First, this is a well-made product—I just don't see much of a need for it anymore. These days, many controller boards already provide convenient 5V power outputs or even dedicated ports specifically designed to power a Raspberry Pi or other single-board computers.
This module is still an excellent option for projects that require a reliable, high-current 5V power supply, but for simply powering a Raspberry Pi, especially with modern hardware, it feels unnecessary and overpowered, as a Pi is never going to be pulling 10A.
I'd recommend saving your money and putting it toward more Ambrosia filament instead.
Absolutely love this upgrade. The first thing I noticed was how much more solid and premium the enclosure feels—the overall tactile quality is a significant improvement over the stock panels. It also does an excellent job of retaining heat. Living in Wisconsin, printing ASA during the winter in my unconditioned workshop has always been a challenge. After installing these panels and adding some additional insulation, I haven't had any issues maintaining a stable printing environment, even during the coldest months.
My only minor complaints are the door panel gasket, which could be improved but is inexpensive to replace, and the slight color variation compared to my printer's frame. That said, the product page clearly states that some color variation is to be expected, so it wasn't a surprise.
First, I want to say that this hotend/extruder combo is genuinely impressive. The extrusion quality has been excellent, with consistently clean layer stacking that I believe is largely due to the precision of the drive system. It's also an incredibly compact package, which made it a great fit for my printer. Despite that, there are several drawbacks that prospective buyers should consider:
* Filament leakage and the heat break/heater implementation
* Long-term maintenance and replacement parts
* Overall footprint
* Limited community support compared to the Orbiter v2.5
### Filament Leakage and Heat Break Design
As many other users have reported, I experienced filament leakage with this hotend. The design appears to prioritize making the assembly as compact as possible, but that comes at the cost of some compromises.
The heater must be properly tightened against the heat break to prevent molten filament from escaping. Unfortunately, because of how everything is packaged, applying enough torque without stressing the heat break is difficult. While trying to fix a leak, I slightly bent the heat break and had to purchase a replacement. It doesn't take much force for this to happen, so maintenance requires more care than I'd like.
### Long-Term Maintenance
This brings me to my biggest concern: long-term repairability.
The hotend relies on several proprietary or custom components, including the motor and heat break. Because the platform hasn't seen widespread adoption, it's difficult to know how readily these parts will be available in the years to come. If a motor fails or a heat break is damaged, replacement options may become limited.
Fortunately, this concern appears to be addressed with the REVO version and the newer Smart Orbiter v3.5, which integrates E3D REVO compatibility. Standardizing around the REVO ecosystem should eliminate many of the heat-break and heater-related maintenance concerns, leaving the motor as the primary wear item. In fact, the release of v3.5 suggests the platform is moving toward more widely adopted standards, which is great—but it also makes me wonder how long replacement parts for v3.0 will continue to be supported.
### Footprint
Although the assembly is compact overall, I wish more of that compactness had been achieved vertically instead of horizontally.
The mounting arrangement results in a relatively wide toolhead, which can reduce usable X-axis travel on many printers. I also suspect this wide footprint has contributed to the limited community adoption, since integrating it into existing printer designs often requires compromises or custom modifications.
### Community Support
This is probably the biggest practical downside for most users.
We're admittedly spoiled by the enormous ecosystem surrounding hotends like the Chube, Dragon, and especially the Orbiter v2.5. Because this is a highly integrated, all-in-one design, there simply aren't as many community-created mounts, toolheads, modifications, or troubleshooting resources available.
Before purchasing, I strongly recommend verifying that a mount for your printer already exists. If one doesn't, be prepared to design your own or spend some time modifying an existing CAD model.
### Conclusion
Overall, this is still an excellent hotend/extruder combo. Print quality has been outstanding, and I genuinely like the compact, integrated design. However, the filament leakage risk, proprietary replacement parts, wide footprint, and relatively small community ecosystem are all worth considering before buying.
If you're looking at this platform today, I'd recommend taking a close look at the Smart Orbiter v3.5. From what I've seen, it addresses many of v3.0's weaknesses by adopting the REVO ecosystem while retaining the strengths that make this design so appealing in the first place.
Great kit from LDO though a challenging first build for me. The biggest problems I had were the tension spring for Anthead is way too tight (you can cut it or get a different spring) and I could not get the klicky probe working well (so I used a Beacon, which was much easier to install and use).
It's really good I have had a little trouble bit good, I recommend it.
The deep, dark purple is wonderful.
While not generally a fan of the large glitter size in many of the Ambrosia filaments for DIY printer parts, it turned out really well in PLA for this drawer/tool organizer.
The parts printed cleanly without warping and the glitter actually helped it pop a bit compared to the more satin of the green used for the alternating drawers. Printed at 30mm3/s, at 230C with 65C bed to keep the larger flat corners down, This was with a Rapido 2 Plus UHF and a 0.5 Bozzle on the RatRig VC4 IDEX, printing 2 purple and 2 green drawers at the same time.
With the Panda Breath, Popcap top, and Paxx firmware it prints ASA like a dream!! Added a couple of heaters and it is a great setup.
Leads are too short for my application (Voron Stealthburner, Dragon Burner or Anthead - tried to use it on all 3). It has found its way to my “3D printing stuff that I keep forever but never use” bin because it is unusable with the short leads. Cutting / stripping / soldering the wax coated wires is sometimes a pain.
The tubes are nice and are as described. As their warning states, they are cutting the tubes to 5 meter lengths. I do wish they'd improve their kitting process to eliminate the cuts. Now I'm going to have a bunch of wasted 1->2m lengths of tube, and have to buy more in the future to finish out my INDX build. I gambled on whether they'd cut it or not, and I l lost.
Multiple members of my frame arrived with significant bends. Recommend self-sourcing the frame. Other than that, I appreciate that the team worked hard at finding a way to ship my kit.
The staff was really helpful in selecting a replacement hotend for my Prusa MK3+. They worked me through several issues during the installation complicated by the fact we were doing it over 3 time zones. In the end, their assistance was instrumental getting the hotend to work and my printer up and running again.
Cosmic shimmer is a very beautiful and thanks to the transparency the sparkle has not just the advertised shimmer but depth as well. When it catches the light it is just fantastic!
Finally got a chance to use some of the Rainbow Dolos and it printed very well and with a decent speed of color change, going through all the colors in about 120g. Beautiful and smooth prints with default settings.
Printer is fantastic, instructions are more than clear with video, but not for the faint of heart, you will cry, you will suffer, but the dopamine high is so worth
Usually I print lithophanes with external supports to keep it from tipping. This plate works well enough I can save the material.
I bought this motor specifically for the short wiring harness. Mounted to my toolhead to drive extruder, it works great.
This is a genuine nozzle and worked great on my P2S. The flow is great and the hardened steel has lasted over a thousand hours for me even when printing a moderate amount of abrasive filaments.
I needed some additional heatset inserts for my Micron and these matched exactly what I had. These work great!
This is surprisingly powerful for a filament dryer (which you can tell by the wattage). This does a great job of drying ASA and ABS much more reliably than a normal AMS or cheap dryers. It's also nice to be able to add an additional color to my Bambu.
I got the galaxy blue ASA to print some outdoor signs, and this printed quite nicely with a light sparkle. No trouble printing with generic ASA settings.
Genuine Gates belts, as advertised. No complaints. :)
Title says it all, the printer itself is great, but the ability to call a local store, ask clarifying questions and then set a pick up date instead of relying on shipping, is an absolute win in my book.
I’ll continue to prioritize my business with West3D
Super nice color. Prints smooth