After 4 months of testing the Anycubic Kobra 3 V2, I'm getting fed up

Earlier this year, I lost my confidence in Anycubic. After testing not one but TWO faulty Kobra S1 Combo printers (which are currently collecting dust in my garage), I was ready to wipe my hands of these headache-inducing machines, and I certainly never wanted to see an Ace Pro unit ever again.

The truth is, I haven't looked back since joining the premium Bambu Lab club, but it's not fair to compare every 3D printer to an X1 Carbon, and Anycubic printers are very hard to ignore given the extreme value for money that they offer, which makes them enticing to newcomers and print farms worldwide.

With that said, I'm glad that I agreed to give Anycubic another shot and test the Kobra 3 V2. While this bedslinger is certainly not perfect, the print quality is fantastic - when it wants to be. Despite this, I'd still class it as one of the best 3D printers on the market right now for a balance of quality with value.

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You see, the issue with the Kobra 3 V2 is not so much the printer itself, but the ACE Pro (Anycubic's version of an automated material system for multicolour printing) unit that the combo bundle ships with. I'll dive into detail on the specific errors and troubleshooting I had with this add-on in the performance section below.

The bottom line: Anycubic's Kobra 3 V2 is miles ahead of the Kobra 2 series (which holds a special place in my heart), and I'd say mechanically it is more reliable than the premium S1 series too, but it remains lightyears behind Bambu Lab's design and interface in terms of ease and effortless operation. As for software: If you want to primarily send prints from an app or your phone, give it a big miss. But for those already with slicer experience and a laptop for 3D modelling, it's a breeze.

Key Specs

Price

At launch, the Anycubic Kobra 3 V2 had a very budget-friendly price tag of $299 / £299 for the printer alone, or approximately $379 / £340 for the Combo Ace Pro package. Approximately 6 months later, and at the time of writing, you can get the Anycubic Kobra 3 V2 for around $297 in the US, or as little as £199 on Amazon for the base model (and £299 for the Combo).

Personally, I think this printer was already priced fairly, but at these new prices, it's an even better value for money, especially for beginners. With that said, Anycubic has just announced a new Kobra X model, which could be a successor to the Kobra 3 V2 and would explain why we're seeing better prices on this model. At the time of writing, there's no price info for the Kobra X just yet, but I expect it to be somewhere between the price of the S1 Combo ($400) and the Kobra 3 series.

Unboxing and setup

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The setup process for the Anycubic Kobra 3 V2 was easy peasy. It came with everything pretty much pre-assembled, including the frame, which is great for beginners. You only need to install the print head with a few screws, connect the LCD screen, and you're basically up and running.

Included with the Kobra 3 V2, you get a spool holder, various cable holders and organisers, a disk drive, an HD camera, and a small sample of filament. I've set up my share of 3D printers now, but credit to Anycubic that this couldn't have been simpler.

The only small niggle I have, if I'm being picky, is that you have to 3D print the casing and mounting for the camera yourself, and the STL file is already built into the printer's memory file. Now, depending on your level of expertise, this won't be difficult, and some may view it as a fun first test print that's actually functional.

But knowing that this part requires such a minimal amount of PLA to print does make me question if it was that much of an added cost for Anycubic to simply include this mounting bracket for users ready to go. In any case, at least this way you get to choose the colour of your camera housing (I went with orange to match some of the printer cables).

Design & Build

The design and build of the Kobra 3 V2 is straightforward but solid. It offers a high top rail for taller prints (just about big enough for cosplay helmets), and it has a generous build volume for everything you could wish to print without needing a Kobra 3 Max model. I managed to fit multiple Pokémon figures and flush fidgets on the build plate with room left to spare.

I'm not particularly a fan of how you end up with four filament tubes poking out of the print head, as well as an orange cable which moves with the toolhead all as one big clump. It doesn't seem to affect functionality, but certainly looks messy. In other words, it became clear quickly as to why they included cable management parts in the accessory box.

The ACE Pro bus cable is positioned on the front of the machine next to where you can stick the USB drive, which means you'll need to trail the long cable to the side or behind the printer to plug it into the Ace chamber without resistance.

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You get a spool holder included in the packaging, but if you don't opt for the Ace Pro combo, then this means you can only mount one spool, which can't go on top of the printer and only sits to the left-hand side, so consider your desk space or work area carefully if planning a purchase.

On the right-hand side is where you'll find the poop (waste) shooter for flinging purged filament away, and you'll need to find some way of catching this waste if you don't want it flung all over the place - it shoots out at a pretty fast velocity too, and gets higher as the printing process gets taller.

Performance

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The Anycubic Kobra 3 V2 differs from its V1 predecessor in that it offers a wider Y-axis rail and upgraded bearings on the X-axis, as well as a slightly larger build volume (a measley 5mm increase), an improved hotend, zoned levelling for better accuracy, faster startup speeds, nozzle sealing simiar to the S1 for a reduction in leakage, plus you get a HD camera for AI spaghetti detection and print monitoring.

I found during testing that you need to babysit this printer and handhold it to prevent finding a string of spaghetti mess, or prints flung off the build plate due to adhesion errors, or an error code preventing the print from starting altogether. 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.

While the auto bed levelling is great and very accurate, the AI monitoring and spaghetti detection are a joke. I ended up turning this setting off after 3 prints, as it kept telling me there was a print failure and pausing the print unnecessarily.

Colour bleed was also pretty bad on this machine, especially when using black, and even once I thought I had mastered the flush volumes in both the printer display screen and sliced model, I ended up with a cursed-looking Pikachu that I can't ever unsee.

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Another thing that made me want to scream into a pillow was discovering that after every pause or error code (and I was getting plenty of them), the filament would purge several times - even if it was simply resuming and using the same colour. This once meant that I wasted almost 100g of purple PLA just from this error alone when a print kept pausing and resuming due to tangled filament (which WASN'T tangled).

I also had a few prints with layers that were separated and not mushed together as a result of underextrusion caused by endless Ace Pro clogging. It would sometimes even feed the wrong colour into the nozzle or would refuse to grip the filament strand at all when attempting to feed it in (you need to breathe in and out very slowly when this happens to stay calm).

Anyway, there are some positives about the Kobra 3 V2, which make it a worthy purchase. The print quality when everything runs smoothly is actually very impressive, and comparable to the prints I get with my Bambu Lab X1 Carbon. Take a look at the sample print section below to see the highlights.

I managed to successfully print a green alien dog (file by SugarPaws3D), which came out beautifully smooth, and a Wolverine helmet (by Budwin3D) was printed in parts using a mix of PLA and PETG and served very well as a sturdy Halloween helmet.

Psst - For some tips on printing helmets, see my guide on how to 3D print cosplay props.

Software

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Anycubic's Slicer Next software is strikingly similar to Bambu Lab's Suite of software, with nearly all of the same features and tools nested in the exact same places. This is extremely handy if you're used to Bambu Lab's ecosystem and will make adjusting to Anycubic's workflow that much easier and less intimidating.

Remote printing from a laptop is very straightforward, and I have no issues to report here (aside from the slicer occasionally crashing during slicing). Although remote printing from the Anycubic app using a smartphone is not as streamlined.

It takes forever to load the camera with constant time-out messages. You'll also get notifications of print issues that aren't there (I blame the poor AI detection), and the catalogue of models to choose from is poor compared with other platforms, such as MakerWorld, for one-click printing.

Sample Prints

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As you can see from the image gallery above, the single colour printing on this machine is faultless. I could even sometimes leave it running during the night and wake up to a print in one piece.

Errors and troubleshooting

When it comes to error messages and troubleshooting, this printer is a straight-up liar. Several times, I have stood there and watched the filament flow directly from the Ace Pro into the print head, just for the print to auto pause before it has even begun, and the display screen to pop up with a big QR code and "Error: Tangled Filament" appearing in large letters. I see this in my dreams sometimes. It's embedded into my eyeballs. But the worst part? It isn't true.

I've found during testing that 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. You get it.

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And before anyone suggests that it's user error and not the Ace Pro, I definitely did have my share of mistakes during my time testing the Kobra 3 V2 Combo, but I'm also not a stranger to these material units, as the same ACE Pro machines are used with the Kobra 3 series as with the Kobra S1 Combo series (which nearly made me quit 3D printing altogether).

The touchscreen will show you a QR code with a direct link to troubleshoot your issue, which is extremely helpful, though you won't always find the answer you're looking for so it's best to keep a tab open with YouTube loaded at all times.

Should you buy it?

Buy it if:

• You have a tighter budget to work with
• You're willing to learn, and have time (and patience) to invest
• You already own an ACE Pro unit and want another compatible printer
• You aren't too fussed about multicolour printing

Don't buy it if:

• You can afford to get a Bambu Lab printer instead (even the A1 series is more reliable)
• You own a business or print farm and need consistent output
• You want to print mostly multicoloured models (single-colour is where it thrives)
• You only plan on printing from a smartphone app