The Anycubic Predator is part of an increasingly rare breed of 3D printers known as delta printers. Typically these printers are well known for their high speed; however, the Predator fails to live up to its speed potential due to a combination of outdated hardware, software and poor quality control. We were disappointed with the Predator as it could represent a good example of a printer in an ever-shrinking market segment. As of right now, there are precious few delta printers available such as the FLSUN Q5, Anycubic Predator and the newly released FLSUN SR. We highly recommend users steer away from delta printers as their speed advantage is negated by poor quality control.
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Delta 3D printers do not look like your typical 3D printer. A triangle-shaped tower moving a hotend with 3 arms looks like something out of science fiction instead of your typical plastic production machine. Between 2015-2019, companies such as CNC Me, Anycubic, Tevo and FLSUN made several delta printers for both the low-end and high-end markets. However, modern cartesian and core XY printers have pushed deltas completely out of the market due to their higher print accuracy and affordability, leaving very few deltas printers available on the market today.
In 2021, only the FLSUN Q5, Anycubic Predator and the upcoming FLSUN SR remain. At $519, the question is whether delta printers like the Anycubic Predator are still relevant or are they considered a relic of the past? In this Anycubic Predator 3D printer review, we will take a deep look into the Predator’s strengths and weaknesses and see if it has a place in the modern 3D printer market.
3D printers provide a nearly endless array of possibilities. You should generally know what you plan to print to pick the appropriate printer. However, regardless of what you plan on printing, print quality is always important to focus on. We tested the Anycubic Predator in 4 major areas: the ability to resolve details, z layer alignment, dimensional accuracy, and print repeatability. We scored this printer a 5/10, which isn’t ideal when you check out the other printers we’ve reviewed. We noticed that the predator outputted prints that were average. We saw under and over extrusions on the details. This proves that there are issues with the extruder and previous experience shows that cloned E3D titan extruders generally have poor quality.
The next thing to look for is print speed & maintenance costs. Depending on how patient you are, some print speeds are tolerable while others are more frustrating. Furthermore, you want to ensure you don’t spend as much on your 3D printer for maintenance as you do on your house. The Anycubic Predator’s stock print speed is 60mm/s, and with its print quality, we, unfortunately, don’t recommend tuning this to go any faster. In terms of maintenance, all components of the Predator can be replaced or upgraded (some silver lining!). Since many of the parts are clones of other products, they are easily replaced with the proper originals.
Lastly, you want to seek community support, so you aren’t going into your 3D printing adventure alone. The Anycubic Predator is not a very popular printer. As a result, there are very few groups that can help answer questions, assist with troubleshooting, and more.
Overall Score
Ranked #33 of 37 Printers
Learn more about our 3D printer review methodology.
The Anycubic Predator belongs to the delta family of 3D printers. These printers specialize in very high-speed printing due to their light printhead and quick-moving printer arms. These printers are well known for their circular build volume, breaking speed records and niche community support.
With that in mind, we thoroughly tested the Predator with a large variety of test prints, placed it in several gruelling office environments, crawled through its niche communities to ask questions and more. To get a better idea of its performance, we compared it to other delta printers like the FLSUN Q5 and the FLSUN SR.
The Predator sets itself apart from other delta printers with its absolutely huge print volume. With its φ370mm x 455mm (h) build volume, it is substantially larger than its closest competitor, the FLSUN SR.
This is a read that you do want to skip out on. Delta printers are a unique breed of 3D printers which combine speed, unique build sizes and movement aesthetics. Due to its unique movement system, choosing the wrong delta printer will lead to major headaches from poor setup, print quality and reliability. Not to mention the time and money wasted trying to fix and tune such a machine. We have sunk the time to research the Anycubic Predator so you can make the right decision on whether a delta printer is right for you.
Assembling the Printer
The Anycubic Predator ships in 3 major components: the base, top assembly and support pillars. Users will need to bolt the top and base assemblies to the support pillars, connect the arms from the hotend to the support pillar carriages, and connect the cables from the base and hotend to the top assembly. This process is similar to the more recent delta printers, where most of the assembly is done at the factory, allowing users to quickly go from unboxing the machine to printing. In our testing, we took about 45 minutes from unboxing to the first print. The FLSUN Q5, which shares a nearly identical setup process, took about 40 minutes from unboxing to the first print.
During our unboxing, we noticed that the Anycubic Predator had a large amount of plastic cling wrapped around the metal support pillars. We imagine this was done to prevent scratches to the finish if parts rubbed against each other during shipping. A minor nitpick was we spent a considerable amount of time unwrapping each extrusion due to the excessive amount of plastic cling wrap.
Leveling the Bed
Anycubic recommends that users use the automatic bed leveling before starting their first prints and it involves attaching the magnetic bed probe to the nozzle and running the bed levelling wizard. It was an easy process which took about 5 minutes, and found that the probe worked very well in making sure the first layer was perfect.
In our test machine, we found that Anycubic commits these leveling values to memory, allowing users to print constantly without needing to reuse the leveling sensor each time they start a print.
The Anycubic Predator has a large build volume of φ370mm (d) x 455mm (h), which allows it to print a large number of different objects. We greatly appreciate its Ultrabase Pro glass bed and automatic bed levelling, which made printing large objects quite reliable.
We tested the Predator in 4 major areas: the ability to resolve details, z layer alignment, dimensional accuracy and print repeatability. For the tests, we used stock 0.2mm layer height settings in Cura.
To test the Chiron printer’s ability to resolve details, we printed several detailed models, including the standard test model Benchy, a Mandolorian figure and a calibration cube. The Chiron outputted prints that are of average print quality. We have noticed under and over extrusion on the details on the Benchy, Mandalorian and calibration cube. This indicates that there are issues with the extruder, and in our experiences, cloned E3D titan extruders have very poor quality.
Delta printers require complex calculations to operate effectively. The Predator needs to use trigonometry to move the hotend on the x and y-axis. Cartesian printers, on the other hand, require only simple calculations to move on the x and y-axis. As a result, delta printers require a lot of CPU power to print well. Unfortunately, the Predator is only equipped with a very underpowered 8-bit control board often found in low-end cartesian printers. As a result, flat surfaces on the calibration cube often show blobs and dips as the Predator struggles to accurately and quickly move the hotend to the right location.
We did notice very little ghosting and ringing on prints. A huge advantage of delta printers is their very light-moving hotend and fixed printing surface. This gives delta printers the potential of being the fastest printers and exhibiting the lowest amount of ghosting and ringing out of all 3D printer types.
The Anycubic Predator’s joints in its arms also exhibit a lot of play, allowing the hotend to wiggle a few fractions of a millimetre. This play in its arms affects how accurately the Predator can align its layers and affect print quality. In our tests to see how well the Predator can handle z alignment, we printed a very tall 350mm tube. Due to the play in its arms, the Predator will have a few layers shifted a fraction of a millimetre, resulting in what appears to be a very slight bulge.
This play also manifested itself in the dimensional accuracy and print consistency tests when we printed a 20mm calibration cube 20 different times to see if there are any differences between the cubes. We noted that our cube measured 20.5mm (l) x 20.5mm (w), which makes the Anycubic Predator the worst printer we have tested for dimensional accuracy. We also noticed that between the first and twentieth calibration cube, there were differences in the finish of the cube due to the inconsistencies introduced by the play in its arms.
Overall we were very disappointed with the print experience on the Anycubic Predator. Due to the poor quality control in its extruder and arms, the Predator has very poor dimensional accuracy and average print quality at best.
Print Speeds
Delta printers have the ability to print extremely fast, with many well-built and tuned machines easily achieving print speeds north of 150mm/s. The Anycubic Predator’s stock print speed is 60 mm/s, and with its print quality, we do not recommend printing any faster.
Setting Up Prints
Anycubic ships its printers with Cura 15.0.4.6, which was released back in 2017. Since then, Cura and other slicer programs have made massive leaps in print quality, optimizations and features. We were very disappointed that Anycubic would ship such old software. We proceeded to install this older version of Cura to accurately test the Chiron in its stock configuration. Cura 15 provides a decent but slow user experience, and many advanced users will feel limited due to it lacking many of the modern parameters available to Cura 4.
Users then load their sliced files into an SD card which is inserted at the top of the delta printer. The Predator features a colour touchscreen with easy-to-read menus and icons. Some users might find the text to be a bit small to read, and unfortunately, there is no way to increase font size.
Noise Levels
Unlike other modern printers, the Anycubic Predator is equipped with older A4988 stepper drivers that are extremely loud in comparison to TMC silent stepper drivers, which are featured in many modern printers. This results in Chiron outputting 48db of noise while idle and 60db of noise while in motion. This is the equivalent of a loud office, and we found it very distracting to have the Predator in the same room while it operates.
The Anycubic Predator occupies a large amount of workspace with overall dimensions of 580mm (l) x 520mm (w) x 1020mm (h) and weighs in at a hefty 19.2kg. Delta printers are unique in that they have a circular build volume instead of a rectangular, and the Predator sports a large φ370mm (d) x 455mm (h) build volume. Compared to other current delta printers, such as the FLSUN Q5 and upcoming SR, the Predator is significantly larger in size and build volume.
Unlike cartesian and core XY machines, delta printers are not space efficient. For example, Anycubic’s Chiron which sports a bigger 400mm (l) x 400mm (w) x 450mm (h) while being slightly wider and substantially shorter at 650mm (l) x 650mm (w) x 720mm (h).
The Predator is constructed with 4080 extrusions and metal sheeting for the base and top of the 3D printer, making it incredibly rigid. Other delta printers, such as the FLSUN Q5, use 10mm steel rods which are far less rigid. This gives the Predator a feeling of sturdiness and durability.
One of the biggest concerns of 3D printing is the heater potentially losing control and catching fire. Thermal runaway protection is a software feature that monitors the hotend to ensure it stays within an acceptable temperature range. Most modern printers, including the Anycubic Predator, have it enabled, and we would never recommend a printer without this critical feature. In the case of the Predator, if it detects that the heater’s temperature is going out of an acceptable range, then it will display a heating error message, cut power to the printer and wait for the user to restart the machine.
Cable Relief and Cable Management
We were very pleased with the cable management on the Anycubic Predator. Anycubic has placed a lot of effort into minimizing any exposed cables by having the majority of the electronics store at the top of the delta printer. Power cables to the heated bed are hidden in the thick aluminum extrusion, and cables connecting the hotend to the top of the Predator are wrapped in a flexible nylon sleeve. This results in fewer opportunities for cables to snag and break, making operating the delta printer much safer. Additionally, this helps with the overall aesthetics of the Predator as it has a clean and professional appearance.
Low Voltage Heated Bed
Common to large format 3D printers is the inclusion of a mains voltage heated bed. This takes power directly from the power outlet to allow for very quick heating of the heated bed. However, this often comes with the risk of electrocuting the heated bed if the power cable breaks. The heated bed of the Anycubic Predator is not mains-powered but instead powered by the power supply of the delta printer. This lower power supply reduces the chance of electrification due to faulty wiring but at the cost of slower heating times. We prefer this style of bed heating as it is much safer for users.
Finding Replacement Parts
Fortunately for Anycubic, all components of the Predator can be replaced or upgraded. The control board, stepper drivers, hotend, extruder and motion components can be replaced when needed, and since many of them are clones of other products, they can be replaced with the proper originals. Due to the popularity of the original products, such as the E3D Titan extruder, they can be found in several 3D printing retailers such as Matterhackers, Spool3d and Digitmakers.
Accessing the Control Board
Anycubic encloses the electronics of the Predator at the top of the printer. After removing the top cover of the Predator with a few screws, users can fully access all the machine’s electronics. We are very happy with the large number of space users have to access the control board and other components. We were happy to see that Anycubic used the proper connectors and no hot glue to join components together.
Anycubic Ultrabase Pro Glass Bed
The Anycubic Predator is equipped with a branded ceramic-coated glass bed. This glass bed offers two major advantages: the ceramic coating grips PLA, PETG and TPU filaments very well while heated and releases them when cooled. This makes bed adhesion very reliable, with little maintenance required. The second advantage is that the glass is very flat. A flat build surface is critical for prints to adhere properly. Otherwise, prints may fail as parts may detach from uneven build surfaces.
Automatic Bed Leveling
The Predator has a unique bed levelling sensor that attaches to the tip of the nozzle. Before the first print, the delta printer will probe several places on the heated bed to accurately gauge the distance between the nozzle and the glass bed to ensure a reliable and accurate first layer. A level bed is critical for print reliability. If the nozzle is too far away from the bed, prints may fail to adhere, and when the nozzle is too close to the bed, the nozzle may jam due to filament being unable to come out.
The Anycubic Predator’s sensor is unique as it is not utilized for every print but used before the first print, and the results are committed to its own board memory.
Flying 3:1 Geared Extruder
To print large objects quickly, the Anycubic Predator needs to be equipped with an extruder capable of keeping up with the 3D printer. Anycubic has added a cloned E3D Titan geared extruder that offers far more grip strength than a standard non-geared extruder. This results in potentially faster print speeds and greater print reliability due to the greater filament control.
Traditional delta 3D printers mount their extruders on the side of the printer in a Bowden configuration and require a very long PTFE tube to feed the filament from the extruder to the hotend. This often results in poor print quality due to the long distances the filament must travel before reaching the hotend. Anycubic has mounted the Predator’s extruder in a “flying” configuration where it is suspended above the hotend. This significantly reduces the distance that the filament must travel before reaching the hotend, resulting in much better print quality.
Due to the lack of popularity of delta 3D printers in general, the Anycubic Predator is not a very popular printer. As a result, there are very few groups that Predator users could draw on mods, upgrades and solutions to their issues. A few examples include:
Overall we really like delta 3D printers. The combination of the fastest print speeds coupled with its science fiction-like movement makes delta 3D printers a head turner among the boxy utilitarian cartesian and corexy printers. Unfortunately, for delta printers to achieve their potential, it requires high-precision components with well-tuned hardware and software. Anycubic has fallen short of that with its underpowered control board and low-quality control in the extruder and arms. As there are currently very few delta printers in the market and none that we recommend, we suggest that users look at printers such as the Creality CR10 MAX if they are looking for a reliable, very large format 3D printer.
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Sources
1. Anycubic.com, “Anycubic 3D Printing” Accessed July 26, 2022.
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