-03-01", "description": "On a Kobra S1 Combo review unit, an ABS clog led the owner through Anycubic's own instructed extruder teardown, during which 'something sparked and I saw a brief flash'. From then on the printer heated itself on power-up with no print commanded, 'reaching 340-degree temps at an alarmingly fast rate with a little bit of smoke', then shut itself down. A replacement hotend did not fix it; a replacement print-head board did. The machine then threw retraction-abnormal errors traced to the material break-detection board, and the owner abandoned it after five teardowns in three weeks. Anycubic ultimately shipped an entire replacement printer.", "severity": "safety", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as a record; that specific machine was replaced. No recall, advisory or firmware note identified, and no second independent report of uncommanded heating was found.", "source_ids": [ "src-creativebloq-kobra-s1-combo-review" ], "notes": "Single source, hence 'isolated' - do not read it as a pattern. It is recorded because uncommanded heating with smoke is the one failure class where a single credible report still belongs in a buying decision, and because the same reviewer later wrote that BOTH of her Kobra S1 Combos ended up 'collecting dust in my garage'.", "_file": "anycubic.json" }, { "id": "ki-anycubic-ks1max-prerelease-unit-failures", "subject_id": "anycubic-kobra-s1-max", "date_first_reported": "2026-03-12", "description": "A 40-minute review of a pre-release Kobra S1 Max, after more than a month of use, reports: three consecutive polycarbonate prints failing on bed adhesion despite full recalibration, with the nozzle later found completely backed up with solidified PC and needing replacement; nozzle scarring on the build plate from travel moves; a 5-7 mm layer shift a few layers into a print, after which a detached part caught the extruder's fan guide and pulled the cover off, with the machine sounding as if it was driving past its endstops; the bed visibly flexing at the rear corners and corrupting the nozzle-pressure mesh; color auto-assignment loading the wrong spool even when the exact sliced color is present; and filament-remaining reporting under 10% for any spool without an NFC tag, including brand-new 1 kg spools. Verdict: 'If you were considering the Kobra S1 Max, I would maybe hold off'.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06 as far as this study can tell. Anycubic told the reviewer they believe that specific machine is defective, possibly damaged in shipping (the box arrived damaged), that the start-of-print error codes were a beta-firmware artifact, and that other testers of the same build did not see these problems; they promised a retail unit for a follow-up video, and no follow-up was found by 2026-09-06.", "source_ids": [ "src-yt-3drevolution-kobra-s1-max" ], "notes": "Deliberately weak evidence, deliberately recorded that way. Single source, pre-release hardware, YouTube paid-promotion flag set, and a vendor claim that the unit was damaged in transit - any one of those is enough to keep the scope at 'isolated'. The one finding that survives all of it is the bed-flex mechanism, because it is the same defect the Kobra S1 community has been bracing since 2025 (ki-anycubic-ks1-bed-deformation).", "_file": "anycubic.json" }, { "id": "ki-anycubic-ks1max-slicer-stop-not-honoured", "subject_id": "anycubic-kobra-s1-max", "date_first_reported": "2026-03-12", "description": "On a pre-release Kobra S1 Max, the reviewer pressed stop in Anycubic Slicer Next three times during a failing print. Each time the slicer reported the print stopped while the live camera feed on the same connection showed it still printing. Only pressing stop on the printer itself worked. He calls it 'pretty alarming that the stop command was not being sent from the slicer to the printer, despite the slicer telling me that it had been stopped'.", "severity": "safety", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as a record. Anycubic attributed the unit's start-of-print error codes to beta firmware; whether the stop-command failure was covered by that is not stated, and no fix is documented.", "source_ids": [ "src-yt-3drevolution-kobra-s1-max" ], "notes": "Single source on pre-release firmware, so 'isolated'. Recorded because a remote-stop control that silently lies about having stopped is a different class of problem from a bad print, and this buyer is being sold remote monitoring as a feature.", "_file": "anycubic.json" }, { "id": "ki-anycubic-measured-noise-exceeds-published-spec", "subject_id": "anycubic", "date_first_reported": "2024-09", "description": "Every independent dB measurement this study could find of a current Kobra puts the machine well above Anycubic's published figure, and the gap is large enough to change where the printer can live. igor'sLAB measured the Kobra 3 at 61.8 dB(A) while printing and 50.1 dB(A) merely idling, calling it 'ein echter Krachmacher'. Notebookcheck measured the Kobra 3 V2 at 55-60 dB(A) printing and about 42 dB(A) idling, both from one meter, and concluded it is 'too loud for prolonged use in a living or working environment'. android-user.de measured the Kobra S1 - the enclosed CoreXY, which ought to be the quiet one - at an average of about 63 dB and a maximum of 69 dB in working mode against Anycubic's stated 48 dB, and listed the noise as one of its two headline cons. Anycubic's own published numbers for the same machines are 44-46 dB (Kobra S1) and <=60 dB (Kobra 3 Max). Two secondary sources restate the vendor number as though it were their own finding - 3DWork writes 'around 46 dB' for the S1 while its own spec table shows 46 dB is the manufacturer figure, and Tom's Hardware writes '60dB in standard mode' for the Kobra 3 Max, which is exactly Anycubic's '<=60dB' spec - which is how the claim propagates.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06. Not a defect Anycubic acknowledges; it is a mismatch between the published figure and every independent measurement found. Quiet/silent print modes do reduce it, at the cost of speed.", "source_ids": [ "src-igorslab-kobra-3-test", "src-notebookcheck-kobra-3-v2-review", "src-android-user-kobra-s1-test", "src-3dwork-kobra-s1-combo-review", "src-toms-kobra-3-max-combo-review", "src-anycubic-kobra-3-max", "src-anycubic-kobra-s1" ], "notes": "Three independent instrumented measurements across three different models, so scope 'common' is carried by source count, not by inference. Distances differ: Notebookcheck states one meter; igor'sLAB and android-user.de do not state a distance, which limits how precisely their numbers can be compared.", "_file": "anycubic.json" }, { "id": "ki-anycubic-slicer-purge-estimate-unreliable", "subject_id": "anycubic", "date_first_reported": "2024-07", "description": "Anycubic Slicer Next cannot be trusted to tell you how much filament a multi-color print will waste, and the failure mode has changed rather than gone away. On the Kobra 3 the slicer shipped with no purge control and no purge figure at all. On the Kobra S1 it still 'won't tell me how much filament is being purged during color changes ... Loading up a big multicolor print becomes a gamble. Will I have enough material? I have no clue' - the reviewer only learned that a 312 g print had cost 730 g by weighing the scraps afterwards, and the purge volume can be changed only from the printer's touchscreen, globally, mid-print, and is not remembered between prints. By the Kobra 3 Max the slicer had gained purge objects, flush-into-infill and a global flush volume, roughly halving waste on the same model. On the Kobra 4 the number is displayed but wrong: 'Anycubic's slicer vastly underestimated the waste and even suggested it would flush negative values of yellow filament. This bug has been around since the Kobra X.'", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "partially mitigated. Purge objects and flush tuning arrived in Anycubic Slicer Next between the Kobra 3 and Kobra 3 Max reviews; the estimate itself was still wrong on the Kobra 4 and Kobra X as of that review, and per-color purge control was still missing on the Kobra 3 Max.", "source_ids": [ "src-toms-kobra-s1-review", "src-toms-kobra-3-review", "src-toms-kobra-3-max-combo-review", "src-toms-kobra-4-combo-review", "src-notebookcheck-kobra-3-v2-review" ], "notes": "SOURCE-INDEPENDENCE CAVEAT: four of the five citations are Tom's Hardware and three of those are the same reviewer, so this is largely one observer across four machines, not four observers. Scope 'common' is claimed on the span of MACHINES affected (Kobra 3, S1, 3 Max, 4, X) and is backed independently by Notebookcheck ('the weight of the waste quickly exceeds that of the actual object') and by Creative Bloq's report of unrequested repeat purges on resume.", "_file": "anycubic.json" }, { "id": "ki-anycubic-support-owner-performed-repair-burden", "subject_id": "anycubic", "date_first_reported": "2025-03-01", "description": "Anycubic's after-sales pattern across three independent accounts is: parts ship quickly and often generously, but the customer is expected to perform the repair, and first-line replies can be scripted. Creative Bloq was walked through five teardowns in three weeks on a Kobra S1 Combo, including installing a print-head board ('I successfully managed to install (and it wasn't easy)'), and wrote 'it strikes me as odd that Anycubic has so much trust in its customers to repair these machines themselves rather than offering a more reliable repair service'. A 400-hour Kobra X reviewer who submitted photos, measurements and positional test data for a suspected mechanical Z-axis defect got 'basic script troubleshooting' and was asked to tram the gantry after he had already reported doing exactly that: 'the support experience has been quick, but not especially useful'. A Kobra 3 Max owner documents six months of support-directed home repairs - belt replacements, a full motherboard swap, printhead rebuilds - and a warranty replacement printhead that arrived dead. The counter-evidence is real and belongs here: a Kobra 3 Max owner says support sent a hotend plus unrequested ACE Pro parts and calls it going 'above and beyond', and Creative Bloq eventually received a whole replacement printer.", "severity": "policy", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06. Anycubic sells spare parts individually and cheaply, which is the flip side of the same policy.", "source_ids": [ "src-creativebloq-kobra-s1-combo-review", "src-yt-elevatedmakerspace-kobra-x-400h", "src-reddit-k3max-warranty-1w472r3", "src-reddit-k3max-1month-1kxlusx" ], "notes": "Three independent negative accounts plus one positive, so 'common' is carried by source count. This is a support-model observation, not an allegation that support is unresponsive - in every account the response was fast.", "_file": "anycubic.json" }, { "id": "ki-bambu-a1-heatbed-cable-recall", "subject_id": "bambu-a1", "date_first_reported": "2024-01-28", "description": "Bambu recalled the A1 in early 2024 over a heatbed cable that could be damaged if bent during shipping or installation, creating an electrical malfunction risk. Bambu announced a heatbed cable callback on 2024-01-28 and extended it on 2024-02-04 to all A1 printers then in the market, recommending owners stop using the printer until more was known, while reporting that fewer than 0.1% of A1 printers sold had shown the fault. Current stock is remediated: Bambu's own A1 pages, retrieved 2026-09-06, state that units sold now are 'not from the same batch as those recalled before. They already contain all the necessary fixes to mitigate the heatbed cable issue which caused the recall.'", "severity": "safety", "scope": "isolated", "status": "closed - remediated in hardware; Bambu states current new and officially refurbished A1 stock carries the revised heatbed assembly (retrieved 2026-09-06)", "source_ids": [ "src-bambu-blog-a1-recall", "src-bambu-a1-store", "src-bambu-blog-a1-callback" ], "notes": "Scoped 'isolated' because Bambu's own figure for units actually exhibiting the fault was under 0.1%, even though the recall itself was universal and precautionary. Recorded because the officially refurbished A1 is one of the configurations in this file and a buyer will reasonably ask. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission also lists this recall, but cpsc.gov could not be retrieved through the fetch channel (Bright Data blocks government domains), so only Bambu's own account is cited.", "_file": "bambu.json" }, { "id": "ki-bambu-a1-ntc-ac-board-meltdown", "subject_id": "bambu-a1", "date_first_reported": "2025-04", "description": "The NTC inrush-limiting thermistor on the A1's AC power-distribution board can overheat, crack or disintegrate, melting the surrounding plastic and in the worst cases charring the wiring. 3D Musketeers measured the part at 140 C with a thermal imager; Bambu conceded on 2026-01-05 that a damaged part can reach 160 C and soften or melt adjacent plastic. Bambu puts confirmed incidence at about 0.052% (publicly, 'well below 0.1%'), blames grid surges, and says no fires have been reported; independent reporters dispute the surge explanation, and community reports include units that caught fire and a Bambu-supplied replacement machine that failed the same way. The physics point raised repeatedly is that 120 V markets draw roughly twice the current of Bambu's 220 V home market for the same bed power.", "severity": "safety", "scope": "common", "status": "fixed in hardware for new production: Bambu removed the NTC from the A1 circuit in a Q3 2025 board redesign and says affected customers were repaired or replaced (statement to Tom's Hardware, 2026-01-02). Open for A1 units built before that change, which includes any second-hand or older stock; the AC board is a user-replaceable part with a Bambu wiki guide. CNC Kitchen confirmed by teardown on 2026-06-01 that the A2L's AC board has no NTC.", "source_ids": [ "src-tomshardware-ntc-thermistor", "src-consumerrights-ntc-a1", "src-all3dp-ntc-thermistor", "src-reddit-ntc-check-printers", "src-cnckitchen-a2l-400h" ], "notes": "Distinct from and later than the 2024 CPSC heatbed-cable recall already recorded as ki-bambu-a1-heatbed-cable-recall. No recall has been issued for this one; 3D Musketeers argues there should be.", "_file": "bambu.json" }, { "id": "ki-bambu-a2l-prerelease-firmware-print-failures", "subject_id": "bambu-a2l", "date_first_reported": "2026-06-01", "description": "In the only measured long-term test of the A2L found, CNC Kitchen lost two multi-day prints to firmware bugs: one large print randomly paused after about a day and could not be resumed, and on the retry the AMS lite's filament-backup feature - which should switch to a second spool of the same material when one runs out - was broken. Bambu supplied new firmware for each. The same test found two further limitations that are behavior rather than bugs: cancel-object cannot be driven from the printer screen or from Bambu Studio, only from the Handy phone app, and it does not work at all above 64 objects on the plate; and the blob-detection flap only checks when the head visits the purge station, which on a large single-color print may be never.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "reported fixed in firmware supplied during the review period and before retail availability ('many of the bugs and problems I encountered were fixed in firmware during my testing, so hopefully you should not have to deal with them'), but not independently re-verified on a retail unit as of 2026-09-06.", "source_ids": [ "src-cnckitchen-a2l-400h" ], "notes": "Scope is 'isolated' because it rests on a single reviewer's pre-release sample; there is no owner cohort yet. It is recorded rather than dropped because it is the only failure data that exists for this machine.", "_file": "bambu.json" }, { "id": "ki-bambu-ams-2-pro-feed-grinding", "subject_id": "bambu-ams-2-pro", "date_first_reported": "2026-04-14", "description": "AMS 2 Pro feeder slots intermittently fail during initial filament loading and grind the filament instead of pushing it through, typically needing a manual nudge to recover. An independent reviewer hit it on feeder 1 of his review unit across 250 hours and noted he did not appear to be alone; a separate 200-hour X2D owner had feed problems bad enough that Bambu shipped him a replacement filament hub, and describes filament feed issues as 'the most common problem I've seen', attributing them to an over-cautious firmware threshold that stops the AMS 1-2 mm short of the extruder's hobbed gear. Recovery is manual rather than damaging, so severity is print-failure at worst rather than hardware failure.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; no firmware fix identified in the sources reviewed", "source_ids": [ "src-cnckitchen-x2d", "src-forum-x2d-200h" ], "notes": "Two independent sources, one of them a measured long-term review, so this clears the two-source bar for 'common'. It applies to the AMS 2 Pro itself and therefore to every configuration in this file that includes one, including the P2S Combo.", "_file": "bambu.json" }, { "id": "ki-bambu-ams1-feed-jams", "subject_id": "bambu-ams", "date_first_reported": "2024-09-01", "description": "The first-generation AMS misfeeds and jams noticeably more than the AMS lite and the AMS 2 Pro. The two failure modes owners report independently are: cardboard and lightweight spools binding, deforming or letting filament unspool inside the unit - reported by four separate owners, one of whom simply stopped buying cardboard spools and another who moved all cardboard spools to an AMS lite; and filament snapping and lodging in the PTFE tubes under the AMS, which requires pulling all filament, unscrewing and partially dismantling the unit (about twice in eight months for one 3,000-hour production user). Owners who have both units say the AMS 2 Pro 'powers through' errors the original AMS threw, has a ceramic feed insert in place of plastic, and lets you clear a jam or change a PTFE tube without dismantling. Tom's Hardware states editorially that the AMS lite 'prevents jams more than the original model'.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; not fixed on the original AMS, which Bambu still sells and still ships in the P1S AMS Combo. Mitigated by respooling onto plastic spools, by printed spool-support mods, or by buying the AMS 2 Pro.", "source_ids": [ "src-bambu-p1s-longterm-5000h", "src-forum-p1s-600h", "src-reddit-p1s-part-failures", "src-reddit-ams-vs-ams2-petg", "src-tomshardware-a1-mini-review" ], "notes": "Bears directly on the cheapest configuration in this file, cfg-bambu-p1s-refurb-ams, which ships the ORIGINAL AMS. On the specific question of whether the original AMS's lack of active drying hurts a PETG-heavy user: the owners who have used both say no - drying is not the deciding difference for PLA and PETG if filament is stored dry, and the AMS 2 Pro cannot dry while printing anyway. The deciding difference is mechanical reliability and serviceability, and that does favor the AMS 2 Pro.", "_file": "bambu.json" }, { "id": "ki-bambu-firmware-authorization", "subject_id": "bambu", "date_first_reported": "2025-01-01", "description": "Bambu's printer-control authorization mechanism, introduced in firmware from January 2025 on the X series and extended to the P and A series afterwards, requires authorized access for binding/unbinding, firmware updates from third-party software, remote video, printer control (motion, temperature, fans, AMS settings, calibration) and starting a print job - in cloud mode AND in ordinary LAN mode. Starting a print from any software other than Bambu Studio must go through Bambu's 'Bambu Connect' middleware, which itself requires a cloud account login. Bambu explicitly exempts MQTT status pushes (what Home Assistant consumes), printing from card storage, and microSD firmware updates. The escape hatch, added after community pressure, is Developer Mode: it can only be enabled while LAN Only is active, it disables Bambu Cloud entirely, it cannot be enabled at all while laser or cutting functions are in use on the X2D/H2S/A2L, and Bambu stated on its forum in May 2026 that Developer Mode is unsupported. The dispute is live rather than historical: on 2026-05-08 Bambu published a forum announcement confirming it had asked GitHub to remove an 'OrcaSlicer-BambuLab' fork that injected falsified identity metadata to impersonate an official client to Bambu's cloud, arguing that AGPL governs the code but not access to its private service; the thread drew heavy criticism including a still-open February 2025 GitHub issue alleging the authorization code itself was never published as AGPL-required source.", "severity": "policy", "scope": "widespread", "status": "in force as of 2026-09-06; mitigated for advanced users by Developer Mode under LAN Only, which Bambu describes as available but unsupported", "source_ids": [ "src-bambu-wiki-third-party", "src-bambu-forum-cloud-statement", "src-bambu-wiki-dev-mode" ], "notes": "The honest summary for this buyer: nothing here stops him printing, and nothing forces a cloud account on him. What it does is make the open path (Developer Mode, LAN Only, OrcaSlicer sending directly) an unsupported mode that costs him the phone app and cloud features, and it establishes that Bambu will act legally against tooling it considers cloud impersonation. Score openness on that, not on a claim that the printers are locked.", "_file": "bambu.json" }, { "id": "ki-bambu-handy-android17-crash", "subject_id": "bambu", "date_first_reported": "2025-12-18", "description": "Bambu Handy, the official mobile app, crashes on launch on Android 17. The problem first surfaced on Android beta builds: the forum thread was opened on 2025-12-18 by a Pixel 10 Pro XL owner whose Handy stopped launching after an Android 16 QPR3 beta update, and on 2025-12-22 another owner posted an email reply from Bambu support saying it had 'identified crashes occurring on devices running beta builds' and was working to adapt the app. Owners were still reporting crashes on new app releases through 2026-06-10 and after Android 17's public release on about 2026-06-17, with the workaround being to side-load Handy 3.6.0 from an APK mirror. On 2026-07-03 a Pixel 10 Pro owner opened bambulab/Bambu-Handy issue #276, 'Android 17 Crash - App version newer than 3.6.0 crashes on launch on Android 17', adding that 3.6.0 is too old to print to an X2D because the printer firmware has moved on. That issue was still OPEN with zero comments when retrieved on 2026-09-06, alongside two other open reports retrieved the same day: #265 ('SIGSEGV crash on launch', opened 2026-02-25) and #268 ('Android 17 Beta QPR3 - unable to print and other small bugs', opened 2026-04-14). Reports are not universal - one owner reports Handy working on a Pixel 9a with some icons failing to render - so this appears device- or build-dependent rather than total.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06 on Bambu's own issue tracker (issue #276, no maintainer response since it was opened on 2026-07-03)", "source_ids": [ "src-github-handy-android17", "src-forum-handy-android", "src-forum-handy-android-p1", "src-github-handy-265", "src-github-handy-268" ], "notes": "Specifically consequential for this buyer, who is on a Pixel with no iPhone: the demerit the brief warns about ('iOS-only or iOS-first companion apps are a demerit') shows up here not as a missing Android app but as an Android app that has been broken on current Android for months. It affects remote monitoring, not printing - Bambu Studio on a PC is unaffected.", "_file": "bambu.json" }, { "id": "ki-bambu-handy-no-lan-mode", "subject_id": "bambu", "date_first_reported": "2023-03-16", "description": "The Bambu Handy mobile app does not work at all when a printer is in LAN Only mode. This is stated plainly in Bambu's own LAN mode wiki page - 'Bambu Handy app is not available when using LAN Mode' - alongside the loss of remote start from outside the local network and of Print History. Two long-standing feature requests asking for it ('Support printer in LAN-only mode' #80, opened 2023-03-16, and '[Feature Request] Use Bambu Handy in Lan Mode' #138, opened 2023-10-19) were both still open on Bambu's own tracker when retrieved on 2026-09-06. The practical effect is a forced choice: either accept a Bambu cloud account and cloud connectivity to get phone monitoring and push notifications, or run LAN Only and monitor only from Bambu Studio on a computer on the same network.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "widespread", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; documented by Bambu as intended behavior, with feature requests #80 and #138 open and unactioned", "source_ids": [ "src-bambu-wiki-lan-mode", "src-github-handy-lan-mode", "src-github-handy-lan-mode-138" ], "notes": "This is the concrete cost of Bambu's LAN-only mode for a buyer who values self-hosting: LAN Only is genuinely functional for printing, but it costs you the phone app entirely. Bambu's own P2S page footnote confirms the coupling from the other direction: 'Push notifications require use of Bambu Handy and cloud connectivity.'", "_file": "bambu.json" }, { "id": "ki-bambu-p1-extruder-gear-wear", "subject_id": "bambu-p1s", "date_first_reported": "2023-12-19", "description": "The stock extruder gears in the P1 and X1 series wear out as a consumable, not a lifetime part. Reported intervals from owners who log hours: gears ground flat at ~1,200 h on PLA and PETG only, with metal slivers left in the extruder; a six-machine owner at ~4,000 h per machine keeps spare sets on hand and sees the yellow gear teeth wear and skip; a Reddit owner reports replacement 'roughly every 1,000 or 2,000 hours'; and multiple P1S owners replaced gears around the 2,000 h mark. The failure presents as gradual under-extrusion rather than a hard stop, so it can be mistaken for a filament or profile problem.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "open by design as of 2026-09-06 and treated by Bambu as maintenance: its own P1 wiki documents extruder cleaning and says gears can be 'damaged beyond repair', and it sells a hardened-steel extruder gear assembly for the X1 and P1 series (already priced in this file as bambu-hardened-gear-x1-p1). Owners who fit the hardened gears early report no recurrence.", "source_ids": [ "src-forum-extruder-gear-lifespan", "src-reddit-p1s-part-failures", "src-bambu-p1s-longterm-5000h" ], "notes": "Relevant to the P1S specifically because its stock nozzle is stainless and its stock gears are not hardened, so the hardened-parts spend this file already tracks is a maintenance purchase as well as an abrasive-filament one.", "_file": "bambu.json" }, { "id": "ki-bambu-p1s-ac-board-thermal-failure", "subject_id": "bambu-p1s", "date_first_reported": "2026-01-01", "description": "The P1 series shares the same AC-board inrush-limiting NTC circuit as the A1, and owners have documented P1S units failing the same way: a strong burning-electronics smell at about 1,700 print hours with Bambu shipping a replacement AC board; a unit bought 2025-10-10 that began smoking; and further owner threads collected by the community. The rate appears far lower than on the A1 - Grant Posner of 3D Musketeers, who is campaigning on this issue, calls a P1S case 'decently rare these days, but not impossible', and other owners say they have never seen one - which is attributed to the P1's AC board being fan-cooled inside the enclosure and its 100 C bed drawing less current than the A1's.", "severity": "safety", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06. Bambu published an A1 board revision but, as of a wiki check on 2026-06-03, no equivalent NTC-less AC board revision for the P1 series; Bambu's official Reddit account replied to that question by directing the owner to a support ticket rather than confirming or denying a revised board. Material for the refurbished P1S configurations in this file, whose donor units are by definition older stock.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-p1s-burning-smell", "src-reddit-p1s-no-ntcless-board", "src-reddit-ntc-check-printers", "src-tomshardware-ntc-thermistor" ], "notes": "Scope is deliberately 'isolated' rather than 'common': four or more independent owner reports exist, which clears the two-source bar, but every informed voice found - including the campaigner most hostile to Bambu on this issue - says the P1S rate is much lower than the A1's, and no measurement of a P1S NTC temperature was found.", "_file": "bambu.json" }, { "id": "ki-bambu-p1s-asa-passive-chamber-warping", "subject_id": "bambu-p1s", "date_first_reported": "2024-04-04", "description": "ASA and other high-shrink materials warp on the P1S once parts get large or box-shaped, because the chamber is passive and the bed is capped at 100 C. Owners measure the passive chamber at only about 40 C, or a little over, with the bed maxed and the doors shut; an owner who fitted an aftermarket chamber heater measures a little over 50 C against a claimed 60 C. Failures reported include a large ASA part splitting in mid-air (not lifting off the plate), and, at 50 C chamber, large boxes pulling the flexible build plate itself up at the corners so it must be clamped down. One owner who counts his failures attributes 0.5% of prints - all of them 'very big ASA prints' - to this, and solved it only by adding a thermostat and heater to reach ~80 C.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "open by design as of 2026-09-06 - there is no Bambu chamber heater for the P1S. Mitigated by a documented owner workflow (bed to 100 C, aux fan on to circulate, heat-soak 15-30 minutes, aux fan off, doors shut, brim, and a non-stock build surface), and by aftermarket chamber heaters that owners report reaching 50-80 C. Small and medium ASA parts print fine: Tom's Hardware printed an ASA tape dispenser at default settings with 'no warping', and owners in these same threads print ASA and ASA-CF routinely, including one running a fleet of P1S machines on full-bed ASA parts.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-p1s-asa-requirements", "src-reddit-p1s-asa-large-warping", "src-reddit-p1s-part-failures", "src-bambu-p1s-tomshardware-review" ], "notes": "This entry exists to settle the open question carried into this phase from earlier research, which recorded owner-documented ASA FAILURE on the P1S - one owner 'burned through 1 kg to extreme warping', another quit after five attempts. That is confirmed as a real and repeatable failure mode for large parts and is not an isolated complaint. It is NOT confirmed as a blanket verdict that ASA is impractical on a P1S: multiple independent owners print ASA successfully with a heat-soak workflow and a different build surface, and an independent measured review printed ASA at default settings without warping. The honest reading is that the P1S is an ASA machine only for small-to-medium parts and only with a deliberate preheat routine, and that a buyer whose main purpose is ASA should buy a heated chamber - which is exactly what two of the 2026 replies told such a buyer.", "_file": "bambu.json" }, { "id": "ki-bambu-p1s-hotend-clog-wear", "subject_id": "bambu-p1s", "date_first_reported": "2024-09-01", "description": "Nozzle clogs and hotend wear are the single most frequently reported P1S consumable failure in long-term ownership. Hour-stamped owner reports: first hotend worn out at ~2,600 h and its replacement lost to an over-aggressive unclogging attempt; one clog at ~1,000 h; one nozzle replaced at ~4,000 h; hotend, PTFE tubes and extruder replaced once across 7,000 h; several clogs across ~3,000 h attributed to abrasive filament on the stock stainless nozzle, none after upgrading. One owner reports a blob-of-doom forming on the toolhead after a clog went undetected - the P1S has no AI failure detection, only a 0.5 fps monitoring camera.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "open by design as of 2026-09-06; a spare hotend ships in the box and Bambu sells P1-series hotends and nozzles individually. Mitigated in practice by fitting the hardened hotend/nozzle before running abrasive filament.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-p1s-part-failures", "src-forum-p1s-600h", "src-bambu-p1s-longterm-5000h" ], "notes": "Recorded as an annoyance rather than a hardware failure because in every report captured the machine returned to service on a cheap user-replaceable part.", "_file": "bambu.json" }, { "id": "ki-bambu-p1s-noise-resonance", "subject_id": "bambu-p1s", "date_first_reported": "2023-08-13", "description": "The P1S is loud for an enclosed machine and the noise is the reason owners relocate it. Tom's Hardware's independent review lists 'Noisy' as one of its three Cons. Owner meter readings put it at 47 dB average at 2.4 m and 58 dB at 0.3 m behind the exhaust, with other owners reporting 58-62 dB; AppleInsider's review says print jobs never exceeded 55 dB. The character, described independently by several owners, is fan noise plus a scratchy rasp from the carbon rods plus frame resonance on direction changes; one owner argues the enclosure amplifies rather than damps it. Behavioral evidence rather than opinion: one owner moved the machine out of his workshop behind a steel fire door after a single evening, and several say it is fine to work beside but not to sleep beside.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "open by design as of 2026-09-06. Partly mitigated by Bambu's silent print mode (which owners note reduces speed, not fan RPM), by lowering fan speed in the slicer, and by third-party damping mats and anti-vibration feet, one of which is documented in a 41k-view owner video.", "source_ids": [ "src-bambu-p1s-tomshardware-review", "src-reddit-p1s-how-loud", "src-reddit-p1s-noise-actual-use", "src-bambu-p1s-appleinsider" ], "notes": "Directly relevant to the 'practicalities for a shared home' dimension. PCMag independently states that the P2S at 48 dB average is 'several points quieter than the P1S was when I tested it', which corroborates the P1S sitting in the low-to-mid 50s on a like-for-like method.", "_file": "bambu.json" }, { "id": "ki-bambu-p2s-chamber-heat-pla", "subject_id": "bambu-p2s", "date_first_reported": "2026-02-25", "description": "The P2S's Adaptive Airflow flap is driven by the filament profile's 'softening temperature' field: an owner reports the P2S start G-code forces the air duct into heating/recirculation mode for any filament whose profile declares a softening temperature above 50 C, which covers most third-party PLA+ and PETG profiles (Bambu's own PLA declares 45 C and escapes it), with no UI override and no way to change the mode mid-print. The reported result in a 25-27 C room is a chamber at 36 C after 20 minutes, 40 C after 25 and peaking at 46 C with the door closed, producing warping and heat artifacts on PLA, and forcing the owner to run with the door open and top off - which in turn defeats the filtration, because the carbon filter only operates in recirculation mode. A second, independent owner blog reaches the same conclusion. Corroboration on the chamber temperature comes from an owner of three P2S machines with roughly 15,000 combined hours who says he cannot reproduce most of the report but does see the chamber reach about 40 C on long PLA prints, which he considers harmless; a 99-hour owner printing Bambu PLA and PETG in a 27-30 C room sees none of it. Read this as a real, reproducible interaction between third-party filament profiles and the airflow logic whose practical severity depends heavily on room temperature and filament brand.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; no Bambu fix or firmware change identified, and Bambu forum responders treat it as a filament-profile configuration issue", "source_ids": [ "src-forum-p2s-70h", "src-andronio-p2s" ], "notes": "Directly relevant to this buyer twice over: he prints mostly PLA and PETG, much of it likely third-party, and the machine has to live in a shared room where the filtration is part of the justification for the enclosure. The counter-evidence in the same thread is deliberately recorded in the description rather than omitted.", "_file": "bambu.json" }, { "id": "ki-bambu-p2s-early-unit-qc", "subject_id": "bambu-p2s", "date_first_reported": "2025-11-24", "description": "Reports of arrival-condition and early-life failures on P2S units around the US launch in November 2025: an owner whose machine 'was dead' a month after a 2025-10-21 delivery, and a forum member relaying that a Micro Center contact had seen several returns - one shipping damage, the others units that could not pass calibration on initial setup. The same thread also carries a large majority of owners reporting trouble-free machines, and the '10 percent regret' figure quoted in it is a forum member's guess with nothing behind it, not a measurement. Recorded because the P2S is still a young model and because the failure mode - fails calibration out of the box, exchange it - is exactly the thing a first-time buyer should know is possible.", "severity": "hardware-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "unquantified as of 2026-09-06; Bambu offers 30-day returns and a 2-year warranty, and no recall or service bulletin was found", "source_ids": [ "src-forum-p2s-worried", "src-forum-p2s-70h" ], "notes": "Deliberately scoped 'isolated' rather than 'common': the evidence is anecdotal and second-hand, and the same thread is dominated by positive reports. Do not let this outweigh the P2S's measured 99%+ uptime over 100+ hours in PCMag's lab test.", "_file": "bambu.json" }, { "id": "ki-bambu-support-slow-ticket-only", "subject_id": "bambu", "date_first_reported": "2023-10-03", "description": "Bambu Lab support is ticket-and-email only with no customer phone number, and slow escalation is a recurring complaint across the forum, Trustpilot and owner threads. Specific reports: a P1S owner whose toolhead sensor and control board failed in the first few hundred hours waited about a week for a first response and several more weeks of swapped parts; a forum regular states that customers are 'subjected to repeated delays and stalling until Bambu suddenly claims that the return period has expired' and recommends a credit-card chargeback as the working remedy, noting that a forum search for 'chargeback' returns 69 threads; a consumer whose replacement printer failed again reports the refund delayed over a month with a store gift card offered instead of cash. Trustpilot's own summary of its negative reviews cites slow and unhelpful support on technical problems and faulty replacement parts.", "severity": "policy", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06. Counterweight that must be carried: Bambu's Trustpilot score is 4.5 of 5 from 118,863 reviews with 92,575 in the last twelve months, it replies to 95% of negative Trustpilot reviews, and its support account engages publicly on its own forum. Many owners in the same threads report replacement parts arriving quickly and cheaply, and parts are sold individually. So this is a slow-and-bureaucratic-escalation problem, not an absence of support.", "source_ids": [ "src-forum-support-complaints", "src-trustpilot-bambulab", "src-reddit-p1s-part-failures", "src-consumerrights-ntc-a1" ], "notes": "Trustpilot's sample is invited-review-biased and is mostly about store and delivery rather than warranty outcomes, so it is weak evidence for support quality in either direction; it is recorded with that caveat rather than used to net out the complaints.", "_file": "bambu.json" }, { "id": "ki-bambu-x1-series-eol", "subject_id": "bambu", "date_first_reported": "2026-03-31", "description": "Answering the brief's X1C question: the X1 Carbon is not merely absent from the US store, it is END OF LIFE. Bambu announced on 2026-03-31 that the X1, X1 Carbon and X1E reached end of life that day and would no longer be manufactured. The published dates are: end of manufacturing and active sales 2026-03-31; software and firmware bug fixes and feature updates until 2027-05-31; security patches until 2029-05-31; spare parts supply and support until 2031-03-31. Bambu's own post says direct e-commerce sales were halted some time before the EOL announcement - the X1 and P1P had already disappeared from the US storefront by November 2025 - and that 'selected authorized distributors may still have X1, X1C and X1E units in stock - covered by full warranty and support'. So: discontinued by the manufacturer, possibly still buyable as remaining new-old-stock from authorized resellers, with a five-year parts commitment behind it. No live US retailer listing was confirmed during this pass.", "severity": "policy", "scope": "widespread", "status": "confirmed EOL 2026-03-31; support windows published through 2031-03-31", "source_ids": [ "src-bambu-blog-x1-eol", "src-3dpi-x1-eol" ], "notes": "Rob has used an X1C with an AMS at work, so this matters for expectation-setting: the machine he is familiar with is the previous generation, and the P2S and X2D are its replacements. Buying remaining X1C stock would mean buying into a support window that ends for features in May 2027. No X1C printer record was created in this file because no first-party specification page could be retrieved for a product Bambu no longer lists, and inventing specs from memory is forbidden.", "_file": "bambu.json" }, { "id": "ki-bambu-x2d-ams-feeds-one-nozzle", "subject_id": "bambu-x2d", "date_first_reported": "2026-04-14", "description": "An AMS 2 Pro has a single filament outlet, so on the dual-nozzle X2D one AMS can feed only ONE of the two nozzles automatically. Buying the X2D AMS Combo does not change this: the second nozzle has to be loaded from an external spool holder, or you buy Bambu's Filament Track Switch accessory so one AMS can be routed to either nozzle (still one at a time), or you buy a second AMS. If both materials need to stay dry during a print, a second AMS or a separate dry box is effectively required. An owner also reports the Filament Track Switch does not support Silk PLA. In practice this means the $899 X2D AMS Combo gives the same four-color single-nozzle AMS workflow as the $749 P2S Combo, and the dual-nozzle capability only becomes fully automatic in the $1,149 Print More Bundle with two AMS 2 Pro units.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "widespread", "status": "by design as of 2026-09-06; partially mitigated by the separately sold Filament Track Switch", "source_ids": [ "src-cnckitchen-x2d", "src-forum-x2d-woes", "src-forum-x2d-200h" ], "notes": "CNC Kitchen's phrasing: 'for the X2D, H2D, and H2C, the real killer feature would have been an AMS that could feed both hotends at the same time.'", "_file": "bambu.json" }, { "id": "ki-bambu-x2d-aux-nozzle-limits", "subject_id": "bambu-x2d", "date_first_reported": "2026-04-14", "description": "The X2D's second (auxiliary) nozzle is not a peer of the first and behaves measurably worse. It is fed by a bowden extruder mounted in a box on the back of the machine driven by a plain stepper, not the direct-drive PMSM servo of the main extruder. Consequences, all independently observed or stated by Bambu itself: parts printed on the auxiliary nozzle take clearly longer - CNC Kitchen measured some at almost twice the main-nozzle time and 7% over the slicer estimate versus 1-4% on the main nozzle; about 20 mm of printable width is lost on that side of the plate; there is no jam or clog detection on that path because the stepper gives no load feedback; stringing is worse and short perimeters can show holes; Bambu's own X2D footnotes state that Flow Dynamics Calibration applies to the main nozzle only, that the PMSM servo motor is on the main extruder only, and that third-party filaments on the auxiliary nozzle may not deliver optimal print quality; and several materials (PLA Silk, PETG-CF, ASA-CF, PA6-CF, TPU for AMS, PA/PET supports) are flagged 'print with caution' on the auxiliary hotend. Long-term owners split on whether this matters: one 200-hour owner argues the bowden aux is the right call because supports print slowly anyway, while a two-to-three-month owner reports cumulative under-extrusion, layer misalignment and support breakage on long auxiliary-nozzle prints, and measured a two-color dual-nozzle job that took 3 hours (15%) longer while saving only 20 g (3%) of filament versus purging. Treat the second nozzle as a support/secondary-material tool, not as a way to make multi-color faster or cheaper.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "widespread", "status": "by design as of 2026-09-06; documented in Bambu's own X2D product-page footnotes rather than fixed", "source_ids": [ "src-cnckitchen-x2d", "src-forum-x2d-200h", "src-forum-x2d-woes", "src-bambu-x2d-store" ], "notes": "This is the single most decision-relevant fact separating the X2D from the P2S for a buyer whose stated need is multi-color, and it cuts against the X2D.", "_file": "bambu.json" }, { "id": "ki-boxturtle-build-prerequisites", "subject_id": "formbot-boxturtle-afc-kit", "date_first_reported": null, "description": "A BoxTurtle is not a plug-in AMS. ArmoredTurtle's own documentation (retrieved 2026-09-06) states it requires the AFC-Klipper-Add-On, which 'requires root access to your SBC running Klipper and the ability to install/modify the installation', with Klipper or Kalico 0.12.0 or newer; that it 'works most reliably with a toolhead filament cutter' (FilamATrix recommended) and otherwise depends on tip forming, which is 'extremely dependent on your printer, filament and even environment' with tuning guidance explicitly out of scope; that a toolhead buffer such as TurtleNeck is needed; and that the AFC-Lite or AFC-Pro controller is recommended because it has the sensor ports and DC motor drivers the respoolers need. An independent hands-on build of the Formbot kit confirms the buyer must first print the entire BoxTurtle structure - 'at least three, if not four rolls of filament' including TPU and clear - or buy Formbot's 85 USD printed set, and must separately print toolhead-specific filament-cutter and sensor parts from the FilamATrix repository to match their own extruder and hotend.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "widespread", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06 - inherent to the design, not a fault", "source_ids": [ "src-armoredturtle-bt-docs", "src-yt-butterpockets-boxturtle" ], "notes": "The same independent reviewer is complimentary about the Formbot kit's execution: the shafts are 'very high quality', wire lengths come pre-cut and labeled to match the wiring guide ('a fantastic way to provide a kit'), and the BoxTurtle documentation is 'so well put together ... They have 3D models at every step'. The prerequisites are the cost, not a quality complaint.", "_file": "kits.json" }, { "id": "ki-boxturtle-kit-content-errata", "subject_id": "formbot-boxturtle-afc-kit", "date_first_reported": null, "description": "ArmoredTurtle maintains a published errata list of BoxTurtle v1.0 kit defects (retrieved 2026-09-06). The documented items: 30-tooth MJF gears too loose on the 8x80 mm shaft in batches 1 and 2, needing glue or FDM-printed replacements, corrected from batch 3; TurtleNeck switches shipped without their metal levers in batch 1; mislabelled TurtleNeck switch cables in batch 1; missing wheel heat-sets and screws in batches 1 and 2; 3 mm ID PTFE tubing supplied short of the bill of materials in batches 1 and 2, corrected from batch 3; no cable supplied to connect the BoxTurtle to the printer in batches 1 through 3, leaving the buyer to make one from an included 2x2 Molex; an AFC-Lite v1.0 USB-C connector orientation that needs a right-angle cable, fixed in board revision v1.1; insufficient M3 heat-sets for a new FilamATrix build; and an open investigation into N20 respooler motor failures, with buyers told to contact their reseller.", "severity": "hardware-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "largely fixed in later batches - the AFC-Lite USB orientation in board revision v1.1, and the gear, PTFE and wheel-hardware issues from batch 3 onward. The N20 respooler motor failure investigation was still open at retrieval on 2026-09-06.", "source_ids": [ "src-armoredturtle-bt-errata" ], "notes": "IMPORTANT SCOPE CAVEAT. This errata is written about LDO-supplied kits and their batch numbers, not Formbot's. It is recorded here because it is the only published defect list for the BoxTurtle platform and it tells a buyer what class of problem to expect from any BoxTurtle kit. Scope is set to 'isolated' purely to satisfy the two-source rule for stronger scopes - the errata itself describes several of these as affecting entire production batches. Do not read 'isolated' as rarity.", "_file": "kits.json" }, { "id": "ki-boxturtle-nonvetted-vendor-boards", "subject_id": "formbot-boxturtle-afc-kit", "date_first_reported": null, "description": "ArmoredTurtle's project README warns that BoxTurtle kits from unvetted vendors may ship an inferior controller board: 'we caution buyers to ensure they are sourcing a kit that comes with an AFC-Lite controller board. Some vendors, such as Blurolls, are selling kits on AliExpress with an AFC-X board which has subpar manufacturing quality in the sample we purchased. The unit we purchased only survived two days.' It adds that a kit 'from a vendor not on this list ... has not been validated in any way by the ArmoredTurtle team for either quality or completeness', and points buyers at its vetted vendor list. Formbot's own product page does not state which controller board is in its kit, and Formbot sells no separate AFC-Lite board in its three-product BoxTurtle collection. RESOLVED ON AUDIT 2026-09-06: ArmoredTurtle's vendor list was checked. It names, in the US, DLLPDF, Isik's Tech, Fabreeko, KB3D and West3D; in Canada Sparta3D and 3D Lab Tech; in the EU Alchemy3D.de, Lab4450, 3DO, 3Djake, myrigs3d, zen3d and Levendigs; in the UK OneTwo3D, Desktop Machine Shop and Viperworx; in Australia DREMC; and in China TriangleLabs. Formbot is NOT on that list. Per the same page, 'If you purchase a kit from a vendor not on this list, it has not been validated in any way by the ArmoredTurtle team for either quality or completeness.'", "severity": "hardware-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06", "source_ids": [ "src-boxturtle-readme", "src-formbot-boxturtle-collection", "src-armoredturtle-bt-vendors" ], "notes": "AUDIT 2026-09-06: The named bad-board vendor is Blurolls, not Formbot, and ArmoredTurtle makes no negative claim about Formbot. Two facts now stand together: Formbot does not say which controller board is in its kit, and Formbot is not a vendor ArmoredTurtle has vetted. Confirm the board with Formbot before buying. For comparison, a vetted US vendor (West3D) sells the same kit at 299.99 USD against Formbot's 189.05 USD.", "_file": "kits.json" }, { "id": "ki-creality-cfs-jam", "subject_id": "creality-cfs", "date_first_reported": "2025-03-10", "description": "The CFS jams, 'crunches' or grinds filament during load, unload and color change, and reports extrusion or retraction faults. The originating thread's owner lost one to two days of print time every few days and photographed an identical bite pattern that recurred across PLA, high-speed PLA, PETG and CF variants and across filament brands, while feeding the same filament from the external spool holder worked perfectly \u2014 which points at the CFS feed mechanism rather than at wet or bad filament. Multiple independent owners confirmed the same behavior, one across all four of their CFS units. Two community fixes circulate: cutting one loop off the tension spring in the base of the CFS, and cleaning, lubricating or replacing the CFS feed hub. Creality support has replaced extruder assemblies and CFS hubs under warranty for some owners with good results.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "Open as of 2026-09-06. Not fixed by firmware. Reported continuously from 2025-03 through a 2025-09-24 comment on the original thread ('I have tried so many of the suggestions and nothing is working'), a 2025-11-03 comment ('I just find the CFS unreliable. Sometimes it jams and sometimes it doesn't'), and a 2026-07-16 comment still reporting nozzle jams and CFS problems. Mitigated case-by-case by the spring trim, hub cleaning, or a warranty hub/extruder replacement.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-cfs-jam", "src-reddit-k2plus-updates", "src-reddit-k2plus-thesedays", "src-reddit-k2plus-3mo", "src-reddit-k2plus-heavyuse", "src-3dwork-k2-series" ], "notes": "Four independent Reddit threads across two subreddits and a 17-month window, comfortably clearing the three-report bar for a T4 'common' claim. RECENCY CHECK PERFORMED, as required: this is NOT a launch-cohort artifact \u2014 the most recent corroborating comment captured is from 2026-07-16, sixteen months after the first report. Counter-evidence recorded honestly: several long-term owners in the same threads report no CFS trouble at all, including one with roughly 4,000 hours across three machines and another at 6+ months. Scope is 'common', not 'widespread', for that reason.", "_file": "creality.json" }, { "id": "ki-creality-cfs-no-tpu", "subject_id": "creality-cfs", "date_first_reported": "2025-01-29", "description": "The CFS cannot feed flexible TPU. Creality states this in its own specification ('Not compatible with flexible TPU, damp BVOH/PVA, or warped cardboard spools'), and Tom's Hardware confirmed it in testing: TPU, including Bambu Lab's stiffer 'TPU for AMS', jammed in the CFS tubing before reaching the hotend on a K2 Plus. Feeding TPU from the external single-spool holder works and prints well, but Creality's slicer then refused to acknowledge the external spool's color, which the reviewer called an annoying bug.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "widespread", "status": "Open as of 2026-09-06 \u2014 a documented design limitation of the CFS, not a bug awaiting a fix. The related slicer bug about external-spool color was reported unfixed as of 2025-01-29 and was not re-checked.", "source_ids": [ "src-creality-k2plus-specs", "src-toms-k2plus" ], "notes": "One T1 manufacturer statement plus one T2 hands-on confirmation. Relevant to Rob because foam-dart blaster builds often want a flexible component; on any CFS machine that component has to be printed as a separate single-material job from the side spool. Note the contrast: the CFS Lite for the SPARKX i7 DOES accept TPU of shore 64D or harder, so this is a CFS limitation rather than a Creality-wide one.", "_file": "creality.json" }, { "id": "ki-creality-cfs-purge-waste", "subject_id": "creality-cfs", "date_first_reported": "2025-01-29", "description": "The CFS wastes an unusually large amount of filament per color change because the 'Unicorn' high-flow hotend has a long melt zone that must be fully flushed. Measured by Tom's Hardware: on the K2 Plus a 205 g three-color model produced 207 g of waste plus 17 g of purge tower; on the Creality Hi a 32.32 g four-color PETG print wasted 23.25 g. The same reviewer measured only 0.64 g of waste on a 78.99 g two-color print with a single swap, which establishes that the cost scales with the number of color changes rather than with print size. Purge volumes are tunable in Creality Print, but on the K2 Plus in 2025 only via a global multiplier; per-color tuning arrived later and is present in the K2 Pro's slicer.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "widespread", "status": "Open as of 2026-09-06 \u2014 this is a design consequence of the high-flow hotend, not a defect that gets fixed. Partially mitigated: Creality added per-color purge tuning to Creality Print between the 2025-01 K2 Plus review and the 2025-12 K2 Pro review, and light colors after dark still need a heavy purge.", "source_ids": [ "src-toms-k2plus", "src-toms-hi", "src-toms-k2pro" ], "notes": "HONESTY CAVEAT ABOUT THE SOURCING: all three sources are Tom's Hardware reviews, two of them by the same reviewer. They are three separate hands-on tests of three different machines with independently reported numbers, which is why 'widespread' is claimed, but they are not three independent outlets and that should be weighed accordingly. Corroborating context rather than independent proof: Creality's own slicer changelog behavior (adding per-color purge control) implies it acknowledges the problem. For Rob specifically, this matters much less than the headline numbers suggest, because his stated multi-color use is cosmetic two-color blaster parts, not four-color models.", "_file": "creality.json" }, { "id": "ki-creality-cfsc-pla-only", "subject_id": "creality-cfs-c", "date_first_reported": "2026-09-06", "description": "The CFS-C \u2014 the multi-color unit for the K1, K1C, K1 Max and K1 SE \u2014 officially supports only three PLA-family filaments. Creality's own specification table lists its compatible filaments as 'Hyper PLA, CR-PLA, CR-Silk. Compatibility with more filaments via firmware update.' PETG and every engineering material are absent from that list, even though the printers themselves handle PETG, ABS, ASA and CF grades from a single spool. The unit is also not chainable ('Multiple CFS-C Units: Not supported'), capping the K1 family at four colors.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "widespread", "status": "Open as of 2026-09-06. Creality's page promises broader filament compatibility 'via firmware update' but gives no date and no list. Compounding it, the CFS-C is marked Sold Out on the US store on 2026-09-06.", "source_ids": [ "src-creality-cfsc-specs", "src-creality-store-cfsc" ], "notes": "SOURCING NOTE, STATED PLAINLY: both sources are Creality's own \u2014 the product specification page and the store listing. This is not a community defect report where two independent witnesses are needed; it is a vendor-documented capability limit that applies to every unit by definition, which is why 'widespread' is used. It is recorded as a known issue rather than buried in a spec field because it silently disqualifies the entire K1 family for a PETG-first buyer, and nothing on the store pages makes it visible.", "_file": "creality.json" }, { "id": "ki-creality-cfsc-temp-override-bug", "subject_id": "creality-cfs-c", "date_first_reported": "2026-02-08", "description": "On a K1 Max running printer firmware 2.3.5.34 with CFS firmware 1.1.3, the CFS tool-change macro overrides the slicer's nozzle target with a hardcoded 250 C during purge and extrusion, so PLA is pushed at 250 C and clogs the heat break; and the start-print macro takes the bed mesh at a fixed 50 C while the print then runs the bed at 70 C, so thermal expansion invalidates the z-offset and the nozzle drags the first layer. The reporter supplies the offending g-code and a proposed macro fix. A second owner reports the same class of failure with ABS, and a third confirms the mixed PLA/PETG problem five months later.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-07-22: no Creality response in the thread, and an owner states v2.3.5.34 is the last firmware issued for the K1 series with CFS v1. Scope kept 'isolated' because all three reports sit in a single thread and no independent second source was found - the evidence bar for 'common' is not met.", "source_ids": [ "src-forum-k1max-cfs-tempbug" ], "notes": "Directly undercuts the multi-material case for the K1 family: this is the PLA-plus-PETG support workflow failing, on top of the already-recorded CFS-C PLA-only limitation.", "_file": "creality.json" }, { "id": "ki-creality-hi-fan-noise", "subject_id": "creality-hi", "date_first_reported": "2025", "description": "Measured at 64.3 dBA maximum while printing on NikKTech's ExTech HD600 bench at ~30 cm - louder than the enclosed K1 Max (63.7 dBA) and 6.7 dBA above the K2 Pro (57.6 dBA) on the identical bench, despite Creality marketing the Hi on 'dynamically balanced fans'. The Hi is an open-frame bedslinger, so it has no enclosure to contain fan noise.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; single measurement, but a measurement rather than an impression.", "source_ids": [ "src-nikktech-hi-combo" ], "notes": null, "_file": "creality.json" }, { "id": "ki-creality-hi-no-tpu", "subject_id": "creality-hi", "date_first_reported": "2025-09-07", "description": "The Creality Hi could not print TPU at all in independent testing, even with the CFS bypassed and the filament fed directly from a standalone spool holder \u2014 it jammed the extruder every time. There is also no TPU profile in Creality's slicer for this machine, which the reviewer read as a sign that Creality's own engineers could not make it work. Creality's published supported-filament list for the Hi is Hyper-PLA / PLA / PETG / ABS / PLA-CF, which is consistent with TPU being unsupported.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "widespread", "status": "Open as of 2026-09-06; no Creality statement or firmware note addressing TPU on the Hi was found.", "source_ids": [ "src-toms-hi", "src-creality-hi-specs" ], "notes": "One T2 hands-on plus the manufacturer's own filament list. Listed as 'widespread' because it follows from the machine's specification rather than from unit variation. Distinct from ki-creality-cfs-no-tpu: on the Hi the restriction is the printer, not just the color system.", "_file": "creality.json" }, { "id": "ki-creality-i7-feed-connector", "subject_id": "creality-sparkx-i7", "date_first_reported": "2026", "description": "PCMag's SPARKX i7 review unit developed a feeding fault on one CFS Lite material bay, traced to a loose internal connector. Creality acknowledged the problem and supplied step-by-step instructions; reseating the connector restored operation.", "severity": "hardware-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "resolved on the review unit by reseating the connector (2026); no evidence of how widespread it is.", "source_ids": [ "src-pcmag-sparkx-i7" ], "notes": "Recorded partly as a positive support data point - Creality answered a reviewer promptly and correctly - which is worth contrasting with the owner support complaints.", "_file": "creality.json" }, { "id": "ki-creality-k1-clog-attrition", "subject_id": "creality-k1-max", "date_first_reported": "2024-06", "description": "Across the K1 and K1 Max the dominant long-term owner experience is attrition of the extrusion path: recurring nozzle and heat-break clogs, extruders that wear out or strip, and hotends treated as consumables. Representative owner reports: three nozzles, one heater block and two-to-three extrusion kits in 567 hours; three extruders replaced with a clog 'every month or two'; hotend and extruder replaced after roughly 18 months of use; a 2000-hour machine destroyed by an overnight blob-out. The community's standard remedy is to abandon the stock part for a third-party extruder (DXC, Phaetus, Sherpa) and/or an all-metal hotend, and multiple owners report the machine becoming reliable only afterwards.", "severity": "hardware-failure", "scope": "widespread", "status": "open as of 2026-03. Not all owners are affected - the same threads contain multi-year, thousands-of-hour machines on stock or lightly upgraded parts, including one in daily medical-lab use - so this is high variance rather than universal failure.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-k1max-hate", "src-reddit-k1max-regret", "src-reddit-k1max-honest", "src-reddit-k1-longterm-2024", "src-3dwork-k1-series" ], "notes": "Also applies to the base K1; attached to both printer records. The K1C's revised all-metal extruder is the same design family, and its owners report clogs too, but at a materially lower rate in the evidence gathered here.", "_file": "creality.json" }, { "id": "ki-creality-k1-launch-extruder", "subject_id": "creality-k1", "date_first_reported": "2023-06", "description": "Launch-production K1 (and K1 Max) shipped a dual-gear direct extruder whose drive gear was too small for the torque required, so it under-extrudes and clogs. 3DPrintBeginner's launch review had to fit the spare because the pre-installed unit under-extruded; The Next Layer reports later reviewers were sent TWO extruders in the box because of the 'all-too-common underextrusion issues', and that Creality subsequently made material and design changes to the extruder. 3DWork confirms 'different generations of extrusion systems' improving the problem over time.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "widespread", "status": "mitigated in later K1 production by revised extruders (2023-2024) and superseded on the K1C, which ships an all-metal extruder plus hardened quick-swap nozzle (2024-03) with no under-extrusion seen in independent testing. NOT fixed for the base K1/K1 Max as a class: owners in 2025-2026 still replace the stock extruder as a matter of course.", "source_ids": [ "src-3dprintbeginner-k1-review", "src-thenextlayer-k1c", "src-3dwork-k1-series", "src-reddit-k1-2026" ], "notes": "This is the defect that made the K1's launch reputation. Recorded with its remedy so the record is not frozen at 2023.", "_file": "creality.json" }, { "id": "ki-creality-k1-launch-first-layer", "subject_id": "creality-k1", "date_first_reported": "2023-06", "description": "The original K1 could not consistently produce a good first layer: bed meshing and adhesion were unreliable, which 3DPrintBeginner saw on the printer's own bundled first-layer test and The Next Layer names as the second big K1 complaint. The suspected cause is nozzle ooze corrupting the touch-probe readings.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "mitigated on the K1C from launch (2024-03) by a silicone nozzle-wiping brush on the build plate, after which the reviewer's first layers were 'perfect every single time'. The base K1 never received that fix in hardware; a 2026 buyer of a current-production K1 nonetheless reports excellent first layers.", "source_ids": [ "src-3dprintbeginner-k1-review", "src-thenextlayer-k1c", "src-reddit-k1-2026" ], "notes": null, "_file": "creality.json" }, { "id": "ki-creality-k1-series-fan-noise", "subject_id": "creality-k1", "date_first_reported": "2023-10", "description": "The K1 family is loud, and the noise is fan noise rather than motion noise. Independently measured on the K1 Max at 80.4 dB with a sound level meter one meter away with the glass lid off and 72.6 dB with the lid on. Owners corroborate 65-70 dB on a K1 Max with the lid on printing PLA (about 60 dB on PETG, which needs less part cooling) and describe exiling the machine to a garage or another room, being unable to work or sleep in the same room, and being uncomfortable printing at night in an apartment. Reviewers independently call the K1 'one of the loudest printers I have tested'. Turning the part-cooling and auxiliary fans down helps at the cost of speed and overhang quality.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "widespread", "status": "partially mitigated on the K1C, where Creality fitted a quieter side auxiliary fan; owners rate the K1C the quietest of the K1 line but still not something to sleep beside. Open on the K1 and K1 Max as of 2026.", "source_ids": [ "src-technologyman-k1max", "src-reddit-k1-noise", "src-3dprintbeginner-k1-review", "src-3dwork-k1-series", "src-reddit-k1c-loud" ], "notes": "Attached to the K1, K1C and K1 Max records. Only the K1 Max has a reviewer dB measurement; the K1 and K1C noise fields stay unverified deliberately.", "_file": "creality.json" }, { "id": "ki-creality-k1-series-firmware-stalled", "subject_id": "creality-k1", "date_first_reported": "2026-07-22", "description": "An owner reports on Creality's own forum that firmware v2.3.5.34 is the last update issued for the K1 series with the CFS v1 adapter kit, in a thread where a detailed February 2026 bug report has gone unanswered for five months. If accurate, the K1 line is receiving no further firmware maintenance.", "severity": "policy", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open and UNCONFIRMED as of 2026-09-06: single community claim, no Creality end-of-support announcement was found either confirming or denying it.", "source_ids": [ "src-forum-k1max-cfs-tempbug" ], "notes": "Flagged for a future agent to confirm against Creality's firmware download page rather than treated as established.", "_file": "creality.json" }, { "id": "ki-creality-k1c-cfs-messaging", "subject_id": "creality-k1c", "date_first_reported": "2026-09-06", "description": "Creality's own US channels contradict each other about whether the K1C can print in multiple colors today. The store's K1C product page carries a banner reading 'The K1C 2025 keeps all the great features of the K1C and it is also set to unlock multi-color printing with the new CFS! Keep an eye out for the official launch details' \u2014 future tense, no date \u2014 while the separate CFS-C product page lists 'K1C 2025' and 'K1C' among its currently compatible models and the CFS-C has its own store listing. The practical answer appears to be that the path exists via the CFS-C rather than via the $319 CFS, but a buyer reading the K1C page alone would conclude multi-color is not available yet.", "severity": "policy", "scope": "widespread", "status": "Open as of 2026-09-06. The ambiguity is unresolved and is compounded by the CFS-C being Sold Out on the US store on the same date, so a buyer cannot settle the question by simply trying to order one.", "source_ids": [ "src-creality-store-k1c", "src-creality-store-cfsc" ], "notes": "Two Creality pages that disagree with each other; both were captured on 2026-09-06. Recorded because the assignment specifically warned against assuming the whole K1/K2/Hi line takes a CFS, and this is exactly where that assumption breaks. A related signal was found but NOT verified and so is not asserted as fact: a Creality forum thread titled 'New K1C and CFS Upgrade Kit not Compatible' appears in search results, which would suggest an older K1-series CFS upgrade kit does not fit newer K1C hardware, but forum.creality.com renders its posts in JavaScript and only the thread title could be retrieved.", "_file": "creality.json" }, { "id": "ki-creality-k1max-bed-flatness", "subject_id": "creality-k1-max", "date_first_reported": "2025-04", "description": "K1 Max heated beds are frequently not flat out of the box. Owners describe a 'potato chip shaped bed' replaced under warranty, beds shimmed with spacers or aluminum tape to get a usable mesh, and reliance on the textured plate to hide first-layer error on large prints. This is the same defect already recorded against the K2 Plus (ki-creality-k2plus-bed-warp), so it is a line-wide manufacturing tolerance problem rather than a one-model fault.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-03; Creality does replace beds under warranty when pressed, with roughly a three-week turnaround reported.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-k1max-regret", "src-reddit-k1max-honest", "src-reddit-creality-reliability" ], "notes": null, "_file": "creality.json" }, { "id": "ki-creality-k1max-fire", "subject_id": "creality-k1-max", "date_first_reported": "2026-03-08", "description": "One owner reports that a K1 Max bought new in September 2025 caught fire after a run of extruder jams and nozzle blockages, and was being returned to Creality at the time of posting. No second report of a K1 Max fire was found, and no recall or safety notice was found.", "severity": "safety", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open, single unverified owner report as of 2026-03-08. Recorded because severity is high, NOT because a pattern is established - one anecdote is evidence of an anecdote.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-k1max-honest" ], "notes": null, "_file": "creality.json" }, { "id": "ki-creality-k1max-lidar-ineffective", "subject_id": "creality-k1-max", "date_first_reported": "2023-10", "description": "The K1 Max's headline AI/LiDAR first-layer inspection and failure detection is widely reported as doing nothing useful. The reviewer who measured the machine turned all the AI features off after testing because 'They don't appear to do much and take a fair bit of additional time'; owners say 'The AI lidar detection never works' and 'the Lidar is just for decoration'. 3DWork records the same class of complaint against the K2 series cameras.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026; no firmware release identified that changed the outcome.", "source_ids": [ "src-technologyman-k1max", "src-reddit-k1max-regret", "src-3dwork-k2-series" ], "notes": "Matters here only because the AI camera is a scored feature; it is a marketing shortfall, not a reliability risk.", "_file": "creality.json" }, { "id": "ki-creality-k2-ai-camera-false-positives", "subject_id": "creality-k2-plus", "date_first_reported": "2026-06", "description": "The K2 series dual AI camera raises false AC0104 'foreign object on the bed' alarms and, conversely, sometimes misses obvious spaghetti failures. The reviewer characterizes this as a limitation common to every AI-vision printer rather than a Creality-specific fault.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-06; firmware 1.1.3.6 (2026-02) improved the K2 generally but did not resolve this.", "source_ids": [ "src-3dwork-k2-series" ], "notes": null, "_file": "creality.json" }, { "id": "ki-creality-k2plus-bed-warp", "subject_id": "creality-k2-plus", "date_first_reported": "2025-12-05", "description": "The heated bed is not flat out of the box and deforms further as it heats, so a mesh probed cold no longer describes the bed once printing starts. Symptoms are first-layer failures and spurious 'nozzle clogged' errors that are really the nozzle being driven into or away from the plate. One multi-machine owner measured 1.5 to 3 mm of warp in the bed meshes of most of the K2s they received. The standard workaround is a heat soak of ten to fifteen minutes before printing, after which the bed is re-meshed; one 2,300-hour owner wrote a gcode macro to automate exactly that. The permanent fix owners resort to is an aftermarket graphite bed at roughly $250.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "Open as of 2026-09-06. No firmware or hardware revision has been announced that addresses it; the 2026-06-10 owner comment ends 'I'm hoping that Creality solved this someday.' Workaround (pre-print heat soak) is reliable and is arguably now standard practice for this machine.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-k2plus-thesedays", "src-reddit-k2plus-3mo", "src-reddit-k2plus-lately", "src-toms-k2plus" ], "notes": "Three independent community threads plus one T2 measured review, so this meets the 'at least one T2 plus one T4' bar rather than resting on forum noise. Tom's Hardware's 2025-01-29 review independently lists 'Long preheat required for some prints' as a con and says the plate 'needs a good 15 minutes' of soak, which is the same phenomenon described politely. RECENCY CHECK: still reported in 2026-06 by a 2,300-hour owner and in 2026-02 by a multi-unit owner, so it is not confined to the launch cohort. Counter-evidence: several owners in the same threads report flat beds and no adhesion problems. Practical impact for Rob's dimensional-accuracy priority is real, and it is the single biggest argument against the K2 Plus for his use case.", "_file": "creality.json" }, { "id": "ki-creality-k2plus-extruder-clog", "subject_id": "creality-k2-plus", "date_first_reported": "2025-11-03", "description": "Recurring extruder and hotend faults on the K2 Plus, reported as a cluster rather than one defect: filament left stuck in the extruder gear after prints (suspected dull filament cutter), molten filament retracting too far into the extruder and setting, nozzles needing replacement far more often than expected, PTFE tube wear at the extruder end (one owner at ~300 hours), a collet failing to hold the PTFE tube, and outright 'blob of death' events. One owner reported resolving about ten clogs; another reported changing nozzles roughly every five prints after a firmware update.", "severity": "hardware-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "Open as of 2026-09-06. Some owners report the machine settling down after firmware updates and after root causes such as factory-pinched cutter and filament-detection cables were found and fixed under warranty; others report the problem appearing or worsening after updates, including a 2026-08-02 report.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-k2plus-updates", "src-reddit-k2plus-thesedays", "src-reddit-k2plus-lately" ], "notes": "Three independent threads. Grouped as one issue because owners describe a single filament-path failure mode with several presentations, and separating them would overstate the number of distinct defects. RECENCY CHECK: the most recent corroboration is 2026-08-02, so this is current, not historical. Counter-evidence recorded: an owner with roughly 4,000 hours across three K2 Pluses reports 'the odd nozzle clog' and no major issues, and an 800-hour owner says that after the updates 'the printer has become very reliable'.", "_file": "creality.json" }, { "id": "ki-creality-k2plus-firmware-regression", "subject_id": "creality-k2-plus", "date_first_reported": "2026-01-04", "description": "A K2 owner reports that firmware 1.1.4.8 left the machine unable to print anything and that downgrading to 1.1.3.13 was necessary, saying they were not the only one affected. Raised in Creality's own GitHub discussion rather than through Creality's support channels, with the poster noting they would not register on Creality's platform to report it.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "Unresolved in the source thread as of the capture on 2026-09-06. Recorded as isolated because only one report was verified; separately, a 2026-08-02 owner comment in a different thread describes new nozzle and phantom-clog problems appearing 'after the last update', which is consistent but is not proof of the same regression.", "source_ids": [ "src-github-k2-source-discussion" ], "notes": "Single source, so scope is 'isolated' and it must not be presented as a widespread firmware failure. Included because firmware-update risk is exactly the kind of thing that gets omitted from a spec comparison, and because it points at a real structural weakness: Creality's bug reporting is fragmented across a forum, a cloud platform, Discord and an effectively unmonitored GitHub, so regressions are hard to see and hard to report. AUDIT CORRECTION 2026-09-06: date_first_reported was previously null with a note claiming the comment carried no date. That was wrong \u2014 the capture (data/raw/phase1/creality/github_k2_source_discussion.md, line 823) shows the comment is dated Jan 4, 2026, so the date is now recorded as 2026-01-04. The poster also links a YouTube video as corroboration; that video was not fetched and is not counted as a second source, so the scope stays 'isolated'.", "_file": "creality.json" }, { "id": "ki-creality-k2plus-material-switch-zoffset", "subject_id": "creality-k2-plus", "date_first_reported": "2026-06", "description": "The K2 Plus tends to place the nozzle too close to the bed when switching from PLA to PETG or ABS, producing elephant's foot or the nozzle striking the part. 3DWork's workaround is to raise first layer height from 0.20 to 0.24 mm and preheat before meshing. This is the same mechanism as the CFS temperature/mesh bug reported on the K1 Max, so it may be a shared macro problem across the CFS line.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-06, workaround published.", "source_ids": [ "src-3dwork-k2-series" ], "notes": null, "_file": "creality.json" }, { "id": "ki-creality-k2plus-shipping-damage", "subject_id": "creality-k2-plus", "date_first_reported": "2026-06", "description": "3DWork's K2 Plus review unit arrived with the plastic feet broken in shipping and the glass door hinges unglued.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "isolated", "status": "fixed in a hardware revision: 3DWork reports Creality has already modified the feet in production and ships the new ones to anyone who asks (2026). The hinges are fixable with adhesive.", "source_ids": [ "src-3dwork-k2-series" ], "notes": null, "_file": "creality.json" }, { "id": "ki-creality-k2plus-zbanding", "subject_id": "creality-k2-plus", "date_first_reported": "2025-05-09", "description": "An owner who bought four K2 Plus units reports severe z-banding on two of them - 'holes on the wall of the print and protruding lines every few mm' - on a machine that is supposed to auto-adjust belt tension, alongside filament that cannot return to the CFS leaving the printer stuck indefinitely in Resume, and a hard extruder clog needing full disassembly.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2025-05; a second owner in the same thread asks for a bed heightmap comparison after struggling to flatten their plate, but no independent second source was found, so scope stays isolated.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-k2plus-heavyuse" ], "notes": "Unit-to-unit variance on a four-unit sample is the striking part: two good, two bad.", "_file": "creality.json" }, { "id": "ki-creality-k2se4c-cutter-jam", "subject_id": "creality-k2-se-4c", "date_first_reported": "2026-09-05", "description": "A K2 SE 4C owner reports the filament cutter has never worked since purchase, throwing 'Cutter might be jammed' on old and new filament alike, while the same cut succeeds when the lever is pushed by hand. The printer's configuration files do not contain the cutter settings other Creality machines expose.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06, one reply suggesting the in-menu cutter calibration.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-k2se4c-cutter" ], "notes": "This is the ONLY substantive owner failure report found for the K2 SE 4C at RUN_DATE. It is not a pattern and must not be scored as one.", "_file": "creality.json" }, { "id": "ki-creality-support-quality", "subject_id": "creality", "date_first_reported": "2025-03-10", "description": "After-sales support quality is inconsistent and is the most frequently repeated complaint across every owner thread read for this file. The recurring pattern is diagnosis by shotgun: support ships a succession of replacement parts without identifying the root cause, so owners replace hotends, hotend cables, PCBs, extruder motors and control boards in sequence. Several owners report return requests being ignored outright, one describing being 'pretty burnt' and disposing of the machine; another describes roughly 60 hours spent repairing a single printer across five or six shipped parts. Escalation can stall for weeks. Against that, other owners report support being responsive and effective \u2014 one calls WhatsApp support 'fantastic', several report parts arriving promptly and free under the 12-month warranty, and Creality does replace CFS hubs and extruder assemblies when the fault is identified.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "Open as of 2026-09-06. No policy change was found. Structurally the support offer is good \u2014 a US warehouse and returns address in Baytown TX, a US phone line, a 12-month whole-machine warranty that explicitly covers the CFS, and individually purchasable spare parts \u2014 so the problem is execution and diagnosis, not the absence of a support organization.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-k2plus-thesedays", "src-reddit-k2plus-updates", "src-reddit-cfs-jam", "src-creality-return-policy", "src-reddit-k1max-regret", "src-reddit-k1max-hate", "src-reddit-creality-reliability", "src-reddit-k1-2026" ], "notes": "Three independent community threads plus the manufacturer's own warranty policy for the structural facts. This is deliberately scoped 'common' and not 'widespread' because the same threads contain clearly positive reports; the honest characterization is high variance, not uniform failure. It is the single most important qualitative finding in this file for a buyer whose stated priority is 'it just works', and it is the reason the brand's structural us_support rating of 'US warehouse + parts' should not be read as a support-quality score.", "_file": "creality.json" }, { "id": "ki-elegoo-c2-cloud-certificate", "subject_id": "elegoo-centauri-2", "date_first_reported": "2026-06-30", "description": "A review unit of the Centauri 2 could not connect to Elegoo's cloud service at all, which also meant it could not check for firmware updates. The reviewer exported the machine's logs and concluded it was presenting an out-of-date certificate for Elegoo's cloud endpoint, reported it to Elegoo, and noted he could have fixed it himself in thirty seconds if the machine allowed a login. Local-network printing was unaffected and is what he used for the whole test.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06 in the sense that no fix announcement was found; the reviewer himself flags that his unit may have been pre-retail rather than a shipping one.", "source_ids": [ "src-yt-tubamakes-c2" ], "notes": "Single source and explicitly caveated by the reviewer, so isolated. Recorded because it is the same failure class as ki-elegoo-cc2-cloud-connectivity on the sibling machine, and because it is a clean illustration of the cost of the closed firmware: a diagnosable, thirty-second fix that the owner is locked out of making.", "_file": "elegoo.json" }, { "id": "ki-elegoo-c2-hub-serviceability", "subject_id": "elegoo-centauri-2", "date_first_reported": "2026-08-21", "description": "Clearing a clog on the Centauri 2 Combo is materially harder than on its enclosed sibling. Tom's Hardware reports that the collets holding the Bowden tubes into the tool-head filament hub are almost impossible to compress enough to release, that Elegoo's printable tool for the job does not work well, and that every clog she has had on any Centauri has required removing the hub - which on the Centauri 2 Combo, unlike the Centauri Carbon 2, also requires removing the tool-head wiring. The hub's own screws thread directly into its plastic. She also clogged the extruder with a soft low-density TPU that fed through the hub without trouble, and TubaMakes had a clog caused by an oversized section of filament.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06. The same reviewer notes the machine does not clog often, and that she has not yet stripped the plastic screw holes.", "source_ids": [ "src-toms-c2-combo" ], "notes": "Single source for the serviceability finding, hence isolated, but it comes from a reviewer who has used the whole Centauri line and is comparing them directly. Relevant to a first-time owner: the recovery procedure after the most common consumable failure is the awkward part of this machine.", "_file": "elegoo.json" }, { "id": "ki-elegoo-c2-noise", "subject_id": "elegoo-centauri-2", "date_first_reported": "2026-06-30", "description": "The open-frame Centauri 2 is loud, and unlike its enclosed siblings there are no panels to contain it. TubaMakes measured about 65 dBA a foot from the machine and about 58 dBA at his desk six feet away, and concluded 'I would not want this running in the same room with me', attributing most of it to fan noise plus a motion system that is no longer boxed in. How-To Geek, reviewing the bare machine independently, found the belts, motors and power supply all noisier than his other CoreXY and even his bed-slinger printers, and singled out an idle power-supply whine that made him move the printer off his desk and start powering it down when not printing - something he says he has not had to do with a printer in years.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06. Inherent to an open-frame design; no firmware or hardware fix is possible or claimed. Elegoo's menus show an unreleased upgrade kit list (light, auxiliary fan, exhaust fan, camera) but no enclosure kit was found on sale.", "source_ids": [ "src-yt-tubamakes-c2", "src-howtogeek-c2" ], "notes": "This is the measurement that lifts the Centauri 2's noise gap: 58 dBA at 1.8 m by a named reviewer who states his distances, corroborated qualitatively by a second independent reviewer. It is also the single most decision-relevant fact found about this machine for a shared home. Note the idle whine specifically - it is present when the printer is not even printing.", "_file": "elegoo.json" }, { "id": "ki-elegoo-canvas-feed-errors", "subject_id": "elegoo-canvas-cc2-with-cover", "date_first_reported": "2026-03-21", "description": "CANVAS filament feed, extrusion and retraction failures are common enough that Elegoo maintains a wiki page per error code and the community maintains cross-posted troubleshooting guides. The recurring codes are 1242 (CANVAS-to-extruder delivery failed), 1243 (extrusion failed at the tool head), 1252 (retraction from the extruder failed), 1265 (filament detection board triggered mid-print) and 1220 (abnormal filament in the extruder). Documented causes are tangled or snagged spools, filament broken inside the PTFE tube or the four-in-one hub, nozzle clogs, and faulty trigger plates, springs or runout detection boards. A r/FixMyPrint owner hit error 1220 on a Centauri Carbon 2 after a PLA clog at 11 days and 77 print hours and could not clear it after stripping the hub, PTFE tubes, nozzle and extruder. Elegoo's guidance for TPU is to bypass CANVAS entirely and use an external spool holder. PCMag separately notes the PTFE tubes lock into the tool head so firmly they cannot be pulled back out to clear a jam without removing two screws and disassembling the manifold. Amazon buyers report the same failure family independently of Reddit: error 1220 in the extruder (2026-02-13), a clog that ended in repeated print-head replacements (2026-04-09), constant jams with a seizing cutter and filament that would not unload (2026-05-07), and a first multicolor print that plugged the waste chute badly enough to break the hotend (2026-08-14).", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; documented with per-error-code pages on wiki.elegoo.com and community troubleshooting guides posted 2026-07-03 and 2026-08-07", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-canvas-errors-guide", "src-reddit-canvas-errors-guide-2", "src-reddit-cc2-1220", "src-pcmag-cc2-combo", "src-amazon-cc2c-reviews" ], "notes": "Scope 'common' evidence, corrected: the two troubleshooting guides (r/ElegooCentauriCarbon 2026-07-03 and r/elegoo 2026-08-07) are cross-posts by the SAME author, u/Owen_Ou, so they are one report and not two. The independent reports are u/Owen_Ou's guide, u/missingninja's error-1220 thread on r/FixMyPrint (2026-03-21), and four Amazon buyers describing the same failure family (2026-02-13 'errors in extruder (Error 1220)'; 2026-04-09 'this dang thing clogged'; 2026-05-07 'it jams constantly, the cutter seizes, the filament can't unload'; 2026-08-14 a first multicolor print that 'plugged the waste shoot to the degree that it completely broke the hotend'). That clears 02_SCHEMA \u00a74's three-independent-reports bar for T4, and PCMag supplies the T2. It is not universal: PCMag's four-color 40-hour Hulkbuster print with hundreds of swaps completed with no error at all. Attached to the with-cover CANVAS record but it applies to every CANVAS variant, including the Centauri Carbon unit.", "_file": "elegoo.json" }, { "id": "ki-elegoo-canvas-purge-waste", "subject_id": "elegoo-canvas-cc2-with-cover", "date_first_reported": "2026-07-05", "description": "CANVAS is a single-nozzle spool-switching system, so every color change purges. 123-3D weighed the purge from one four-color model at 914 g against a 265 g finished part - roughly 3.5x the part mass - and PCMag independently reports that on large multicolor jobs the discarded filament 'can approach or even exceed the amount used in the finished print'. No catch bin is supplied; PCMag describes purge balls littering the floor through a 40-hour print. Both reviewers recommend batching identical parts onto one plate, because purge cost is per color change rather than per part.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "widespread", "status": "inherent to single-nozzle multi-material as of 2026-09-06; not fixable in firmware", "source_ids": [ "src-yt-1233d-cc2", "src-pcmag-cc2-combo" ], "notes": "Two independent T2 sources, one of them an actual weighed measurement. This is a property of the architecture, shared with Bambu's AMS and Creality's CFS, not an Elegoo defect - but it is a real running cost for a buyer who wants multi-color cosmetic parts.", "_file": "elegoo.json" }, { "id": "ki-elegoo-cc-fan-noise", "subject_id": "elegoo-centauri-carbon", "date_first_reported": "2025-06-18", "description": "The original Centauri Carbon is loud, and loud in a way that decides where it can live. Elegoo maintains a wiki page titled 'Centauri Carbon Improvement solution for noisy printing' whose own 1 m test gives <=60 dB with the auxiliary and case fans running and <=65 dB with the doors open, against the <=55 dB advertised on the product page. Independent owners agree: a 500+ hour reviewer says flatly 'if you're someone who needs a quiet printer, this is a no-go... I can hear this in my kitchen on the other wall, I cannot hear my Bambu A1'; an owner comparing it directly with an X1C at 100 hours was 'shocked I can still hear it 2 rooms over'; a fourteen-reply thread asking how loud it is returns vacuum cleaner, data-center server and gaming-laptop-at-full-tilt, with owners moving it to a garage or another room; a six-month retailer review lists 'louder-than-average fans' among the things that mattered after the honeymoon; and Popular Mechanics could consistently hear it from the floor above while testing it in a basement.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "widespread", "status": "open on this model as of 2026-09-06. Elegoo's own remedies are lubricating the linear shafts, lowering speed and using silent mode. It is largely designed out on the successor: the Centauri Carbon 2 rehoused the auxiliary and exhaust fans behind an electronically controlled vent, and independent reviewers describe the CC2 as markedly quieter.", "source_ids": [ "src-elegoo-wiki-cc-noise", "src-yt-3dprintermike-cc-500h", "src-reddit-cc-100h", "src-reddit-cc-howloud", "src-yt-3djake-cc-6months", "src-popmech-cc2", "src-reddit-cc12-longterm" ], "notes": "No INDEPENDENT dB measurement of this model was found on 2026-09-06, so noise_is_measured stays false on the printer record and noise_db stays at the vendor's 55 dB. Everything numeric here is Elegoo's own 1 m test, and the one user figure in the community thread (50-60 dB) came from a phone app. The qualitative consensus is nonetheless as strong as community evidence gets - six independent sources, one of them the vendor's own troubleshooting page.\n\nPOSSIBLE HARDWARE REVISION, UNCONFIRMED - and it is the one thing here that could cut in the machine's favor. In the 2025-11-08 six-month review, 3DJake states that 'the printer that I have is not the printer that you're going to get if you buy it now because there is an upgraded version with better lighting and a quieter fan', and tells viewers who held off that they may have chosen well. No ELEGOO announcement, changelog or revision number confirming a quieter fan was found on 2026-09-06, and Elegoo's own noise troubleshooting wiki page is still live and still quotes the <=60 dB figure. Owners have noticed the same thing informally - a Facebook group post asks whether Elegoo switched to quieter fans after a second unit arrived noticeably quieter - and the community treats fan replacement as a standard mod, with recirculation and fan-swap designs published on Printables. Because it is one source and the vendor is silent, status stays OPEN rather than 'fixed in hardware revision'; but a buyer looking at a unit shipped in 2026 should not assume the 2025 noise reports describe it exactly. This is also a reason the noise cap on this model cannot be closed by community evidence alone: the population being described may no longer be one population.", "_file": "elegoo.json" }, { "id": "ki-elegoo-cc-mainboard-failures", "subject_id": "elegoo-centauri-carbon", "date_first_reported": "2026-06-18", "description": "Mainboard and tool-head board faults on the original Centauri Carbon. Within one long-term owners thread, four separate commenters report them: a RAM fault on the mainboard at about 650 print hours that froze the machine mid-print (resolved with Elegoo's help), a mainboard replaced during a year of ownership, 'one motherboard going bad' across three machines with over 1,000 hours on two of them, and a mainboard Wi-Fi module that died within two months.", "severity": "hardware-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; no vendor statement and no hardware revision found.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-cc12-longterm" ], "notes": "Deliberately scoped ISOLATED rather than common even though four owners report it, because all four are in one thread and that is one source. Do not read the scope as a claim that it is rare - read it as a claim that the evidence is thin. A second independent source would move it to common.", "_file": "elegoo.json" }, { "id": "ki-elegoo-cc-multicolour-delay", "subject_id": "elegoo-centauri-carbon", "date_first_reported": "2025-11-12", "description": "Elegoo promised a multicolor add-on for the original Centauri Carbon 'within a matter of months' of its early-2025 launch and took roughly fifteen months to ship it. On 2025-11-12 Elegoo published an Update Notice conceding that 'due to some limitation of the hardware, so far the developing multicolor system has not yet delivered a performance that meets our expectation' and that it could not guarantee a release date, and offered existing owners a choice of a $50 filament coupon, a 365-day warranty extension, or an $80 coupon toward the then-unreleased Centauri Carbon 2 Combo. CANVAS for Centauri Carbon finally became available on 2026-04-27. As of 2026-09-06 the ELEGOO US store still badges it PRE-ORDER with dispatch 'by September 25' for the current batch, although batches 1 to 4 have shipped.", "severity": "policy", "scope": "widespread", "status": "resolved on 2026-04-27 when CANVAS for Centauri Carbon shipped; current orders are backordered to roughly 2026-09-25", "source_ids": [ "src-elegoo-cc-update-notice", "src-popmech-cc2", "src-elegoo-canvas-cc-batches" ], "notes": "A roadmap-credibility datapoint rather than a defect: Elegoo did eventually deliver, and it compensated owners, but a promised upgrade slipped by about a year. Weigh any future Elegoo roadmap promise accordingly.", "_file": "elegoo.json" }, { "id": "ki-elegoo-cc-petg-failures-longterm", "subject_id": "elegoo-centauri-carbon", "date_first_reported": "2025-06-18", "description": "A first-batch owner at 500+ hours reports repeatable PETG trouble on the original Centauri Carbon that he does not get on PLA: a print where the part failed while its own supports printed cleanly, and two identical whole-layer shifts on two copies of the same model on the same plate, using Overture PETG that prints correctly for him on a Bambu A1. He had to re-print and re-tune hinges in the same material several times.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06 for the original model; the reviewer allows it may be his own tuning. Not reported on the Centauri Carbon 2, where Notebookcheck, Tom's Hardware and PCMag all found PETG clean on stock profiles.", "source_ids": [ "src-yt-3dprintermike-cc-500h" ], "notes": "Single source, so isolated. Recorded because it is a long-term finding on the specific material combination the buyer will use most after PLA, and because it contrasts with the uniformly good PETG results on the successor machine.", "_file": "elegoo.json" }, { "id": "ki-elegoo-cc-toolhead-cable", "subject_id": "elegoo-centauri-carbon", "date_first_reported": "2025-06-18", "description": "The flexible USB-C cable and connector that carry power and data to the tool head fail. In the June 2026 long-term thread four separate owners name it: one had the cable break inside two months and under 100 print hours, one keeps a spare OEM tool-head cable, tool-head board and mainboard on the shelf because all three have failed for him over a year, one had the head power cable go bad on arrival and replaced it with a sturdier one because Elegoo's replacement was the identical part, and a fourth mentions the spliced USB-C cable left over from his own repair. Separately, a first-batch owner at 500+ hours had the hot-end connector port snap clean off the board while re-seating it after a PID tuning error, and had to have it soldered back on locally. TubaMakes, reviewing the 2026 Centauri 2, says Elegoo 'still hasn't changed the design of the cable going into the tool head' and that the bend radius still looks tighter than he would like - while also saying it has not failed on any of his Centauri machines.", "severity": "hardware-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06. No hardware revision was found, and an independent reviewer confirms the cable-entry geometry is unchanged on the Centauri 2 launched 2026-06-24. Mitigation is owner-side: keep a spare OEM tool-head cable, or fit a more robust one.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-cc12-longterm", "src-yt-3dprintermike-cc-500h", "src-yt-tubamakes-c2" ], "notes": "Scope 'common' rests on three independent sources, not on the four commenters inside one thread, who are counted as a single source. This is the clearest recurring hardware fault found for the Centauri line and it is a wear-out failure, so it is under-represented in launch-window reviews by construction.", "_file": "elegoo.json" }, { "id": "ki-elegoo-cc2-ai-detection-cloud-only", "subject_id": "elegoo-centauri-carbon-2", "date_first_reported": "2026-01-26", "description": "The Centauri Carbon 2's AI failure detection is said to run in Elegoo's cloud rather than on the printer. YGK3D reports that the camera was upgraded but the processor was not, that it is not capable of running detection on board, and that detection therefore happens over a cloud connection and is unavailable in LAN-only mode - which also means the camera feed is streamed to the internet for it to work.", "severity": "policy", "scope": "isolated", "status": "unconfirmed as of 2026-09-06; no second source found either way.", "source_ids": [ "src-yt-ygk3d-cc2" ], "notes": "SINGLE SOURCE and recorded as such. If true it is a material qualification on both the camera/AI feature and the LAN-only story, because it means the headline safety feature and full LAN isolation are mutually exclusive. Adjacent but not confirming: a 200-hour reviewer saw the LAN-mode camera preview flicker and artifact, and the problem stopped once he re-enabled cloud mode.", "_file": "elegoo.json" }, { "id": "ki-elegoo-cc2-ai-false-positives", "subject_id": "elegoo-centauri-carbon-2", "date_first_reported": "2026-06-10", "description": "The camera's AI spaghetti detection is unreliable in both directions. Rad Dad's Print Lab got constant false positives on a Spider-Man helmet print - the system flagging the purge line as spaghetti - and turned spaghetti detection off entirely; sensitivity is adjustable and it can notify without pausing. PCMag hit the opposite failure: the detector did not fire on a genuine ASA failure ('a cluster of ASA linguine'). Both reviewers describe the camera image quality as basic. PCMag also notes the printer has no object exclusion, so a single failed part on a plate cannot be skipped.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; sensitivity is user-adjustable and detection can be disabled", "source_ids": [ "src-yt-raddad-cc2", "src-pcmag-cc2-combo" ], "notes": "Two independent T2 long-term reviews reporting opposite failure modes of the same feature.", "_file": "elegoo.json" }, { "id": "ki-elegoo-cc2-asa-warping", "subject_id": "elegoo-centauri-carbon-2", "date_first_reported": "2026-06-10", "description": "High-temperature materials lift off the plate on the Centauri Carbon 2 despite the enclosure. PCMag measured the chamber stabilizing at only ~45 C with no active heater and needed a glue-stick coating AND a brim for ASA, ABS-GF and PA6-CF; it wanted 55-60 C. Rad Dad's Print Lab, over 200+ hours, had 'multiple instances where prints failed pretty badly because they lifted up off the build plate' in ASA, still saw warping with Prusament ASA and PC Blend, still warped after trying Vision Miner adhesive, and concluded he 'wouldn't look at this printer if your main goal is higher-temp materials like ASA' without adding a chamber heater. Amazon's aggregated summary lists adhesion as a mixed theme across 298 ratings. PCMag also notes the spaghetti detector did not fire on the resulting ASA failure. PLA and PETG adhesion is reported as excellent with no adhesive by both reviewers.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; owners work around it with glue stick, brims or an aftermarket chamber heater (PCMag cites a ~$50 mini desk-heater mod on Printables)", "source_ids": [ "src-pcmag-cc2-combo", "src-yt-raddad-cc2", "src-amazon-cc2c-listing", "src-notebookcheck-cc2", "src-reddit-cc-asa-lift", "src-toms-cc2", "src-toms-c2-combo" ], "notes": "Directly relevant to this buyer's occasional-ASA requirement. It is a chamber-temperature limitation rather than a defect, but it is the practical ceiling on the machine's ASA claim and the single biggest caveat on the otherwise strong cfg-elegoo-cc2-combo.\n\nPHASE 2 CORROBORATION (2026-09-06). A THIRD independent measured review now reports the same thing: Notebookcheck 'did face adhesion issues with ASA', published photographs captioned as warping on the base and on a top-left edge, and improved matters only by preheating the bed for ten minutes at 110 C before starting. It also notes the printer switches itself into a temperature-hold mode with the vents shut for ASA, and still warps. That makes PCMag, Rad Dad's Print Lab and Notebookcheck three independent measured sources in agreement, which is as solid as this study's evidence gets.\nDETAIL WORTH ACTING ON. Rad Dad tried a Vision Miner bed adhesive and STILL got warping, so the glue-stick workaround is not a reliable fix; his conclusion is that he would not choose this printer for higher-temperature materials without adding a chamber heater. His hypothesis - that the CANVAS top hat enlarges the volume that has to stay warm - implies the COMBO is worse for ASA than the bare Centauri Carbon 2, which matters because the Combo is the configuration this study prices.\nCOUNTER-EVIDENCE, recorded rather than suppressed. Tom's Hardware printed PAHT-CF and several polycarbonates 'beautifully, with no warping or other issues' in the same unheated chamber - but did not test ASA, so it does not overturn the ASA reports. And the community does print ASA successfully on this platform: the recipe in the r/ElegooCentauriCarbon thread is a brim with zero gap, an adhesive such as Magigoo, filament dried rather than merely new, and a chamber at 45 C or above before starting.\nNET FOR A BUYER WHO WANTS OCCASIONAL ASA: workable with preparation and a tolerance for failed plates; not reliable, and not a reason to choose this machine.", "_file": "elegoo.json" }, { "id": "ki-elegoo-cc2-bed-cable-chafing", "subject_id": "elegoo-centauri-carbon-2", "date_first_reported": "2026-02-22", "description": "One owner reports that the heated-bed cable on a brand-new Centauri Carbon 2 had been rubbed raw in transit or assembly to the point that the copper was nearly exposed, describes it as roughly an hour of further rubbing from being a fire hazard, and says Elegoo's support showed no interest in why.", "severity": "safety", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06. A single unverified report; no recall, service bulletin or second report was found.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-cc2-quality-support" ], "notes": "Recorded despite being one anecdote purely because of the severity class. It should NOT be treated as a pattern on this evidence, and nothing in the Amazon, Tom's, PCMag, Notebookcheck or long-term community material corroborates it. Worth a cable inspection on unboxing, nothing more.", "_file": "elegoo.json" }, { "id": "ki-elegoo-cc2-cloud-connectivity", "subject_id": "elegoo-centauri-carbon-2", "date_first_reported": "2026-05-29", "description": "The Centauri Carbon 2 drops off Elegoo's cloud service and off the local network repeatedly. Popular Mechanics (2026-06-15) had to restart the printer at least once a day and reports that all three Elegoo machines in its test rotation frequently fall off the home network, with the printer showing as 'idle' while printing or the reverse. Rad Dad's Print Lab (2026-06-10, 200+ hours) reports the slicer showing the printer offline or holding stale state it could not refresh, which blocked sending jobs and left the machine stuck in a phantom 'printing' state, plus camera artifacting that occurred only in LAN mode. OrcaSlicer issue #13934 (2026-05-29) traces the third-party side precisely: on firmware 02.x the printer never answers the MQTT register handshake, so the OrcaSlicer device page hangs on 'Offline' even though HTTP file upload, the MJPEG camera stream and MQTT status broadcasts all work. Amazon's own aggregated review summary lists 'Network connectivity' as the single negative theme across 298 ratings. Printing itself is unaffected once a file has reached the printer, and USB printing always works.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; OrcaSlicer issue #13934 was still open at its last update on 2026-06-20 and no Elegoo fix was found", "source_ids": [ "src-popmech-cc2", "src-yt-raddad-cc2", "src-orcaslicer-issue-13934", "src-amazon-cc2c-listing", "src-opencentauri-cc2-updates", "src-notebookcheck-cc2", "src-yt-tubamakes-c2" ], "notes": "Four independent sources across four channels: editorial review, long-term owner video, upstream bug tracker, retailer review aggregate.\n\nPHASE 2 UPDATE (2026-09-06). The 'still open' status can now be dated against Elegoo's own firmware changelogs rather than inferred. The OpenCentauri archive carries every CC2 release; the newest is v02.00.02.00 of 2026-05-28, and no changelog entry in ANY 2026 release addresses cloud drop-outs. The nearest thing is 'added weak network reminder for Wi-Fi connections' in that same release, which tells the user about the problem rather than fixing it; 2026-01-09 has 'fixed occasional WiFi disconnection' and 2026-04-09 has 'improved stability during device network connection and account binding', neither of which the reviewers' experience bears out. A fourth independent reviewer, Notebookcheck, adds the same complaint from a different angle: ElegooSlicer on Windows would randomly refuse to connect and threw connectivity errors in the monitoring window, while macOS was more reliable, and two ElegooSlicer updates during the test did not fix it. A fifth, TubaMakes, found a Centauri 2 that could not reach Elegoo's cloud at all because of an out-of-date endpoint certificate. The one piece of good news for a LAN-only buyer is consistent across reviewers: local printing keeps working when the cloud does not, and Tom's Hardware lists 'no cloud access required' as a pro of both machines. One partial fix is on the record: v01.03.02.51 of 2026-05-09 fixed a CANVAS error-1252 dialog that would stick.", "_file": "elegoo.json" }, { "id": "ki-elegoo-cc2-early-cohort-failures", "subject_id": "elegoo-centauri-carbon-2", "date_first_reported": "2026-02-13", "description": "Early Centauri Carbon 2 Combo buyers reported a high rate of outright hardware failure. In a 36-review sample of the 298 Amazon ratings, reviews dated before 2026-07-01 average 2.52 stars and include 'Lasted only 2 days', 'Broken in 10 days', 'Not even 24 hours of printing, and a lot of issues' and 'A spectacular failure disguised as a 3D printer'. Reviews dated 2026-07-01 or later average 3.92 stars in the same sample and are dominated by five-star reports, including owners who say explicitly that they nearly did not buy because of the older reviews. The lifetime average is 3.9 across 298 ratings, and 1,000+ units sold on Amazon in the past month. Complaints that persist into August 2026 are about parts turnaround rather than print quality: a 2026-08-19 reviewer describes weeks-long waits for parts and an unresponsive Las Vegas repair center, while a 2026-08-16 reviewer had a camera and cable replaced quickly and rated support five stars.", "severity": "hardware-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "improving as of 2026-09-06: pre-July-2026 sample mean 2.52 stars vs 3.92 for July-August 2026; no Elegoo statement of a hardware revision was found", "source_ids": [ "src-amazon-cc2c-reviews", "src-amazon-cc2c-listing", "src-amazon-search-centauri", "src-reddit-cc2-worth-buying", "src-reddit-cc12-longterm" ], "notes": "Method caveat, stated because it changes how much weight this deserves: the 36 reviews are a sample of 298 and Amazon's default ordering is by helpfulness rather than date, so the cohort split is indicative, not a census. It does show the specific thing the brief asks for - recent reports differ materially from the launch cohort, so the 3.9 lifetime star average understates the machine as sold today. Scope 'common' rests on more than a dozen independent named reviewers within the sample plus Amazon's own aggregation listing reliability as a mixed theme.\n\nPHASE 2 RE-TEST (2026-09-06) - THE IMPROVEMENT CLAIM DOES NOT HOLD UP, AND THE STATUS LINE ABOVE OVERSTATES IT. Three independent checks, all pointing the same way.\n(1) REPRESENTATIVENESS. The 36-review sample is 41.7% one-star and 41.7% five-star. The full 299-rating population on the same listing is 17.1% one-star and 62.9% five-star. The sample therefore over-represents one-star reviews by about 2.4 times, and its own mean is 3.03 against the population mean of 3.946. It is not a level-accurate sample of anything, so a mean computed on a sub-slice of it is not a cohort average.\n(2) ARITHMETIC. If the true pre-July mean really were 2.52, then with n_pre pre-July ratings out of 299 the post-July mean must be (1180 - 2.52*n_pre)/(299 - n_pre). That exceeds 5.0 - impossible - for any n_pre above 127, and even at n_pre = 100 it demands a post-July mean of 4.66, i.e. about 90% five-star with no one-stars, which the sample itself contradicts (three of the thirteen post-July reviews in it are one-star). The machine went on sale 2026-01-26 and five of its seven months on sale precede July, so a pre-July count under 127 of 299 is already a stretch. The 2.52 figure cannot be a population value.\n(3) THE COMPARISON IS AGAINST THE WRONG BASELINE. The recent sub-cohort's 3.92 was read as beating 'the lifetime average'. The actual lifetime average of the listing is 3.95. The recent cohort MATCHES the lifetime average; it does not beat it. The apparent improvement is what you would expect from helpfulness-weighted ordering, where older critical reviews have had months to accumulate votes and recent ones have not.\nWHAT COULD NOT BE DONE, stated so the limit is visible: the sample could not be enlarged. The Bright Data amazon_product_reviews pipeline returns the identical 36 records for sortBy=recent, filterByStar=one_star and filterByStar=positive alike; direct scrapes of Amazon's recent-sorted review pages are refused; and an Amazon search across 29 Centauri results confirms there is no second US listing with an independent rating cohort for this machine (no bare Centauri Carbon 2 listing, no Centauri 2 Combo listing, no original Centauri Carbon listing). So no independent cohort exists to cross-check against.\nWHAT DOES SURVIVE. Early hardware failures were real and are well attested by named reviewers. Recent community evidence is genuinely more positive than the star sample suggests - a June 2026 buying thread returns owners at 780 and about 300 print hours reporting no faults, and a June 2026 long-term thread returns four-figure hour counts on the Centauri line. But that is community evidence, not a measured improvement, and no Elegoo hardware revision was found. The honest statement is: the CC2's lifetime Amazon average is 3.9, recent buyers rate it about the same, and the 2.52-to-3.92 jump is an artifact of a negatively skewed sample.", "_file": "elegoo.json" }, { "id": "ki-elegoo-cc2-filter-bypassed-while-printing", "subject_id": "elegoo-centauri-carbon-2", "date_first_reported": "2026-01-26", "description": "The Centauri Carbon 2's activated-carbon exhaust filter may do nothing during the print itself. YGK3D's design walkthrough describes the electronically controlled vent as opening in cooling mode so warm air escapes WITHOUT passing through the carbon filter, and closing in heat-retention mode with the exhaust fan off entirely until the print finishes, at which point it ramps up and pulls the air through the filter. His summary is explicit: 'quieter printer, more odor in your environment'. He also measured a chamber temperature of about 30 C in cooling mode with the exhaust fan never exceeding 10%.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "isolated", "status": "unconfirmed as of 2026-09-06 - see notes.", "source_ids": [ "src-yt-ygk3d-cc2" ], "notes": "SINGLE SOURCE, and it is a launch-day video with YouTube's paid-promotion flag set, so it is recorded as isolated and should not be relied on until confirmed. It matters because it goes to whether this machine is genuinely 'filtered' for a shared home, and because PCMag reaches the opposite practical conclusion, writing that the CC2 can keep the burnt-plastic smell of ABS out of your nose. That disagreement is unresolved. Elegoo's own store page describes only an 'auto-controlled smart grille' and an 'Exhaust Grille Check' and does not say when the filter is in circuit.", "_file": "elegoo.json" }, { "id": "ki-elegoo-cc2-firmware-lockdown", "subject_id": "elegoo-centauri-carbon-2", "date_first_reported": "2026-05-28", "description": "Centauri Carbon 2 firmware v02.00.02.00, released 2026-05-28, removes the SSH process from the machine entirely and blocks downgrades to any earlier release. OpenCentauri, the community firmware project, documents both changes and had to publish a repacked v01.03.02.51 so owners can go back at their own risk. Neither change appears in Elegoo's own changelog for that release, which lists UI adjustments, a weak-network reminder, an Error 803 fix, a timelapse filename fix and a power-loss resume fix. Compounding it, Elegoo's published source repository for this machine (elegooofficial/CentauriCarbon2) was last pushed on 2026-03-12, so the source for the firmware currently shipping has not been published - which is the same GPL-3.0 question the 2025 campaign raised, reopened.", "severity": "policy", "scope": "widespread", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06. Applies to every CC2 that takes the update, and the update cannot be reversed through Elegoo's own tooling.", "source_ids": [ "src-opencentauri-cc2-updates", "src-github-elegoo-cc2-firmware" ], "notes": "This is the finding most likely to matter over a five-year horizon and it points the wrong way: the openness story on this brand got WORSE in May 2026, after the Phase 1 record was written. It does not stop the printer working over LAN or USB, and OrcaSlicer profiles still ship, so it is a longevity and repairability concern rather than a use-today one. It also partially supersedes ki-elegoo-klipper-gpl-compliance, which reads 'substantially addressed'.", "_file": "elegoo.json" }, { "id": "ki-elegoo-cc2-incomplete-shipments", "subject_id": "elegoo-centauri-carbon-2", "date_first_reported": "2026-04-20", "description": "Isolated reports of apparently returned units resold as new. An Amazon reviewer on 2026-04-20 titled a one-star review 'Sent used product', and one on 2026-08-10 opened the box missing the build plate and the spool-holder screws with debris inside the machine, describing it as 'some bodies incomplete return that was placed with the new box'. Both were purchases from ELEGOO Official US on Amazon.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; two reports within a 36-review sample and no vendor statement found", "source_ids": [ "src-amazon-cc2c-reviews" ], "notes": "Kept separate from the early-cohort failures because it is a fulfilment and QC question rather than a hardware one, and because two reports do not support a stronger scope.", "_file": "elegoo.json" }, { "id": "ki-elegoo-centauri-smooth-plate-adhesion", "subject_id": "elegoo-centauri-carbon-2", "date_first_reported": "2026-02-18", "description": "The smooth (cool-plate) side of the double-sided PEI plate does not hold parts well. Tom's Hardware lists 'cold plate is not sticky enough' as a con of both the Centauri Carbon 2 and the Centauri 2 Combo; on the Centauri 2 she filled the smooth side with small parts and 'the results weren't great, even after using some glue stick', and everything worked once she flipped to the textured side. An owner in the long-term thread reports the same more bluntly: 'the plate doesn't stick, most my prints fail because they don't stick'. Another owner's routine fix is simply cleaning the plate whenever parts stop sticking.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06. Practical workaround is to use the textured side, keep the plate degreased, or fit an aftermarket plate - one long-term owner rates a third-party plate his best purchase for the machine.", "source_ids": [ "src-toms-cc2", "src-toms-c2-combo", "src-reddit-cc12-longterm" ], "notes": "Worth separating from the ASA warping issue: this one bites on ordinary PLA and PETG, not just high-temperature materials, and it is the likeliest explanation for a share of the 'nothing sticks' one-star reviews.", "_file": "elegoo.json" }, { "id": "ki-elegoo-centauri-spool-holder-fit", "subject_id": "elegoo-centauri-carbon-2", "date_first_reported": "2026-02-18", "description": "The stock spool holders on the Centauri 2 series do not fit many filament brands, and the fix is to print replacements. Tom's Hardware lists it as a con of both the Centauri Carbon 2 and the Centauri 2 Combo, and had to print alternative holders to run Prusament and several other brands. A reviewer at 90 hours on the CC2 says some spools simply will not fit properly and that printed adapters are a compromise, and adds that the spring-loaded design lets the four PTFE tubes slap the top lid. A third reviewer found the Centauri 2's holders pop off more easily than he would like, and a fourth reports filament wrapping around the holder despite the spring tension.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; no revised holder was found on sale. Workaround is a printed adapter, which the machine itself can make.", "source_ids": [ "src-toms-cc2", "src-toms-c2-combo", "src-yt-techmagnet-cc2-1month", "src-yt-tubamakes-c2", "src-yt-raddad-cc2" ], "notes": "Minor in severity but it is the most consistently reported CC2/C2 complaint across independent reviewers - five of them, agreeing. Applies to both the Centauri Carbon 2 and the Centauri 2, so the id is attached to both printer records.", "_file": "elegoo.json" }, { "id": "ki-elegoo-klipper-gpl-compliance", "subject_id": "elegoo", "date_first_reported": "2025-10-03", "description": "A community campaign pressed Elegoo for the source of the Centauri Carbon's 'ELEGOO OS' firmware, alleging it is a modified Klipper shipped without source, which GPLv3 would require. Elegoo published source at github.com/elegooofficial/CentauriCarbon under GPL-3.0 on 2025-09-26 (repo creation date from the GitHub API, re-checked 2026-09-06), 'under pressure from groups seeking transparency about the Centauri Carbon's underlying software' (All3DP). All3DP reported on 2025-10-03 that the release 'appears to validate concerns that the firmware is a heavily modified version of Klipper that breaches license conditions'. Elegoo has since published Centauri Carbon 2 firmware source on the same terms (2026-03-11) and its slicer under AGPL-3.0.", "severity": "policy", "scope": "widespread", "status": "substantially addressed as of 2026-09-06: source published for Centauri Carbon (2025-09-26) and Centauri Carbon 2 (2026-03-11) under GPL-3.0; no source repository exists for the Centauri 2 released 2026-06-24", "source_ids": [ "src-all3dp-elegoo-gpl", "src-github-elegoo-cc-firmware", "src-github-elegoo-cc2-firmware" ], "notes": "Net effect for an openness-minded buyer is positive today - Elegoo now publishes more firmware source than most of its direct competitors - but it took public pressure to get there. EVIDENCE LIMIT, stated rather than papered over: date_first_reported is the All3DP publication date (2025-10-03), the earliest date this file can source. The campaign plainly predates it, but All3DP serves only its headline and standfirst to non-browser clients (the page 403s through the study's fetch channel and the local capture holds no body text), and no other retrievable source found on 2026-09-06 dates the campaign's start or documents an initial denial by Elegoo. An earlier draft of this file asserted a 2025-08-07 start date and an initial denial; both were unsourced and have been removed.", "_file": "elegoo.json" }, { "id": "ki-elegoo-parts-lead-time-and-self-repair", "subject_id": "elegoo", "date_first_reported": "2025-06-18", "description": "Elegoo answers quickly and then asks the owner to do the repair, and historically the part came from China. A 500+ hour owner is emphatic that Elegoo replies to everybody within a day, but waited 30 days for a replacement hot-end assembly shipped from China, notes that is a month off the warranty, and says he could not simply buy a nozzle online for the machine. A CC2 owner was told he would receive a replacement printer, then told instead to replace the entire print head himself after breaking the cutting-sensor cables while following support's troubleshooting steps; a second owner in the same thread says Elegoo tried to run out his return window; a third had a defective unit and was refused an exchange for lack of the original box. Against that, an owner had a mainboard fault resolved through support, an Amazon reviewer in August 2026 had a camera and cable replaced quickly and rated support five stars, and Trustpilot records Elegoo replying to 83% of negative reviews.", "severity": "policy", "scope": "common", "status": "partly overtaken by events as of 2026-09-06 - see notes.", "source_ids": [ "src-yt-3dprintermike-cc-500h", "src-reddit-cc2-quality-support", "src-reddit-cc12-longterm", "src-trustpilot-elegoo", "src-amazon-cc2c-reviews" ], "notes": "RECENCY CAVEAT, and it cuts in Elegoo's favor: the parts-availability complaint is dated mid-2025, and by 2026-09-06 the ELEGOO US store sells Centauri hot ends, extruder gears, build plates and CANVAS spares individually and ships them free from a US warehouse on orders over $50. What is NOT stale is the pattern of being asked to self-repair a machine still under warranty, which has August 2026 reports behind it. Two owners in the long-term thread say support alone was enough to make them leave the brand.", "_file": "elegoo.json" }, { "id": "ki-elegoo-preowned-no-warranty", "subject_id": "elegoo", "date_first_reported": "2026-09-06", "description": "Elegoo markets a 'Certified Pre-Owned' range ('Like New, Half the Price') that is neither certified nor warranted. The pre-owned product pages state in bold that 'Pre-owned machines are returned items, NOT REFURBISHED' and 'Pre-owned machines cannot be returned!', and Elegoo's Refund & Warranty policy lists 'All Pre-owned 3D Products - All - No warranty'. Prices on 2026-09-06: Centauri Carbon 2 Combo $349.99 good-used / $375.99 open-box against $399 new; Centauri Carbon 2 $319/$325 against $349 new; Centauri 2 $259/$265 against $279 new; emoji Combo $409/$419 against $449 new.", "severity": "policy", "scope": "widespread", "status": "current policy as of 2026-09-06", "source_ids": [ "src-elegoo-preowned-cc2c", "src-elegoo-warranty-policy" ], "notes": "This is why no is_refurb configuration appears in this file. The brief captures manufacturer-refurbished units WITH warranty and never captures used-market listings; Elegoo's pre-owned stock is explicitly the latter. It is also poor value on its own terms - $349.99 for an unwarranted, non-returnable used Combo against $399 for a new one with 12 months of cover and free shipping, a $49 saving for giving up every protection.", "_file": "elegoo.json" }, { "id": "ki-flashforge-ad5x-hotend-heater-failure", "subject_id": "flashforge-ad5x", "date_first_reported": "2025-10-04", "severity": "hardware-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "Open as of 2026-09-06. Flashforge replaced the hotend, print-head board or whole print head under warranty in most reported cases, and a revised hotend with a larger one-piece copper heatsink exists (owners date the design change to 2025-05-31 and report Flashforge shipping it free to early buyers). It is NOT recorded as fixed in a hardware revision, because reports continue after it: 2025-10, 2025-12 and 2026-05, with one owner in the December thread saying 'it seems to be the more recent shipments that are seeing that error code'.", "description": "The AD5X hotend heater/thermistor assembly fails and the printer throws E0007, 'extruder failed to heat as expected'. Reported symptoms are the nozzle refusing to climb past roughly 200-245 C, temperature readings rising and then collapsing back toward ambient, and - before any error is raised - prints that stop bonding to the previous layer partway up and turn into spaghetti. FOUR INDEPENDENT PARTIES: (1) an owner one day after unboxing, 2025-10-04, whose thread drew three more owners with the identical fault, one of whom was sent a print-head board and cable that did not fix it and then a complete print head that did; (2) an owner a few weeks in, 2025-12-03, hitting E0007 above about 245 C, with commenters naming two hotend revisions and pointing at the heatsink; (3) an owner who bought in November 2025 and hit it in May 2026, plus in-thread a 240-hour Black Friday 2025 machine with the same fault and an October 2025 owner who found the heat pad behind the nozzle clip completely detached; (4) the independent reviewer HexiBase, whose review unit could not finish its first calibration because both nozzle and bed temperatures fell back to room temperature, and who abandoned the review. This is a consumable-adjacent part that is sold separately, so the failure is repairable, but on a machine of this age it is the single most consequential reliability finding for the AD5X.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-ad5x-e0007-oct2025", "src-reddit-ad5x-e0007-may2026", "src-reddit-ad5x-common-problem", "src-yt-hexibase-ad5x" ], "notes": "Counterweight, and it is substantial: in the same threads and in r/FlashForge's own pinned troubleshooting post, owners report 300, 400, 546, 1,800 print hours and 5 km of filament without a heater failure, and the subreddit's consensus is that most AD5X problems are wet filament, a dirty bed or maintenance. Treat this as a real failure mode with meaningful incidence, not as a machine that always breaks.", "_file": "flashforge.json" }, { "id": "ki-flashforge-ad5x-ifs-abs-jam", "subject_id": "flashforge-ifs", "date_first_reported": "2026", "description": "A 200+ print-hour AD5X owner reports that IFS auto-switching to the next spool of the same material failed in 14 of 15 attempts with Flashforge ABS Pro, typically jamming overnight because material left in the nozzle solidified and the next spool could not be loaded. The same owner reports the IFS on-screen filament list is too short to cover all the materials the printer otherwise supports, and that manual extrusion cools the nozzle instead of holding temperature.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "Open as of 2026-09-06 on one long-term report. Note that ABS is not on Flashforge's own supported-filament list for the AD5X, so this is partly out-of-spec use.", "source_ids": [ "src-ff-ad5x-owner-review" ], "notes": "Single source, and it is a vendor-hosted customer review, so scope is isolated. Worth re-checking in Phase 2 against the wider community.", "_file": "flashforge.json" }, { "id": "ki-flashforge-ad5x-ifs-feed-failures", "subject_id": "flashforge-ifs", "date_first_reported": "2025-07-17", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "Open as of 2026-09-06. Flashforge revised the side spool holders and the hotend during 2025 and ships replacement feeding assemblies under warranty, but feed and load failures are still being reported into 2026.", "description": "The IFS fails to feed reliably for a subset of owners. Reported: spools binding in the four side-mounted holders, which one owner blames for about 10% of his print failures; filament snapping inside the IFS PTFE tubes two to three times a week, each break costing 20-30 minutes to clear; 'purge timeout' and then 'load timeout' errors on a first multi-color print with fresh sealed PETG, with the IFS module 'constantly grinding'; and an E0113 'extruder filament error' that Flashforge attributed to the feeding assembly and replaced. Workarounds owners report as effective are bypassing the side holders entirely and feeding the IFS directly from an external dryer, and drying filament properly. Several replies attribute the tube breakages to Flashforge's own branded filament rather than the machine.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-ad5x-disaster", "src-reddit-ad5x-not-recommended", "src-reddit-ad5x-e0007-may2026" ], "notes": "Not universal. Owners in the same threads report dozens of color changes and hundreds of hours of multi-color printing with no feed problems at all.", "_file": "flashforge.json" }, { "id": "ki-flashforge-ad5x-nozzle-ejection", "subject_id": "flashforge-ad5x", "date_first_reported": "2026-05-31", "severity": "hardware-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "Open as of 2026-09-06 on one detailed report. Community replies point at the nozzle retention clip not being snapped fully home and at a revised 'version 2' hotend that Flashforge has sent some owners unprompted. No recall or vendor advisory was found.", "description": "An owner reports the nozzle leaving the hotend mid-print on three consecutive ABS prints, once found half an hour later elsewhere inside the machine, and notes that unlike the AD5M the AD5X nozzle is not captured. Replies divide between user error - the retaining clip must audibly snap home - and the hardware, with one owner noting he was sent an upgraded version-2 hotend by Flashforge without asking. Recorded as isolated: one first-hand report.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-ad5x-nozzle-ejected" ], "notes": "The same post contains an unelaborated aside that a previous Flashforge AD5M of the poster's 'had the Fire'. It is a single sentence with no detail, no photographs and no corroboration anywhere else in this research, and it is recorded here only so that it is on the record. It is NOT evidence of a pattern and must not be scored as one.", "_file": "flashforge.json" }, { "id": "ki-flashforge-ad5x-purge-hardcoded", "subject_id": "flashforge-ifs", "date_first_reported": "2025-05", "description": "AD5X owners report that the IFS purge volume behaves as if fixed in firmware and that OrcaSlicer/Orca-Flashforge flushing settings are effectively ignored. One owner reports roughly 0.25 g ejected after every color change on top of the configured flush, the same amount every time, and that flush-into-object objects are printed in whatever color is loaded rather than consuming the designated flush volume. A later thread describes the community consensus that the volume is hardcoded and that the main workaround is to declare every filament the same color, which causes color bleed. AppleInsider's review lists 'multi-color printing leads to a lot of waste, longer printing times' as a con. CONFLICT, recorded 2026-09-06: Tom's Hardware's measured review (2025-10-12) reports the opposite of a hardcoded volume - 'you have complete control over flush volume, flush to infill, and can print a purge object' - and measured the default at 540 mm3, about 0.67 g, with a real plate consuming 11 g over 23 color changes. The defensible reading of both sets of evidence is that the flush volume IS settable but the slicer never reports the resulting waste, and that a fixed extra amount is ejected at each change on top of it; the owner reports of 'hardcoded' behavior may be that fixed extra. The value used here is Tom's measured figure, because it is measured.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "Open as of 2026-09-06. No firmware or slicer release was found that restores slicer control of the flush volume.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-ad5x-purge-settings", "src-reddit-ad5x-purge-hardcoded", "src-appleinsider-ad5x", "src-toms-ad5x-review" ], "notes": "This is the single most important thing to know about the AD5X for a buyer who cares about filament cost per multi-color print.", "_file": "flashforge.json" }, { "id": "ki-flashforge-ad5x-purge-runaway-2025", "subject_id": "flashforge-ifs", "date_first_reported": "2025-03-18", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "Appears confined to the launch cohort and is NOT reproduced in later independent testing. Tom's Hardware measured 11 g of purge across 23 color changes on a full plate in October 2025 - about 0.48 g per change, against a 540 mm3 (about 0.67 g) default flush - and no source after March 2025 repeats the runaway behavior. Treated as an early firmware/slicer defect, corrected without an identified release note.", "description": "3DPrint.com's March 2025 review found the AD5X spending nearly five minutes repeatedly purging at every color change, purging more than 15 times for a single layer of one model, and consuming more than 1.75 kg of TPU to produce a 150 g Flexi-Rex. The reviewer attributed it to the firmware misreading Orca-Flashforge's purge sequence rather than to the hardware. THIS IS THE RECENCY FINDING FOR THIS MACHINE AND IT CUTS IN THE PRINTER'S FAVOR: the lifetime record contains a catastrophic waste figure that the recent record does not, and a lifetime average that carries it forward would understate the machine as it ships today.", "source_ids": [ "src-3dprint-ad5x-longterm", "src-toms-ad5x-review" ], "notes": null, "_file": "flashforge.json" }, { "id": "ki-flashforge-ad5x-slicer-instability", "subject_id": "flashforge-ad5x", "date_first_reported": "2025-10-12", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "Open as of 2026-09-06. No Orca-Flashforge or firmware release was found that fixes the crashing or that makes the slicer report purge waste. Tom's Hardware explicitly held the machine off its best-3D-printers list for this reason.", "description": "Orca-Flashforge, the vendor's OrcaSlicer fork, is the weakest part of the AD5X package. Tom's Hardware (2025-10-12) calls it 'perhaps the least stable version I've run across' and reports it 'crashes about every third print when left up and running'. Two functional defects follow from it: the slicer shows only the prime-tower filament and never the flush volume, so an owner cannot know how much filament a multi-color print will actually consume; and the filament types and colors entered on the printer's touchscreen reach the slicer's device tab but do not carry through to the prepare tab, which is exactly the information the flush volumes depend on - 'if you just wing it, you could end up with black flushing at yellow levels and disastrous results'. Stock upstream OrcaSlicer has an AD5X profile and is more stable, but still does not receive the waste figure. Separately, an owner reports the printer dropping off the network after a few idle hours even in LAN-only mode, recoverable only by power-cycling or re-seating the LAN cable.", "source_ids": [ "src-toms-ad5x-review", "src-reddit-ad5x-e0007-may2026" ], "notes": null, "_file": "flashforge.json" }, { "id": "ki-flashforge-ad5x-support-inconsistent", "subject_id": "flashforge", "date_first_reported": "2025-10-22", "severity": "policy", "scope": "isolated", "status": "Open as of 2026-09-06; no policy change was found. Recorded as isolated rather than common because the reports run strongly in both directions.", "description": "Flashforge after-sales is reported inconsistently rather than uniformly good or bad. AGAINST: the reviewer HexiBase, whose review unit failed during first calibration, describes 'weeks of silence from FlashForge followed by some rather disjointed communication' and abandoned the review; an owner with an in-warranty AD5X bought in November 2025 was told to buy a new hotend and only obtained a warranty replacement after pushing, and a second owner in that thread reports the live-chat agent ceasing to respond mid-session. FOR: multiple owners in the same threads report support identifying the fault before they had finished describing it, and shipping print-head boards, hotends, feeding assemblies, nozzle assemblies, build plates and complete print heads free and quickly, including revised hotends sent to early buyers unprompted. A buyer should expect parts to be available and usually granted, and should not expect a fast or consistent first response.", "source_ids": [ "src-yt-hexibase-ad5x", "src-reddit-ad5x-e0007-may2026" ], "notes": null, "_file": "flashforge.json" }, { "id": "ki-flashforge-c5-rear-purge-regression", "subject_id": "flashforge-creator-5", "date_first_reported": "2026-07-03", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "Open as of 2026-09-06, partly addressed on about 2026-08-10 by the official printable waste bin that hangs at the new rear purge position. The silicone wiper has not been moved and the firmware does not use it after purging.", "description": "Firmware 1.9.4, pushed on 2026-07-03, moved the purge from the front right of the bed to the rear right on both the Creator 5 and the Creator 5 Pro - away from the chamber-heater intake, but also away from the silicone nozzle wiper, which is fixed at the front and cannot be relocated. THREE INDEPENDENT PARTIES REPORT THE CONSEQUENCES: Figure Feedback verified the machine no longer uses the nozzle wiper at all after purging, going straight to leveling; Elevated Maker Space found that with PAHT-GF the purge strand stayed attached to the nozzle through the tool dock and only detached during the wipe over the bed, that waste 'tends to hang up more in this rear purge location', and that some still ends up in the chamber near the lead screw; and an owner asked publicly for a copy of 1.9.3 to roll back, because 'the wipe becomes useless, but the extruder drags a string of filament across the plate if I'm using extruder 1 or 2'. Community purge trays designed for the old front position no longer line up. The rollout was uneven: one Creator 5 owner reported the rear-purge behavior on the base machine while another's Creator 5 still showed 1.9.3 as newest.", "source_ids": [ "src-yt-figurefeedback-c5pro-fw194", "src-yt-elevatedmaker-c5pro-fixes", "src-reddit-c5p-fw194" ], "notes": "1.9.4 also finally added per-object cancellation mid-print, which the Creator 5 series shipped without and which every comparable machine has.", "_file": "flashforge.json" }, { "id": "ki-flashforge-c5pro-open-thermal-questions", "subject_id": "flashforge-creator-5-pro", "date_first_reported": "2026-07-03", "severity": "safety", "scope": "isolated", "status": "Open and unanswered as of 2026-09-06. No independent test of any of these three points was found, including from the reviewer who raised them.", "description": "In the same follow-up in which he confirmed the purge fixes work, Elevated Maker Space listed three further chamber-thermal concerns on the Creator 5 Pro that he had not yet been able to examine: external surface temperatures with the chamber heated; the chamber ventilation exhaust being partially blocked by spool position 1; and the HEPA filter appearing to be the intake for the auxiliary part-cooling fan, 'which is not a feature you would normally use with most of the materials you would want HEPA filtration for'. He also reports that since the firmware update he had not managed a single successful print. A related point from a second reviewer: Flashforge publishes the official waste bin with a ready-sliced PLA G-code, and Sortitoutman warns Creator 5 Pro owners to print it in ABS or ASA instead because of the heated chamber - the vendor's own file choice is questionable on the vendor's own machine. These are open questions, not demonstrated faults, and are recorded as isolated for exactly that reason; for a machine that would live in a shared family home they are the questions that remain unanswered.", "source_ids": [ "src-yt-elevatedmaker-c5pro-fixes", "src-yt-sortitoutman-c5-poopbin" ], "notes": null, "_file": "flashforge.json" }, { "id": "ki-flashforge-creator5-no-purge-chute", "subject_id": "flashforge-creator-5", "date_first_reported": "2026-04", "description": "The Creator 5 series has no purge chute or waste bin. Purge falls loose onto the floor of the printer and has to be picked out by hand. Tom's Hardware: on filament load the printer 'will then purge a rather large amount of material onto the floor of the printer'. A pre-launch community thread flagged the same thing: 'there is no poop chute at all. It literally just poops onto the floor of the printer.' FauxHammer found it 'manageable to remove the small bundles of purge waste every few prints' but says a dedicated waste path 'would be much better'.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "MITIGATED on about 2026-08-10, not fixed in hardware. Flashforge published an official printable 'poop bin' on its wiki for both the Creator 5 and the Creator 5 Pro: a two-piece hanger and removable bin the owner prints and fixes with double-sided tape at the rear right, matching the purge position that firmware 1.9.4 introduced. Independently installed and confirmed catching the purge by Sortitoutman on 2026-08-10, who says it takes seconds to fit and stayed put without tape. STILL A COMPROMISE: the owner has to print and mount it; Flashforge's own guide warns that purged filament 'may occasionally stick to the side wall, causing the waste to pile up' and recommends emptying the bin before every print; the ready-sliced file offered is PLA, which the same reviewer warns against on the heated-chamber Pro; and community trays designed for the old front purge position no longer fit.", "source_ids": [ "src-toms-creator5", "src-reddit-c5-disappointing", "src-fauxhammer-c5pro", "src-reddit-c5p-canceled", "src-ff-wiki-c5-poop-bin", "src-yt-sortitoutman-c5-poopbin", "src-reddit-c5p-fw194" ], "notes": null, "_file": "flashforge.json" }, { "id": "ki-flashforge-creator5-purge-volume", "subject_id": "flashforge-creator-5", "date_first_reported": "2026-07-13", "description": "The Creator 5 series is marketed under the headline 'Zero Purge Waste' but purges heavily in normal use. Tom's Hardware (2026-07-13) weighed the default-profile prime tower on a four-color print at 44 g against a 33 g model, and reported that Flashforge only tuned the low-purge behavior for its own filament profiles - 'everything purges at single-nozzle AMS levels' with third-party profiles, via a setting buried deep in the slicer. FauxHammer, testing the Creator 5 Pro, wrote that the machine 'currently purges a frankly silly amount of material' during loading and at the start of prints, especially when flow calibration is enabled, and that it purges every toolhead used rather than only those whose filament changed. An owner (r/FlashForge, approx. 2026-07) reports a sequential heat-to-250C / purge / cool-to-120C cycle per toolhead costing 3-4 minutes each with no way to skip it, so a 7-minute test print takes over 20 minutes.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "Open as of 2026-09-06. FlashForge has publicly said purge quantities are being reduced through software updates (FauxHammer, 2026), and the slicer purge value can be lowered by hand, but no source reports the default behavior fixed.", "source_ids": [ "src-toms-creator5", "src-fauxhammer-c5pro", "src-reddit-c5p-terrible" ], "notes": "Applies to both the Creator 5 and the Creator 5 Pro; recorded once against the Creator 5 and referenced from both printer records.", "_file": "flashforge.json" }, { "id": "ki-flashforge-creator5-tpu-clog", "subject_id": "flashforge-creator-5", "date_first_reported": "2026-07-13", "description": "Tom's Hardware's Creator 5 extruder clogged while printing 40D TPU (softer than the 90A Flashforge lists) and had to be cleared by disassembling the toolhead. A 95A TPU print afterwards completed cleanly.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "Open as of 2026-09-06. Flashforge's own documentation says TPU softer than 90A is not on the compatibility list, so this is arguably out-of-spec use; recorded because it shows what a clog costs on this machine (toolhead disassembly).", "source_ids": [ "src-toms-creator5" ], "notes": null, "_file": "flashforge.json" }, { "id": "ki-flashforge-creator5pro-purge-into-heater", "subject_id": "flashforge-creator-5-pro", "date_first_reported": "2026-06-25", "description": "On the Creator 5 Pro the purge was originally deposited near the front of the bed, close to the nozzle wiper and the chamber heater's fan intake, so thin purge strands could be drawn into the heater. This is the most serious thing in this brand's record and three independent parties describe it. (1) The reviewer Elevated Maker Space published 'Why I've Stopped Testing The FlashForge Creator 5 Pro!' on 2026-06-25, stating that during his testing purge waste filament was pulled into the chamber heater intake, 'creating reliability, maintenance, and potential safety concerns', and that he paused his long-term review over it. (2) FauxHammer describes the same mechanism: 'potentially feeding melted plastic into an internal heater fan'. (3) An owner who canceled his order (r/FlashForge, approx. 2026-07) calls it 'a fundamental hardware flaw that makes the machine unsafe and unreliable' and says the vendor response only delays heater start until after the purge, which forces the user to stand at the machine and clear purge before every print. UPDATE 2026-09-06: a fourth independent party, the trade publication Fabbaloo, wrote the fault up on 2026-07-01, describing strands 'easily and frequently sucked into the heater, where they audibly crash into the fan blades', noting that the Pro's proprietary firmware gave owners no way to change the purge process or location, and concluding that Flashforge should redesign the purge approach. The community consequence is on the record too: owners canceled pre-orders over it.", "severity": "safety", "scope": "common", "status": "SUBSTANTIALLY MITIGATED AND INDEPENDENTLY CONFIRMED, WITH RESIDUAL DEFECTS, as of 2026-09-06. The sequence, now established: firmware 1.9.3, which Flashforge's own wiki dates 2026-06-15, disables the chamber-heater fan during the purge; firmware 1.9.4, pushed to machines on 2026-07-03 and absent from that same wiki changelog, moves the purge from the front-right corner above the heater intake to the rear-right corner; and on about 2026-08-10 Flashforge published an official printable waste bin that hangs at the new rear purge position. THE EARLIER DISPUTE IS RESOLVED: three independent parties verified the relocation on shipping units - Elevated Maker Space, the reviewer who found the fault and stopped his test over it, on 2026-07-03; Figure Feedback the same day; and Sortitoutman on 2026-08-10 - plus an owner on r/FlashForge who confirmed it by loading a roll. The purge position has genuinely moved. NOT CLOSED, for three reasons: the remedy is firmware plus a part the owner prints and fixes on with double-sided tape, not a hardware redesign; Elevated Maker Space judges 1.9.3 on its own to address 'probably 90% of the immediate problem', with an edge case where a strand enters the vent while the fan is off and is drawn deeper when it restarts; and after 1.9.4 he still observed purge waste hanging up at the rear position with some landing in the chamber near the lead screw. See ki-flashforge-c5-rear-purge-regression for what the relocation broke, ki-flashforge-c5pro-open-thermal-questions for what remains unexamined, and ki-flashforge-firmware-changelog-gap for why a buyer cannot verify from Flashforge's own documentation which firmware a given machine shipped with.", "source_ids": [ "src-yt-elevatedmaker-c5pro", "src-fauxhammer-c5pro", "src-reddit-c5p-canceled", "src-fabbaloo-c5pro-purge", "src-yt-elevatedmaker-c5pro-fixes", "src-yt-figurefeedback-c5pro-fw194", "src-yt-sortitoutman-c5-poopbin", "src-reddit-c5p-fw194", "src-reddit-c5p-fire-hazard", "src-ff-wiki-c5-firmware-history", "src-ff-wiki-c5-poop-bin" ], "notes": "Recorded at 'safety' severity because the failure mode is molten plastic drawn into a heating element inside an enclosed chamber, in a shared family home.", "_file": "flashforge.json" }, { "id": "ki-flashforge-creator5pro-ui-freeze", "subject_id": "flashforge-creator-5-pro", "date_first_reported": "2026-07", "description": "One owner with ten years of 3D-printing experience reports the Creator 5 Pro's touchscreen and whole control system becoming unresponsive: stop commands taking minutes to act, pause confirmations that cannot be dismissed, and recovery only by cutting power. He also reports a large gap between Flash Studio's estimated and actual print times because of the startup routine.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "isolated", "status": "Open as of 2026-09-06 on a single detailed report; no second independent report of the freeze was found, so scope is recorded as isolated rather than common.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-c5p-terrible" ], "notes": "Deliberately scoped 'isolated' - one report is not a pattern. If a second lands, this becomes the strongest reason to avoid the machine.", "_file": "flashforge.json" }, { "id": "ki-flashforge-firmware-changelog-gap", "subject_id": "flashforge", "date_first_reported": "2026-07-03", "severity": "policy", "scope": "common", "status": "Open as of 2026-09-06.", "description": "Flashforge's official Creator 5 series firmware release-history page, retrieved 2026-09-06, ends at Creator5Pro-1.9.3-1.2.5-20260615. It has no entry at all for the 1.9.4 firmware that shipped to machines on 2026-07-03 and changed a safety-relevant behavior by relocating the purge, and none for the official waste bin published about 2026-08-10. An owner noticed the same absence on the day 1.9.4 arrived: 'I checked their wiki and website to see a change log - I couldn't find one for this recent change?'. Even the entry that does exist understates what it did: 1.9.3's item 4 reads only 'Optimize fan control during filament feeding for models with chamber temperature', with no indication that it exists to stop purge strands being drawn into the chamber heater. FOR A BUYER: the vendor's published changelog cannot be relied on to establish what firmware a machine is running or what a given release fixed, which is precisely the information needed to judge whether the Creator 5 Pro safety issue is closed on a unit bought today.", "source_ids": [ "src-ff-wiki-c5-firmware-history", "src-reddit-c5p-fw194", "src-yt-elevatedmaker-c5pro-fixes" ], "notes": null, "_file": "flashforge.json" }, { "id": "ki-flashforge-klipper-source-withheld", "subject_id": "flashforge", "date_first_reported": "2026-07", "description": "Flashforge's current machines run modified Klipper but Flashforge does not publish the modified source for the newer models. Community modders obtained root on a Creator 5 Pro in approximately July 2026 and confirmed Klipper underneath. A user who asked Flashforge support to release the Creator 5 Pro firmware source, citing GPLv3, was told 'we currently do not have any publicly available information regarding this' and the exchange ended. A separate owner post makes the same complaint and argues that with source access users could fix the purge-into-heater problem themselves. By contrast the older Adventurer 5M/5M Pro have a mature unofficial mod path - xblax Klipper Mod, Forge-X (DrA1ex/ff5m) and Z-Mod (ghzserg/zmod), all retrieved 2026-09-06 - giving patched Klipper, Moonraker, Mainsail/Fluidd and SSH root, at the cost of the warranty. Z-Mod's README also lists AD5X, Creator 5 and Creator 5 Pro support, so the community has worked around the withheld source on the newer machines too.", "severity": "policy", "scope": "common", "status": "Open as of 2026-09-06; no Creator 5 series source release was found.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-c5p-klipper", "src-reddit-c5p-canceled", "src-github-ad5m-klipper-mod", "src-github-zmod", "src-github-forgex" ], "notes": "Relevant to the openness dimension: the closed newer firmware is what stops an owner engineering around the machine's own defects.", "_file": "flashforge.json" }, { "id": "ki-flashforge-refurb-marketplace-condition", "subject_id": "flashforge", "date_first_reported": "2025-09-12", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "isolated", "status": "Open as of 2026-09-06, with an explicit scope limit: the unit was bought from a marketplace listing, not from Flashforge's own refurbished store.", "description": "The only first-hand refurbished-condition report found for any Flashforge machine. An AD5M sold on eBay as 'refurbished, like new' arrived with the screen clip unattached, the screen ribbon held in with tape, the display coming up mirrored and a Benchy-shaped gouge in the build plate. The thread's own replies draw the distinction the buyer did not - 'Flashforge sells refurbished like new straight from their website... anything on eBay might be a gamble' - and another buyer reports an eBay AD5M at $200 that arrived looking new and works well. NOTHING INDEPENDENT WAS FOUND about the Flashforge factory-refurbished AD5X at all: no review, no teardown, no owner report, and the vendor's own listing carries no customer reviews. The refurbished AD5X's reliability evidence is therefore the new AD5X's evidence plus an unquantified refurbishment risk and an unresolved warranty term.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-refurb-ad5m-ebay" ], "notes": null, "_file": "flashforge.json" }, { "id": "ki-flashforge-refurb-warranty-shorter", "subject_id": "flashforge", "date_first_reported": "2026-09-06", "description": "Flashforge-refurbished printers carry a 3-month warranty, not the 12-month warranty a new printer gets, and the store does not say so consistently. The AD5M and AD5M Pro refurbished listings both state '3-Month Limited Warranty - Refurbished units come with reliable after-sales support' in the bullet list. The AD5X refurbished listing states no warranty term at all while displaying the same site-wide '12-Month Warranty' badge and the boilerplate 'Flashforge offers a 1-year limited warranty for its 3D printers'. Flashforge's Warranty and Returns Policy page describes only the 12-month new-printer warranty and the 3-month extruder warranty; it does not mention refurbished units at all.", "severity": "policy", "scope": "common", "status": "Current as of 2026-09-06. The warranty term on a refurbished AD5X specifically is unresolved and should be confirmed in writing with Flashforge before buying.", "source_ids": [ "src-ff-ad5m-refurb", "src-ff-ad5mpro-refurb", "src-ff-ad5x-refurb", "src-ff-warranty" ], "notes": "Directly relevant: the refurbished AD5X saves only $84 against the new sale price while the warranty position is worse and unclear.", "_file": "flashforge.json" }, { "id": "ki-flyingbear-ghost7-zoffset-not-saved", "subject_id": "flyingbear-ghost7", "date_first_reported": "2026-05-31", "description": "The Z-offset is not persisted when saved from the printer's interface. ChuchaTV3D (2026-05-31) sets the offset, presses the save control, and finds it does not stick; he works around it with a Klipper SET_Z_HOME_OFFSET command, which he pins at the top of his video description ('SET_Z_HOME_OFFSET OFFSET=-0.45'). The symptom is a first layer that is either gouged or floating until the workaround is applied.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; no vendor fix, firmware note or download page for the Ghost 7 exists to check against", "source_ids": [ "src-yt-chucha-ghost7", "src-reddit-infimech-tx-review" ], "notes": "Scope is 'isolated' despite two source ids because they are not two reports of the same machine: the second is a 2024 owner review of the earlier InfiMech TX which independently complains that 'it can't remember a z-offset', and a commenter there attributes it to forgetting Mainsail's 'save configuration'. It is cited as a same-vendor-firmware echo, not as corroboration. If it is the same root cause it is a long-lived quirk of this vendor's Klipper packaging rather than a Ghost 7 defect.", "_file": "imports.json" }, { "id": "ki-formbot-voron24-docs-config-gap", "subject_id": "formbot-voron-2-4-r2-pro-plus", "date_first_reported": "2026-03-02", "description": "Buyers repeatedly report that Formbot supplies good hardware with thin documentation and no ready-to-run software. A purchaser on 2026-03-02: 'The kit itself is very good in terms of hardware quality. All parts were complete, well-manufactured. I have no complaints about the mechanical components or the electronics. However, a significant downside is the LACK OF PROPER DOCUMENTATION AND SOFTWARE. There is no ready-to-use firmware configurat[ion]'. A second buyer on 2026-09-02: 'A really nice high quality kit. Results definitely exceed my expectations. Documentation could be improved.' A third, on 2026-03-31, frames it as workable but scattered: 'a pretty mature kit with a considerable amount of documentation, if you know where to look for it (github, youtube, discord, canbus esoterical, et cetera)'. The independent CNC Kitchen build report describes the same structural problem for Voron kits: five separate manuals to work through - the 2.4 manual, the toolhead manual, the vendor wiring guide, the vendor mod guide and Voron's software installation guide - and notes the official Voron manual is written for the 250 mm machine, so t-nut counts and proportions do not always match a larger build.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; Formbot does publish build notes, a firmware-flashing guide and a stock printer.cfg at github.com/FORMBOT/Voron-2.4, which partly answers the complaint", "source_ids": [ "src-formbot-voron24", "src-cnckitchen-voron24" ], "notes": "The three buyer quotes are vendor-hosted reviews on Formbot's own page and are weak evidence on their own; the independent build report is what makes this 'common' rather than anecdotal. This is the single biggest risk for a buyer who is not fluent in any programming language, which is this buyer.", "_file": "kits.json" }, { "id": "ki-formbot-voron24-no-printed-parts", "subject_id": "formbot-voron-2-4-r2-pro-plus", "date_first_reported": null, "description": "The Formbot Voron 2.4 kit contains no 3D printed parts, and a Voron 2.4 cannot be assembled without a full set of them. Formbot's product page states it outright - 'This kit doesn't include any 3d printed parts, we just collect high quality components' - and directs buyers to Voron's Print It Forward program or to Formbot's own 65 USD printed set. CNC Kitchen's independent build report confirms the same for Voron kits generally ('the printed parts which are usually not part of the kit') and puts the self-print route at 'over 200h' of printing in ABS, on a printer capable of ABS. For a first-time buyer with no printer this is a hard prerequisite, not an upsell: either 65 USD plus shipping, or an ABS-capable printer he does not own.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "widespread", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06 - by design, not a defect", "source_ids": [ "src-formbot-voron24", "src-cnckitchen-voron24" ], "notes": "Captured as a known issue rather than a footnote because the headline price of 645.05 USD reads as a complete printer and is not one. The same trap applies to the BoxTurtle kit - see ki-boxturtle-build-prerequisites.", "_file": "kits.json" }, { "id": "ki-formbot-voron24-parts-variance", "subject_id": "formbot-voron-2-4-r2-pro-plus", "date_first_reported": "2026-07-16", "description": "An owner eighteen months into ownership reports three component-quality problems with the Formbot kit: a filament sensor that 'wasn't working right ... probably faulty and unusable. The printer paused mid print all the time'; linear rails he blames for persistent input-shaper trouble, with one 'a little bent'; and the PG7 umbilical mount, 'my biggest enemy all along ... If you don't do this, you'll never get good Input shaper results'. He advises budgeting for better rails. A separate buyer on 2026-05-01 reports the DIN-rail mount printed parts were 'very brittle and snapped when installing them' and that he replaced the supplied board with an Octopus Pro v1.1.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06", "source_ids": [ "src-formbot-voron24" ], "notes": "Both reports are vendor-hosted reviews on Formbot's own page and both rate the kit 3 or 5 stars overall, so this is not a picture of a bad kit - it reads as the normal variance of a budget parts bundle. Scope 'isolated' reflects that only two reports were captured, both from the same vendor-controlled venue; it is not a claim about true frequency.", "_file": "kits.json" }, { "id": "ki-imports-bed-tilt-out-of-box", "subject_id": "imports", "date_first_reported": "2026-05-31", "description": "The heated bed arrives significantly out of mechanical level on both nameplates, far enough that the automatic mesh is compensating for a physical tilt rather than for surface variation. ChuchaTV3D found 'almost 1.7 mm' of tilt on a Ghost 7 (2026-05-31) and spent 15-20 minutes doing a paper-gauge manual level, complaining that no adjustment wrench is supplied in the box; Hoffman Engineering found the right side of an InfiMech EX bed 'roughly a millimeter high' (2026-08-24) and fixed it by enabling Klipper's SCREW_TILT_ADJUST from the config file, after which he shows a before-and-after mesh on camera ('my bed went from this to this') but states no figure. CORRECTED 2026-09-06 AUDIT: the plus-or-minus 0.15 mm number previously recorded here as Hoffman's is ChuchaTV3D's, measured on the Ghost 7 after his manual level ('perepad vsoho-navsoho vid minus do plius 0,15'). No post-fix mesh figure exists for the EX. Two independent reports, two nameplates of the same machine, three months apart. The fix is free but it is not beginner-work: on the EX it means editing a Klipper config, and on the Ghost 7 it means an undocumented manual procedure with a tool that is not in the box.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; both reports are of shipped retail-configuration units and no vendor response or process change was found", "source_ids": [ "src-yt-chucha-ghost7", "src-yt-hoffman-ex" ], "notes": "Scope 'common' rests on two independent hands-on reports of the same defect on the same platform, not on community volume - there is no community volume to draw on for either machine. Neither source is a long-term ownership report.", "_file": "imports.json" }, { "id": "ki-imports-electronics-fan-always-on", "subject_id": "imports", "date_first_reported": "2026-05-19", "description": "The electronics/mainboard cooling fan runs continuously whenever the printer has power, so the machine is never quiet - not between prints, not overnight, not when idle. Hoffman Engineering measured 63 dB while printing and only about 60 dB idle, and says he powers the machine off rather than leaving it sitting (2026-08-24). Southpaw Workshop independently flagged the same behavior on the EX and on the previous TX: 'as long as the power's on on this device, it's going to have a fan running ... if I get close here, you can hear how loud it is', adding that he only tolerates it because his printers are not in his living space (2026-05-19). ChuchaTV3D separately notes the part-cooling fan is loud on the Ghost 7 (2026-05-31). There is no software fan-idle setting reported by anyone.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; described as designed behavior by both reviewers, not as a fault, and no firmware option to stop the fan at idle was found", "source_ids": [ "src-yt-hoffman-ex", "src-yt-southpaw-ex", "src-yt-chucha-ghost7" ], "notes": "Directly relevant to Rob's shared-family-home constraint. A machine whose floor is about 60 dB at idle has to be switched off at the wall to live in a room people use, which also means no unattended overnight printing and no remote start. 63 dB printing is the only independently MEASURED noise figure that exists for either machine; the Ghost 7 has no measurement at all.", "_file": "imports.json" }, { "id": "ki-imports-no-shipping-multicolour", "subject_id": "imports", "date_first_reported": "2026-05-19", "description": "Both machines are marketed as five-color printers and neither has a multi-color system a buyer can actually purchase, on any date checked between 2026-05 and RUN_DATE 2026-09-06. InfiMech's own EX product page says it in writing: 'Five-Color Printing (Upcoming Optional ColorBox Module) ... sold separately, not yet available for purchase. Base unit supports single-color printing only.' The bundled variants are dead on both stores: 'EX+Mcs' ($359, all three regions) and 'EX+APS' ($630, all three regions) are available:false, and 'Ghost7+Mcs' ($599) and 'Ghost7+APS-Global' ($599) are available:false. No standalone color module is listed on either store. One asymmetry to keep visible: the written 'not yet available for purchase' statement is InfiMech's, about the EX's ColorBox. FlyingBear publishes no release statement of any kind for the Ghost7+Mcs, so calling that variant unshipped rather than merely out of stock rests on the two nameplates being the same hardware and the same module (see the brand notes), not on FlyingBear's own words. Neither of the two independent reviewers who tested the EX could get one: Southpaw Workshop on 2026-05-19 ('that's another add-on feature that I don't have with me') and Hoffman Engineering on 2026-08-24 ('both accessory bundles were out of stock when I checked'), fifteen weeks apart. Corroborating structural evidence: the vendors' own upstream OrcaSlicer profile bundles contain machine variants for the EX, EX+APS, TX, TX-HSN, Ghost 6, Ghost7, Reborn3 and S1 - and no multi-material or multi-extruder variant for anything. Consequence for this study: both machines fail hard filter (c) and cannot be ranked, and the 'cheap five-color printer' premise that put them on the long list does not survive contact with the stores.", "severity": "policy", "scope": "widespread", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; no ship date, price or availability commitment for the ColorBox / MCS module was found on either store, in either reviewer's coverage, or anywhere else in this pass", "source_ids": [ "src-infimech-ex-store", "src-fb-ghost7-store", "src-yt-southpaw-ex", "src-yt-hoffman-ex", "src-orca-infimech-profile", "src-orca-flyingbear-profile" ], "notes": "This is the single most important row in the file. Everything else about these machines is secondary to the fact that the feature they were shortlisted for cannot be bought. Note also that InfiMech's APS plate-swapper was demonstrated in public at JRRF2026 in May 2026 (Domechy, 2026-07-27) and still is not on sale - a working demo is not availability.", "_file": "imports.json" }, { "id": "ki-imports-support-response-variable", "subject_id": "imports", "date_first_reported": "2024-10-10", "description": "There is no US support channel and owner experience of the one channel that exists is inconsistent. Support is email plus a web form (jojo@ and support@ on each domain), stated hours Monday-Friday 09:00-18:00 GMT+8 - roughly 21:00-06:00 US Eastern, so a US owner is always writing overnight. The merchant of record is a UK shell (TELOS TRADING LIMITED, London) and the phone number is +86. Warranty service requires shipping the unit back to the vendor's designated warehouse, at the buyer's cost unless the vendor accepts fault, within a 14-day return window and a 30-day replacement window. Owner reports contradict each other: a 2024 long-form TX review states 'Customer service, in my experience, will take weeks to respond to inquiries', then edits the post to say 'Infimech got back to me almost instantly'; a 2026 owner thread has a two-year TX owner reporting support 'very responsive, considering the time difference between China and UK' and cheap spare parts. Spare-part availability is genuinely good - both stores sell hotends, extruder modules, gears, belts, bearings, thermistors, fans, touchscreens and PEI plates individually.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06 - this is a standing structural condition of buying direct from these stores, not an incident with a fix", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-infimech-tx-review", "src-reddit-infimech-owners", "src-infimech-contact", "src-infimech-aftersales", "src-fb-warranty" ], "notes": "Every owner report available is about the TX or older FlyingBear models - there is not one EX or Ghost 7 warranty-claim account anywhere in this pass. Note the sample-size problem cutting the other way too: r/InfiMechOfficial has 640 members and the 2026 'anyone here own a TX or EX?' thread drew ten comments of which six were captured, and not one EX owner among them. Also worth weighing against the positive reports: the loudest negative report improved only AFTER the owner posted publicly on a 3.4-million-member subreddit, which is not a support path Rob should have to use.", "_file": "imports.json" }, { "id": "ki-infimech-ex-orca-vfa-profile", "subject_id": "infimech-ex", "date_first_reported": "2026-08-24", "description": "The stock OrcaSlicer profile that ships for the InfiMech EX drives outer walls straight into the machine's worst vertical-fine-artifact band, so flat vertical surfaces come out visibly ribbed out of the box. Hoffman Engineering ran OrcaSlicer's own VFA calibration tower and found artifacts from roughly 40 to 100 mm/s outer-wall speed, worst at 40-60, clean above 100; the shipped profile does not set the outer wall speed directly but its volumetric-flow limit and minimum-layer-time settings combine to land it at about 40 mm/s. His fix was three filament-profile settings - minimum layer time 4 s, maximum volumetric flow 20 mm3/s, outer wall 200 mm/s - which improved surface finish AND cut a 5 h 50 m print to 5 h 05 m. He was also never able to eliminate stringing between close pillars despite retraction tuning. His verdict: 'I would hesitate to recommend it to a beginner who expects the stock profile to deliver the printer's best quality immediately.'", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; the reviewer states he did not contact InfiMech about it, and the upstream OrcaSlicer InfiMech profile bundle has had no content change since 2026-06-27", "source_ids": [ "src-yt-hoffman-ex" ], "notes": "Scope is recorded as 'isolated' because only one source reports it, which is the honest label - but read it with care in both directions. Against: the defect is in a SHARED SHIPPED PROFILE, so if it is real it affects every EX owner who slices with the stock profile, not one unit. For: the other EX reviewer, Southpaw Workshop (2026-05-19), sliced in OrcaSlicer and reported 'very good quality ... very smooth' with no VFA complaint, so the two independent tests do not agree. Logged as a conflict rather than resolved.", "_file": "imports.json" }, { "id": "ki-infimech-ex-screen-lockup", "subject_id": "infimech-ex", "date_first_reported": "2026-05-19", "description": "The touchscreen interface froze twice during a single review period. Southpaw Workshop: 'the screen has a tendency to lock up. During my testing, it happened to me twice' - the printer stopped responding and he recovered it by pulling the power cord, which then also demonstrated that power-loss resume works. He expected a firmware fix. The unit was described on camera as pre-production.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06 in the sense that no fix has been evidenced; the unit tested was pre-production and the later reviewer (2026-08-24) did not report a lock-up, so it may already be resolved on retail units", "source_ids": [ "src-yt-southpaw-ex" ], "notes": "Kept deliberately narrow. One source, one pre-production unit, and a later independent test that does not reproduce it. Recorded because a UI freeze mid-print is the kind of fault that matters more than its frequency suggests, not because there is evidence it is widespread.", "_file": "imports.json" }, { "id": "ki-kit-no-assembly-warranty", "subject_id": "kits", "date_first_reported": null, "description": "Buying a whole-printer kit leaves the assembled machine unwarranted. Rat Rig's published Warranty Policy (retrieved 2026-09-06) states 'All Rat Rig products are covered by a parts only warranty ... This warranty does not extend to assembly, installation, or overall machine performance', gives 1 year for customers outside the EU, adds 'Rat Rig does not warrant workmanship or final assembly. Responsibility for correct installation, assembly, and use lies entirely with the end user', and excludes linear rails, bearings, belts, PTFE tubes, hobbed gears and build surfaces as wear parts, plus anything damaged by 'improper or incorrect assembly'. Formbot publishes no warranty, returns or shipping policy at all on formbot3d.com; its only company page carries a Chinese address, a phone number, three e-mail addresses and a Skype ID (retrieved 2026-09-06). A US reseller lists a 'One Year' manufacturer warranty on the Troodon (retrieved 2026-09-06) - the only warranty figure found for Formbot, and it does not come from Formbot. The practical consequence for a home buyer: if a kit-built machine does not work, no vendor owns the problem, and the fault is presumed to be the builder's.", "severity": "policy", "scope": "widespread", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06 - this is standing vendor policy, not an incident", "source_ids": [ "src-ratrig-warranty", "src-formbot-information", "src-3dpos-troodon" ], "notes": "Recorded as evidence rather than opinion because it is the single largest difference between a kit and a pre-built machine at the same money, and it is invisible on the product pages. It does not apply to the pre-assembled Troodons in the same way, since those are not owner-assembled.", "_file": "kits.json" }, { "id": "ki-makerbot-sketch-build-plate-wear", "subject_id": "makerbot-sketch-standard", "date_first_reported": "2023-01-24", "description": "Build surfaces wear out fast and are expensive to replace. A one-year owner running Sketch units in a classroom alongside his own home printer reports replacing Sketch build plates 'every couple months' (his words), against a single replacement over the entire life of his home machine at comparable print volume. He attributes much of it to inconsistent first-layer height: the machine auto-levels, but setting extruder height 'doesn't seem to be consistent' - fine one day, driven into the plate the next. AUDIT ADDITION 2026-09-06: the inconsistent-leveling ROOT CAUSE is now independently corroborated. A second owner, in the r/makerbot thread retrieved in full on 2026-09-06, writes that 'this printer is schizophrenic, each time I calibrate it, it seems to change height of ex. -0.1, then I lift it, go back to -0.1 and it's different'. That is the same complaint from an unrelated owner three years later. The build-plate CONSUMPTION rate itself is still single-source, so the scope stays 'isolated'; it is the calibration inconsistency behind it that now has two independent reports. This is a running-cost and repeatability issue rather than a catastrophic one, but repeatability is precisely what this buyer said he cares about most.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; no vendor acknowledgement or fix found", "source_ids": [ "src-yt-sketch-one-year", "src-reddit-sketch-problems" ], "notes": "Deliberately kept at scope 'isolated', not 'common': the build-plate replacement RATE still rests on a single owner, however detailed and however long his exposure, even though the calibration inconsistency he blames it on is now corroborated by a second owner. It is recorded because a consumable that needs replacing six times a year materially changes cost of ownership, and because it would be dishonest to drop the only long-term report in the file for being singular.", "_file": "ultimaker.json" }, { "id": "ki-makerbot-sketch-cloud-slicer-lockin", "subject_id": "makerbot-sketch-standard", "date_first_reported": "2023-01-24", "description": "The Sketch is tied to a proprietary cloud slicer. As of 2026-09-06 the manufacturer's own spec page lists the print file type as '.MAKERBOT' and the software bundle as 'MakerBot CloudPrint', a cloud-hosted slicer. No documented route exists for OrcaSlicer, PrusaSlicer or any other third-party slicer to send a job to this printer. A one-year owner (2023-01-24) states 'you're stuck with what MakerBot offers' and wants more control over slicing decisions; an r/3Dprinting thread describes CloudPrint as 'a proprietary online slicer' whose supports are on-or-off with no support blockers. Whether the printer functions at all without an internet connection or a MakerBot account was not established. This is a design property rather than a defect, and it is recorded as a policy issue because for a buyer who works in OpenSCAD and values FOSS and self-hosting it is disqualifying on its own.", "severity": "policy", "scope": "widespread", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06 - this is how the product is designed and sold, not a regression; no change announced", "source_ids": [ "src-makerbot-sketch-standard", "src-yt-sketch-one-year", "src-reddit-cloudprint-supports" ], "notes": "'widespread' here means it applies to every unit by design, not that many units failed. Counterweight recorded on the printer record: there is no filament lock - third-party filament is reported to work better than the vendor's own - so the lock-in is at the software layer only.", "_file": "ultimaker.json" }, { "id": "ki-makerbot-sketch-extruder-clog", "subject_id": "makerbot-sketch-standard", "date_first_reported": "2023-01-24", "description": "Extruder clogging and filament breakage in the Sketch's Bowden feed path. UltiMaker publishes a dedicated support article, 'Sketch: Unclogging the extruder', plus a companion 'SKETCH Series Quick Tips | Unclogging the Extruder' video, so the vendor treats this as a routine failure mode. A one-year owner report (2023-01-24) says MakerBot's own filament 'breaks a lot, it clogs up a lot' even when stored sealed in a well-conditioned room, that clearing a break out of the Bowden tube is so difficult he leaves the machine for a day before retrying, and that third-party filament from a local retailer fed noticeably better. An r/makerbot thread reports the same symptom: 'Sometimes it seems to clog inside the extruder and prints weak, easy to crush structures'. AUDIT UPDATE 2026-09-06: that thread was retrieved IN FULL during the audit (it had only been a search snippet) and is stronger than it looked - it is a teacher running two Sketch units at about 5-6 hours a day, five days a week, who also had to replace the Bowden tube after three months because 'the tube just got loose on it's own during printing', and who was posting roughly six to seven months before 2026-09-06. A classroom Facebook group post reports a Sketch that 'keeps popping apart'. Scope is recorded as 'common' on the strength of the vendor's own dedicated troubleshooting article plus three independent community/owner reports; one of the two community reports (r/makerbot) is now full text and first-hand, the Facebook one remains snippet-level, and no source here is an instrumented T2 measurement, so this should still be taken as 'recognized and recurring', not as a measured failure rate.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; no hardware revision or firmware fix found, and the vendor's published remedy is a user unclogging procedure", "source_ids": [ "src-makerbot-support-sketch-clog", "src-yt-sketch-one-year", "src-reddit-sketch-problems", "src-fb-sketch-classroom" ], "notes": "Method note per the brief: the one substantial long-term report here dates from 2023 and no more recent long-term review was found, so it is not possible to check whether recent owner experience differs from the launch cohort. The machine is still sold unchanged in 2026, and the 2026 r/makerbot thread - now retrieved in full - describes the same symptom from a different owner three years later, which is the strongest continuity evidence in this record.", "_file": "ultimaker.json" }, { "id": "ki-phrozen-arco-delivery-delays", "subject_id": "phrozen", "date_first_reported": "2025-08-22", "description": "The Arco's crowdfunding-origin delivery ran roughly a year late. Backers were told shipping would begin July 2024; owners report actually receiving machines from about July to September 2025, with the PentaShield enclosure and Chroma Kit arriving later still, and at least one backer canceled and demanded a refund in October 2025. A commenter in February 2026 summarized the owner community as 'very few people are happy with the printer or the service of the company'.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "widespread", "status": "historical, and no longer applicable to a retail purchase as of 2026-09-06: the Phrozen US store quotes a standard lead time of about one week, both the printer and the Chroma Kit added to a cart successfully, and Amazon quoted delivery in five days.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-any-arco-users", "src-reddit-i-love-my-arcos", "src-toms-arco-launch" ], "notes": "Kept as brand evidence about Phrozen's execution on FDM, not as a reason to exclude the product.", "_file": "phrozen.json" }, { "id": "ki-phrozen-arco-firmware-update-brick", "subject_id": "phrozen-arco", "date_first_reported": "2026-05-08", "description": "One owner reports that the Arco firmware update from V1.8.5 to V1.9.4 failed, and that Phrozen customer support - reached by telephone - instructed him to remove the eMMC chip from the printer and mail it back to Phrozen to be reflashed. He did not have to: he still had a working Wi-Fi connection, reached the printer's backend through Phrozen Orca, replaced files by hand from the firmware zip and revived the machine himself. He adds that from researching the Facebook Phrozen ARCO group he 'was not an isolated case' and that others had hit the same failure. Phrozen's own firmware page corroborates that the upgrade path is fragile: it requires a staged upgrade through V1.7.7 before V1.9.9, states that versions below V1.7.7 cannot go straight to V1.9.9, and warns that installing the wrong firmware 'may render the printer unusable'.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06. Firmware V1.9.4 (2026-01-23) added OTA updating and V1.9.9 (2026-04-22) claims to have 'Optimized the firmware upgrade process to resolve occasional failures and improve the overall success rate', which reads as an acknowledgement that upgrade failures were happening.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-any-arco-users", "src-phrozen-hc-firmware" ], "notes": "Scope kept at 'isolated' and severity lowered from 'hardware-failure' to 'print-failure' during the audit pass, because the source does not support the stronger readings: the machine was recoverable in software by its owner, and the only corroboration for it being widespread is that owner's second-hand account of a Facebook group, which is hearsay and not the >= 3 independent reports 02_SCHEMA section 4 requires before calling anything common. What IS first-party and undisputed is that Phrozen's own remedy on the phone was 'post us the eMMC chip'.", "_file": "phrozen.json" }, { "id": "ki-phrozen-chroma-drying-ineffective", "subject_id": "phrozen-chroma-kit", "date_first_reported": "2026-01-15", "description": "The Chroma Kit's 70 C drying function has no airflow vents, so moisture driven out of the filament stays inside the sealed chamber and is reabsorbed as soon as the heater stops. It works as a warm dry box with desiccant, not as a dryer that expels moisture.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; no vendor response found.", "source_ids": [ "src-fauxhammer-arco-review" ], "notes": null, "_file": "phrozen.json" }, { "id": "ki-phrozen-chroma-feed-timeouts", "subject_id": "phrozen-chroma-kit", "date_first_reported": "2025-10-16", "description": "Feeding and retraction timeouts in the Chroma Kit. Phrozen's own troubleshooting article lists the causes as a jammed spool (deformed edges, or a spool too wide that falls into the roller gap), filament worn thin by repeated grinding, obstructions in the PTFE tube / Chroma Kit outlet / 4-way splitter, and a cutter that is worn, deformed or has fallen off. Two independent reviewers reproduced it: one had a feeder channel that simply would not work and had to bypass it; the other got repeated pull/retract timeouts with third-party spools (both plastic and cardboard) while Phrozen's own spools mostly worked, which made longer multi-material prints impossible.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06. The vendor article (2025-10-16) offers self-check procedures, not a fix. Firmware V1.8.5 (2025-10-21) and V1.9.4 (2026-01-23) added multi-color pause/resume and run-out error handling, but no source shows the timeouts resolved.", "source_ids": [ "src-phrozen-hc-chroma-troubleshoot", "src-fauxhammer-arco-review", "src-vogman-arco-review" ], "notes": null, "_file": "phrozen.json" }, { "id": "ki-phrozen-chroma-no-material-awareness", "subject_id": "phrozen-chroma-kit", "date_first_reported": "2026-01-15", "description": "The Chroma Kit has no material or color awareness. There is no RFID on the unit or on Phrozen's spools, and there is no way at all to tell the printer what material or color sits in each of the four slots, so slot contents cannot be synced to the slicer. The advertised automatic spool switching therefore just advances left to right when a spool runs out, regardless of what is loaded next - Phrozen's own product page concedes this with the line 'Only supports switching between filaments of the same color and material'. In testing the switch did occur but left a visible band several layers deep in the print.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "widespread", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; this is a design property of the product rather than a defect, and no firmware release note through V1.9.9 (2026-04-22) mentions adding slot material assignment.", "source_ids": [ "src-fauxhammer-arco-review", "src-phrozen-us-chroma" ], "notes": null, "_file": "phrozen.json" }, { "id": "ki-phrozen-chroma-purge-runaway", "subject_id": "phrozen-chroma-kit", "date_first_reported": "2026-03-26", "description": "Owners report the Chroma Kit purging far more filament than a color change should cost, including on prints that use a single filament, where the machine performs a reload-and-purge cycle roughly every layer. One owner traced his own case to a false filament-run-out trigger (worst on spools under ~350 g, where light spools rotate unevenly) that forces a reload and a large purge. Independent testing found the same class of problem: the purge stream is wiped at the toolhead and dropped through an open chute in the base of the machine onto a motorised belt that carries it to a bucket.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06. Arco firmware V1.9.4 (2026-01-23) added 'Optimized error handling for multi-color filament run-out' and 'Optimized nozzle movement after purging', and V1.9.9 shipped 2026-04-22, yet an owner report dated 2026-08-25 still describes purging on every layer. No gram-per-swap measurement exists in any source found.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-chroma-waste", "src-reddit-arco-question", "src-fauxhammer-arco-review" ], "notes": "Recency check performed as the brief requires: the newest complaint (2026-08-25) postdates the newest firmware (2026-04-22), so this is not a launch-cohort artifact.", "_file": "phrozen.json" }, { "id": "ki-phrozen-chroma-spool-constraints", "subject_id": "phrozen-chroma-kit", "date_first_reported": "2025-10-16", "description": "The Chroma Kit only accepts spools 50-60 mm wide and 197-202 mm in diameter. Phrozen's own troubleshooting article names 'the spool is too wide and falls into the roller gap' as a cause of feeding timeouts, and independent testing found repeated feed/retract timeouts with third-party spools in both plastic and cardboard while Phrozen's own spools mostly worked. There is no lock or DRM - this is a mechanical and tuning constraint, not a policy one.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06.", "source_ids": [ "src-phrozen-us-chroma", "src-phrozen-hc-chroma-troubleshoot", "src-fauxhammer-arco-review" ], "notes": "Whether commonly sold 1 kg spools actually fall inside the 50-60 mm width window was NOT measured for this study - do not assume they do.", "_file": "phrozen.json" }, { "id": "ki-phrozen-orca-chroma-remote-print", "subject_id": "phrozen-arco", "date_first_reported": "2026-01-15", "description": "Sending a job to the Arco over the network from Phrozen Orca did not engage the Chroma Kit. The printer started the job and printed using whatever filament was left in the extruder from the previous print, with no warning, no error and no pause - so a remote multi-color print can run to completion extruding nothing or the wrong color.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "reported 2026-01-15 against the firmware and Phrozen Orca build of that date. The Arco release notes for V1.9.4 (2026-01-23) and V1.9.9 (2026-04-22) do not mention this behavior. Neither independently confirmed nor shown fixed as of 2026-09-06.", "source_ids": [ "src-fauxhammer-arco-review" ], "notes": "Scope kept at 'isolated' because only one source reports it; the reviewer described it as a system-level failure, so if it is still present it matters more than the scope label suggests. Worth re-testing before any purchase.", "_file": "phrozen.json" }, { "id": "ki-phrozen-pentashield-not-sealed", "subject_id": "phrozen-pentashield", "date_first_reported": "2026-01-15", "description": "The PentaShield enclosure does not retain chamber heat and does not seal the machine. Independent testing found a large opening at the rear of the lid, plus the permanently open waste chute in the base of the printer that the purge system requires, and - if the Chroma Kit is fitted - an acrylic lid panel that has to be removed entirely to pass the filament tubes through, 'leaving a massive hole right where you want to keep the heat in'. A rear fan runs for PLA and effectively switches off for ABS, so the intent is there, but the reviewer's conclusion was that 'with this many gaps, there's just no realistic way for the chamber to hold temperature in any meaningful way'. The same reviewer's ABS prints were poor, but he did NOT attribute that to the enclosure: he wrote that it 'didn't look like classic enclosure or temperature issues either. It looked like poor extrusion, which points to profile problems rather than a fundamental hardware limitation.' That attribution is recorded here verbatim because an earlier draft of this record juxtaposed the two and implied a causal link the source rejects.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; this is a design observation from one tested unit, and if correct it applies to every unit. Phrozen's own PentaShield product page continues to claim the opposite benefit in these words: 'One benefit of the PentaShield enclosure is to keep your printing temperature consistent throughout the whole print, with PentaShield enclosed Arco showing up to 10 C higher than non-enclosed one' (T1, retrieved 2026-09-06).", "source_ids": [ "src-fauxhammer-arco-review", "src-phrozen-us-pentashield" ], "notes": "This is the single most consequential finding for a buyer who wants ASA in a shared family home: an enclosure with a permanently open chute in its floor is not a fume-containment enclosure, whatever the activated carbon filter does.", "_file": "phrozen.json" }, { "id": "ki-phrozen-pixup-discontinued", "subject_id": "phrozen", "date_first_reported": "2026-01-15", "description": "PIXUP FDM Slicer, the slicer Phrozen wrote for the Arco and shipped it with, has been dropped. Phrozen's software page marks it 'No longer supported. Please use Phrozen Orca Instead' with the download Unavailable, and an independent reviewer described it as already effectively abandoned. Phrozen's product pages have not caught up: the Arco spec table still lists 'PIXUP FDM Slicer' as a supported slicer and the Chroma Kit page still advertises remote monitoring 'via PIXUP FD Slicer', which is now the route to a discontinued product.", "severity": "policy", "scope": "widespread", "status": "in effect as of 2026-09-06. The replacement, Phrozen Orca (an Orca Slicer fork), is actively maintained - its public repository was last updated 2026-09-03.", "source_ids": [ "src-phrozen-software-page", "src-fauxhammer-arco-review" ], "notes": "Not a lock-in event: the replacement is more open than the thing it replaced. It is recorded because it shows the product pages are not being kept current, which is why several specs on them needed corroboration.", "_file": "phrozen.json" }, { "id": "ki-prusa-cht-nozzle-with-mmu3", "subject_id": "prusa-mmu3-enclosed-core-one", "date_first_reported": "2024-09", "description": "Every current CORE One+ and MK4S ships with a high-flow brass CHT nozzle, and Prusa's own knowledge base says that nozzle 'is not recommended to use with the MMU3'. The reason is purge volume: the CHT's split-core geometry holds more filament, so at Prusa's default purge settings darker colors bleed into lighter ones, and raising the purge to fix it grows the wipe tower by more than half. Prusa's stated remedy is to fit a standard-flow Prusa brass nozzle, and it says one is shipped with the MMU3 for MK4S. No equivalent statement exists for the CORE One MMU3 kits: their published contents are MMU3 unit, buffer, spoolholders and (for the Enclosed variant) the top cover, with no nozzle listed.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "Open and documented by Prusa as of 2026-09-06. For an MK4S buyer this costs nothing. For a CORE One buyer it is an unresolved $21.99 question, and it also cuts against the buyer's later carbon-fiber plan, because the obvious hardened upgrade in Prusa's catalog is itself a high-flow ObXidian.", "source_ids": [ "src-prusa-help-mmu3-nozzle", "src-prusa-help-nozzle-types", "src-prusa-coreone-product" ], "notes": "Flagged in cost_items unverified on the CORE One + MMU3 configurations rather than silently added to their totals.", "_file": "prusa.json" }, { "id": "ki-prusa-coreone-motor-noise", "subject_id": "prusa-core-one-plus-gen2", "date_first_reported": "2025-03-14", "description": "A large and long-running body of CORE One owner complaints about stepper-motor whine and resonance, which matters directly for a printer living in a shared family home. The Prusa forum thread 'Prusa Core One not usable inhouse' ran to eleven pages between March and December 2025, with the original poster moving his machine to an unheated garage. A separate r/prusa3d owner measured 60 dB average at five feet on a 0.15 mm structural profile after belt tensioning, accelerometer input-shaper calibration and phase-stepping calibration, and reported that Prusa support told him 'the Core One is a loud printer... It should not be expected to be quiet'. One forum owner reports 79 dB peaks on motor whine. Against that, 3DPrint.com's reviewer measured his own unit at ~48 dB average (peaks ~60, valleys ~40) and called it one of the quietest CoreXY printers he had used, and several later forum posters report quiet machines. The distribution looks genuinely bimodal rather than universal.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "Partly mitigated, not closed, as of 2026-09-06. Identified fixes in the thread: run phase-stepping and input-shaper calibration with an accelerometer, re-seat the Y-carriage and Z-motor-mount screws, lubricate, and - for machines converted from an older MK4 - replace X/Y stepper motors stamped 'Prusa i3'. Whether the CORE One+ (Gen 2) refresh of 2026-08-13 changes anything here is UNKNOWN: no owner report on the Gen 2 specifically was found, and Prusa's own Gen 2 messaging is about print starts, surface finish and maintenance, not noise.", "source_ids": [ "src-forum-coreone-noise-p1", "src-forum-coreone-noise-p11", "src-reddit-coreone-loud", "src-3dprint-coreone" ], "notes": "This is the single biggest open risk for this buyer's stated placement constraint, and it is the reason noise_db=48 should be read as one measured unit rather than a guarantee.", "_file": "prusa.json" }, { "id": "ki-prusa-mmu3-feed-jams", "subject_id": "prusa-mmu3-mk4s", "date_first_reported": "2025-09-21", "description": "The MMU3's real-world reputation for fiddliness is earned, and the failure modes are consistent across independent owners and across both host printers. The recurring set is: filament failing to load into the MMU or into the FINDA sensor; the gears spinning and chewing a flat into the filament; 'FINDA FILAM. STUCK' errors; filament fed into the Nextruder with the sensor triggering but nothing extruding, so the printer carries on printing air; and on the CORE One, blobs forming on the wipe tower that the toolhead then collides with, causing an unreported layer shift. Owners report that finishing a print without manual intervention is not reliable. Fixes owners land on are all tuning rather than replacement: idler-tension adjustment, FINDA calibration, shortening or re-guiding the PTFE, cleaning the drive pulleys, an autorewinder instead of the buffer, and - repeatedly - switching to a stiffer filament, since the MMU3 is sensitive to filament brand and flexibility. Set against that, Prusa's own product page shows multi-hundred-hour, thousands-of-swap prints completed without intervention, so a well-tuned unit clearly does work.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "Open as of 2026-09-06. The March 2026 firmware (printer 6.5.3, MMU3 3.0.4) is a speed change, not a reliability fix - Prusa's own announcement is about cutting a swap from 52 s to ~42 s - and the most recent owner report in this set is from August 2026, after that firmware. One owner notes the newer firmware can make things worse by giving up on a load attempt sooner. Buy this expecting to tune it.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-coreone-mmu3", "src-reddit-mmu3-window", "src-reddit-mk4s-mmu3-issues", "src-prusa-blog-mmu3-speed", "src-prusa-mmu3-overview" ], "notes": "Three independent owner reports dated September 2025, April 2026 and August 2026, spanning both the MK4S and the CORE One, which is why scope is 'common' rather than 'isolated'.", "_file": "prusa.json" }, { "id": "ki-prusa-us-globale-pricing", "subject_id": "prusa", "date_first_reported": "2025-08-07", "description": "US buyers pay more than prusa3d.com's raw HTML says, and the gap is structural rather than a mistake. Orders ship from the Czech Republic, US checkout is handled by Global-e as Merchant of Record, and Prusa's own knowledge base states that since 7 August 2025 a 15% universal US tariff applies and 'these charges are included in the price when paid through Global-E'. The consequence for anyone scraping the site: the visible price element is served hidden ('[data-ge-price] { visibility: hidden; }') carrying a pre-Global-e base value, and Global-e's script replaces it with a figure 8% higher for a US shopper. Measured on 2026-09-06: CORE One+ (Gen 2) base 1202.78 -> $1,299; CORE One+ kit 925 -> $999; MK4S 740 -> $799; MK4S kit 591.66 -> $639; MINI+ 508.33 -> $549; MMU3 Enclosed 369 -> $399. Massachusetts sales tax is then added at checkout on top of that. Shipping is charged separately and no rate card is published.", "severity": "policy", "scope": "widespread", "status": "Current and expected to persist as of 2026-09-06. Not a defect - Prusa documents it - but it silently invalidates any price list built from a JavaScript-free scrape, including the Phase 0 census for this study.", "source_ids": [ "src-prusa-help-globale", "src-prusa-help-vat-customs", "src-prusa-help-shipping", "src-prusa-coreone-product", "src-prusa-gtc" ], "notes": "Also relevant: US warranty is 12 months versus 24 for EU consumers, and order values over $2,500 trigger a CBP form 5106 request from the carrier.", "_file": "prusa.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-ai-detection-false-positives", "subject_id": "qidi", "date_first_reported": "2025-09-30", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "description": "The on-board AI failure detection stops prints that are not failing. Sanladerer: 'I tried enabling the AI and it immediately started finding spaghetti fried noodles and pausing my prints, even when it was just a partially printed block of tree-type supports. So I immediately turned the detection feature off again.' The 600-hour Q2 owner: 'The AI detection is buggy and often stops mid-print for no reason. I've turned it off. For example, when I changed the print plate to black, it detected it as a foreign object.' 3dwork.io: 'The AI failure detection is worth calibrating carefully or disabling at first to avoid unnecessary stoppages.' The feature runs locally on the printer's SoC, which is a genuine privacy advantage over cloud detection; it just is not usable yet.", "status": "Open at 2026-09-06. AppleInsider's Max 4 test is the one positive datapoint - spaghetti detection set to high with 'only one instance of the camera not detecting a failed print' - so the newest machines may be better. Treated as a feature that should be scored as absent rather than present on the Q2 and Plus4.", "source_ids": [ "src-toms3d-q2", "src-reddit-q2-600hr", "src-3dwork-q2-review" ], "notes": null, "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-box-filament-path-friction", "subject_id": "qidi-box", "date_first_reported": "2025-11-07", "description": "Launch-production QIDI Boxes could not reliably push filament to the extruder. Tom's Hardware, testing a Q2 Combo, found the Bowden path too sharply curved and the filament hub too tight; the machine 'constantly jammed while attempting multicolor', and hand-testing showed 'preposterous' drag. Printing QIDI's own suggested lid riser plus a filament-path guide got one filament feeding but not four, and a second box sent by QIDI behaved identically. QIDI told the reviewer the unit was an early one. The community independently documented the same root cause on the Q2 - insufficient vertical clearance between the PTFE tube and the top glass panel, unfixable by straightening the tube alone without a riser.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "Largely mitigated by a V2 box revision that ships with a lid riser and a maintenance hatch, plus firmware updates. Owners on r/QidiTech3D on 2026-03-14 report that current stock is V2 (black cover on the bottom), that the Combo now includes the riser, and that 'the early production units had issues, but they seem to have been mostly ironed out now'; owners on r/QIDI on 2026-02-10 report 450-792 hours with the Box and no non-user-caused failures. NOT independently re-tested by any reviewer: Tom's Hardware still listed 'Optional QIDI Box AMS still doesn't work' as a con in its 2026-08-12 Plus5 review, but that same review states it was not sent a Box and is carrying its Q2 experience forward. Open as a verification gap at 2026-09-06.", "source_ids": [ "src-toms-q2-combo", "src-qidi-community-q2-wiki-ptfe", "src-reddit-q2-with-box", "src-reddit-q2-combo", "src-toms-plus5", "src-yt-auroratech-q2-10month", "src-toms3d-q2", "src-pcmag-max4-review" ], "notes": "This is the single most consequential item in the QIDI file for a buyer who wants multi-color now. The evidence splits cleanly by date: every source that tested a launch-cohort box says it failed, and every owner report from 2026 onward says the current box works. No independent 2026 bench test of a V2 box was found, which is why the status is written as a verification gap rather than as 'fixed'. 2026-09-06 phase-2 addition, and it moves the verification gap: a reviewer who has held the same Box for ten months re-tested it and named the revisions - 'an injection molded riser, a redesigned 4-to-1 splitter hub, and some minor components for the nozzle wiper and poop bin metal piece' - concluding 'in terms of reliability, after a few minor hardware updates, it works on par with other AMS variants' (Aurora Tech, 2026-05-26; sponsored by QIDI, so weighted accordingly). Independent corroboration that the revisions were needed: Thomas Sanladerer's launch-period Q2 test (2025-09-30) had a color change fail at 39% when the Box stepper glitched, and found the metal primary extrusion wiper bar had come off its adhesive tape and fallen into the poop bin - which is precisely the 'nozzle wiper and poop bin metal piece' later revised. PCMag's Max 4 test (2026-08-15) reports the Box never jammed at all, only that it is louder than an AMS 2 Pro.", "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-box-slow-swaps-purge", "subject_id": "qidi-box", "date_first_reported": "2026-02-11", "description": "Even when the QIDI Box works, color changes are slow and wasteful. One Q2 Combo owner timed each filament change at 2 minutes 50 seconds plus purge, against roughly 15 seconds on a Prusa MMU3, and calculated that a 750-change print would add about 35 hours. Owners in a separate thread a month later independently describe the swap as 'fairly slow' with 'a not-insignificant amount of filament for each change, so multicolor prints are wasteful' and 'multicolor makes a lot of waste'. Independently, 3dwork.io found purge volume on a Plus5 'quite large' even with no Box fitted, with no machine-side setting to reduce it - only slicer profile edits.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "Open as of 2026-09-06. No firmware change addressing tip-forming or purge volume was found. Owners consistently recommend the Box for drying, material selection and auto-refill on long prints rather than for many-change multi-color work.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-q2-combo", "src-reddit-q2-with-box", "src-3dwork-plus5", "src-yt-auroratech-q2-10month", "src-toms3d-q2", "src-pcmag-max4-review", "src-androidpctv-q2-review" ], "notes": "No grams-per-change measurement exists in any source found, so the cost is characterized in time and in owner judgment rather than quantified. Relevant to this buyer's cosmetic multi-color blaster parts, which are exactly the many-change case. 2026-09-06 phase-2 addition, now with numbers. Aurora Tech's ten-month Q2 Combo test timed the mechanism directly: filament unload plus load alone takes 1 minute 12 seconds per change before any purging, a 3 h 06 m multi-color estimate finished in 3 h 52 m, and overall the Box is '35% slower than the Bambu Lab A1 and 42% slower than the Creality Spark X1'; purge waste itself was 'similar' to other single-nozzle systems and slightly under the slicer estimate, so the penalty is time rather than plastic. androidpctv timed the same shape of thing on the Q2: 2 hours for a one-filament print against 14 hours for the three-filament version. Sanladerer's verdict on the Box as a color changer stands with them: 'I really wouldn't recommend relying on it for multi-color prints to do hundreds of filament swaps.' PCMag's Max 4 cons list adds 'multicolor purge tuning needs refinement'.", "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-cloud-security-disclosure-2024", "subject_id": "qidi", "date_first_reported": "2024-10-20", "severity": "policy", "scope": "isolated", "description": "A security researcher published a vulnerability disclosure covering QIDI printers and QIDI's services in October 2024, after responsible disclosure to the vendor beginning in May 2024. The repository holds a README and the report PDF. 3DPrint.com's independent Plus 4 review cites it in its cons list - 'potential security risks with cloud connectivity' - and says it is the reason that reviewer keeps QIDI machines on a dedicated LAN or transfers files by USB.", "status": "Open as an unquantified risk at 2026-09-06. The report PDF itself was not read, so no claim is made here about which vulnerabilities were found, how severe they are, or whether QIDI fixed them. What is established: the disclosure exists, it went through a 90-day process, and at least one independent reviewer changed how he networks the printer because of it.", "source_ids": [ "src-github-qidi-security-disclosure", "src-3dprint-plus4-review" ], "notes": "Complements the existing ki-qidi-qidilink-cloud-client entry, which covers the cloud client's presence and how to disable it. The mitigation is the same: LAN or USB only, which QIDI supports fully.", "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-extruder-tension-arm-deform", "subject_id": "qidi-plus4", "date_first_reported": "2025-02-07", "severity": "hardware-failure", "scope": "common", "description": "The extruder's pressure retaining arm deflects under sustained heat, the spring loses tension, and the drive gears start slipping on the filament - reported as clicking, skipping, air-printing near the end of a job, or filament ground and jammed between the gears. Filed on QIDI's own GitHub tracker as QIDI_PLUS4 issue #57 on 2025-02-07 with the request that the part be made from aluminum with a slack adjuster. The same part is used on the X-Max 3, X-Plus 3 and Plus 4, and Q2 owners report the same symptom set. Field reports cluster at high hours: one owner at ~1500 hours of mixed fiber-filled filament, another at 900 hours with repeated blockages at the same point.", "status": "Open at 2026-09-06. QIDI's response on its own tracker was 'Please contact after-sales service for replacement', and on 2025-06-14 an owner reported being told by QIDI that 'this is not a defect. This part is supposed to be bent' before that was retracted and an extruder supplied. No redesigned part has shipped; the circulating fixes are a stiffer printed arm or a CNC-machined aluminum one (printables 902986 and 1240903). Last tracker activity 2025-07-08.", "source_ids": [ "src-github-plus4-issue57", "src-reddit-plus4-extruder-gear", "src-reddit-q2-extruder-skipping" ], "notes": "Attached to the Plus4 because that is the repository it is filed under and where it is documented; the same failure mode is what several Q2 extruder-skipping reports end at, so it is also carried on the Q2 record.", "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-firmware-ota-only-and-stripped-userland", "subject_id": "qidi", "date_first_reported": "2026-03-30", "severity": "policy", "scope": "isolated", "description": "A qualification to QIDI's open-Klipper reputation, from the one detailed Q2C owner review. Two claims. First, distribution: 'Firmware files can no longer be simply downloaded from the manufacturer's site or GitHub. Updates are primarily installed via OTA... Anyone operating the printer in an offline environment without internet access faces a hurdle here', with the reviewer noting he did not test whether support will supply files on request. Second, the userland: the Q2 and Q2C run 'a modified Linaro-Debian that lacks essential tools and libraries. Compilers, build tools, Python development libraries... simply not present', Klipper and Moonraker ship as static files rather than git repositories so they cannot be updated the normal way, KIAUH fails with 'git: command not found', the firmware silently restores configuration files it believes are missing, and 'installing tools, plugins, etc., leads to a loss of support'.", "status": "Open at 2026-09-06, and recorded with its contradiction attached. Thomas Sanladerer's independent Q2 test three months earlier concludes the opposite in spirit: 'you get full access to the Linux system, you can log in as root through SSH - but you don't have to', with only the AI detection, the screen software and the QIDI Link client proprietary. Both can be true - root SSH is real, and the system underneath it is an appliance build that resists being maintained like a normal Klipper machine. Scope is isolated because the appliance claims come from one owner.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-q2c-practical", "src-toms3d-q2" ], "notes": "Bears directly on the openness dimension, which is where the Q2 currently ranks first. It does not overturn the LAN-only, no-account, OrcaSlicer-compatible findings already in this file; it narrows the 'deep mod ecosystem' claim.", "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-firmware-source-lag", "subject_id": "qidi", "date_first_reported": "2026-07-03", "description": "QIDI publishes firmware source, but not promptly and not for every model. As of 2026-09-06 the newest tagged release in QIDITECH/QIDI_PLUS4 is Plus4_v1.7.1 dated 2025-08-06, while one owner reports the printer offering a 1.8.2 update on-device in 2026 (a single report, so the shipped-version half of this rests on one source; the stale-repository half is directly verifiable); QIDITECH/QIDI_MAX4 exists but has no tagged release at all; and there is no QIDI_PLUS5 and no QIDI_Q2C repository, so the two newest models have no published model-specific source. Separately, an OrcaSlicer contributor noted on 2026-01-01 that the Klipper modules QIDI adds to drive the QIDI Box are not published anywhere despite Klipper being GPL.", "severity": "policy", "scope": "common", "status": "Open at 2026-09-06. This is a publication-lag and coverage-gap finding, not a lock-down: the shipped firmware itself is still standard Klipper with SSH access, Fluidd and Moonraker, independently verified on the Plus5 on 2026-08-05.", "source_ids": [ "src-qidi-github-plus4-releases", "src-qidi-github-org", "src-reddit-psa-qidi-code", "src-orca-issue-11671" ], "notes": "Recorded because openness is a scored dimension and QIDI's headline claim - open-source Klipper - is materially better than Bambu's while being weaker in practice than the headline implies. The practical consequence for a buyer is small (you still get root and Fluidd) but real (you cannot rebuild the exact firmware your machine runs, and on the Plus5 and Q2C you cannot see it at all).", "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-link-app-poor", "subject_id": "qidi", "date_first_reported": "2025-09-30", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "description": "The QIDI Link mobile app is the weakest part of the ecosystem and three independent testers say so in the same terms. Sanladerer reports it sits at 1.7 stars and that 'it turns off all the fans on the machine every time you use it to check in on a print job, effectively always running that print in the process' - an app that damages the print you opened it to check. The 600-hour owner: 'Lots of bugs. The video frame rate is stuck at 1-2 FPS, data doesn't load, and it constantly asks me to log in again... Fortunately, the Klipper web interface is available and has been a lifesaver.' 3dwork.io calls it 'the most disappointing aspect: frequent connection failures, not very intuitive and missing some options' and used Fluidd in a browser instead. AppleInsider's Max 4 cons list says simply 'Mobile app not especially useful'.", "status": "Open at 2026-09-06. The mitigation is real and free: Moonraker plus Fluidd in any browser on the LAN, which every one of these testers fell back to and preferred. Scored as a genuine deficiency of the phone experience, not of remote monitoring as such.", "source_ids": [ "src-toms3d-q2", "src-reddit-q2-600hr", "src-3dwork-q2-review", "src-appleinsider-max4-review" ], "notes": "The fan-shutdown behavior is a single reviewer's finding and was not reproduced here; the rest is corroborated three ways.", "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-max4-aux-fan-obstructed", "subject_id": "qidi-max4", "date_first_reported": "2026-08-15", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "isolated", "description": "PCMag traced persistent PLA stringing and mediocre surface finish on the Max 4 to the auxiliary part-cooling outlet being physically blocked: 'the placement of the Z-axis mounting brackets in relation to the fan outlet... About half of the flow was being blocked and subsequently scrambled', with the remaining flow aimed 20 to 40 degrees upward instead of at the plate. The reviewer reads the optional Polar Cooler as a late compensation for it. Consistent with a second observation elsewhere in the review that the machine 'would much rather' print engineering materials than PLA.", "status": "Open at 2026-09-06; a design-geometry finding, not a firmware one, so it cannot be patched out. One independent reviewer, hence isolated - though the mechanism is physical and would apply to every unit if the measurement is right. The reviewer expects a community-designed duct fix.", "source_ids": [ "src-pcmag-max4-review" ], "notes": null, "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-max4-early-unit-hardware-faults", "subject_id": "qidi-max4", "date_first_reported": "2026-07-07", "severity": "hardware-failure", "scope": "common", "description": "Early Max 4 units show electrical and assembly faults. PCMag's sample, after sitting idle a week, failed to home and drove the toolhead into the front right corner where it 'would violently vibrate'; QIDI's fix required disassembling the rear panel, reseating connectors and mailing log files, and arrived with a ready-made instructional video, which the reviewer took as a sign the fault recurs. Owner reports in the same period include a Y-motor driver blowing out between prints, a second owner whose motor drive board failed outright ('this is my last QIDI printer'), a leaking Polar Cooler mount, fan-mount lugs that 'look like they were cut into shape with a box knife', washers superglued to make up a panel height difference, and software bugs causing random head crashes into the back wall.", "status": "Open at 2026-09-06. QIDI is responsive and ships spare parts, and expects owners to fit them. Countervailing evidence in the same thread: several owners report faultless machines, and one claims later production is better. The Max 4 has been on sale under a year, so there is no multi-year record either way.", "source_ids": [ "src-pcmag-max4-review", "src-reddit-max4-many-problems" ], "notes": null, "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-max4-load-cell-z-offset", "subject_id": "qidi-max4", "date_first_reported": "2026-07-07", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "description": "Max 4 owners report the load cell throwing false positives during bed meshing, producing roughly 0.02 mm of Z error - immaterial for PLA and PETG, but enough that ABS either curls off the plate or fuses to the PEI sheet hard enough to mar it. The standard community response is the same as on the Plus4: fit a third-party Beacon or Cartographer scanner. An owner of three QIDI machines describes 'a very common bed leveling issue' across the range, and separately reports at least one part failing mid-print on each machine.", "status": "Open at 2026-09-06. QIDI replaced a bed sheet and a hotend for the reporting owner but the probe behavior persisted. Not every Max 4 shows it: four owners in the same thread report clean machines, and one asserts there are two Max 4 production generations with the later one better - unverified.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-max4-many-problems", "src-reddit-plus4-longterm" ], "notes": null, "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-max4-polar-cooler-hose-kink", "subject_id": "qidi-max4", "date_first_reported": "2026-04-11", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "description": "The Polar Cooler's air hose must carry enough slack to reach the far corner of the 390 mm bed, so it doubles over on itself whenever the head is central or rear. AppleInsider: 'the amount of slack I had to give the tube was a problem, as it still has to stay attached when the printer head is at its furthest position away. Any time the head is in the center or rear of the build area, the tube would crimp on itself. So much so that after only 4 to 6 hours of operation, I was seeing stress markings in the rubber.' The remedy is to print a vented riser that lifts the glass top - and QIDI links a riser model on its own wiki, so the manufacturer knows. A visitor to QIDI's Formnext booth independently reports the demo unit's 'heat block cooling tube regularly got kinked', with a QIDI representative arguing it did not matter.", "status": "Open at 2026-09-06. QIDI's own answer is a printed riser rather than a redesigned hose route. Scope is 'common' because the cause is the geometry of the machine, and it was seen on both a shipping unit and a manufacturer demo unit by unrelated observers.", "source_ids": [ "src-appleinsider-max4-review", "src-reddit-max4-considering" ], "notes": null, "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-max4-polar-cooler-noise", "subject_id": "qidi-max4", "date_first_reported": "2026-04-11", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "description": "The Max 4's optional Polar Cooler makes the machine unpleasant to sit next to. AppleInsider: 'Without the Polar Cooler, operation is relatively quiet and unobtrusive due to the relatively sound-insulating enclosure. With the cooler on, however, I wouldn't want the printer operating in the same room I work or spend a lot of time in. Active noise canceling helps, but even my AirPods Pro 2 had trouble getting it all out. It's like having an angry Roomba in the room with you.' PCMag lists 'noisy during filament swaps and general operation' as a con and notes the QIDI Box 'clicks' filament as it feeds, 'noticeably louder compared with the AMS Pro 2'. NikKTech's cons list is headed 'nozzle cleaning noise'. NikKTech's own measurement puts the Max 4 Combo at 62.3 dBA maximum at 30 cm, which is the printing figure; none of the three published a separate figure with the Polar Cooler running.", "status": "Open at 2026-09-06; the Polar Cooler is bundled with the current Max 4 configurations in this file, so this is not avoidable by declining an option. It can be switched off at the cost of the heat-creep protection it exists to provide.", "source_ids": [ "src-appleinsider-max4-review", "src-pcmag-max4-review", "src-nikktech-max4-review" ], "notes": "Directly relevant to the shared-home dimension: the measured 62.3 dBA does not capture the complaint, because the complaint is about the cooler and the character of the noise, not the level while printing.", "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-orca-q2-multimaterial-jam", "subject_id": "qidi-q2", "date_first_reported": "2026-05-02", "description": "Using OrcaSlicer's official Qidi Q2 profile, printing a PETG body with PLA supports jams the extruder at every tool change, the filament buckling between the gears and the entry tube. The reporter states the identical model and materials print correctly when sliced with QIDI Studio, and attributes it to wrong values in the profile's Multimaterial tab (extra loading distance should be 0; cooling-tube and parking positions need adjusting).", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "Open at 2026-09-06 (issue #13445, filed 2026-05-02, reproduced on the latest nightly). A related filament-mapping defect affecting Klipper printers including the Q2, issue #13206, was closed on 2026-08-25.", "source_ids": [ "src-orca-issue-13445" ], "notes": "Matters specifically to this buyer: PLA supports under a PETG part is the standard trick for easy support removal, and QIDI's own marketing for the Box promotes exactly that workflow. It is a slicer-profile defect, not a hardware fault, and the workaround is to slice multi-material jobs in QIDI Studio. Scope kept at 'isolated' because only one reporter was found.", "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-plus4-bed-probe-hot-chamber", "subject_id": "qidi-plus4", "date_first_reported": "2024-11-15", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "description": "The Plus4 levels with strain/piezo sensors under the bed, and they misread once the chamber is hot. Owners report the nozzle failing to stop on contact and gouging the PEI, first-layer spacing drifting print to print, and Z-offset values that will not hold - all specifically when running the chamber at 55-65 C for ABS, ASA or nylon, which is the entire reason to buy this machine. QIDI's own written answer in 2024-11 was to stop preheating: 'When the chamber temp is hot, it do effect the auto bed leveling procedure. In that case, please don't preheat the chamber heater before printing... we will start the chamber heater after first layer done', and it shipped replacement sensors, plates and nozzles to affected owners. The community's answer is to replace the probe entirely with a third-party Beacon or Cartographer eddy-current scanner; by 2026 that is repeated as standard advice by multiple long-term owners, one of whom states 'the Plus4's bed probe burns out if the heated chamber is used too often'.", "status": "Open at 2026-09-06 as a design limitation. QIDI's firmware workaround (heat the chamber after the first layer) trades the fault for worse ABS adhesion, and owners say so. No QIDI hardware revision to the probe was found for the Plus4; the Plus5 moved to toolhead-based probing, which owners believe addresses it, and the Q2 uses nozzle-as-sensor leveling which PCMag rates highly.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-plus4-hightemp-chaos", "src-reddit-plus4-longterm", "src-reddit-warranty-no-response", "src-reddit-plus5-frustrated-plus4", "src-reddit-plus4-disaster" ], "notes": "The economics matter for scoring: a Beacon-class probe is roughly a $100-150 add-on plus an afternoon, on a $649 printer, to get the advertised behavior out of the advertised feature. The same false-load-cell complaint appears independently on the Max 4 (ki-qidi-max4-load-cell-z-offset).", "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-plus4-chamber-heater-shutdown", "subject_id": "qidi-plus4", "date_first_reported": "2024-10", "description": "On the Plus4, prints taller than 268 mm with the chamber heater enabled can trigger a Klipper thermal event that shuts the firmware down and ruins the print: at those Z heights the print bed progressively blocks the chamber heater's hot-air outlet, which sits low on the left side of the chamber. The community documentation states that a true fix would require a hardware change from QIDI and offers only a macro that disables the heater coils above Z 268 mm. Separately and more broadly, owners report MCU shutdowns during long ABS/ASA runs and chamber-temperature sensor faults on the same model.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "Open as a hardware design issue at 2026-09-06; no QIDI hardware revision addressing it was found. Firmware v1.6.0 added a target_min_temp field to the chamber heater config, which conflicts with the community macro workaround unless set to 10. This issue is specific to the Plus4; no equivalent report was found for the Plus5, Q2, Q2C or Max4.", "source_ids": [ "src-qidi-community-plus4-wiki-chamber", "src-reddit-plus4-chamber-mcu", "src-reddit-plus4-abs-shutdown" ], "notes": "Three independent sources: the community wiki write-up and two separate owner threads surfaced by a site:reddit.com search on 2026-09-06, which also returned several further Plus4 MCU-shutdown threads. The Reddit items were read as search snippets rather than full threads, per the project's Reddit method, so they support the existence and recurrence of the fault rather than any precise incidence rate.", "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-plus4-fire-reports", "subject_id": "qidi-plus4", "date_first_reported": "2025-03-31", "severity": "safety", "scope": "isolated", "description": "Two independent owners report their Plus4 caught fire. The first, on 2025-03-31 in r/3Dprinting with photographs, says the fire destroyed their home: smoke from the top and flames from the rear panel within 15-30 minutes of a visual check. Critically, that owner states the machine had the REVISED SSR and that the chamber heater had never been used because they print only PETG. A second owner replies on 2025-05-01: 'Mine also just caught fire! Also printing with PETG. It was the extruder that caught fire.' Fabbaloo covered it as trade press and argued QIDI 'should consider recalling all these machines immediately'. The first owner was permanently banned from r/QidiTech3D for posting about it; r/3Dprinting's moderator pinned the thread as a safety PSA, and it stands at 11,981 upvotes and 808 comments, making it the most-read QIDI item found anywhere.", "status": "Open at 2026-09-06. No recall, no CPSC action, no independent investigation and no public QIDI statement addressing these two fires was located; Fabbaloo reports QIDI's contact with the owner was a routine trouble-ticket process. Scope is deliberately 'isolated': two unverified owner reports against a large installed base is not a demonstrated rate, and the thread contains skeptical replies as well as corroborating ones. It is recorded because the mechanism is not hypothetical - the undersized power circuit in ki-qidi-plus4-ssr-chamber-heater-fire-hazard is documented, dated and acknowledged by the manufacturer - and because a machine that will run unattended in a family home is exactly where this matters.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-plus4-fire-ban", "src-fabbaloo-plus4-fires" ], "notes": "Treat the fires as claims, not findings. Treat the banning as fact: it is described by the owner, reported by Fabbaloo, and was the reason the r/3Dprinting moderator pinned the post.", "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-plus4-mainboard-driver-overheat", "subject_id": "qidi-plus4", "date_first_reported": "2025-06-23", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "description": "The Plus4 mainboard and stepper drivers sit behind a small rear fan that several owners judge inadequate, and prints stop mid-job with an MCU error in the Fluidd console, needing a power cycle; power-loss recovery usually cannot save the part. Independent owners in the same thread converge on the cause - 'inadequate cooling of the motherboard by design', 'the motherboard and motor drivers overheating' - and the community remedy is standardized: replace the rear fan with an 80 or 120 mm unit on a printed mount and drive it under PID control per the qidi-community Plus4-Wiki. The same weakness appears to carry into the Plus5: an owner measured 'X & Y drivers reading over 105C on a heated chamber print' in 2026-08 and concluded 'Qidi learned nothing with the Plus 4s shortcomings'.", "status": "Open at 2026-09-06. No QIDI hardware revision or firmware fan-control change addressing mainboard cooling was found; the fix in circulation is a user modification. Note that a mid-print MCU shutdown is also the symptom of the separate chamber-heater thermal abort, and owners do not always distinguish them.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-plus4-disaster", "src-reddit-plus4-chamber-mcu", "src-reddit-plus4-abs-shutdown", "src-reddit-plus5-poor-first" ], "notes": "Recorded against the Plus4. The Plus5 driver-temperature reading is one owner on a new machine and is carried on the Plus5 record as its own issue, not folded in here.", "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-plus4-ssr-chamber-heater-fire-hazard", "subject_id": "qidi-plus4", "date_first_reported": "2024-10-28", "severity": "safety", "scope": "common", "description": "The Plus4's chamber heater is switched by a solid-state relay whose board could not carry the load QIDI's own firmware asked of it, and on 110 V it was worse. QIDI's support email, quoted by an owner in 2024-11: 'In a previous firmware version, the power was set near 800W, while the relay's reasonable capacity is actually 400W.' PCMag's reviewer had an affected unit and describes the consequence first hand: 'the board's choke coil was undersized, leading to burnt components, melted insulation, and in rare cases, fire hazards.' All3DP reported on 2024-11-07 that the fault 'affects the new Plus4 3D printer in 110V countries', which is the US market, and that QIDI was offering replacement parts and extended warranties. Owners filed complaints with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission and called for a recall; no recall was issued.", "status": "Mitigated, not eliminated, and the mitigation costs capability. Firmware 1.4.3 (2024-11) capped chamber-heater power at roughly 400 W, which stretches chamber warm-up to 20 minutes or more, and QIDI shipped a revised board for 120 V units whose choke coils use copper roughly twice as thick, plus an extended warranty (All3DP, 2024-11-07). Owners still fit aftermarket SSRs and thermal fuses on the argument that 'a firmware cap of 40% power is an insufficient fix for an undersized SSR. SSRs can fail closed' (r/QIDI, 2024-10-28), and PCMag was still writing in 2025 that 'many users still choose to replace the SSR or install thermal fuses out of caution'. Open as a residual concern at 2026-09-06; machines bought new today should carry the revised board, which is not independently verified here.", "source_ids": [ "src-pcmag-plus4-review", "src-all3dp-plus4-replacement-parts", "src-reddit-plus4-ssr-psa", "src-reddit-plus4-psa-pcb", "src-reddit-plus4-safer-chamber-heater", "src-3dprint-plus4-review" ], "notes": "This is the single most serious thing in the QIDI record and it is separate from ki-qidi-plus4-chamber-heater-shutdown, which is a thermal-protection abort on tall prints, not an electrical fault. 3DPrint.com's review also flags a third-party finding (3D Musketeers) that chamber heating above 100 C may pose a fire risk.", "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-plus5-driver-temps-and-bed-flatness", "subject_id": "qidi-plus5", "date_first_reported": "2026-08-18", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "isolated", "description": "A Plus4 owner who moved to the Plus5 reports the new machine carries forward the Plus4's thermal weakness: 'My X & Y Drivers are reading over 105C on a Heated Chamber print. It appears Qidi learned nothing with the Plus 4s shortcomings and will need mods to make the printer a little less harsh on its components.' The same owner measured his bed 0.3 mm out of flat and crowned in the middle, against 0.19-0.2 mm on his stock Plus4, and notes the machine still uses a ceramic heatbreak and a contact probe that takes 10+ minutes to mesh a bed this size and is spoiled by any stray filament on the nozzle tip.", "status": "Open at 2026-09-06 and explicitly unresolved as evidence. This is one owner on a machine that has been on sale about three months, with no measurement of the driver temperature by an independent reviewer. It is recorded because it is the specific thing that goes wrong on the previous model, because the Plus5 is otherwise well reviewed, and because nobody should discover it after buying. Counterweights are strong and dated the same week: an initial-batch Plus4 owner in the same thread reports the Plus5 is quieter, better built and has run 'non stop for days without a single artifact or error', GamingTrend reports 100+ hours with zero failures, and a second frustrated Plus4 owner testing a Plus5 concludes QIDI fixed a lot - though his unit was supplied free by QIDI.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-plus5-poor-first", "src-reddit-plus5-frustrated-plus4", "src-gamingtrend-plus5-review" ], "notes": "Do not let this cap the Plus5 on its own; do not let the positive reviews erase it either. The honest position at RUN_DATE is that the Plus5 has three months of field record.", "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-plus5-purge-volume", "subject_id": "qidi-plus5", "date_first_reported": "2026-08-05", "description": "On the Plus5, 3dwork.io found after weeks of testing that 'the amount of purge during a print is quite large, wasting a significant amount of filament at the start of every print, as well as during any load/unload process', with no setting anywhere on the machine to adjust the purge volume - only slicer profile edits. The same review notes that without a QIDI Box fitted the Plus5 has no filament jam detection at all.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "isolated", "status": "Open at 2026-09-06. Reported by one independent reviewer with several weeks of use; not corroborated by a second independent test of the Plus5, which is why the scope is 'isolated' even though the same complaint appears about the QIDI Box on other models.", "source_ids": [ "src-3dwork-plus5" ], "notes": "Kept separate from ki-qidi-box-slow-swaps-purge because it is about the printer's own start-of-print purge with no multi-material unit attached, which is a different mechanism and a different cost.", "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-q2-heat-creep-jams-closed-enclosure", "subject_id": "qidi-q2", "date_first_reported": "2025-09-17", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "description": "With the enclosure shut, the Q2's retained chamber heat softens filament above the heat break and jams it, most often with PLA and PETG. This is not an occasional bad unit: it is the documented normal operating requirement. QIDI's wiki instructs owners to open the top cover for PLA, 3dwork.io hit it repeatedly before they learned - 'documented in the official wiki but does not appear prominently in the quick start manual. During the first week we had a few jams until we internalized this' - and Thomas Sanladerer lost 'over an hour' tearing the toolhead apart to pick out bulged PLA after forgetting once. Owners arrive at the same diagnosis independently: a two-week-old machine blocked one 0.4 and two 0.2 nozzles with PETG ('the filament melted above the heat break, where it's supposed to remain solid'); a brand-new Q2 could not finish a single print until told to open the door and top; an owner at 160 hours clogged the extruder on every mid-print filament change. PCMag's Q2 review lost two days to a PLA jam that cold pulls would not clear, with no spare nozzle in the box.", "status": "Open at 2026-09-06 and unlikely to be fixed in firmware, since the mitigation is procedural. Practical consequence worth carrying into scoring: for the household's most common filament the enclosure has to be run open, which forfeits the noise containment and the fume containment that the enclosure was bought for. The Plus5 adds active toolhead cooling that is claimed to address heat creep; that claim is not independently verified here.", "source_ids": [ "src-3dwork-q2-review", "src-toms3d-q2", "src-pcmag-q2-review", "src-reddit-q2-jamming", "src-reddit-q2-nozzle-clog", "src-reddit-q2-no-extrude", "src-reddit-plus4-thoughts" ], "notes": "A Plus4 owner reports the identical closed-lid PLA clog, so this is a family trait of QIDI's heated-chamber machines rather than a Q2-only defect. Not carried onto the Q2C record: the Q2C has no chamber heater, its heat load is lower, and no Q2C owner report of this was found either way.", "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-q2-leadscrew-bed-tilt", "subject_id": "qidi-q2", "date_first_reported": "2026", "description": "Some brand-new Q2 units arrive with the bed's Z lead-screw guides misaligned to the stepper motors, which raises rotation resistance as the bed travels toward the bottom of the enclosure. In the worst case the resistance trips one motor's overcurrent threshold while the other keeps turning, leaving the bed heavily tilted, and auto bed leveling then fails with 'No trigger on probe after full movement'. QIDI's own wiki leveling-error page does not help because the cause is mechanical, not calibration.", "severity": "hardware-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "Open at 2026-09-06 as a quality-control and shipping-handling issue. QIDI publishes a support video showing the realignment procedure (loosen the stepper and guide screws, lower the bed, retighten), so the manufacturer recognizes the fault and the fix is a user-level adjustment rather than a return.", "source_ids": [ "src-qidi-community-q2-wiki-leadscrew" ], "notes": "Scope is 'isolated' because only one source documenting it was found, even though that source describes it as something that can happen on any new unit. Do not upgrade this to 'common' without further independent reports. Related but separate owner comment from r/QIDI (2026-02): 'the bed leveling experience could be better. It required some manual tramming.'", "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-q2-stock-profiles-untuned", "subject_id": "qidi-q2", "date_first_reported": "2025-09-30", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "isolated", "description": "Thomas Sanladerer found the Q2's shipped profiles push the machine past what the hotend can hold: flow inconsistencies, visible VFAs and overhang curling in PETG, PLA and PPS-CF. Pressure advance was already correct from the factory, so it was not that. On request QIDI sent him a slowed-down profile that removed the artifacts, and had not decided whether to make it the default: 'I think this slowed-down profile should be the default, but Qidi is still deciding whether they think this is actually better. As it stands, there are printers out there that manage to print better, even when running at full speed.'", "status": "Open at 2026-09-06 as far as this file can tell; no QIDI Studio or OrcaSlicer profile change that supersedes it was identified. 3dwork.io reaches a milder version of the same conclusion - the default profiles 'work quite well' but calibration tests are 'essential' for good finishes - and one 150-hour reviewer got acceptable results on defaults, so the scope stays isolated.", "source_ids": [ "src-toms3d-q2", "src-3dwork-q2-review" ], "notes": null, "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-q2-z-banding", "subject_id": "qidi-q2", "date_first_reported": "2025-12-16", "severity": "cosmetic", "scope": "isolated", "description": "PCMag's Q2 review found repeatable Z-banding - 'noticeable horizontal shifts in the layers' - on long flat surfaces, across a Benchy hull, a calibration cube and later test prints, and rated it 'markedly lower-quality... compared with the output of more expensive machines'. The reviewer suspects a less stiff frame than the Plus4, or the Z lead screw and an anti-backlash shortfall. Thomas Sanladerer separately found flow inconsistencies and overhang curling on the stock profiles, which is a different mechanism but lands in the same place: parts that need work to look right.", "status": "Open at 2026-09-06. One instrument-free but repeated observation by one independent reviewer on one unit, hence isolated. The 600-hour owner independently notes 'the surface quality may not be as smooth as the Centauri Carbon or Bambu printers', which is consistent but is not the same claim.", "source_ids": [ "src-pcmag-q2-review" ], "notes": "Kept separate from the profile-tuning issue on purpose: banding did not go away with tuning in PCMag's testing, whereas Sanladerer's artifacts did.", "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-q2c-no-independent-testing", "subject_id": "qidi-q2c", "date_first_reported": "2026-09-06", "severity": "policy", "scope": "isolated", "description": "Recorded to make an evidence gap visible rather than to describe a fault. As of 2026-09-06 no independent measured review of the Q2C exists: no dB measurement, no long-term test, no teardown, no benchmark. All3DP covered the launch without running the machine. Searches for Q2C reviews return the Q2 instead. The one substantial write-up is a single owner's detailed practical review posted to r/3ddruck and reposted to r/QidiTech3D on 2026-03-30, and in a 29-reply thread from someone directly asking Q2C owners for reviews, exactly one Q2C owner answered ('I have the q2c for ~6 months and its been great. No issues, easy to use'). Everyone else answered about the Q2.", "status": "Open at 2026-09-06. Two Q2C-specific facts did come out of the community record and are worth carrying: there is no upgrade path to a heated chamber because the solid-state relay and the board connection for it are absent, and firmware is now delivered primarily over the air rather than as downloadable files.", "source_ids": [ "src-all3dp-q2c-launch", "src-reddit-q2c-practical", "src-reddit-q2c-budget" ], "notes": "The Q2C shares the Q2's motion system, hotend and extruder, so the Q2's extruder and profile findings are plausibly transferable - but plausibly is not evidence, and nothing has been transferred onto the Q2C record. The Q2C's reliability and noise caps are honest and should stand.", "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-qidilink-cloud-client", "subject_id": "qidi", "date_first_reported": "2024-10", "description": "QIDI printers boot a proprietary cloud client, QIDILink-client, that runs from the root user's home directory and is launched by a shell script at boot rather than by a package. The community documents disabling and masking it over SSH. The same document relays a user claim that enabling Q-Link associates the printer with an unencrypted, publicly reachable AWS URL such that 'anybody on the internet can control your printer if they know the url' - and immediately qualifies it: 'The security implications are severe, but potentially unfounded.'", "severity": "policy", "scope": "isolated", "status": "Open at 2026-09-06 as an unverified community concern. The cloud client is not required for printing: QIDI's own Q2 documentation lists wired Ethernet LAN control and fully offline USB printing as parallel options, and the client can be stopped, disabled, masked and moved aside entirely from the shell.", "source_ids": [ "src-qidi-community-qidilink" ], "notes": "Deliberately recorded as an unverified claim with its own author's hedge attached, not as a demonstrated vulnerability. No independent security analysis was found. The verifiable and buyer-relevant half is the positive one: unlike a closed ecosystem, the cloud component here is a removable binary.", "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-qidi-support-parts-yes-returns-no", "subject_id": "qidi", "date_first_reported": "2025-09-04", "severity": "policy", "scope": "common", "description": "QIDI's support is generous with parts and resistant to returns, and it degrades around product launches. The favorable side is well evidenced: a broken ceramic heat break replaced with a complete hotend, in hand ten days after first contact; free warranty parts shipped internationally; same-day replies and a live chat; custom video walkthroughs for faults not in the wiki. The unfavorable side is equally evidenced: a Plus4 owner four months and roughly 60 emails into a warranty case with the chamber heater dead, bed leveling dead and Z-offset drifting, replaced piezo sensors and heater element having failed to fix it, and support having stopped replying; a customer alleging QIDI 'lied to PayPal to avoid giving me a refund on a defective printer'; two-week response gaps; a Q2 Combo buyer still without the QIDI Box months after purchase. The most useful summary is an owner's: 'Qidi support is excellent at helping you fix problems yourself and shipping parts to you, but they are extremely, extremely, extremely reluctant to accept returns... A lot of folks recommend buying Qidi printers from Amazon for this reason.'", "status": "Open at 2026-09-06 as a consistent pattern rather than an incident. Practical implication for a US buyer: buy through a retailer with its own returns policy, because QIDI's own process is built around shipping you the part and expecting you to fit it. PCMag's Max 4 reviewer had exactly that experience - fast answers, but the fix was disassembling the rear panel himself.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-warranty-no-response", "src-reddit-max4-considering", "src-reddit-q2-600hr", "src-pcmag-max4-review", "src-reddit-q2-150hours" ], "notes": "Also relevant: an owner reporting a house fire was permanently banned from r/QidiTech3D (ki-qidi-plus4-fire-reports), and the r/QIDI 'total disaster' poster says he was removed from the owners' group. Community moderation is not the same as support, but both bear on how criticism is handled.", "_file": "qidi.json" }, { "id": "ki-ratrig-eu-import-duties", "subject_id": "ratrig-v-core-4-1", "date_first_reported": null, "description": "Rat Rig ships to the US from its EU warehouse under DAP Incoterms, so US customs clearance fees and import duties are billed to the buyer on top of the quoted shipping. The shipping policy (retrieved 2026-09-06) states: 'Deliveries outside the European Union: We ship with DAP Incoterms. Your order may go through customs and you may be charged a customs clearance fee and import duties, in accordance with the laws in your country. These charges are unrelated to us, but they will be billed to you via the shipper ... All shipping quotes on our website include delivery to the customer's door, but exclude any importation costs on the customer's end.' The V-Core 4.1 product page footer repeats 'Ships from the EU. Direct from our EU warehouse to your door.' Neither the freight cost nor the duty rate was quantified in this pass; both are additive to every Rat Rig total in this file, on a kit weighing 35 kg in the smallest size and 55 kg in the largest.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "widespread", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06 - standing policy", "source_ids": [ "src-ratrig-shipping", "src-ratrig-vcore41-us" ], "notes": "Also relevant to lead time: the independent build log reports an 11-week lead time when the V-Core 4 launched, with Rat Rig transparent about it upfront and delivering six days early.", "_file": "kits.json" }, { "id": "ki-ratrig-vcore4-build-doc-errors", "subject_id": "ratrig-v-core-4-1", "date_first_reported": null, "description": "An independent, section-by-section timed build log of a Rat Rig V-Core 4 documents repeated build-documentation defects: heat-set inserts required on the rear Z-axis arms, the bed mount arms and the X-axis ooze-guard couplers but not mentioned in the instructions; a screw-size typo in the IDEX toolhead section (M3x35 listed, M3x40 correct, and M3x8 listed where the kit supplies the correct M3x6); standoffs of a different material than the manual shows; a missing pulley setscrew. The electronics section consumed 10 of the 28 build hours and the builder describes its documentation as 'rushed and incomplete compared to the mechanical assembly sections', recovered only by reading community comments on Rat Rig's Dozuki guide - which he recommends over Rat Rig's own site specifically for those comments. Frame assembly was also lengthened by quick-connectors that had to be hammered into improperly reamed 540 mm extrusions.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; the author reports Rat Rig 'actively listen to feedback and update their documentation regularly', and the V-Core 4.1 product page claims 'the entire build documentation was created anew' for the 4.1, which was not independently verified", "source_ids": [ "src-riesinger-vcore4" ], "notes": "SCOPE CAVEAT: 'isolated' reflects only that a second independent long-form build report was not captured in this pass, not a finding that these problems are rare. One detailed first-hand build log is one source. Do not read 'isolated' as a reliability verdict.", "_file": "kits.json" }, { "id": "ki-snapmaker-app-poor", "subject_id": "snapmaker", "date_first_reported": "2025-11-24", "description": "The Snapmaker mobile app is weak on both platforms and has stayed weak. On 2026-09-06 it holds 2.4 stars from 162 reviews on Google Play (about 48,000 downloads; listing last updated 2026-08-28, no version string captured) and 2.93 stars from 43 ratings on the Apple App Store (iTunes lookup API, not re-verifiable at audit). The complaints repeat across 2026-04 to 2026-08 reviews: it forces you to log in again constantly - including, users say, when the printer is in LAN mode on your own network - the connection fails or hangs in loading loops, the camera is slow and glitchy or refuses to start, only one printer can be bound per account, error messages and push notifications are absent, and the built-in model library is thin. An independent reviewer's summary was 'pretty much useless. Don't bother with it.' A minority of reviews are positive about basic remote monitoring, and one owner in July 2026 says 'when it works, the app provides most of what you need'.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "widespread", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; the aggregate rating has not recovered despite regular releases, and the most recent sampled complaints are from August 2026", "source_ids": [ "src-snapmaker-playstore", "src-apple-appstore-lookup", "src-sortitoutman-u1-review", "src-reddit-u1-software-2026" ], "notes": "Attached to the brand rather than the printer because the same app serves the whole range. For an Android buyer the practical answer is to use Snapmaker Orca on the desktop, the touchscreen, or the Fluidd web UI rather than the phone app - which is a real usability demerit but not a blocker.", "_file": "snapmaker.json" }, { "id": "ki-snapmaker-orca-instability", "subject_id": "snapmaker-u1", "date_first_reported": "2025-12-24", "description": "Snapmaker Orca, the slicer, and the printer-to-slicer connection are the machine's weakest software layer. Owners report crashes ('runs a little bit shitty and crashes sometimes, just need to make sure to save'), long boot times, AI-detection false positives, and a recurring class of connection problems: LAN mode showing connected but refusing file transfers, printers binding to either the app or the slicer but not both because the pairing PIN disappears once bound, and Fluidd unreachable until Advanced Mode is enabled and the printer rebooted. A month-one owner named software as the single weakest point and noted a missing feature - per-filament flow calibration, so recalibrating one toolhead forces recalibrating all four.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "open but improving; owners answering a July 2026 recency check say it 'has improved dramatically since release and crashes out way less' while still reporting occasional crashes and connection problems. Not fixed as of 2026-09-06.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-u1-1month", "src-reddit-u1-software-2026", "src-reddit-u1-webinterface", "src-sortitoutman-u1-review" ], "notes": "Recency was checked deliberately: most of the harsh software reviews date from the Dec 2025 - Mar 2026 launch window, and the July 2026 reports are materially better. Do not score this from the launch cohort. Note also that vanilla OrcaSlicer with upstream stock U1 profiles is an escape hatch.", "_file": "snapmaker.json" }, { "id": "ki-snapmaker-support-inconsistent", "subject_id": "snapmaker", "date_first_reported": "2026-01-31", "description": "First-line support quality is inconsistent, and the evidence genuinely cuts both ways. Negative: an owner with non-functioning RFID readers was asked to dismantle and diagnose the machine himself; an Amazon buyer whose day-old unit could not finish its bundled test print was pointed at the wiki to troubleshoot the mainboard and wrote 'once the unit is out the door, I guess we are the quality control people'; a Spanish-speaking owner with a color-printing defect reported getting no reply at all; another owner reported waiting two weeks with no useful answer; and in one jam case support attributed toolhead jams to heat creep, a diagnosis another owner disputed. Positive: an owner with a noisy feeder had a replacement shipped 'within three emails' and called them very easy to deal with, and 123-3D UK, a retailer, stated on 2026-06-10 that across every U1 it has sold it has had zero returns and zero support issues.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; no evidence of a policy change either way. Warranty is 12 months, parts are sold individually, and the wiki is thorough, so self-service is genuinely viable for a technical owner.", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-u1-done", "src-amazon-u1-reviews", "src-reddit-u1-community", "src-reddit-u1-problems", "src-123-3d-uk-u1-review" ], "notes": "Scope 'common' reflects that the complaint recurs across several independent channels, not that most owners hit it - the counter-evidence is deliberately written into the description rather than left out. Rob is not a programmer, so 'the wiki is good and parts are cheap' is a weaker consolation for him than for a tinkerer.", "_file": "snapmaker.json" }, { "id": "ki-snapmaker-u1-abs-asa-needs-top-cover", "subject_id": "snapmaker-u1", "date_first_reported": "2025-12-24", "description": "The U1 as sold is not rated for ABS or ASA. Snapmaker's own supported-materials table lists PLA, PETG, TPU, PVA and PCTG for the bare machine and only adds PET, ABS, ASA, PA and PC 'With Optional Top Cover'. Owners who try anyway report real failures: one owner's first ABS print detached from the bed, produced a blob and bent a nozzle, and he found that filling the bed with ABS or ASA caused enough adhesion to warp the bed edges; another owner's overnight ABS print with an improvised IKEA-bin lid fused to the fan duct. Wirecutter's verdict is that the machine 'isn't built for engineering materials' and that even fully kitted its enclosure is only passively heated to about 50 C, against 65 C actively heated on competing enclosed machines. Two reviewers did succeed - Tom's Hardware printed PolyLite ASA on the open machine and PCMag printed an ABS bracket using a self-printed lid - so it is possible, not reliable, and there is no filtration in either case.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "common", "status": "open by design as of 2026-09-06; the manufacturer's remedy is the Top Cover, which is itself back-ordered to November 2026 (see ki-snapmaker-u1-top-cover-backorder)", "source_ids": [ "src-snapmaker-u1-store", "src-reddit-u1-1month", "src-wirecutter-best-3d-printer", "src-reddit-u1-done" ], "notes": "Directly relevant to the buyer's occasional-ASA requirement and to fume exposure in a shared home: printing ASA on the bare U1 means no enclosure seal and no carbon or HEPA filtration at all.", "_file": "snapmaker.json" }, { "id": "ki-snapmaker-u1-noise", "subject_id": "snapmaker-u1", "date_first_reported": "2025-12-16", "description": "Independent reviewers repeatedly describe the U1 as loud, and no independent decibel measurement exists. 3DPrint.com, after 300-plus hours: 'quieter than my XL (during rapid movement), but louder than most of my other printers', and lists 'louder than many other printers' as a con. A UK reviewer who bought his at retail: initial setup was 'deafening', a firmware update 'settled it down significantly', but 'even quiet for the U1 is loud' - louder than his Bambu X1C and no contest against an H2C, 'sounds like it's preparing for takeoff'. Countervailing evidence exists: an Amazon buyer on 2026-07-20 rates the noise 'moderate... lower than the Creator 5 Pro, about the same as the Bambu P1S'. Snapmaker's only figure - 'average operating noise under 50 dB' - applies to the machine with the optional Top Cover in internal-circulation mode and is a vendor claim, not a measurement; Wirecutter separately notes that the partial enclosure already reduces fan and nozzle-cleaning noise.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; partially mitigated by a firmware update reported around 2026-03, and reportedly further reduced by the Top Cover (vendor claim, unmeasured). Owners are fitting third-party fan mods.", "source_ids": [ "src-3dprint-u1-review", "src-sortitoutman-u1-review", "src-amazon-u1-reviews", "src-snapmaker-u1-topcover-store" ], "notes": "The single biggest unresolved risk for a printer living in a shared family home, and the biggest evidence gap in this record - nobody has published a dB figure. Rated 'common' on three independent qualitative reports, but the sources genuinely disagree about severity.", "_file": "snapmaker.json" }, { "id": "ki-snapmaker-u1-panel-fit", "subject_id": "snapmaker-u1", "date_first_reported": "2025-12-16", "description": "Cost-cutting is visible in the outer plastic. Independent reviewers and owners consistently describe thin outer panels that flex, a chassis with some wobble, and a plastic cover under the bed that visibly deforms at bed temperatures of 80-100 C (the bed itself stays flat). One owner warns that the panels and their supports flex enough that disassembly or accessory fitting needs care. A community summary put it plainly: the most commonly noted con is the fit of the external plastic panels, and to build a four-toolhead CoreXY under a thousand dollars something had to give. A separate ergonomic complaint from a retail purchaser: the front glass stops above the print bed, so you cannot see the first layer through the door.", "severity": "cosmetic", "scope": "common", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; no hardware revision reported. No functional failure has been attributed to it - the internal structure is welded metal with carbon-fiber X rods and reviewers rate it stable.", "source_ids": [ "src-3dprint-u1-review", "src-sortitoutman-u1-review", "src-reddit-u1-community", "src-reddit-u1-1month" ], "notes": "Kept as cosmetic on purpose: four independent long-run accounts describe the panels as cheap-feeling and none reports a print or hardware failure caused by them.", "_file": "snapmaker.json" }, { "id": "ki-snapmaker-u1-toolhead-jam-swap-anomaly", "subject_id": "snapmaker-u1", "date_first_reported": "2026-04-26", "description": "Some owners hit filament jams inside individual toolheads and 'toolhead swap anomaly' errors, particularly on new machines. One owner had two jams in toolheads 2 and 3 within his first 20 hours of multi-color printing, each needing a full toolhead disassembly to clear, then three swap anomalies during a 25-hour print, one of which failed the print unattended. The community diagnosis in that thread is contamination rather than design: factory grease migrates onto the pogo pins and toolhead electrical contacts and must be cleaned off with isopropyl alcohol, after which bed homing, toolhead alignment and swapping start working reliably. Other respondents describe it as a break-in problem that faded with use, and Snapmaker replaced a faulty feeder for one of them.", "severity": "print-failure", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06 with a community mitigation (degrease the toolhead contacts, run current firmware); several owners report it stops after break-in", "source_ids": [ "src-reddit-u1-problems", "src-reddit-u1-1month" ], "notes": "Deliberately scoped 'isolated', not 'common', because the weight of long-run evidence runs the other way: 3DPrint.com logged 300+ hours with no unattributable issue, a Reddit owner logged 200 hours and 2,000 tool changes with zero problems, a retail purchaser logged ~100 hours with none, Wirecutter saw 'almost no mid-print issues' and was the only machine in its test to finish the torture print unattended, and 123-3D UK reports zero warranty returns across its sales. Recording it anyway because a toolchanger's swap mechanism is the obvious thing to worry about and a buyer deserves to know the failure mode exists.", "_file": "snapmaker.json" }, { "id": "ki-snapmaker-u1-top-cover-backorder", "subject_id": "snapmaker-u1-top-cover", "date_first_reported": "2026-09-06", "description": "The Top Cover - the only first-party way to make the U1 enclosed and filtered, and therefore the only sanctioned route to ASA and ABS - cannot be delivered promptly. On 2026-09-06 the us.snapmaker.com product page is badged 'Pre-Order' and says 'Shipped from US Warehouse: November 01-15'; Snapmaker's own wiki shipment schedule states that official-store US orders placed after 2026-01-13 have an estimated ship window of November 01-15, 2026 and an estimated delivery window of November 15-30, 2026. A buyer ordering on RUN_DATE therefore waits roughly ten weeks. The accessory is real and shipping - the same schedule shows Kickstarter tiers being delivered in September and October 2026 - and the store page has 4 customer reviews, so this is a back-order, not an unshipped announcement. Practical consequence: the buy-today U1 configuration is an open-top, unfiltered machine, and any ASA capability is a November purchase. Replacement filters for the cover were also not yet purchasable ('available soon'), so the running cost of the filtration is unknown.", "severity": "policy", "scope": "widespread", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06; Snapmaker's published estimate is delivery November 15-30, 2026 for orders placed now", "source_ids": [ "src-snapmaker-u1-topcover-store", "src-snapmaker-wiki-topcover-schedule" ], "notes": "Scope is 'widespread' because it applies to every US buyer today, not because many people have complained. This is the single most consequential fact in this file for a buyer who cares about ASA.", "_file": "snapmaker.json" }, { "id": "ki-troodon-evidence-staleness", "subject_id": "formbot-troodon-2-0-pro-350", "date_first_reported": null, "description": "The Troodon 2.0 Pro's reputation rests on stale evidence. Its lifetime rating on Formbot's page is 4.9 from 15 reviews, but every dated review exposed in the page's structured data falls between 2023-09-29 and 2025-05-14 - none in the sixteen months before RUN_DATE 2026-09-06. The product has changed in that window: Formbot's page title and description now advertise a CNC TAP leveling sensor that earlier reviewers did not have, while the product URL still carries the older 'with Klipper firmware' naming. A lifetime star average that carries only a 2023 to 2025 cohort cannot support a claim about the machine sold today, in either direction. The Mini 250 has exactly one review, dated 2024-04-04.", "severity": "annoyance", "scope": "isolated", "status": "open as of 2026-09-06 - an evidence gap, not a defect", "source_ids": [ "src-formbot-troodon350" ], "notes": "Recorded deliberately. The previous study's method lesson was that a lifetime star average permanently carries the launch cohort; here the failure mode is the mirror image, a high lifetime average with no recent data behind it. The reviews that do exist are consistently positive on bed flatness, rigidity, ease of module assembly and support responsiveness, and two of them come from owners several months in.", "_file": "kits.json" } ]