The community needs to figure out what they actually want. You can't decry companies taking open source designs, iterating on them and releasing them-- but in the same breath getting upset at Bambu and everyone being closed source and proprietary. The Voron team released everything under a license that allows this, Sovol have done the right thing and been *completely* open and also mentioned they're going to donate a portion of the sales to the Voron Team. This is *exactly* what we should be *encouraging* manufacturers to do. It creates a healthy and sustainable ecosystem around open source hardware. Angus makes the comment that the nozzle is proprietary, that's fine-- because the gantry is a standard 2.4 gantry for all intents and purposes, so you can print and install a dragon burner, or stealthburner or whatever compatible toolhead you want. Don't like the inductive probe? Install Tap or Beacon or Cartographer. Just because they're doing something different that makes manufacturing easier or more cost effective it doesn't make it bad. If we don't embrace companies who are making genuine efforts to do the right thing, we'll just end up with closed source bambu clones and no-one wants that.
I think the main problem with Bambu is that they obviously use a modified open source firmware but haven't published the modifications to my knowledge. I think what Sovol did here is great and there will soon be tons of upgrades around for this printer. The only people who really lose are those who sell voron 2.4 kits.
@@FreeOfFantasy It worked for DJI copying multiwii and Bambu was founded by guys from DJI it's literally the exact same thing I saw happen probably 15 years ago being done by people from the same company none the less. It makes me sick the amount of people back then with DJI and now today with Bambu who say they don't care if they copied the work of the community because it's a good printer.
As many other commenters have noted, I think this was the "best case scenario" approach to mass producing the Voron design. It's far less expensive than buying a kit (not to mention the hours saved on assembly), it still remains completely open source (STEP files were a great touch), and they're paying homage to the Voron team. SOVOL deserves their flowers for this one. The only thing I'm waiting on is a review discussing its performance once it's enclosed. Regardless, at this price I'm still positive I will be purchasing one in the very near future.
I have ome on order snce late last week. I have also ordered it with the enclosure. I will call back here and let you all know how things panned out. Cheers. Mike
Agreed. For the most part this went as well as one could expect. Communication was bumpy, but in the end we got access to an affordable large volume core-xy printer, based on one of the best designs out there, that continues to be open. It has quirks, but it's an exciting new base to do some amazing work with.
Nice job Angus. I have been unsure over whether or not I wanted to review this. Shout out to Rat Rig for also releasing full CAD models, although they are a kit you assemble rather than a one hour job. Also, don't let the police catch working dangerously in bare feet. I'd recommend some safety thongs as per Australian law.
I don't understand why you would not want to review this? No-one has been able to accurately articulate what is wrong with what they're doing here. They've taken something that's open source, made changes to it, released those changes and made a product from it-- contributing back with both the source *and* financially to the community that produced the original works. This is *exactly* what should happen in a healthy open source ecosystem and what open source should be about. I would argue they're doing more for the Voron ecosystem than the countless kits from the likes of LDO who are doing very little beyond packaging up someone else's work and selling it. I'm not attempting to attack anyone here, I genuinely want to understand what people's issue is here.
Sorry but why exactly would a commercial fork of a Voron not deserve a review? I think it's an amazing entry point for all voron buyers, and should also inspire voron/community to make a more budget version.
@@shanemshort I think it has to do with the drama around the printer itself. From what I understand, the old Voron twitter/X account was hijacked by a former team member and said person has been stirring the pot over the SV08. As for the kits, I always looked at them as a convenience for getting the parts you needed to assemble the printer. They are doing the work of part sourcing for you, and that, to me, is a worthwhile service. You can argue that Sovol is doing more by iterating on the design, but I'd say it's six of one, half-dozen of the other.
I downloaded the full machine model and imported it into FreeCAD. Worked great! This is a huge deal. Anyone can now start with exact measurements and make modified or new parts for the machine without having to reverse-engineer it. Perfect for those who want a bare bones solid foundation to build on. If Sovol are able to avoid major quality issues, this machine will become a massive hit.
SOVOL are the first company to give $2 per sale for each printer sold to Voron community. Not a lot, but first time. And you should've mentioned it. Loved the vid. Already bought one and waiting to be shipped :)
I dont get the hate on sv08 for using voron as a base. Voron guys did make voron knowing that they wouldnt make any money out of it(other than patreon). Sovol used the design, improved it, made it mass producible*, put it on open source, donates money to voron for every sold sovol(which they didnt have to do) and made the machine cheap for its specs. Plus its fully open source again. So again, is this something people should really hate? I even see people complaining how little money they are giving to voron team. Imagine if they sold 100k of these machines, that means 100k dollars donated. And when you think the cost of voron and the effort to building it, this is perfect machine for (tool) category.
This is the sort of thing I'd hope @Makersmuse would retract honestly. What made the Ender 3 great? Hint, it wasn't Chinese manufacturing. Well, not only.
I have to commend Sovol for staying true to the open source roots of the Voron project and not simply making a closed proprietary clone. I can live with the few concessions they've made to make this easier to mass produce and deliver good print results at a price point and I'm sure that in time there will be adaptors for standard nozzles. Very excited to see this released!
Awesome stuff, this is kind of the open source dream come true. It does not exist so people "have to do it themselves", that is merely a downside. To have people willing to make products with the "nobody can own data" mindset, is a Godsend. It also fits so well in the 3D printing community where everybody is already working together to try and help each other get the best possible outcomes. It's how everything should be, it's not to stifle commerce but to help it flourish.
Love the degree to which they followed the open source mentality! Yes, they made a commercial product largely based on other people's work, but unlike other manufacturers, they are keeping their work open, too!
I started 3D printing when we had to build a 3D printer because there weren't any commercially available hobby printers. The SV08 is my 12th 3D printer. Here is my lengthy opinion on the SV08, for the prospective SV08 buyer. Short answer: It's a good shortcut to get most of the features of a Voron 2.4 at a third of the price without 40 hours of building, but it has some issues and isn't a good first printer for someone who doesn't want to tinker and just wants a reliable 3D printer out of the box. Sovol got a lot right when adapting the open source Voron 2.4 to be a relatively low cost consumer version of this advanced large volume flying gantry coreXY 3D printer, and they deserve credit for all of the engineering changes they made so the SV08 is suitable for manufacturing and to reduce cost. Sovol deserves huge credit for keeping the design open source, even to the extent of supplying STEP files for all mechanical parts. This was a large part of the reason I bought an SV08, and look favorably on all Sovol products. In most cases, Sovol made good engineering decisions, but there are some issues with the SV08. Probably half of the problems were the result of excessive cost savings, beyond what was prudent. In a few instances, the Sovol engineers were penny wise and pound foolish. In those cases, their customers would have gladly paid the difference in price for less problems and/or better performance. Some of the other SV08 issues had nothing to do with cost cutting and were the result of time to market, where there isn't time to resolve even known issues before shipping the product, much less extensive alpha and beta testing to refine the product before release. 1) The aluminum print bed is too thin. It's warped slightly more than 1 mm across the bed surface, resulting in problems establishing a uniform first layer on large prints. The problem is exacerbated because the warped surface changes when the bed is heated. The warped bed is rigidly mounted to the base so there is no way to shim it to level it, so owners attempt to fix the "taco bed" by drilling holes in the magnetic sheet to access the screws, removing the thin bed and installing 3D printed spacers to level the bed and pre-tension it to compensate for the thermal expansion warping which varies significantly between 65C and 95C. Sovol should have specified a 10 mm thick stress relieved cast aluminum plate (MIC6 or equivalent) and mounted it with springs, with the mounting screws accessible so the magnetic build surface can be removed and the mounting screws can be adjusted to level the bed and fine tune the very minor thermal warping in a thicker stress relieved bed. The aftermarket should offer a thicker cast bed upgrade. Sovol is expecting the bed mesh Z offset compensation to do miracles, but it can't. 2) The inductive probe doesn't produce sufficiently accurate and repeatable bed mesh results, further exacerbating the first layer problems previously described. Users are modifying their tool heads to remove the inductive sensor and replacing it with a contact sensor. Sovol should have probably used a contact sensor for greater accuracy. It would also prevent a crash when calibrating Z height when forgetting to replace the magnetic spring steel build surface. 3) Most people don't like the clicky knob character LCD user interface. It seems cheap on a modern 3D pritner with these high end features. Rotating the knob doesn't always move the display to the next menu item and sometimes it skips ahead two items. Clicking the knob doesn't always select the menu item and it often needs 2-3 knob pushes. Probably half of the users are buying a 5" touch screen user interface that attaches to a USB port and HDMI port. The Big Tree Tech 5" user interface costs $45 retail, so Sovol should have provided a modern touch screen graphical user interface. Users would have been happy to pay the small difference in cost with a decent profit added. 4) Many users don't like editing wifi.cfg and writing it to a USB drive to set the WiFi login credentials. I thought it was a reasonable solution to avoid trying to enter that information on a clicky knob character LCD user interface, but I was among the majority of users for whom the WiFi never worked. I was forced to buy a WiFi bridge and plug it into the ethernet port for data and the USB port for power. Maybe adding an external WiFi antenna as many 3D printers have instead of a tiny antenna behind the aluminum motherboard shield would fix the WiFi connection problems. Maybe the built-in WiFi only works with the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz band? Maybe a firmware upgrade might fix the problem? 5) Some users had nozzles pushed out of the hot end when printing PETG with its higher pressure. Sovol fixed this by adding a set screw to retain the nozzle. Every manufacturer creates a slightly different high flow nozzle. All are similar to the Volcano nozzle but we're forced to buy a slightly different proprietary nozzle that won't work on any other printer. Replacing the hot end with a MicroSwiss hot end results in a high quality and known good hot end that uses the MicroSwiss FlowTech nozzles that can be cold swapped without removing and reinstalling the heater and thermistor. The nozzles are then compatible with all other printers once they have the MicroSwiss hot end installed. Installing the MicroSwiss hot end is as easy as changing the original manufacturer's nozzle that requires the heater and thermistor to be removed and reinstalled without damaging them. One the MicroSwiss hot end is installed, the nozzle can be swapped in a minute, using only one hand and a 7mm nut driver. 6) The web camera doesn't always work. Sovol has a page devoted to the problem. They advise checking to ensure the plug is fully connected as some units shipped with hot glue preventing the connectors to be seated properly. Then Sovol recommends ensuring the other end of the USB cable is properly connected to the motherboard, and if that doesn't work, try plugging it into the USB port on the side of the printer. If that doesn't work, try deleting and reinstalling the camera in Klipper. If that doesn't work, sometimes reflashing the MCU will fix it. Sovol would appreciate any info you have on the problem. In other words, hopefully the community will figure out what's wrong and fix it. My camera didn't work. I upgraded the printer's firmware to 2.3.3 and the camera worked. A few hours later it stopped working again. This isn't a problem for me because my printer is next to my computer but this would be a big problem for anyone trying to manage a print farm, or for people who want to use the phone app to remotely monitor a long print job. I would have much rather had a better printer user interface than a camera I don't need that doesn't work. I'll unplug the camera to ensure privacy and security. 7) There is a small LED lighting strip inside the top frame, in the front, on the right side. It's marginal. A brighter strip running the full length of the front would have been much better. Bright strips on the front, left and right sides would have been better still. I ordered the 24 V LED strip so I can upgrade the lighting. 8) The double bearing spool holder seems nice but stiff filaments tend to unspool and tangle. Sovol published a de-tangle mod, based on the many user mods to fix this problem. This begs the question, did Sovol test this printer before shipping it? Did they only test with PLA? This wasn't an issue for me because I print a lot of TPU so I feed it from above with no reverse Bowden tube to cause drag, so I'm not using the SV08 reel holder. However, eliminating the reverse Bowden tube allows the extruder cable to droop and drag so I needed to design and 3D print a custom cable chain to stiffen the cable to ensure it remains in a uniform vertical arc. 9) The bed preheating before quad gantry leveling, Z height calibration and bed mesh probing all uses 65 C, but many people are printing PETG, ABS, TPU, or other materials with different bed temperatures, so the bed warps after the calibrations are done. The calibrations should be done at the same bed temperatures that are used during printing, and the nozzle should be heated as well, but not enough to allow plastic to drool. Some users modify their config files to pre-heat the bed to the temperature used for printing. 10) The filament run out sensor is mounted to the reel holder. It dangles down, like an after thought. Modern 3D printers should integrate a tiny optical filament run out sensor to the top of the direct drive extruder. This would make filament loading easier and would use all of the available filament rather than leaving a reverse Bowden tube full of filament that must be cleared. When the filament is all used, the extruder should immediately unload 20 mm of filament to clear the hot end and provide a short piece that the user can grab to remove the 50 mm stub of filament.
My SV08 arrived today. I waited for the initial bugs to be squashed and for the price to drop a bit, delaying my purchase until just before my winter product design cycle. I love that it's a large volume fast high quality coreXY printer that's commercial open source. Kudos to the Voron development team for making this possible. I replaced the motherboard fan with a quieter and more reliable Noctua fan, and I swapped to a MicroSwiss hot end, mostly so I can use MicroSwiss FlowTech nozzles that can be cold swapped without removing and replacing the heater and thermistor and getting thermal paste all over my fingers. The cylindrical heater on the MicroSwiss hot end does provide a slightly higher flow rate and the nozzle manufacturing is higher quality with slightly better print quality and longevity. I'm going to design a 3D printed enclosure in lieu of the nice $150 enclosure from Sovol or the various designs on Printables, neither of which met my needs. I mostly print TPU for the current products but I will probably have a dedicated SV08 configured for ABS or PETG-CF when I develop a different line of products.
Sovol seems to be hitting all the right steps for me at least. While I have found the performance of Bambu printers impressive, I pretty much reject any option that isn't open. I'm definitely in need of a new printer, but it will be a while before I make any purchases. I hope that the TPU challenges can be overcome. As far as being based on the Voron, that's fine. From the comments I see that they are contributing to the Voron project based on units sold which is frankly exceptional.
12:30 Any initiative to make 3D printing more capable and accessible is a win, for me. There's no violation of any open-source licensing, nor any bad behaviour AFAICT (like modifying and closing the source, not contributing to the original project, etc). The project is open-source. They're even donating back to the Voron Project. This is absolutely the right thing to do. There's nothing to be suspect about -- in fact, this kind of questioning makes no sense and may be even a bit detrimental to the community, they did nothing wrong, and are not acting on bad faith. The Sovol SV08 is the printer I was waiting for, to escape the closed-source trap that is Bamboo (or even Creality recently), etc. Too bad I just bought a SV06 a while ago, so no budget for a new printer for the time being... :(
I think this is fantastic. I wanted to go the route of the Voron but the price is much higher than I wanted to spend and I didn't want to spend weeks building the machine. This is the best compromise in my opinion. Great price for a very capable machine even if it has a few areas that you may want to upgrade.
I've got to say, I think that's really cool the way they open source everything and then provide with full drafts of their machines. That would definitely make me lean that direction on my next printer. However, having a proprietary nozzle makes me lean back the other way. I guess I'll have to do a little looking into it and see if there is a way to retrofit another type of nozzle just in case the company dissappears. IDK, maybe I'm overthinking it.
It’s time to design and sell a printer, Angus! Partner with a manufacturer who will give you full control over the final product and I’ll be first in line for the Kickstarter. You earned my trust years ago and I want the printer that checks all your boxes; I’m sure others feel the same. Take my money and do it! 😁
The boxes to be checked depends on your purpose. You don't need a 40cm^3, tool changer, 90° heated enclosure, direct drive, water cooled printer for every print.
WHAT?! Holy smokes, well done Sovol! They’ve really been impressing me lately with their printers, and this takes the cake. Great review, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never did. Well, no hardened steel nozzle right now is a bummer, but if they come sometime soon, I think it wouldn’t be too bad.
Honestly, this is what open source is about. Companies SHOULD use it to make good products for people like me which don't have time building a printer from scratch.
@@guestc142 More like the multi-billion dollar supermarkets asking if you, the consumer, want to donate $1 to "help feed hungry kids"... Don't get me wrong, any donation is greatly appreciated, but maybe they should donate like, $20 per machine sold, instead of just $2. That seems like a much bigger deal. Funny enough, the Litter Robot brand of auto-cleaning cat boxes had a "promo" where you could buy their latest generation of Litter Robot + some accessories and they would "donate" to an animal rescue society. But when you click on the item in their store, it says they'll donate $7 per unit sold. The package is ~$800.
@@cpufreak101you shouldn't just blindly believe everything you see on the internet Voron refused an official partnership while saying they will take donations as usual They just didn't want to give sovol the right to call it a voron
Thanks for the review Angus! I never lept in to Vorons but was getting ready to. The SV08 is my ideal option. A great bootstrap machine that I can iterate on pretty easily. My problem now is too many printers! I have a really hard time letting go of old tech. :/
I've always wanted a Voron but honestly they are just far too complicated and time consuming to build and tune, and I am a dedicated diy'er with a full machine and welding shop. When you can buy machines as good as a Bambu or K1 for much less money, the diy route just doesn't make sense unless you just enjoy tinkering with them. Also consider that the firms selling Voron kits are also in it for profit and don't contribute anything additional to the Voron project. Hats off to Sovol. More companies like that please.
If only there were some sort of machine that could be used to manufacture custom table feet with carpet grabbing spikes 😊. Thanks for the great review. I’d love to see reviews of these fast printers include a look at the print quality when the are slowed down, ideally to speeds that match printers hobbyist are more familiar with. What do the prints look like when when optimizing for print quality without worrying about speed?
Thank you for continuing to provide honest reviews. You are providing incredible value to the community. Can you please do a review on the Chameleon 3d? More people need to know about that awesome machine.
Super great that they publish step files, while not source they still are very nice and in some regards better than obscure closed source cad files. Wonder when they will start producing hardened nozzles for it Also the enclosure sure does add quite a lot of extra cost to it.
10:59 for now, if rather have a multi part open source system that can be taken apart and rebuilt. No single company going under will cut the supply and even if nobody makes them anymore you can still get them machined.
Pretty nice price point for what you get. Anyhow this is the nature of the open source license - they licensed it this way specifically so companies like Sovol could make it easier for end users like us to get into Voron printer.
The price point on this is simply incredible. The fully opensource with step files, doubly so, Some part of me feels like it cheapens the voron experience, but that is exactly the point and that i just have the wrong attitude about it, Nothing about this printer locks you into a closed eco system, it lets new comers get their feet wet with voron tech for a fraction of the price, anyone who wants the full voron experience can always built a 2.4 or whatever subsequent variations come down the line, and this newfound accessibility to such a powerful opensource platform opens the doors to new contributions from people who may previously been too intimidated to build or unable to afford entry to such a hobby. Overall very pleased with Sovols Approach.
Sovol went on the correct path! And after all this is what open source is about "have an idea, make it open to everyone who can ad to it, benefit from other peoples contributions".
Unfortunately, nobody talks about customer support when it comes to Soval . This aspect is conveniently, ignored by all of the fanboys who are lining their pockets, touting great reliability… Which is all BS. Until you have had to deal with this company on a failed unit, do not comment. You know absolutely nothing if you are an influencer getting special treatment. Regular customers don’t enjoy any customer service at Sovol . My SV07 plus broke down almost 3 months ago. I’ve got 20 emails, but no parts or support. They claim to be sending a power supply… The shipping label was created on 25 May. It is now 16 June and they have shipped nothing. Don’t fall for it. Nobody gets support except these guys pushing the products.
i broke the screen on a sv02 and it was after warranty and besides the fact i had to talk to them at like 2in the morning they were cool sent me a new screen right away
Update: the power supply wasn’t the issue and they wanted me to keep diagnosing crap after that didn’t fix it. I finally got fed up and started posting the story on their fanboy websites. One of the content influencers did not appreciate getting called out for lying about Sovol and how great they are. However, he investigated my claims, and found them to be true. To his credit, he went after Sovol and I got a new printer shipped within three days. I finally received the new printer in late June. Fast forward to the first week of September. Replacement Printer has catastrophic electrical failure in the middle of a print. Power switch is fused and the machine reacts to zero inputs. Sent Sovol an email detailing the failure, and the fact that the power switch was fused. Instead of advising me that they were sending a replacement printer, they offered to send me a new power supply???? How stupid is that? The electrical failure was substantial enough to fuse parts together and they wanted me to stick a new power supply in it… Absolutely asinine. Now that they have been called out for their stupidity, they want to send a refund. Instead of fixing their issues, they want to run. Guess that’s what happens when you get called out for incompetence. It took them so long to replace the first printer , I was forced to go find another supplier. My customers had a little concern for the printer problems. I found Bambu labs… And subsequently thanked Sovol for that. I have a fleet of Bambu printers now, and they are absolutely the bomb! No screwing around with bad, leveling and flow calculations… The printer does everything itself. Load the filament, load the file and watch the magic happen. I was blown away at how simple it was after the manual requirements of Sovol printers. Now, when I start the day, all I do is load filament and wash build blades. The printers take care of everything else and my success rate exceeds 98%. You got a think about that! In contrast, I ruined the extruder on my first printer from Bambu Labs. My fault so I ordered a new heater assembly and hot end and installed them. The printer still had errors so I had to ask for help. I contacted Bambu and explained what I had done. They got data from my printer, analyzed it themselves, and determined that I had also damaged the extruder. How did they respond? They sent the required parts to me free of charge along with wonderful step-by-step instructions to repair my printer. That, is customer service. Back to back failures on Sovol printers both within 60 days of purchase or replacement… That’s not good. That’s not good in anybody’s book anywhere on the planet. As soon as I get my refund from Sovol, I will go buy another bambu Labs printer….. not because they’re perfect, but because they have common sense, and they do the right thing for the customer without a hassle or BS. And they don’t give dangerous advice! At the end of the day, that’s all that matters.
@@bradleyfletcher5562 Update: the power supply wasn’t the issue and they wanted me to keep diagnosing crap after that didn’t fix it. I finally got fed up and started posting the story on their fanboy websites. One of the content influencers did not appreciate getting called out for lying about Sovol and how great they are. However, he investigated my claims, and found them to be true. To his credit, he went after Sovol and I got a new printer shipped within three days. I finally received the new printer in late June. Fast forward to the first week of September. Replacement Printer has catastrophic electrical failure in the middle of a print. Power switch is fused and the machine reacts to zero inputs. Sent Sovol an email detailing the failure, and the fact that the power switch was fused. Instead of advising me that they were sending a replacement printer, they offered to send me a new power supply???? How stupid is that? The electrical failure was substantial enough to fuse parts together and they wanted me to stick a new power supply in it… Absolutely asinine. Now that they have been called out for their stupidity, they want to send a refund. Instead of fixing their issues, they want to run. Guess that’s what happens when you get called out for incompetence. It took them so long to replace the first printer , I was forced to go find another supplier. My customers had a little concern for the printer problems. I found Bambu labs… And subsequently thanked Sovol for that. I have a fleet of bamboo printers now, and they are absolutely the bomb! No screwing around with bad, leveling and flow calculations… The printer does everything itself. Load the filament, load the file and watch the magic happen. I was blown away at how simple it was after the manual requirements of Sovol printers. Now, when I start the day, all I do is load filament and wash build blades. The printers take care of everything else and my success rate exceeds 98%. You got a think about that! In contrast, I ruined the extruder on my first printer from Bambu Labs. My fault so I ordered a new heater assembly and hot end and installed them. The printer still had errors so I had to ask for help. I contacted Bambu and explained what I had done. They got data from my printer, analyzed it themselves, and determined that I had also damaged the extruder. How did they respond? They sent the required parts to me free of charge along with wonderful step-by-step instructions to repair my printer. That, is customer service. Back to back failures on Sovol printers both within 60 days of purchase or replacement… That’s not good. That’s not good in anybody’s book anywhere on the planet. As soon as I get my refund from Sovol, I will go buy another bambu Labs printer….. not because they’re perfect, but because they have common sense, and they do the right thing for the customer without a hassle or BS. And they don’t give dangerous advice! At the end of the day, that’s all that matters.
Update: the power supply wasn’t the issue and they wanted me to keep diagnosing crap after that didn’t fix it. I finally got fed up and started posting the story on their fanboy websites. One of the content influencers did not appreciate getting called out for lying about Sovol and how great they are. However, he investigated my claims, and found them to be true. To his credit, he went after Sovol and I got a new printer shipped within three days. I finally received the new printer in late June. Fast forward to the first week of September. Replacement Printer has catastrophic electrical failure in the middle of a print. Power switch is fused and the machine reacts to zero inputs. Sent Sovol an email detailing the failure, and the fact that the power switch was fused. Instead of advising me that they were sending a replacement printer, they offered to send me a new power supply???? How stupid is that? The electrical failure was substantial enough to fuse parts together and they wanted me to stick a new power supply in it… Absolutely asinine. Now that they have been called out for their stupidity, they want to send a refund. Instead of fixing their issues, they want to run. Guess that’s what happens when you get called out for incompetence. It took them so long to replace the first printer , I was forced to go find another supplier. My customers had a little concern for the printer problems. I found Bambu labs… And subsequently thanked Sovol for that. I have a fleet of bamboo printers now, and they are absolutely the bomb! No screwing around with bad, leveling and flow calculations… The printer does everything itself. Load the filament, load the file and watch the magic happen. I was blown away at how simple it was after the manual requirements of Sovol printers. Now, when I start the day, all I do is load filament and wash build blades. The printers take care of everything else and my success rate exceeds 98%. You got a think about that! In contrast, I ruined the extruder on my first printer from Bambu Labs. My fault so I ordered a new heater assembly and hot end and installed them. The printer still had errors so I had to ask for help. I contacted Bambu and explained what I had done. They got data from my printer, analyzed it themselves, and determined that I had also damaged the extruder. How did they respond? They sent the required parts to me free of charge along with wonderful step-by-step instructions to repair my printer. That, is customer service. Back to back failures on Sovol printers both within 60 days of purchase or replacement… That’s not good. That’s not good in anybody’s book anywhere on the planet. As soon as I get my refund from Sovol, I will go buy another bambu Labs printer….. not because they’re perfect, but because they have common sense, and they do the right thing for the customer without a hassle or BS. And they don’t give dangerous advice! At the end of the day, that’s all that matters.
Update: the power supply wasn’t the issue and they wanted me to keep diagnosing crap after that didn’t fix it. I finally got fed up and started posting the story on their fanboy websites. One of the content influencers did not appreciate getting called out for lying about Sovol and how great they are. However, he investigated my claims, and found them to be true. To his credit, he went after Sovol and I got a new printer shipped within three days. I finally received the new printer in late June. Fast forward to the first week of September. Replacement Printer has catastrophic electrical failure in the middle of a print. Power switch is fused and the machine reacts to zero inputs. Sent Sovol an email detailing the failure, and the fact that the power switch was fused. Instead of advising me that they were sending a replacement printer, they offered to send me a new power supply???? How stupid is that? The electrical failure was substantial enough to fuse parts together and they wanted me to stick a new power supply in it… Absolutely asinine. Now that they have been called out for their stupidity, they want to send a refund. Instead of fixing their issues, they want to run. Guess that’s what happens when you get called out for incompetence. It took them so long to replace the first printer , I was forced to go find another supplier. My customers had a little concern for the printer problems. I found Bambu labs… And subsequently thanked Sovol for that. I have a fleet of bamboo printers now, and they are absolutely the bomb! No screwing around with bad, leveling and flow calculations… The printer does everything itself. Load the filament, load the file and watch the magic happen. I was blown away at how simple it was after the manual requirements of Sovol printers. Now, when I start the day, all I do is load filament and wash build blades. The printers take care of everything else and my success rate exceeds 98%. You got a think about that! In contrast, I ruined the extruder on my first printer from Bambu Labs. My fault so I ordered a new heater assembly and hot end and installed them. The printer still had errors so I had to ask for help. I contacted Bambu and explained what I had done. They got data from my printer, analyzed it themselves, and determined that I had also damaged the extruder. How did they respond? They sent the required parts to me free of charge along with wonderful step-by-step instructions to repair my printer. That, is customer service. Back to back failures on Sovol printers both within 60 days of purchase or replacement… That’s not good. That’s not good in anybody’s book anywhere on the planet. As soon as I get my refund from Sovol, I will go buy another bambu Labs printer….. not because they’re perfect, but because they have common sense, and they do the right thing for the customer without a hassle or BS. And they don’t give dangerous advice! At the end of the day, that’s all that matters. 1:34
If I recall, Solvol was going to donate a couple of dollars per machine sold to the Voron project. As long as they keep it full open source, then I don't think there are any issues with this from licensing or anything like that. Solvol seem to be sticking to the full license agreements and that's fine in my mind. The machine is not overly expensive compared to similar machines on the market, and wit ha few firmware tweaks, some slicer profile tweaks and a few different nozzle options, this could really be a competitor for some of the closed source machines. I am considering replacing y Ender 5 Pro with one of these. Mainly because I am at the stage now where I am beyond playing printer upgrades and tweaking and prefer to just print good quality prints. It should fit nicely in my existing "tent" style enclosure, but I may also look into the Solvol enclosure as an option is it looks quite a clean solution
Why is it less ok to buy a sv08 than a voron kit? Whether I self source, buy a kit, or buy the sv08, the only way the team behind voron gets paid is if I myself donate. Where I get it from is almost irrelevant. Its down to ME to donate. And with the sv08 I have a lot more spare cash to donate with.
Thanks for this review! I want to love this printer more than the Bambu Lab offers. I'm in the market of upgrading my aging delta printer, and right now the main contenders are the BambuLab P1S and the Sovol SV08 (with enclosure). Lower on the list is Flashforge Adventurer 5M Pro, QiDi Q1 Pro and the Formbot Voron and Trodoon offers, but as it looks right now, the P1S and SV08 seem to offer the best balance for me.
Every printer has a trade off. The killer for me is the custom nozzles, I think that was a huge mistake. What they did with open source and donations to the Voron project is great though. I refuse to jump on the Bamboo wagon so will keep kicking my next one around. Still leaning towards a Qidi with heated chamber and klipper, I think it better suits my needs.
In my case it would be a better option than buying a Voron as I am absolutely hopeless at electronics and I struggle at the best of times with computers. So for us less technically minded its a good option and at a lower price bracket to ! Thank you for your review. Much appreciated!
Thankyou Angus for reviewing this machine. I've seen a couple of reviews of this machine, which were enough to get my attention, but I wasn't sure I trusted the reviewers. Your reviews, I trust. I'm going to be buying my first 3-D printer for a project I want to prototype, and the large bed size and speed on this unit are of significant interest to me. Do you think a first timer could manage this machine without pulling all their hair out in frustration? Also... I realize that you would be guessing, but do you think that this machine would work with something like ASA or ABS, once an enclosure was added? Again, thank for all the videos you've done. I've learned a lot from them.
ok .. I think this is my next printer :) As most ppl who like printers I own a few and while there is space in the house for more, I dont have enough ;) I like everything about this printer, but the main reason im choosing this one over other avilable is the open source route they take ... I really like that i could print replacements and having the step file is just awesome ! So i feel this one is totally worth the money :)
Love the printer. Im actually thinking of getting one. My only complaint is that is how proprietary the extruder assembly seems. Maybe someone will come out with a mod for it later
I'm happy to see Sovol building the Voron. There's plenty of people that want to try one but don't have the time to research & build one. Personally I'd like to see a direct drive option with a more standard hot end. This looks like a good printer though, and the price isn't bad.
Leveling Method: Inductive Sensor + pressure Sensor ? What ? How ? and Why is nobody talking about it ? Temperature drift on this sensor ? And shurely sombebody will bring out Nozzles right ? I really want to print CF sooner or later Like the head is detachable, but can it be changed to something more Universal ?
try reducing wobble further with one giant heavy paver, or maybe a set of 4 large pavers, from Bunnings, placing it between the carpet and the bench feet
the proprietary nature of the high speed printers has been a deal breaker for me so far, so seeing something like this makes me very happy, i'll keep an eye on this one while they iron out some of the issues
7:18 - you mention whispy stringing possibly caused by the hot end and cooling fan speed. What can be done about this, I have the same issue after installing a better fan on my SV06
Vorons are some of the best printers and are the only ones that can rival bambu. Before this, getting a Voron 2.4 would cost you a lot more time and money. I love how much more approachable they’ve made the 2.4
Not even close. Firstly, Voroms require much more attention to own and especially build. They have no official auto z offset calibration and scoffed at it for a while till it became obvious everyone wanted it and now theyre working on it. Secondly, Ratrig exists and the Vcore 4 seems awesome. Thats not saying Vorons are bad, and even Ratrigs require more effort than BBLs but just that I think peoppe need to know open source fast printers exist other than vorons. Let me also throw vzbots in the ring too, though those are more about utterly deranged high end speed.
Thanks for the great review. I've been monitoring these voron inspired printers and there is another one in the same segment : troodon 2.0. unfortunately there aren't a great many reviews of them out there.
How consistent is the bed leveling? One of the main things i love about my p1s is the bed leveling. it nevers needs an offset change. the hotend is a huge dealbreaker for me tho, Plus I couldn't find hardened nozzles?!
A lot of people in the 3d printing space might not remember or be aware of how important open source is to the existence of 3d printing as we know it, and it's always good to remind ourselves of this, reward companies who maintain it, and avoid this who don't. And if we do accept the benefits of open source, we also need to accept it's getting far more difficult for open source to function commercially in this space. This is why I do not support Bambulabs. In a perfect world, all printers would be made from standard parts that could be sourced from at least two independent manufacturers, but as people demand increasingly absurd printing speeds, that becomes impossible. People need to think a bit about what they actually _need_ from a printer. Instant gratification, or long-term sustainability. If your printer has a proprietary hotend to meet speed demands and that company stops selling that hotend, your fast printer is suddenly not that fast after all.
I have the Formbot Troodon 2.0, same idea….. Voron 2.4 based printer. It is based on rep rap firmware which makes tuning more difficult for getting rid of ringing but the Voron design is solid…
Wow! Oh my God, I laughed out loud,(lol) for real, when I saw you hanging that 3-D printer! That almost a good idea, however, I don’t think I’m going to attempt the same myself anytime soon!
Great review my friend. The kitty print at the end was amazing, so realistic! 🤣 @shanemshort, I agree completely. Sovol did the right thing by donating back to the Voron project and keeping this open source. The proprietary hotend is a little disappointing, but they needed to keep it affordable so you have to expect a few sacrifices. This is not aimed at being a replacement for a quality Voron kit, it is aimed at someone who can't afford, doesn't want to source and build, or isn't able to build a real one and I think they nailed it.
Seems like an awesome printer. One of the reasons I love my Ender 3 and CR-10 so much, is that they are open source and easy to modify. The SV08 is at the very least open source, so I am wondering how well it would be to modify. Could you fit parts meant for the Voron onto this machine? Or would you have to adjust/redesign everything, that you want for this new printer? If one could just upgrade/sidegrade to an original Voron hotend, extruder and fan shroud at any point, when their nozzles may become unobtainable, then that would simply fix the whole issue/risk, wouldn't it? Parts for a Stealthburner can be ordered as a kit from China for 30-40€ (idk how well made each of these is, but I assume they are good enough and one would at most upgrade one or two small parts later)
Excellent review Angus! I really didn't like the marketing for this one, it left a bad taste in my mouth, and showed me how their lack of understanding and respect to the community really is. The questionable support and ongoing lack of support/parts and future proofing from sovol is a grave concern of mine also. The comgrow acquisition (if that really was a thing) showed that ongoing support of their recently launched line up lacked all substance. New people coming into the hobby and having struggles due to manufactures short cuts, and want to just move on post release is simply toxic, lacking mostly in any innovation.. I hope they work on those elements and come back stronger, we will see the next model in 6 months so lets look forward to that.
This printer has a potential fatal design flaw. I have been a product and machine design engineer for 40 years. The plastic bed mounts to a plastic chassis. You don't need to be an engineer to figure out this is an unstable inappropriate materials choice. My bed is badly warped and the ABL cannot compensate. So I get prints where the nozzle crushes the filament in one area and prints loose and to high in another. People who buy this printer would typically do so because it has a large bed but its of no use in you cant get a decent first layer. Based on my experience I would recommend against purchasing this unit. If you just print small parts like the benchy it will likely do well but try to print anything larger and it may be very problematic.
All-metal hotend? And can you print without Z-hop? I was hearing some things about prints getting knocked off the bed while printing. Also, I would probably not consider buying this printer unless I'm gonna be replacing the hotend or even the entire printhead
@MakersMuse I like the wobbly table. Honestly, you should try to make the table extremely unstable as a joke. Like a 3d printer on top of ball bearings. BTW, I would have bought this printer however, the same day it was announced my trident kit shipped from Magic phoenix.
You do not have to rely on any spare parts from sovol. With everything available as step-files, you can print every mechanic part wich isn´t standard. While they are designed for injection molding, at least all smaler parts could be SLS-printed, so you could get them without changing them for FDM printability. Even the coldend can be printed from aluminium for a reasonable price - The next layer even made a Revo version as a drop-in replacement (actually this is a game-changer for me, as you get the same speed with high-flow Revo, but can use a Standard-flow Revo nozzle if you want to use a filament changer to avoid the waste of cut&poo). He also replaced his toolboard by one from BTT, so no problem here at all. You do not depend on Sovol to service the printer for years. Only downside at the moment: Delivery times. I wait for more than 2 months now. The mainboard seems to be an MKS-SKIPR OEM-Version. You could replace it by a MKS-Skipr or any other board. You might have to edit the configs and do some work (depends on wich alternative board you choose), but you can replace it. So I do not think there is any problem with special parts here.
The community needs to figure out what they actually want. You can't decry companies taking open source designs, iterating on them and releasing them-- but in the same breath getting upset at Bambu and everyone being closed source and proprietary.
The Voron team released everything under a license that allows this, Sovol have done the right thing and been *completely* open and also mentioned they're going to donate a portion of the sales to the Voron Team. This is *exactly* what we should be *encouraging* manufacturers to do. It creates a healthy and sustainable ecosystem around open source hardware. Angus makes the comment that the nozzle is proprietary, that's fine-- because the gantry is a standard 2.4 gantry for all intents and purposes, so you can print and install a dragon burner, or stealthburner or whatever compatible toolhead you want. Don't like the inductive probe? Install Tap or Beacon or Cartographer. Just because they're doing something different that makes manufacturing easier or more cost effective it doesn't make it bad.
If we don't embrace companies who are making genuine efforts to do the right thing, we'll just end up with closed source bambu clones and no-one wants that.
1000%
I think the main problem with Bambu is that they obviously use a modified open source firmware but haven't published the modifications to my knowledge.
I think what Sovol did here is great and there will soon be tons of upgrades around for this printer. The only people who really lose are those who sell voron 2.4 kits.
@@FreeOfFantasy Bambu printers are nice, its there practices as a company that makes me stay away and not recomend them.
@@FreeOfFantasy It worked for DJI copying multiwii and Bambu was founded by guys from DJI it's literally the exact same thing I saw happen probably 15 years ago being done by people from the same company none the less. It makes me sick the amount of people back then with DJI and now today with Bambu who say they don't care if they copied the work of the community because it's a good printer.
@@stevedegeorge726 Fair enough, but I hope you are avoiding Microsoft, Google and TH-cam as well, as their practices are much worse :)
As many other commenters have noted, I think this was the "best case scenario" approach to mass producing the Voron design. It's far less expensive than buying a kit (not to mention the hours saved on assembly), it still remains completely open source (STEP files were a great touch), and they're paying homage to the Voron team.
SOVOL deserves their flowers for this one. The only thing I'm waiting on is a review discussing its performance once it's enclosed. Regardless, at this price I'm still positive I will be purchasing one in the very near future.
I have ome on order snce late last week. I have also ordered it with the enclosure. I will call back here and let you all know how things panned out.
Cheers.
Mike
Agreed. For the most part this went as well as one could expect. Communication was bumpy, but in the end we got access to an affordable large volume core-xy printer, based on one of the best designs out there, that continues to be open. It has quirks, but it's an exciting new base to do some amazing work with.
@@mikeskerritt9618I ordered one at launch but currently shipping times are delayed. Let’s hope any of us get one within a month or two
@@mikeskerritt9618 Have you had any luck?
Nice job Angus. I have been unsure over whether or not I wanted to review this. Shout out to Rat Rig for also releasing full CAD models, although they are a kit you assemble rather than a one hour job. Also, don't let the police catch working dangerously in bare feet. I'd recommend some safety thongs as per Australian law.
I don't understand why you would not want to review this? No-one has been able to accurately articulate what is wrong with what they're doing here.
They've taken something that's open source, made changes to it, released those changes and made a product from it-- contributing back with both the source *and* financially to the community that produced the original works. This is *exactly* what should happen in a healthy open source ecosystem and what open source should be about. I would argue they're doing more for the Voron ecosystem than the countless kits from the likes of LDO who are doing very little beyond packaging up someone else's work and selling it.
I'm not attempting to attack anyone here, I genuinely want to understand what people's issue is here.
Sorry but why exactly would a commercial fork of a Voron not deserve a review? I think it's an amazing entry point for all voron buyers, and should also inspire voron/community to make a more budget version.
Calling this a fork is wrong. It's a different design altogether.
@@ucirello No, calling it a fork is exactly right. They took an open source design and modified it, that's what a fork is.
@@shanemshort I think it has to do with the drama around the printer itself. From what I understand, the old Voron twitter/X account was hijacked by a former team member and said person has been stirring the pot over the SV08.
As for the kits, I always looked at them as a convenience for getting the parts you needed to assemble the printer. They are doing the work of part sourcing for you, and that, to me, is a worthwhile service. You can argue that Sovol is doing more by iterating on the design, but I'd say it's six of one, half-dozen of the other.
I downloaded the full machine model and imported it into FreeCAD. Worked great! This is a huge deal. Anyone can now start with exact measurements and make modified or new parts for the machine without having to reverse-engineer it. Perfect for those who want a bare bones solid foundation to build on. If Sovol are able to avoid major quality issues, this machine will become a massive hit.
SOVOL are the first company to give $2 per sale for each printer sold to Voron community.
Not a lot, but first time.
And you should've mentioned it.
Loved the vid. Already bought one and waiting to be shipped :)
@@KaliKavala they've donated several thousand dollars to Voron. That's a huge commitment, and a first from a manufacturer.
Really loved your take on it, plus, STEP FILES!!! Holy cats, that's beyond great!
Holy cats at 12:59 😅
I dont get the hate on sv08 for using voron as a base. Voron guys did make voron knowing that they wouldnt make any money out of it(other than patreon). Sovol used the design, improved it, made it mass producible*, put it on open source, donates money to voron for every sold sovol(which they didnt have to do) and made the machine cheap for its specs. Plus its fully open source again.
So again, is this something people should really hate? I even see people complaining how little money they are giving to voron team. Imagine if they sold 100k of these machines, that means 100k dollars donated.
And when you think the cost of voron and the effort to building it, this is perfect machine for (tool) category.
I'd prefer if it was more like 5$-10$, but in general I totally agree with you!
@@MUuulerOriginal the problem with that they will lose a lot of money. If i remember its 2 per machine and thats happy medium
@@yzkn8848 Charge $5 more then. Problem solved.
@@MUuulerOriginalthe voron team doesn't even want the money from what I heard
This is the sort of thing I'd hope @Makersmuse would retract honestly.
What made the Ender 3 great? Hint, it wasn't Chinese manufacturing. Well, not only.
I have to commend Sovol for staying true to the open source roots of the Voron project and not simply making a closed proprietary clone.
I can live with the few concessions they've made to make this easier to mass produce and deliver good print results at a price point and I'm sure that in time there will be adaptors for standard nozzles.
Very excited to see this released!
I am pretty impressed by Sovol's attitude as a company.
Awesome stuff, this is kind of the open source dream come true. It does not exist so people "have to do it themselves", that is merely a downside. To have people willing to make products with the "nobody can own data" mindset, is a Godsend. It also fits so well in the 3D printing community where everybody is already working together to try and help each other get the best possible outcomes. It's how everything should be, it's not to stifle commerce but to help it flourish.
Love the degree to which they followed the open source mentality!
Yes, they made a commercial product largely based on other people's work, but unlike other manufacturers, they are keeping their work open, too!
I started 3D printing when we had to build a 3D printer because there weren't any commercially available hobby printers. The SV08 is my 12th 3D printer. Here is my lengthy opinion on the SV08, for the prospective SV08 buyer. Short answer: It's a good shortcut to get most of the features of a Voron 2.4 at a third of the price without 40 hours of building, but it has some issues and isn't a good first printer for someone who doesn't want to tinker and just wants a reliable 3D printer out of the box.
Sovol got a lot right when adapting the open source Voron 2.4 to be a relatively low cost consumer version of this advanced large volume flying gantry coreXY 3D printer, and they deserve credit for all of the engineering changes they made so the SV08 is suitable for manufacturing and to reduce cost. Sovol deserves huge credit for keeping the design open source, even to the extent of supplying STEP files for all mechanical parts. This was a large part of the reason I bought an SV08, and look favorably on all Sovol products. In most cases, Sovol made good engineering decisions, but there are some issues with the SV08. Probably half of the problems were the result of excessive cost savings, beyond what was prudent. In a few instances, the Sovol engineers were penny wise and pound foolish. In those cases, their customers would have gladly paid the difference in price for less problems and/or better performance. Some of the other SV08 issues had nothing to do with cost cutting and were the result of time to market, where there isn't time to resolve even known issues before shipping the product, much less extensive alpha and beta testing to refine the product before release.
1) The aluminum print bed is too thin. It's warped slightly more than 1 mm across the bed surface, resulting in problems establishing a uniform first layer on large prints. The problem is exacerbated because the warped surface changes when the bed is heated. The warped bed is rigidly mounted to the base so there is no way to shim it to level it, so owners attempt to fix the "taco bed" by drilling holes in the magnetic sheet to access the screws, removing the thin bed and installing 3D printed spacers to level the bed and pre-tension it to compensate for the thermal expansion warping which varies significantly between 65C and 95C. Sovol should have specified a 10 mm thick stress relieved cast aluminum plate (MIC6 or equivalent) and mounted it with springs, with the mounting screws accessible so the magnetic build surface can be removed and the mounting screws can be adjusted to level the bed and fine tune the very minor thermal warping in a thicker stress relieved bed. The aftermarket should offer a thicker cast bed upgrade. Sovol is expecting the bed mesh Z offset compensation to do miracles, but it can't.
2) The inductive probe doesn't produce sufficiently accurate and repeatable bed mesh results, further exacerbating the first layer problems previously described. Users are modifying their tool heads to remove the inductive sensor and replacing it with a contact sensor. Sovol should have probably used a contact sensor for greater accuracy. It would also prevent a crash when calibrating Z height when forgetting to replace the magnetic spring steel build surface.
3) Most people don't like the clicky knob character LCD user interface. It seems cheap on a modern 3D pritner with these high end features. Rotating the knob doesn't always move the display to the next menu item and sometimes it skips ahead two items. Clicking the knob doesn't always select the menu item and it often needs 2-3 knob pushes. Probably half of the users are buying a 5" touch screen user interface that attaches to a USB port and HDMI port. The Big Tree Tech 5" user interface costs $45 retail, so Sovol should have provided a modern touch screen graphical user interface. Users would have been happy to pay the small difference in cost with a decent profit added.
4) Many users don't like editing wifi.cfg and writing it to a USB drive to set the WiFi login credentials. I thought it was a reasonable solution to avoid trying to enter that information on a clicky knob character LCD user interface, but I was among the majority of users for whom the WiFi never worked. I was forced to buy a WiFi bridge and plug it into the ethernet port for data and the USB port for power. Maybe adding an external WiFi antenna as many 3D printers have instead of a tiny antenna behind the aluminum motherboard shield would fix the WiFi connection problems. Maybe the built-in WiFi only works with the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz band? Maybe a firmware upgrade might fix the problem?
5) Some users had nozzles pushed out of the hot end when printing PETG with its higher pressure. Sovol fixed this by adding a set screw to retain the nozzle. Every manufacturer creates a slightly different high flow nozzle. All are similar to the Volcano nozzle but we're forced to buy a slightly different proprietary nozzle that won't work on any other printer. Replacing the hot end with a MicroSwiss hot end results in a high quality and known good hot end that uses the MicroSwiss FlowTech nozzles that can be cold swapped without removing and reinstalling the heater and thermistor. The nozzles are then compatible with all other printers once they have the MicroSwiss hot end installed. Installing the MicroSwiss hot end is as easy as changing the original manufacturer's nozzle that requires the heater and thermistor to be removed and reinstalled without damaging them. One the MicroSwiss hot end is installed, the nozzle can be swapped in a minute, using only one hand and a 7mm nut driver.
6) The web camera doesn't always work. Sovol has a page devoted to the problem. They advise checking to ensure the plug is fully connected as some units shipped with hot glue preventing the connectors to be seated properly. Then Sovol recommends ensuring the other end of the USB cable is properly connected to the motherboard, and if that doesn't work, try plugging it into the USB port on the side of the printer. If that doesn't work, try deleting and reinstalling the camera in Klipper. If that doesn't work, sometimes reflashing the MCU will fix it. Sovol would appreciate any info you have on the problem. In other words, hopefully the community will figure out what's wrong and fix it. My camera didn't work. I upgraded the printer's firmware to 2.3.3 and the camera worked. A few hours later it stopped working again. This isn't a problem for me because my printer is next to my computer but this would be a big problem for anyone trying to manage a print farm, or for people who want to use the phone app to remotely monitor a long print job. I would have much rather had a better printer user interface than a camera I don't need that doesn't work. I'll unplug the camera to ensure privacy and security.
7) There is a small LED lighting strip inside the top frame, in the front, on the right side. It's marginal. A brighter strip running the full length of the front would have been much better. Bright strips on the front, left and right sides would have been better still. I ordered the 24 V LED strip so I can upgrade the lighting.
8) The double bearing spool holder seems nice but stiff filaments tend to unspool and tangle. Sovol published a de-tangle mod, based on the many user mods to fix this problem. This begs the question, did Sovol test this printer before shipping it? Did they only test with PLA? This wasn't an issue for me because I print a lot of TPU so I feed it from above with no reverse Bowden tube to cause drag, so I'm not using the SV08 reel holder. However, eliminating the reverse Bowden tube allows the extruder cable to droop and drag so I needed to design and 3D print a custom cable chain to stiffen the cable to ensure it remains in a uniform vertical arc.
9) The bed preheating before quad gantry leveling, Z height calibration and bed mesh probing all uses 65 C, but many people are printing PETG, ABS, TPU, or other materials with different bed temperatures, so the bed warps after the calibrations are done. The calibrations should be done at the same bed temperatures that are used during printing, and the nozzle should be heated as well, but not enough to allow plastic to drool. Some users modify their config files to pre-heat the bed to the temperature used for printing.
10) The filament run out sensor is mounted to the reel holder. It dangles down, like an after thought. Modern 3D printers should integrate a tiny optical filament run out sensor to the top of the direct drive extruder. This would make filament loading easier and would use all of the available filament rather than leaving a reverse Bowden tube full of filament that must be cleared. When the filament is all used, the extruder should immediately unload 20 mm of filament to clear the hot end and provide a short piece that the user can grab to remove the 50 mm stub of filament.
My SV08 arrived today. I waited for the initial bugs to be squashed and for the price to drop a bit, delaying my purchase until just before my winter product design cycle. I love that it's a large volume fast high quality coreXY printer that's commercial open source. Kudos to the Voron development team for making this possible. I replaced the motherboard fan with a quieter and more reliable Noctua fan, and I swapped to a MicroSwiss hot end, mostly so I can use MicroSwiss FlowTech nozzles that can be cold swapped without removing and replacing the heater and thermistor and getting thermal paste all over my fingers. The cylindrical heater on the MicroSwiss hot end does provide a slightly higher flow rate and the nozzle manufacturing is higher quality with slightly better print quality and longevity. I'm going to design a 3D printed enclosure in lieu of the nice $150 enclosure from Sovol or the various designs on Printables, neither of which met my needs.
I mostly print TPU for the current products but I will probably have a dedicated SV08 configured for ABS or PETG-CF when I develop a different line of products.
Open Source is Open Source. As long as the licence is respected, you"re welcome to do whatever you want, including opening your fork.
There is talk about adapting the Daksh-bolt to this machine. It would potentially make it a 5 tool head machine in the $1000 range.
Sovol seems to be hitting all the right steps for me at least. While I have found the performance of Bambu printers impressive, I pretty much reject any option that isn't open.
I'm definitely in need of a new printer, but it will be a while before I make any purchases. I hope that the TPU challenges can be overcome.
As far as being based on the Voron, that's fine. From the comments I see that they are contributing to the Voron project based on units sold which is frankly exceptional.
12:30 Any initiative to make 3D printing more capable and accessible is a win, for me. There's no violation of any open-source licensing, nor any bad behaviour AFAICT (like modifying and closing the source, not contributing to the original project, etc). The project is open-source. They're even donating back to the Voron Project. This is absolutely the right thing to do. There's nothing to be suspect about -- in fact, this kind of questioning makes no sense and may be even a bit detrimental to the community, they did nothing wrong, and are not acting on bad faith.
The Sovol SV08 is the printer I was waiting for, to escape the closed-source trap that is Bamboo (or even Creality recently), etc. Too bad I just bought a SV06 a while ago, so no budget for a new printer for the time being... :(
The only issue I have with it was using the voron name in marketing. Everything else was good
I think this is fantastic. I wanted to go the route of the Voron but the price is much higher than I wanted to spend and I didn't want to spend weeks building the machine. This is the best compromise in my opinion. Great price for a very capable machine even if it has a few areas that you may want to upgrade.
I've got to say, I think that's really cool the way they open source everything and then provide with full drafts of their machines. That would definitely make me lean that direction on my next printer. However, having a proprietary nozzle makes me lean back the other way. I guess I'll have to do a little looking into it and see if there is a way to retrofit another type of nozzle just in case the company dissappears. IDK, maybe I'm overthinking it.
It’s time to design and sell a printer, Angus! Partner with a manufacturer who will give you full control over the final product and I’ll be first in line for the Kickstarter. You earned my trust years ago and I want the printer that checks all your boxes; I’m sure others feel the same. Take my money and do it! 😁
The boxes to be checked depends on your purpose. You don't need a 40cm^3, tool changer, 90° heated enclosure, direct drive, water cooled printer for every print.
For that table, they make spiked feet for speakers that could be used to keep things from wobbling about.
You beat me to it!
WHAT?! Holy smokes, well done Sovol! They’ve really been impressing me lately with their printers, and this takes the cake.
Great review, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never did. Well, no hardened steel nozzle right now is a bummer, but if they come sometime soon, I think it wouldn’t be too bad.
Honestly, this is what open source is about. Companies SHOULD use it to make good products for people like me which don't have time building a printer from scratch.
Sovol is also donating $2 to the Voron project for every sv08 they sell!
Pretty cool move imho
Pay my thoughts no mind but that has the same energy as "a small loan of a million dollars"
@@guestc142 More like the multi-billion dollar supermarkets asking if you, the consumer, want to donate $1 to "help feed hungry kids"...
Don't get me wrong, any donation is greatly appreciated, but maybe they should donate like, $20 per machine sold, instead of just $2. That seems like a much bigger deal.
Funny enough, the Litter Robot brand of auto-cleaning cat boxes had a "promo" where you could buy their latest generation of Litter Robot + some accessories and they would "donate" to an animal rescue society. But when you click on the item in their store, it says they'll donate $7 per unit sold. The package is ~$800.
other comments have said that Voron has refused these donations
@@guestc142 to be fair to Sovol it is a 0.3% donation
@@cpufreak101you shouldn't just blindly believe everything you see on the internet
Voron refused an official partnership while saying they will take donations as usual
They just didn't want to give sovol the right to call it a voron
1:55 I need to log a formal complaint! Why have we not been properly introduced to your very cute assistant already? 😸
Thanks for the review Angus!
I never lept in to Vorons but was getting ready to. The SV08 is my ideal option. A great bootstrap machine that I can iterate on pretty easily. My problem now is too many printers! I have a really hard time letting go of old tech. :/
I've always wanted a Voron but honestly they are just far too complicated and time consuming to build and tune, and I am a dedicated diy'er with a full machine and welding shop. When you can buy machines as good as a Bambu or K1 for much less money, the diy route just doesn't make sense unless you just enjoy tinkering with them. Also consider that the firms selling Voron kits are also in it for profit and don't contribute anything additional to the Voron project. Hats off to Sovol. More companies like that please.
If only there were some sort of machine that could be used to manufacture custom table feet with carpet grabbing spikes 😊. Thanks for the great review. I’d love to see reviews of these fast printers include a look at the print quality when the are slowed down, ideally to speeds that match printers hobbyist are more familiar with. What do the prints look like when when optimizing for print quality without worrying about speed?
About the overextrusion issue. My SV06 does the exact same thing. I think it's just how they tune the default extrusion multiplier at SOVOL.
Thank you for continuing to provide honest reviews. You are providing incredible value to the community. Can you please do a review on the Chameleon 3d? More people need to know about that awesome machine.
Somebody posted one of these on the voron reddit trying to get a serial number for a Voron 2.4. Needless to say, it didn't qualify
Lmaoo
But why?😊
lots of printers for ants machines get serials....
In the tech community, the Voron crowd is one of the most strange groups of people I’ve ever had the displeasure of interacting with.
@@LeftJoystick as a multiple voron owner.. wat?
13:04 That a Cute cat, It's like cat saying 'Ready for the Pic! See I'm cute.'
Super great that they publish step files, while not source they still are very nice and in some regards better than obscure closed source cad files.
Wonder when they will start producing hardened nozzles for it
Also the enclosure sure does add quite a lot of extra cost to it.
10:59 for now, if rather have a multi part open source system that can be taken apart and rebuilt. No single company going under will cut the supply and even if nobody makes them anymore you can still get them machined.
Pretty nice price point for what you get. Anyhow this is the nature of the open source license - they licensed it this way specifically so companies like Sovol could make it easier for end users like us to get into Voron printer.
Just to be clear, it's a Sovol SV08, not "Sovol Voron 2.4".
The price point on this is simply incredible. The fully opensource with step files, doubly so, Some part of me feels like it cheapens the voron experience, but that is exactly the point and that i just have the wrong attitude about it, Nothing about this printer locks you into a closed eco system, it lets new comers get their feet wet with voron tech for a fraction of the price, anyone who wants the full voron experience can always built a 2.4 or whatever subsequent variations come down the line, and this newfound accessibility to such a powerful opensource platform opens the doors to new contributions from people who may previously been too intimidated to build or unable to afford entry to such a hobby. Overall very pleased with Sovols Approach.
Sovol went on the correct path! And after all this is what open source is about "have an idea, make it open to everyone who can ad to it, benefit from other peoples contributions".
Unfortunately, nobody talks about customer support when it comes to Soval . This aspect is conveniently, ignored by all of the fanboys who are lining their pockets, touting great reliability… Which is all BS. Until you have had to deal with this company on a failed unit, do not comment. You know absolutely nothing if you are an influencer getting special treatment. Regular customers don’t enjoy any customer service at Sovol . My SV07 plus broke down almost 3 months ago. I’ve got 20 emails, but no parts or support. They claim to be sending a power supply… The shipping label was created on 25 May. It is now 16 June and they have shipped nothing. Don’t fall for it. Nobody gets support except these guys pushing the products.
i broke the screen on a sv02 and it was after warranty and besides the fact i had to talk to them at like 2in the morning they were cool sent me a new screen right away
Update: the power supply wasn’t the issue and they wanted me to keep diagnosing crap after that didn’t fix it. I finally got fed up and started posting the story on their fanboy websites. One of the content influencers did not appreciate getting called out for lying about Sovol and how great they are. However, he investigated my claims, and found them to be true. To his credit, he went after Sovol and I got a new printer shipped within three days.
I finally received the new printer in late June. Fast forward to the first week of September. Replacement Printer has catastrophic electrical failure in the middle of a print. Power switch is fused and the machine reacts to zero inputs. Sent Sovol an email detailing the failure, and the fact that the power switch was fused. Instead of advising me that they were sending a replacement printer, they offered to send me a new power supply???? How stupid is that? The electrical failure was substantial enough to fuse parts together and they wanted me to stick a new power supply in it… Absolutely asinine.
Now that they have been called out for their stupidity, they want to send a refund. Instead of fixing their issues, they want to run. Guess that’s what happens when you get called out for incompetence. It took them so long to replace the first printer , I was forced to go find another supplier. My customers had a little concern for the printer problems. I found Bambu labs… And subsequently thanked Sovol for that. I have a fleet of Bambu printers now, and they are absolutely the bomb! No screwing around with bad, leveling and flow calculations… The printer does everything itself. Load the filament, load the file and watch the magic happen. I was blown away at how simple it was after the manual requirements of Sovol printers. Now, when I start the day, all I do is load filament and wash build blades. The printers take care of everything else and my success rate exceeds 98%. You got a think about that!
In contrast, I ruined the extruder on my first printer from Bambu Labs. My fault so I ordered a new heater assembly and hot end and installed them. The printer still had errors so I had to ask for help. I contacted Bambu and explained what I had done. They got data from my printer, analyzed it themselves, and determined that I had also damaged the extruder. How did they respond? They sent the required parts to me free of charge along with wonderful step-by-step instructions to repair my printer. That, is customer service.
Back to back failures on Sovol printers both within 60 days of purchase or replacement… That’s not good. That’s not good in anybody’s book anywhere on the planet. As soon as I get my refund from Sovol, I will go buy another bambu Labs printer….. not because they’re perfect, but because they have common sense, and they do the right thing for the customer without a hassle or BS. And they don’t give dangerous advice! At the end of the day, that’s all that matters.
@@bradleyfletcher5562 Update: the power supply wasn’t the issue and they wanted me to keep diagnosing crap after that didn’t fix it. I finally got fed up and started posting the story on their fanboy websites. One of the content influencers did not appreciate getting called out for lying about Sovol and how great they are. However, he investigated my claims, and found them to be true. To his credit, he went after Sovol and I got a new printer shipped within three days.
I finally received the new printer in late June. Fast forward to the first week of September. Replacement Printer has catastrophic electrical failure in the middle of a print. Power switch is fused and the machine reacts to zero inputs. Sent Sovol an email detailing the failure, and the fact that the power switch was fused. Instead of advising me that they were sending a replacement printer, they offered to send me a new power supply???? How stupid is that? The electrical failure was substantial enough to fuse parts together and they wanted me to stick a new power supply in it… Absolutely asinine.
Now that they have been called out for their stupidity, they want to send a refund. Instead of fixing their issues, they want to run. Guess that’s what happens when you get called out for incompetence. It took them so long to replace the first printer , I was forced to go find another supplier. My customers had a little concern for the printer problems. I found Bambu labs… And subsequently thanked Sovol for that. I have a fleet of bamboo printers now, and they are absolutely the bomb! No screwing around with bad, leveling and flow calculations… The printer does everything itself. Load the filament, load the file and watch the magic happen. I was blown away at how simple it was after the manual requirements of Sovol printers. Now, when I start the day, all I do is load filament and wash build blades. The printers take care of everything else and my success rate exceeds 98%. You got a think about that!
In contrast, I ruined the extruder on my first printer from Bambu Labs. My fault so I ordered a new heater assembly and hot end and installed them. The printer still had errors so I had to ask for help. I contacted Bambu and explained what I had done. They got data from my printer, analyzed it themselves, and determined that I had also damaged the extruder. How did they respond? They sent the required parts to me free of charge along with wonderful step-by-step instructions to repair my printer. That, is customer service.
Back to back failures on Sovol printers both within 60 days of purchase or replacement… That’s not good. That’s not good in anybody’s book anywhere on the planet. As soon as I get my refund from Sovol, I will go buy another bambu Labs printer….. not because they’re perfect, but because they have common sense, and they do the right thing for the customer without a hassle or BS. And they don’t give dangerous advice! At the end of the day, that’s all that matters.
Update: the power supply wasn’t the issue and they wanted me to keep diagnosing crap after that didn’t fix it. I finally got fed up and started posting the story on their fanboy websites. One of the content influencers did not appreciate getting called out for lying about Sovol and how great they are. However, he investigated my claims, and found them to be true. To his credit, he went after Sovol and I got a new printer shipped within three days.
I finally received the new printer in late June. Fast forward to the first week of September. Replacement Printer has catastrophic electrical failure in the middle of a print. Power switch is fused and the machine reacts to zero inputs. Sent Sovol an email detailing the failure, and the fact that the power switch was fused. Instead of advising me that they were sending a replacement printer, they offered to send me a new power supply???? How stupid is that? The electrical failure was substantial enough to fuse parts together and they wanted me to stick a new power supply in it… Absolutely asinine.
Now that they have been called out for their stupidity, they want to send a refund. Instead of fixing their issues, they want to run. Guess that’s what happens when you get called out for incompetence. It took them so long to replace the first printer , I was forced to go find another supplier. My customers had a little concern for the printer problems. I found Bambu labs… And subsequently thanked Sovol for that. I have a fleet of bamboo printers now, and they are absolutely the bomb! No screwing around with bad, leveling and flow calculations… The printer does everything itself. Load the filament, load the file and watch the magic happen. I was blown away at how simple it was after the manual requirements of Sovol printers. Now, when I start the day, all I do is load filament and wash build blades. The printers take care of everything else and my success rate exceeds 98%. You got a think about that!
In contrast, I ruined the extruder on my first printer from Bambu Labs. My fault so I ordered a new heater assembly and hot end and installed them. The printer still had errors so I had to ask for help. I contacted Bambu and explained what I had done. They got data from my printer, analyzed it themselves, and determined that I had also damaged the extruder. How did they respond? They sent the required parts to me free of charge along with wonderful step-by-step instructions to repair my printer. That, is customer service.
Back to back failures on Sovol printers both within 60 days of purchase or replacement… That’s not good. That’s not good in anybody’s book anywhere on the planet. As soon as I get my refund from Sovol, I will go buy another bambu Labs printer….. not because they’re perfect, but because they have common sense, and they do the right thing for the customer without a hassle or BS. And they don’t give dangerous advice! At the end of the day, that’s all that matters.
Update: the power supply wasn’t the issue and they wanted me to keep diagnosing crap after that didn’t fix it. I finally got fed up and started posting the story on their fanboy websites. One of the content influencers did not appreciate getting called out for lying about Sovol and how great they are. However, he investigated my claims, and found them to be true. To his credit, he went after Sovol and I got a new printer shipped within three days.
I finally received the new printer in late June. Fast forward to the first week of September. Replacement Printer has catastrophic electrical failure in the middle of a print. Power switch is fused and the machine reacts to zero inputs. Sent Sovol an email detailing the failure, and the fact that the power switch was fused. Instead of advising me that they were sending a replacement printer, they offered to send me a new power supply???? How stupid is that? The electrical failure was substantial enough to fuse parts together and they wanted me to stick a new power supply in it… Absolutely asinine.
Now that they have been called out for their stupidity, they want to send a refund. Instead of fixing their issues, they want to run. Guess that’s what happens when you get called out for incompetence. It took them so long to replace the first printer , I was forced to go find another supplier. My customers had a little concern for the printer problems. I found Bambu labs… And subsequently thanked Sovol for that. I have a fleet of bamboo printers now, and they are absolutely the bomb! No screwing around with bad, leveling and flow calculations… The printer does everything itself. Load the filament, load the file and watch the magic happen. I was blown away at how simple it was after the manual requirements of Sovol printers. Now, when I start the day, all I do is load filament and wash build blades. The printers take care of everything else and my success rate exceeds 98%. You got a think about that!
In contrast, I ruined the extruder on my first printer from Bambu Labs. My fault so I ordered a new heater assembly and hot end and installed them. The printer still had errors so I had to ask for help. I contacted Bambu and explained what I had done. They got data from my printer, analyzed it themselves, and determined that I had also damaged the extruder. How did they respond? They sent the required parts to me free of charge along with wonderful step-by-step instructions to repair my printer. That, is customer service.
Back to back failures on Sovol printers both within 60 days of purchase or replacement… That’s not good. That’s not good in anybody’s book anywhere on the planet. As soon as I get my refund from Sovol, I will go buy another bambu Labs printer….. not because they’re perfect, but because they have common sense, and they do the right thing for the customer without a hassle or BS. And they don’t give dangerous advice! At the end of the day, that’s all that matters. 1:34
If I recall, Solvol was going to donate a couple of dollars per machine sold to the Voron project.
As long as they keep it full open source, then I don't think there are any issues with this from licensing or anything like that. Solvol seem to be sticking to the full license agreements and that's fine in my mind. The machine is not overly expensive compared to similar machines on the market, and wit ha few firmware tweaks, some slicer profile tweaks and a few different nozzle options, this could really be a competitor for some of the closed source machines. I am considering replacing y Ender 5 Pro with one of these. Mainly because I am at the stage now where I am beyond playing printer upgrades and tweaking and prefer to just print good quality prints. It should fit nicely in my existing "tent" style enclosure, but I may also look into the Solvol enclosure as an option is it looks quite a clean solution
nice review esp. about the CAD files!!
I have sv06 plus and it became my favourite go to and the fact that nothing is "proprietary" is just awesome. And everything is affordable
Great review Angus. I would love to see someone do a thorough review of the SV08 with its enclosure and the higher temp filaments.
Personally, I appreciate the wobbly bases because it’s more true to life for how I imagine more viewers’ setups would be.
it looks to me like SOVIK has made a commercial version of the Voron in *EXACTLY* the way I'd hope they would. Awesome!
Why is it less ok to buy a sv08 than a voron kit?
Whether I self source, buy a kit, or buy the sv08, the only way the team behind voron gets paid is if I myself donate. Where I get it from is almost irrelevant. Its down to ME to donate. And with the sv08 I have a lot more spare cash to donate with.
Wow, I had no idea that it was priced so competitively. I've been seeing great things about it from other makers as well
Love watching all theses videos on new printers while I still have my clapped out oringal ender 3 that works perfectly fine for what I need.
Thanks for this review! I want to love this printer more than the Bambu Lab offers. I'm in the market of upgrading my aging delta printer, and right now the main contenders are the BambuLab P1S and the Sovol SV08 (with enclosure). Lower on the list is Flashforge Adventurer 5M Pro, QiDi Q1 Pro and the Formbot Voron and Trodoon offers, but as it looks right now, the P1S and SV08 seem to offer the best balance for me.
Every printer has a trade off. The killer for me is the custom nozzles, I think that was a huge mistake. What they did with open source and donations to the Voron project is great though. I refuse to jump on the Bamboo wagon so will keep kicking my next one around. Still leaning towards a Qidi with heated chamber and klipper, I think it better suits my needs.
In my case it would be a better option than buying a Voron as I am absolutely hopeless at electronics and I struggle at the best of times with computers. So for us less technically minded its a good option and at a lower price bracket to ! Thank you for your review. Much appreciated!
Thankyou Angus for reviewing this machine. I've seen a couple of reviews of this machine, which were enough to get my attention, but I wasn't sure I trusted the reviewers. Your reviews, I trust.
I'm going to be buying my first 3-D printer for a project I want to prototype, and the large bed size and speed on this unit are of significant interest to me.
Do you think a first timer could manage this machine without pulling all their hair out in frustration?
Also... I realize that you would be guessing, but do you think that this machine would work with something like ASA or ABS, once an enclosure was added?
Again, thank for all the videos you've done. I've learned a lot from them.
Joel Telling made the statement that Sovol is actually paying a royalty per machine to Voron.
Few companies have said the same in past and never paid a cent.
They have been, 2x $1000 dollar donations so far, they announced it on twitter
@@jamesm3268 They have already paid two grand up front.
They just said this. There is no agreement.
@@jamesm3268 I think Nero3D said the same. He is either on the Voron project team or very close to the team
ok .. I think this is my next printer :) As most ppl who like printers I own a few and while there is space in the house for more, I dont have enough ;) I like everything about this printer, but the main reason im choosing this one over other avilable is the open source route they take ... I really like that i could print replacements and having the step file is just awesome ! So i feel this one is totally worth the money :)
Love the printer. Im actually thinking of getting one. My only complaint is that is how proprietary the extruder assembly seems. Maybe someone will come out with a mod for it later
I'm happy to see Sovol building the Voron. There's plenty of people that want to try one but don't have the time to research & build one. Personally I'd like to see a direct drive option with a more standard hot end. This looks like a good printer though, and the price isn't bad.
Reverse Bowden is already direct drive
Nice subtle plug for the LTT Screwdriver at 0:51 lol
Leveling Method: Inductive Sensor + pressure Sensor ?
What ? How ? and Why is nobody talking about it ?
Temperature drift on this sensor ?
And shurely sombebody will bring out Nozzles right ? I really want to print CF sooner or later
Like the head is detachable, but can it be changed to something more Universal ?
try reducing wobble further with one giant heavy paver, or maybe a set of 4 large pavers, from Bunnings, placing it between the carpet and the bench feet
Good stuff! You can put spiked feet for the table to stop carpet wobbles. Metal ideally.
the proprietary nature of the high speed printers has been a deal breaker for me so far, so seeing something like this makes me very happy, i'll keep an eye on this one while they iron out some of the issues
So far you've been a fool then, but open source is great too certainly nobody could have anything against it
They have always been available in kit form.
That said, personally Id be on the watch for the idex vcore 4.
7:18 - you mention whispy stringing possibly caused by the hot end and cooling fan speed.
What can be done about this, I have the same issue after installing a better fan on my SV06
i've never seen maker's muses video on that bambulab a1 mini. but when i saw that hanging on a ceiling. i don't know why but that had me on tears
Vorons are some of the best printers and are the only ones that can rival bambu. Before this, getting a Voron 2.4 would cost you a lot more time and money. I love how much more approachable they’ve made the 2.4
Not even close.
Firstly, Voroms require much more attention to own and especially build. They have no official auto z offset calibration and scoffed at it for a while till it became obvious everyone wanted it and now theyre working on it.
Secondly, Ratrig exists and the Vcore 4 seems awesome.
Thats not saying Vorons are bad, and even Ratrigs require more effort than BBLs but just that I think peoppe need to know open source fast printers exist other than vorons. Let me also throw vzbots in the ring too, though those are more about utterly deranged high end speed.
I think all printers should be measured by how many cats could comfortably fit in them, thats my new favorite measuring tchnique!
10:22 the only others I'm aware of are the AnkerMake printers...although they aren't an open source design.
Very useful video Angus. It was an amazing review
A small request can you make another in depth video about this printer. As it looks promising and kind of substituting voron in a reasonable scale
Lmao waiting for a print to finish, 2:30am where I am. Nice to see coreXY printers becoming more accessible
Thanks for the great review. I've been monitoring these voron inspired printers and there is another one in the same segment : troodon 2.0. unfortunately there aren't a great many reviews of them out there.
I'm not sure if you've done this, but I'd just love to see a vid of which is/are your current go-to favourite printer(s).
How consistent is the bed leveling? One of the main things i love about my p1s is the bed leveling. it nevers needs an offset change.
the hotend is a huge dealbreaker for me tho, Plus I couldn't find hardened nozzles?!
Great review Angus! I super appreciate your content 😀
Did you do some accelerometer calibrations comparing a wobbly table vs a solid one? like how different are the recommended speeds from klipper
A lot of people in the 3d printing space might not remember or be aware of how important open source is to the existence of 3d printing as we know it, and it's always good to remind ourselves of this, reward companies who maintain it, and avoid this who don't. And if we do accept the benefits of open source, we also need to accept it's getting far more difficult for open source to function commercially in this space. This is why I do not support Bambulabs.
In a perfect world, all printers would be made from standard parts that could be sourced from at least two independent manufacturers, but as people demand increasingly absurd printing speeds, that becomes impossible. People need to think a bit about what they actually _need_ from a printer. Instant gratification, or long-term sustainability. If your printer has a proprietary hotend to meet speed demands and that company stops selling that hotend, your fast printer is suddenly not that fast after all.
Are you going to update your website? It still lists the SV07
Great review man, I felt the same way about the SV08.
I still can't afford one haha
5:39 get some spike feet like they have on the bowers and Wilkins speaker bases.
He could print some in hard TPU
13:07 I would buy one just for printing cats. Look how real they look! 😜
I have the Formbot Troodon 2.0, same idea….. Voron 2.4 based printer. It is based on rep rap firmware which makes tuning more difficult for getting rid of ringing but the Voron design is solid…
Wow! Oh my God, I laughed out loud,(lol) for real, when I saw you hanging that 3-D printer! That almost a good idea, however, I don’t think I’m going to attempt the same myself anytime soon!
13:05 what material was this print?
13:04 that is a very impressive and lifelike print.
They didn't mention it had MMU capability!!!
That over extrusion I now know what my flsun v400 is doing. It does that sometimes but not to the same extent.
I like the fact it's open source compared to other companies we shall not name !
Great review my friend. The kitty print at the end was amazing, so realistic! 🤣 @shanemshort, I agree completely. Sovol did the right thing by donating back to the Voron project and keeping this open source. The proprietary hotend is a little disappointing, but they needed to keep it affordable so you have to expect a few sacrifices. This is not aimed at being a replacement for a quality Voron kit, it is aimed at someone who can't afford, doesn't want to source and build, or isn't able to build a real one and I think they nailed it.
Seems like an awesome printer. One of the reasons I love my Ender 3 and CR-10 so much, is that they are open source and easy to modify. The SV08 is at the very least open source, so I am wondering how well it would be to modify. Could you fit parts meant for the Voron onto this machine? Or would you have to adjust/redesign everything, that you want for this new printer? If one could just upgrade/sidegrade to an original Voron hotend, extruder and fan shroud at any point, when their nozzles may become unobtainable, then that would simply fix the whole issue/risk, wouldn't it? Parts for a Stealthburner can be ordered as a kit from China for 30-40€ (idk how well made each of these is, but I assume they are good enough and one would at most upgrade one or two small parts later)
Excellent review Angus! I really didn't like the marketing for this one, it left a bad taste in my mouth, and showed me how their lack of understanding and respect to the community really is. The questionable support and ongoing lack of support/parts and future proofing from sovol is a grave concern of mine also. The comgrow acquisition (if that really was a thing) showed that ongoing support of their recently launched line up lacked all substance.
New people coming into the hobby and having struggles due to manufactures short cuts, and want to just move on post release is simply toxic, lacking mostly in any innovation.. I hope they work on those elements and come back stronger, we will see the next model in 6 months so lets look forward to that.
Min 3:24 , 7:27 first layer issue?
13:04 it's amazing what you can make with a printer.
9:57 good lord that's awesome
@MakersMuse do you plan on modding your SV08 at all?
This printer has a potential fatal design flaw. I have been a product and machine design engineer for 40 years. The plastic bed mounts to a plastic chassis. You don't need to be an engineer to figure out this is an unstable inappropriate materials choice. My bed is badly warped and the ABL cannot compensate. So I get prints where the nozzle crushes the filament in one area and prints loose and to high in another. People who buy this printer would typically do so because it has a large bed but its of no use in you cant get a decent first layer. Based on my experience I would recommend against purchasing this unit. If you just print small parts like the benchy it will likely do well but try to print anything larger and it may be very problematic.
All-metal hotend? And can you print without Z-hop? I was hearing some things about prints getting knocked off the bed while printing. Also, I would probably not consider buying this printer unless I'm gonna be replacing the hotend or even the entire printhead
Add some concrete pavers under your desk and it wont shake. I did that with a plastic banquet table and it was a night and day difference.
the second the sv08 ships in the uk im dropping the dosh on it and i cant wait! my ender 3 pro is gonna have a rest finally
13:04 i need a "cat for scale" for every other printer review now
The Purrfect scale.
@MakersMuse I like the wobbly table. Honestly, you should try to make the table extremely unstable as a joke. Like a 3d printer on top of ball bearings.
BTW, I would have bought this printer however, the same day it was announced my trident kit shipped from Magic phoenix.
I don't get why no none mentioned how bad the visibility to the nozzle itself it. Maybe it's not required if the probing system works as is though?
You do not have to rely on any spare parts from sovol. With everything available as step-files, you can print every mechanic part wich isn´t standard. While they are designed for injection molding, at least all smaler parts could be SLS-printed, so you could get them without changing them for FDM printability. Even the coldend can be printed from aluminium for a reasonable price - The next layer even made a Revo version as a drop-in replacement (actually this is a game-changer for me, as you get the same speed with high-flow Revo, but can use a Standard-flow Revo nozzle if you want to use a filament changer to avoid the waste of cut&poo). He also replaced his toolboard by one from BTT, so no problem here at all. You do not depend on Sovol to service the printer for years.
Only downside at the moment: Delivery times. I wait for more than 2 months now.
The mainboard seems to be an MKS-SKIPR OEM-Version. You could replace it by a MKS-Skipr or any other board. You might have to edit the configs and do some work (depends on wich alternative board you choose), but you can replace it. So I do not think there is any problem with special parts here.
Open source without the original cad files? Is that still open source?
what helmet class printer would you recommend ?