E3D just introduced a new Revo hotend, and it took the attention of the whole 3D printing community. There’s clearly a lot of innovation going on with the Revo, and I’m going to try and break it down whether it’s worth the hype and your money.
Once you start tinkering with your 3D printer, it can turn from a tool to a hobby. If you get there, you should consider building a DIY open source printer. They are great for tinkering because you get access to the CAD files and you can modify any part on the printer.
A new extruder can significantly improve your print quality and speed. If you are still running a BMG extruder you should know there are better options out there.
Sapphire Plus comes with TMC2208 drivers but they are configured in standalone mode. It means they are locked in StealthChop mode and you have to physically adjust a potentiometer on the drivers to change motor current. However only with a little bit of soldering you can enable more advanced serial (aka UART) mode. I think this upgrade had very little attention because most people just upgrade the stock mainboard to something that’s UART capable out of the box. You don’t need a sophisticated board when you use Klipper so I would recommend this mod and keep the board.
TwoTrees Sapphire Plus (SP-5) comes with Marlin based firmware which I found quite inconvenient to use. My main complaint was that I had to recompile and reflash the firmware every time I changed my printer configuration. I decided to throw it away and switch to Klipper instead.
I’ve been looking at 3D printers for a while now and I finally decided it’s time to get one and see if they are as useful as one may think. In this post I’m going to explain the reasons why I decided that TwoTrees Sapphire Plus was the best choice for me.
TL;DR; Sapphire Plus has a great foundation: the frame is very rigid, all axis run on linear rails and the gantry is very light but it’s a printer that will likely require tinkering with. If you have no experience in 3D printing or little general DIY experience you may want to look at the other contenders below.