Anycubic Vyper review | Perfect beginner 3D printer? | Unboxing, setup, auto-levelling, test prints
hi i’m gideon from technologyman.com the
viper is a new 3d printer from any cubic
that promises to be the perfect beginner
printer it requires very basic assembly
and has true automatic bed leveling to
ensure prints stick to the bed this is
often the biggest cause of frustration
for beginners and it comes with a few
other features that make it easier to
use including a removable magnetic build
plate my favorite platform and a 4.3
inch touchscreen it has a large print
volume and its twin screw system for the
high taxes should provide more accurate
prints and it promises to be quiet with
the supposedly silent motors i’ll find
out how easy it is to set up and get
your first print completed and i put all
their claims to the test printing a
range of models with a variety of
filaments to try and help you decide
this printer is right for you if you’re
new to 3d printing i’d highly recommend
watching at least some of my earlier
video that introduces 3d printing with
the budget creality into three i provide
a link on screen and down in the
description and
timestamps if you just want to skip to
the chapter of this review you’re
interested in so let’s take a closer
look
the printer comes well packaged and
requires only minimal assembly they
include a written assembly guide there’s
a more detailed user manual on the
included sd card and a useful video
guide on their website is probably the
best overview of the setup
it is by far the easiest printer i’ve
put together so far it should take 15 to
30 minutes before you’re ready for your
first print depending on your experience
a draw slides out from the base with all
the tools you need to assemble the
printer including the smallest splush
cutters i’ve come across
i still recommend using your own tools
if you have them
you also get two spare nozzles sample
filament a plastic scraper a usb cable
and the full size sd card with a usb
adapter
my printer didn’t come with the correct
mains kettle lead for the uk but luckily
i had a spare one the frame aligns with
two grooves in the base and is secured
in place with the longer bolts
you must be careful not to pinch any of
the cables
i found i could carefully lean the
printer on either side to attach the
bolts or you could hang it over the edge
of a table or rest it on a pile of books
the 4.3 inch touchscreen then attaches
to the front right of the printer with
the three shorter bolts you then just
need to attach the cables to the
printhead extruder z axis left and right
motors and limit switches and the screen
all the cable connectors are labeled and
keyed and already routed to where they
need to go so it’s pretty
straightforward finally you need to cut
the shipping cable ties under the
printer bed on the right and left z axis
and the print head
then push the teflon tubing into the
extruder and use the included cable ties
to hold the teflon tubing and printhead
cable together and secure the printhead
cable to the printhead
this is not ideal but i’ll come back to
cable management shortly finally attach
the filament holder which doesn’t quite
snap onto the bottom rail but is secure
enough you’re almost ready to print but
any cubic recommends checking there’s no
wobble in the heated bed and print head
and both the x and y belts are tight my
belts were correctly tensioned but if
yours aren’t it’s straightforward to
tighten the set screws with an allen key
this is a far simpler system than on any
printers i’ve set up both the printhead
and bed have eccentric nuts that you can
adjust for any play with the included
spanner my bed had a small amount of
play which i removed with a fraction of
a turn of each nut
before you power on the printer check
the voltage switch is correct for your
region mine was already set to 230 volts
for the uk
with a nice clean nozzle with no
filament yet loaded you can level the
bed this is fully automatic and probes
the heated bed with the nozzle itself
which is attached to a strain gauge
it’s recommended to check the strain
gauges working properly before you
choose leveling in the printer menu
you don’t want the printhead scratching
the build plate
they suggest pressing the nozzle with
the spanner to check the red led comes
on which you can just see through the
printhead cover you may need to dim the
lights to see this also check the teflon
tube going into the printhead is not
restricted in any way
this can cause a strain gauge led to
come on without touching the nozzle and
the leveling process will fail the
nozzle does heat up when you start the
bed leveling process so if you have
filament loaded i’d recommend cleaning
the nozzle with a brass brush once it’s
up to temperature you want the tip of
the nozzle itself to touch the bed
even if the nozzle then dribbles a
little bit of filament it should still
be accurate since the melted filament is
soft
you could always unload the filament
before leveling to be sure
then tap repair leveling auto leveling
the printer then slowly probes the bed
at 16 locations
it takes around four minutes a lot
longer than on my prusa mini plus and
prusa mark 3s plus i’d recommend keeping
a close eye on this to check it’s
working as it should but i’ve not had
any issues so far the advantage of using
the nozzle itself to level the bed is
that you shouldn’t have to mess too much
with a z offset which fine tunes how
close the nozzle is to the bed for
decent adhesion of the filament to the
bed and a precise first layer
this could make the printer ideal to
anyone new to 3d printing
the popular prusa range of printers also
have automatic bed leveling but you must
adjust the z offset with a calibration
print when you change fill the build
plate or the nozzle and it can be a
little tricky to get just right at least
initially unlike prusa printers this bed
leveling is not automatically completed
before every print and any cubic don’t
consider it necessary to level before
each print
i’ll discuss leveling further and how it
performs shortly to load filament tap on
prepare filament filament in
you’ll be prompted to allow the printer
to heat the nozzle up to temperature
while it’s heating up cut the filament
off at an angle and feed it in through
the filament sensor and through the ptfe
tubing until it touches the extruder
gears
i like the transparent extruder which
makes it easy to see what’s going on and
if there are any issues
the extruder has two gears which should
make feeding flexible filaments more
reliable tap on filament in again and
push the filament into the rotating cogs
of the extruder which will feed the
filament through the teflon tube and out
the hot nozzle you have to tap on stop
otherwise you’ll waste a lot of filament
i’m not quite sure why the printer can’t
push a fixed amount of filament through
and then stop like on other printers but
it works pretty well once you know you
have to tap stop
the manual recommends you tighten or
loosen the knob on the side of the
extruder to adjust the tension of the
cogs if the filament is too thin or too
thick that’s hard to gauge without any
experience i’ve just checked the gap
between the knob and the extruder is 18
millimeters as recommended i’ve not had
to adjust this knob in all my testing so
far printing a range of filaments
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the viper is a fused deposition
modelling or fdm printer with a
well-sized 245 millimeter by 245
millimeter by 260 millimeter build
volume and a volcano style hot end
fitted with a 0.4 millimeter nozzle
the hot end can reach 260 degrees
centigrade and heated bed 110 centigrade
both very respectable and more than
enough for pla petg tpu and abs but not
more exotic materials like most nylons
and polycarbonates the printer weighs
around 10 kilograms and you can see its
overall footprint and the amount of
space required in use with the travel of
the bed and the attached spool holder
you’ll need a fair amount of desk space
for it for my first print i use the
included sample of white pla to print
the hour model included on the sd card
unfortunately the g-code file is not in
the root folder of the sd card and the
printer doesn’t support folders so you
need to copy the l.g code file to the
root of the sd card on your pc or mac
then you can tap on the print icon tap
on the file and tap print the bed and
nozzle will heat up to the correct
temperature and the print should start
it’s worth keeping an eye on the first
layer going down you shouldn’t need to
make any adjustments you can adjust the
z offset after tapping the settings icon
if the nozzle is too close or far from
the bed
in this menu you can also adjust the
nozzle and bed temperature print and fan
speed and you can toggle the printhead
led on and off or mid-print
the z-offset and speed settings will
persist even after the current print
the manual states if you tap the back
icon rather than ok the settings will
only be applied during the current print
that wasn’t the case in my testing
the outprint came out pretty well
considering this is an out of the box
print with almost no user interaction
and using the included pla which isn’t
the best quality
i use the remainder of the sample
filament and some white 3d qf pla to
print an organizer for the built-in
storage tray to replace the phone i use
cura to slice the model with a supply
profile from any cubic
you can download and install the latest
version of cura and then follow the
instructions in the any cubic manual to
add the viper based on the older any
cubic mega and import the configuration
files
it’s straightforward but hopefully soon
this printer will already be included
with cura and other slices the first
layer was a little too low so i did
adjust the z offset to 0.05 as the
sample spool was running out this gave
me a chance to try out the filament run
out sensor the printer did pause
printing and the nozzle lifted up we
didn’t move away from the print and the
only option was to resume the print
there’s no option to unload or load
filament and you can’t access any of the
move controls which is not ideal
still i fed in the new filament and
resumed the print the transparent
extruder helps here you can button the
new fitment against the filament that’s
run out until it gets pulled through the
extruder the print completed and apart
from the slightly squashed first layer
it looked okay i’ll include links for
any of the prints i show or mention in
the video’s description the printer also
has a power resume feature which i
tested next so if there’s a power cut
the printer will prompt you to continue
to print when the power comes back on
printing a small calibration cube i
pulled the plug after a few layers
after restoring power i was prompted to
resume the print and after warming the
bed and nozzle up again the printer
returned to its home position and then
resumed the print from where it left off
it might make more sense for the head to
return to its home position before
heating up to avoid the blob of dribble
plastic although that might pull the
print off the bed the print did finish
with only a minor defect where the power
had been lost
while i was printing this test cube i
also tested the filament sensor again
this time unloaded the filament manually
by pulling it out from the hot end after
removing the teflon tube from the
extruder and then manually pushing fresh
filament through until some of it oozes
through the hot end you can remove any
excess filament with some needle nose
pliers or tweezers and continue the
my first method of dealing with filament
running out worked a little better but
this method would be useful if you
wanted to manually change the color of
the filament mid print i did try color
change print using prusa slicer although
the printer paused and started partially
unloading the filament after i had
manually loaded a new colour i wasn’t
able to resume the print
it looks like this is a bug which will
hopefully be fixed in a future firmware
release
i tried various prints in pla from 3dqf
pruciment filamentum and esun and i
generally got good results the biggest
variation in quality was dependent on
the slicer and profile i used which is
one of the big selling points of a prusa
printer with software they developed
themselves and their well-tuned profiles
the printer comes with cura profiles on
the sd card for pla abs and tpu but no
petg
the pla profile worked okay but i got
better results using prusa slicer as in
cura i added the any cubic mega and then
changed the bed size to that of the
viper and renamed it i did add a skirt
to this profile which is also useful for
checking the zed height is correct in
fact it’s useful to add two or three
skirts and space them further away from
the model especially with smaller models
the skirt would finish printing too
quickly
this gives you a little time to check
the zed offset is okay if you’re careful
you can pick up the skirt to check it’s
well stuck to the bed you can see the
difference between these two profiles
with a classic benchy
the results are very comparable to my
prusa mini plus and more expensive prusa
mark 3s plus for that matter there’s a
small amount of stringing but otherwise
it’s a very clean print with few defects
and even the text on the bottom is quite
readable which is a real test of the
built-in leveling
i also found prints off the viper were
quite accurate especially considering
its larger size
a 20 millimeter square calibration cube
measured within 0.1 millimeters for the
x y and z axes
i also printed maker’s music clearance
and tolerance test which is a very
challenging print the print looked very
good in pla and i could release a 0.5
0.4 and 0.3 millimeter arms fairly
easily but more impressively i could
complete the challenge and open the
puzzle releasing the 0.2 and 0.15
millimeter arms with the help of a
screwdriver and without the arms
breaking off as defined by the rules of
the challenge
this cable organizer came out nicely
filament and pla and you can see just
how good the first layer is with a
leveled bed
and also how easy it is to get the
prints off the textured spring steel
magnetic pei sheet
if you let the print cool down for a
minute or so you can just peel it off if
it’s not already released for more
southern prints or if you’re impatient
you can remove the sheet and give it a
slight flex to pop the print off
theoretically you could print on the
smooth side but any cubic don’t
recommend it i didn’t really have any
reason to use it since everything stuck
so well to the textured side even
smaller pla prints where a smooth pei
sheet is often recommended but for the
purposes of this review i did try a few
prints on the smooth side and it worked
very well too and sometimes you might
prefer the smooth bottom surface of a
model this side of the sheet gives you
remember to run the bed leveling when
you flip the sheet since the nozzle
height will be different
i’d only use this side with pla other
materials may be harder to remove
without using some glue stick to help
with their release i give either side of
the build plate a clean with ipa alcohol
before most prints if you do get any
problems with print sticking you can
give the build plate a scrub in the sink
with washing up liquid i also checked
the temperature variation of the heated
bed at this point with a fleur thermal
imaging camera it was very even within
one or two degrees across the bed which
is what you want for larger prints
although it didn’t seem to quite reach
the set temperatures
moving on to petg i used a petg profile
in prusa slicer and printed the support
arm for a dremel cutoff saw improvement
galaxy black which looked good apart
from some light stringing most likely
from this filament needing a little time
in the dryer the area around the hole is
my fault i should have enabled supports
but the cut-off saw still works quite
nicely as long as what you’re cutting
doesn’t get too hot i then tried
flexible filament which is notoriously
difficult to print without an extruder
like on this printer particularly the
super flexible ninjaflex which i tried
first
the supplied cura tpu profile was set to
print way too quickly and just produced
the mess
since i’m happier tweaking settings in
prusa slicer i used that and created a
profile based on the flexible filament
on the prusa mini the cable strap did
print successfully albeit with a fair
bit of stringing i got slightly cleaner
results with some aerion tpu which isn’t
quite as flexible but both prints were
perfectly usable which is normally my
goal with flex prints the 4.3 inch blue
on a white background touch screen is
pretty responsive and i’m glad that you
can turn off the beeps and the system
voice
it’s a fairly basic interface which does
make it easy to use but given the size
of the screen it would have been nice to
see thumbnails of prints like on the
smaller prusa mini screen
i also like to see layer height while
printing which is missing and there’s no
print time remaining either i was able
to connect up octoprint by the usb port
and a raspberry pi which enabled full
remote control and monitoring on the
printer and is handy for calibration via
the terminal interface
i did adjust the e-steps by this
interface but i can’t say i noticed much
difference in print quality it was
already pretty good i also use the bed
visualizer plug-in to see how flat the
bed is on my printer you can see there’s
around one millimeter of variation which
is quite evident even checking with a
straight edge it’s more than i’d like to
see the printer’s bed leveling seems to
cope with this amount of variation quite
happily the viper has a 32-bit main
board with silent stepper drivers and
the printer bed and printhead movements
are quiet
but unfortunately the noise from the hot
end calling and main board fans are very
noisy
luckily although that makes it noisy and
quite distracting if it’s beside you you
don’t tend to hear it in the next room
like you can with some printers even the
prusa mark 3s plus with various noise
dampening measures
and the fans only come on when you’re
using the printer unlike the end of
three which is noisy even when idle
i didn’t find cable management very
satisfactory out of the box even after
following instructions from any cubic
the printhead cable drapes over the
build plate and more worryingly the
heatbed cable can snag on the y-axis
motor which could cause real damage
i found a simple print on thingiverse
that attaches to the bolt that holds the
filament sensor in place and does a
fantastic job of solving this issue but
any qubit really needs to address this
problem another issue i had was with the
extruder which began rattling after
maybe 20 hours of use the extruder gear
had become loose i removed the
tensioning knob and used a 1.5
millimeter hex bit to tighten the grub
screw which fixed the issue you could
also use a supplied 1.5 millimeter allen
key
in my testing i’ve been quite impressed
with the any cubic viper
the easy assembly automatic bed leveling
and removable magnetic sheet should make
it a good option for beginners if you’re
printing pla the custom profile for cura
works okay there is no included profile
for petg and their flex profile printed
way too quickly hopefully they’ll add a
petg profile and tweak the flex profile
for better results even though i haven’t
had any major issues in my testing i do
have concerns around reliability there
are quite a few reports on the forums
about 40 strain gauges amongst other
things this may be a very small number
and any cubic do appear to be sending
out replacements without any quibble but
i would pay extra attention to bed
leveling the first few times you run it
i did contact support and got a reply
within a day which is okay considering
the time differences but 24-hour chat
support would be much better especially
with a printer marketed at beginners
cable management is also an issue out of
the box i’d highly recommend making your
first print the simple clip i showed
earlier or something similar
and whilst the printer has very quiet
stepper motors i’m not sure any qubit
can really market silent printing as a
feature the multiple fans are very noisy
at least the printer is silent when it’s
idle the price will probably come down
but right now it’s around 330 pounds or
360 dollars i’d consider the viper’s
main competitors the creality cr6 se
which is around the same price and the
pruso mini plus was a little more
expensive
i’ve not tested the cr6 se but it also
has automatic bed leveling and a touch
screen but it comes with a slightly
smaller build volume and a glass bed the
prusa mini plus has a much smaller print
volume and comes with a removable
magnetic build plate and automatic
better leveling like the viper but you
do have to adjust the z height manually
the main advantage of the producer is a
24 7 helpful chat support and process
slicer software with finely tube
profiles for a wide variety of filaments
please let me know in the comments if
you’d like to see a review of the proso
mini plus
if you don’t mind leveling the bed
manually the ender 3 i reviewed a while
back is less than half the price and the
only upgrade i’ve made to it is a
removable magnetic build plate there
isn’t a huge difference in print quality
compared to the viper but it is much
noisier there’s also the more refined
ender 3 v2 which is only a little more
expensive than the end of three but
quieter and comes with a touch screen
like the viper but it still has no
automatic bed leveling i’m still not
sure i found the perfect 3d printer for
beginners there is a lot to like about
the viper i’d love to hear your thoughts
is there another model i should take a
look at if you have this model what do
you think of it please let me know down
below and as always if you have any
questions please ask i read every
comment and i’ll do my best to respond
i do hope you found this video useful
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