Elegoo Centauri Carbon CoreXY 3D printer review
Meet the Elegoo Centauri Carbon
Elegoo has launched their first enclosed CoreXY 3D printer – Meet the Elegoo Centauri Carbon
If you are into 3D printing, you’ve probably heard of Elegoo. While they are best known for its resin 3D printers, it has made a name for itself in the FDM market with its Neptune series of 3D printers and its colossal OrangeStorm Giga. Now, Elegoo has launched its first enclosed CoreXY 3D printer, the Centauri Carbon. This 3D printer aims to offer users a compelling alternative to the Bambu Lab X1C and Creality K1C, offering strong pricing and a great feature set.
The Centauri Carbon will become available on February 17th 2025. – (Update) – The Centauri Carbon is available now for £299.99.
A new Era of 3D printing
I remember the early days of 3D printing. Back then, setting up and calibrating 3D printers was a hobby in and of itself. Getting high-quality 3D prints was a challenge for many machines, and bed levelling was such a chore that it turned many 3D printers into little more than large paperweights.
Today, the world of 3D printing is a different one. Features like auto bed levelling have made setup a breeze. Features like input shaping and pressure advance have kept print quality high while advancing printer speeds tremendously. Slicing software has also improved significantly, enabling high-quality printing results with little user tinkering. It has never been a better time to be a 3D printing newcomer.
What’s special about the Elegoo Centauri Carbon?
What Elegoo has promised with its newest 3D printer is a beginner-friendly user experience, high levels of reliability, and great affordability. While we cannot talk about pricing right now (that’s embargoed), we can only say that this printer is highly competitive.
Elegoo has also promised a more rugged and durable design than many competing enclosed CoreXY 3D printer designs. This printer’s frame was built using die-cast aluminium alloy parts, SPCC side panels, and tempered glass side and top panels. That’s a welcome change from the plastic windows and frames used by some other CoreXY 3D printer designs.
When unboxing the Centauri Carbon, the printer was satisfying weighty. The printer weighs in at 17.5 kg, and has sturdy construction.
Another thing to note about the Centauri Carbon is that it supports nozzle temperatures up to 320 degrees, which is hotter than many other 3D printers (especially older ones).
Why CoreXY?
There are two main types of consumer FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) 3D printers, bed slingers and CoreXY. While both types of 3D printers have their merits, CoreXY printers are widely considered to be the best option when it comes to speed, ease of use, and dimensional accuracy.
Instead of having its heavy print bed move backwards and forwards, CoreXY 3D printers only move their beds up and down. This allows the 3D printer’s print head to handle X/Y axing movements (hence the core XY name). This change enabled higher speeds without losses in 3D print quality, thanks to the lightweight nature of the printer’s fastest-moving parts.
Spatially, this setup also works wonders. CoreXY printers can be easily enclosed inside a compact box. Bed-slinging printers need to accommodate the entire movement range of their beds. For similarly-sized build volumes, bed-slinging 3D printers require more space, and have more chance to collide with objects in its working environment.
Video Time-Lapse support
Integrated into the Elegoo Centauri Carbon is a camera for video time-lapses and print monitoring. Within Elegoo Slicer, users of the Centauri Carbon can quickly look at 3D prints in operation. Users can also choose for their printers to take time-lapse videos of new prints. This is great for showing off how 3D printers work for newcomers, and for seeing if a 3D print goes wrong. This printer also features an integrated light, ensuring that your models are properly lit for monitoring and time-lapse.
On page 5 of this review, you can see this feature in action.
Elegoo’s double-sided magnetic plate is a godsend
The Elegoo Centauri Carbon ships with a flexible magnetic plate with different materials on each side. In the world of 3D printing, plate material can be very important, and having two options ship with the Centauri Carbon is a godsend.
For PLA, Elegoo has a smooth plate that’s perfect for the job. With their “PLA Specific Plate”, Elegoo offers high levels of bed adhesion that ensure a great first-layer experience. For other materials, Elegoo has a textured PEI material, which is suitable for PLA, PETG, TPU, ABS, and carbon fibre filaments.
