"The C2's excellent user interface warmed our hearts, but the unheated print bed gave us cold feet."
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Excellent printing performance
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User-friendly control panel
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Robust, slim design
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No heated bed
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Requires frequent maintenance
We won't say a word when we say that Robos 3D printers are some of our favorites among a variety of mid-range models. What is not to love about the company? It started in 2012 as a Kickstarter project among a group of students from San Diego State University and is now one of the largest 3D printer manufacturers in the United States.
As the successor to the company's breakthrough R1 printer, the C2 is part of the company's ongoing effort to make 3D printing accessible to everyone through intuitive interface designs, reliable printing, quality results and a price that the average consumer can afford. With the first three points, the C2 generally met our expectations – although the price might be a bit too high for some. Here's what we thought of it after a few months of intensive testing.
Features and specifications
Compared to most mid-range printers, the C2 has a footprint at the larger end of the spectrum that's five inches long, five inches wide, and six inches high. This is certainly not a huge envelope, but it is large enough to hold most of the objects you can find in Thingiverse and other online object repositories.
Ed Oswald / Digital Trends
The only disadvantage? The printer's build platform is not heated. While this reduces the device's power consumption during printing, it also makes the C2 more susceptible to warping and poor adhesion, which increases the likelihood that you will get a faulty print and have to start over.
This is a huge improvement over the functional design of the R1 – the company's first product.
Fortunately, you don't have to mess around with bed calibration – it comes with an automatic leveling feature that makes it a breeze to keep the printer in good condition.
Finally, interact with the C2 through a large, bright 3.5-inch touchscreen at the bottom of the printer. The user interface is intuitive and contains wizards that can be used to guide beginners through typical maintenance processes.
All in all, this printer offers a fairly good selection of features for $ 800.
Setup and configuration
Good news for less mechanics: the C2 is almost completely assembled. All you need to do is attach the print bed, attach the spool holder, attach the filament guide tube to the machine, and pass some plastic filament through. This is all a bit standard when it comes to setting up 3D printers – but Robo makes it easy with a top-notch walkthrough wizard.
Ed Oswald / Digital Trends
Ed Oswald / Digital Trends
Even if you are new to 3D printing, you should have no problem getting the C2 up and running in about 20 minutes. We left the setup to someone completely unfamiliar with the technology, and they still managed to get the machine up and running with little trouble. Setup is not always that easy, so we appreciate the company's efforts here.
A quick tip: While Robo's instructions recommend completing the Wi-Fi setup after running a test print, we recommend doing the Wi-Fi connection process first. It will make your life easier and there is really no reason to end up doing it.
Construction quality and design
Robo receives good grades for the design of the C2. This is a huge improvement over the functional design of the R1 – the company's first product. While a 3D printer may never be something you want as a showpiece in your living room, here Robo has at least one design that looks slim on a table top.
The C2's touchscreen is one of our favorite features.
The beauty of the C2 is not just skin deep. The design of the machine also feels robust. Weighing just over 20 pounds, it's not a particularly heavy printer, but it's still heavy and sturdy enough to withstand shaking and shuddering while the print nozzle is moving at high speed. This ultimately leads to more accurate and consistent print results, but we'll cover all of these fun things in a moment.
Overall, the design of the printer is a win – although it has some flaws that we simply cannot overlook. The most outrageous of these is the C2's unheated print bed mentioned above, which forces you to use adhesive pads that need to be changed regularly to ensure adhesion. With this type of setup, you cannot determine when liability will fail. You have to get used to changing the pads regularly.
It's also limited to a single extruder, which is a bit of a disappointment given that an increasing number of printers for the $ 800 price tag for the C2 now include double extruder setups. To be fair, you have the option to add a second extruder or even replace extruder modules – but all of this is available separately.
User interface and software
The C2's touchscreen is one of our favorite features. There you will find almost all the important features and functions that you need to access. However, we found it a little difficult to use the smaller screen – especially when it was time to enter our WiFi password (the keyboard was just too small). Despite these minor problems, the actual user interface is one of the most user-friendly of all printers that we have ever tested.
If you're looking for a workhorse that doesn't require a lot of maintenance, this is probably not the printer for you.
As with desktop software, the C2 is designed for use with a customized version of Cura. Cura is also one of the most feature rich and intuitive slicer programs currently available, making the software easy to use. Unfortunately, you have to set everything up manually, but again Robo's well-written instructions save the day. As long as you know how to read and follow instructions, you'll be fine.
If you are patient enough, we strongly recommend performing the additional step of installing the Octoprint plugin so that you can print directly from Cura. It's a good deal of work to set up, but we think that convenience is worth the one-time effort.
Printing performance
To get a feel for how well the C2 works, we went through our standard test print suite along with some random objects to get things mixed up. These include the infamous 3DBenchy torture test tractor and the CTRL-V benchmark, both of which are intended to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of a printer.
Ed Oswald / Digital Trends
Ed Oswald / Digital Trends
With all of our prints, the results were admirable for a printer in this price range. Fine details came into their own (especially at higher resolutions), and the C2 had minimal problems with tricky features like unsupported spans and overhangs. Objects were also very consistent from layer to layer. The printer suffered almost no wobble on the Z axis – which is probably due to Robo's robust construction.
Overall, the C2 offers solid print performance, but unfortunately its otherwise admirable print jobs were too often hampered by the device's only shortcoming: the unheated print bed.
His admirable print jobs were often hampered by his only shortcoming: the unheated print bed.
Since the surface of the printer does not heat up, it is difficult to fix the printouts correctly. And more importantly, stay anchored until the object is complete. We found that we exchanged the painter's tape-like adhesive pads about every half a dozen prints, because if we didn't, the prints would lift off the build plate and screw everything up. Even when printing with rafts (supporting structures to improve bed adhesion), we were not always confident that the C2 would successfully complete a specific print job.
In other words, while this printer prints wonderfully under optimal conditions, it is definitely not the most reliable device we have ever tested.
Maintenance, repairability and upgradeability
Maintenance with Robo 3D printers is largely easy thanks to the example wizards mentioned above. No matter what goes wrong or which parameters you need to adjust, the integrated software from Robo makes it a breeze.
Software updates can be sent wirelessly to the C2 or downloaded and installed on a USB stick by opening them directly on the printer. The USB stick option is useful because you can print directly from there – in case you don't want to (or can't) connect the printer to a Wi-Fi network.
In the case of hardware problems, the C2 seems to be easy to repair (at least for the basic things), since most of the important components are easily accessible. Fortunately, we didn't have any hardware issues during our tests, but we're confident that if we did, we could fix them ourselves. Robo provides extensive troubleshooting and repair documentation on its website.
Warranty information
The Robo C2 has a one-year warranty with a spare parts service.
Our opinion
Simply put, we loved the C2. It is a good looking and powerful printer that is ready to use. The device's intuitive and user-friendly interface makes it an excellent choice for beginners in 3D printing. That said, it's definitely not perfect. Robo's decision to omit the critical heat bed feature may have kept the price down, but also resulted in a printer that is less reliable and requires less maintenance than some of its competitors.
Is there a better alternative?
At $ 800, the Robo C2 offers a lot of money – but because the 3D printing scene is currently so competitive, there are many printers that offer similar features at a cheaper price.
There are many printers that offer similar features at a cheaper price.
For $ 700, you can purchase the Maker Ultimate printer from Monoprice: a device with a larger construction area (7.8 x 7.8 x 6.8 inches), a heated bed and functions for automatic leveling. However, the Monoprice user interface is nowhere near as sophisticated or accessible and does not have a touchscreen.
Another notable competitor is Robo's previous printer: the Robo R1 +. The company no longer manufactures them, but you can easily find them for sale online. The R1 + doesn't have any of the fancy new connectivity options or a clear user interface of the C2, but it does have a heated bed and a larger build area. Depending on where you find one for sale, you can grab one of these puppies for around $ 500 to $ 700.
If you're not afraid to assemble something more, you can also buy a Prusa i3 MK2 kit for around $ 700. The i3's design, which emerged from the open source RepRap project, has been tested, optimized and perfected by thousands of different 3D printing enthusiasts over the years – so it's a pretty solid little machine. It's bigger, smarter, and more powerful than the Robo C2, but you have to build it yourself.
How long it will take?
We have no doubt that the C2 will offer you years of trouble-free service. But as I said, you can expect constant improvements to ensure high quality prints: it's just a reality of how relatively new 3D printing technology is. As far as we know, Robo plans to maintain these printers with software and firmware updates in the foreseeable future. Given the fact that the company still offers parts for previous generation printers, we don't see why this isn't the case for the C2.
Should you buy it
If you're brand new to 3D printing and looking for something that is extremely simple and easy to use, then yes – the C2 is one of the most user-friendly machines you'll find in the under $ 1,000 price range, and you should buy it.
If you value reliability and printing performance more, we recommend that you look elsewhere. The fact that this printer doesn't have a heated bed makes it less reliable than others we've tried. If you're looking for a workhorse that doesn't require a lot of maintenance, this is probably not the printer for you.
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