Elegoo Centauri Carbon 3D printer
1 September, 2025
I got a new 3D printer on the weekend. My second.
Today's Monday, & one of the few still occasionally reputable news sites left operating in this country had a scary banner headline about the threat posed by 3D printed guns. Partly because the people who write for & read said news site aren't the sort of people who did metalwork in school, & wouldn't know a lathe if they fell over one. Partly because guns have been in the news, & news stories tend to pull related stories into papers in their wake. So consider this my mild rebuttal.
I bought an Artillery Sidewinder in 2020. It seems a lot longer ago than that, I had to log back in to the site I bought it from to check. It was my first printer, & I knew almost nothing going in. Over the years since I printed a lot of things, bits & pieces for drones, radios, & telescopes. Parts for all my other hobbies. But during that time I had to replace the printer board, add a Pi with Octopi, tune, fight, & generally rebuild the thing. Until last month when the thermistor in the print head finally died. It was a lot of work to ever get it to print anything & I decided any more modifications or fixes would just be good money after bad at that point.
So on the weekend I bought one of the new Elegoo Centauri Carbons. Night & day. Night. And. Day.
The Elegoo's easy to set up & to get going, & maybe four times faster at printing. It's been an eye opener. The Sidewinder was AU$647 (pre inflation). The Elegoo was AU$629. For less money, a lot less money if I were to include the cost of all the mods I made to the Sidewinder over its life, the Elegoo's a much easier machine to use, & a much more capable machine. Just the auto levelling, just that alone is worth it. Five years' worth of progress, hey.
I have no idea if it'll last or if there's some hidden maintenance flaw lurking in there. But for now it's great. I'm a very happy customer. Whether you should consider one of course is going to depend on a whole range of factors, but this is one 3D printer that's definitely worth considering. Impress your friends with your firearms convictions!