We’ve been testing the Elegoo Centauri Carbon CANVAS upgrade.
This is part one of a three part series, please read parts two and three.
CANVAS Upgrade Background
Founded back in 2015 in China’s Silicon Valley, Shenzhen, Elegoo have been busy designing and manufacturing many different models of resin & FFF printers. The Centauri Carbon was released in February of 2025, with the promise of receiving a future capability of multi-material printing.
Operators had expected Elegoo to release an AMS-like device to catch up with the competition, but instead they released the Centauri Carbon 2 Combo, which included an integrated filament switching capability they call “CANVAS”. This could not be “added” to the original Centauri Carbon, which led to some disappointment from the community.
However, Elegoo eventually announced that it would be possible to upgrade an original Centauri Carbon into a version that includes CANVAS.
After much delay, Elegoo have finally released their CANVAS upgrade package, which basically transforms a Centauri Carbon into something resembling a Centauri Carbon 2. We were very excited to learn that they were sending the upgrade over to the lab for us to test.
CANVAS Upgrade Specifications and Features
The release of the original Centauri Carbon had marked Elegoo’s entry into the Core XY domain of 3D printing and the Elegoo Carbon Centauri CANVAS Upgrade was packed with numerous features and paired with an incredibly low price point. You can read all about the CC in our previous review here.
The device had really impressed us with its build quality and competence when printing. It was just missing one feature that all the other manufacturers seemed to be offering – multi-material printing.
But wait, Elegoo’s website clearly promised that multicolor printing was under development and would be available by Q3. However, due to some hardware limitations on the stock CC, it was taking Elegoo much longer than anticipated to develop a reliable multi-color system.
Fast forward to December 2026 and Elegoo finally announced the release of their new Centauri Carbon 2 with its built-in multi-color CANVAS system. An additional announcement arriving shortly after that a CANVAS unit was in its final stages of being adapted as an upgrade for the CC1 with an expected release of April. You can read about such developments on Elegoo’s website here.
Leaping forward to today and Elegoo’s website has a CC1 CANVAS upgrade listed for pre-order at just US$85. But what is the CANVAS upgrade exactly? Elegoo’s website offers some info and we’ve done our best to sum it up for you.
The physical size of the CANVAS module itself is 168 × 68 × 95 mm. It supports a maximum printing speed of ≤500 mm/s and recommended speed of 250 mm/s, with maximum acceleration of 20000mm/s/s.
The upgrade “unlocks” four-colour 3D printing with “seamless” color transitions. There are four independent motors that handle each filament, which enables fully automated four-color 3D printing in a single print job.
The CANVAS is built to support a wide range of 1.75mm filaments and is ideally compatible with PLA, PETG, ABS, ASA but is also capable of using PC, PA, PET, and fiber-reinforced filaments.
Elegoo RFID-tagged spools are auto-recognized, activating the recommended print settings for their type and color — no need to fiddle with options. Any other manufacturers’ filament info must be entered manually on the machine’s control panel, with supported spool widths of 40–70mm and inner diameters of 53–58mm.
Automated refill when one spool runs out is possible with multiple identical spools. When one spool runs out, printing continues smoothly with the next identical spool, so you can relax while the printer keeps working uninterrupted. This is also a great way to use up partial spools.
Tangles are automatically detected and trigger a job pause, while an upgraded spool holder tightly rewinds unused filament to minimize tangles and waste.
The power requirements are a modest 24V DC / 7W and are supplied via the connector located in the rear of the printer. There is no separate power supply for the CANVAS, it uses the machine’s existing power. Over The Air (OTA) firmware upgrades are available to keep everything up to date.
Other than this rather sparse information, the full nature of the upgrade is a bit of a mystery.
There are several photos on the website showing a plethora of large and small install parts, but no clear indication of the difficulty level for the assembly. But not to worry, we were just moments away from opening the upgrade box and finding out what was expected from us.
This is part one of a three part series, please read parts two and three.
Via Elegoo
