Elegoo answered two key questions about their popular Centauri Carbon desktop 3D printer.
The device, announced only a few months ago, shattered the price equation for CoreXY desktop 3D printers, which up to then had been priced in the US$700+ range. The Centauri Carbon, meanwhile, was set at only US$295.
Since then the company has been selling large quantities of the machine, but along with that came some attention.
Some wondered how Elegoo could manage to produce the device at such a low cost. Were they cutting corners? One of the questions centered around the machine’s software. Enterprising investigators determined that the firmware resembled that of open source software, yet Elegoo had not published their changes as required by open source licenses.
Open Source Firmware
After a considerable wait, Elegoo has come through and indeed published the firmware’s source code on GitHub. They write:
“We will continue to honor the values of the 3D printing community, and do everything we can to help support and develop the 3D printing community in an open, inclusive, innovative, and accessible way.”
And:
“This 3D printer system utilizes the Allwinner R528 chip as its main control platform, integrating a DSP unit and an MCU to provide a complete 3D printing solution.
The firmware serves as the core control module, encapsulating all 3D printing control algorithms and logic, including G-code parsing, motion path planning, temperature control strategies, auto-leveling, and time-lapse photography.”
It’s now possible for anyone in the open source community to re-use this code on their own projects, as was the intention of the open source license. Want to build a Centauri Carbon of your own?
Multicolor Centauri Carbon
The second question revolves around the Centauri Carbon’s ability to print with multiple colors. The company’s competitors have all come up with Bambu Lab AMS-like systems to enable this capability, but we have yet to hear from Elegoo about the Centauri Carbon.
They write:
“We’re doing our best to optimize the multi-color printing system for Centauri Series, focusing on delivering the best possible experience for our users. We will keep you updated if there were any further progress.”
This is quite surprising, as the other companies seemed to come up with workable solutions relatively quickly. Why would it take Elegoo so long to do? We don’t know, but here’s some possible reasons:
Cost: The Centauri Carbon is a very low cost machine, and in theory the multicolor accessory should follow the same price equation. It might be that they are having trouble coming up with a design that is sufficiently inexpensive. You wouldn’t want to pay more for the “AMS” than you would for the printer, would you?
Technical Issues: It’s possible they are having technical troubles getting the system to work optimally, and that seems to be the gist of their statement. Having used several of similar systems, they all have problems of one sort or another, particularly in non-standard situations. Perhaps Elegoo is trying to stamp out most issues before releasing their accessory?
Technology Switch: Filament-swapping accessories generally work, but have a major issue: material waste. Each color change requires a nozzle purge, which can use up to 10X the amount of filament normally required. To combat this, both Prusa Research and Bambu Labs recently announced new approaches to multicolor 3D printing that eliminate waste. In addition, Snapmaker’s U1 toolchanger was launched with a very low price, and it also eliminates filament waste.
This development puts all filament swapping systems in a very bad position, effectively ending that technology path. It may be that Elegoo has been working on a filament swapping system, only to find that it really isn’t going to go far in the market due to this new competition.
I’m leaning towards a combination of cost issues and the technology switch. We will see what happens.
