this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2024
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Is the Sovol SV08 worth it as a Voron 2.4 alternative? (www.sovol3d.com)
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by wfh@lemm.ee to c/3dprinting@lemmy.world
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The SV08 is marketed as a mass-produced Voron 2.4, with a much lower price and a very quick setup. They even say they donate a small amount to the Voron project for each sale.

Has anyone here bought/tested it? What are your thoughts about it?

Are there some limitations/downsides compared to a Voron?

Is it possible to upgrade it Voron-style (Stealthburner, enclosure etc)?

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[–] r6e@lemmy.world 12 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Maybe.

I've built a Voron 2.4 350, and own an SV08. I'm currently working on a detailed teardown/analysis/reverse-engineering of the SV08.

From a user perspective, there haven't been any deal-breakers so far, but certainly some annoyances. In short:

  • The filament path between the extruder and hotend is poorly-constrained, making it a pain to load
  • The auto-z calibration is often just a smidge off
  • The fans are absurdly loud. All of them.
  • The camera is meh
  • It uses a custom nozzle/heater
  • The bed is a bit thin
  • The mainboard is effectively a BTT CB1 and Fystec Cheetah on a single board
  • Their software customizations are of dubious quality
  • Their OrcaSlicer profiles are... fine. Just fine.

That being said, there are also many nice touches and good attention to detail in other areas. Overall, I'm satisfied with my purchase, but don't buy it to upgrade (aside from the mainboard fan). There be dragons.

If a Voron 2.4 fits in your budget, get a Voron 2.4. if not, the SV08 is a good choice if you can live with those annoyances, and especially if you are comfortable with third-party firmware mods (whenever they come out).

As an aside: based on my analysis of the mainboard, I strongly suspect Sovol is working on an MMU for the SV08.

[–] wfh@lemm.ee 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Than you so much for such a detailed analysis!

For reference, I've had a (heavily modded) Creality Ender 3 V2 for a few years, and I've hit a limit in terms of speed and quality.

The filament path between the extruder and hotend is poorly-constrained, making it a pain to load The auto-z calibration is often just a smidge off It uses a custom nozzle/heater

If it's possible to install a Stealthburner instead of the standard extruder/hotend combo, it might solve most of these issues. Maybe some people are working on a V6 or Mk8 style hotend (I have a metric fuckton of Mk8 nozzles laying around)...

The fans are absurdly loud. All of them.

OK Noctua upgrades then. Compared to an already absurdly loud Ender 3, is it worse?

The mainboard is effectively a BTT CB1 and Fystec Cheetah on a single board Their software customizations are of dubious quality

Would a Voron-style mainboard + RPi + standard Klipper solve these issues or are there fundamental incompatibilities?

Thanks!

[–] r6e@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

All of those upgrades are absolutely doable. Given the price of those upgrades, all-in, a Voron will be a better value. Unless you have most of the parts already, anyway.

Although, I wouldn't bother changing out the board unless you have specific needs. Firmware and config tweaks will take care of most issues I've seen with it.

The fan is probably on par with stock ender 3. But always-on.

[–] Scrath@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

How would you rate your Voron for regular maintenance and calibration requirements? I got started on an Ender 3 V2 which I have tinkered a lot with. At some point I lost the fun in with the constant tinkering and calibration and simply want a printer that once built is rock solid and relible.

Typically I would say prusa printers fit this requirement but at the same time I really like the amount of options that my klipper installation gives me. Also I kind of want a cube style printer to allow for an enclosure with air filtering which would lock me into the prusa xl as the only choice.

If a Voron is mostly maintenance free it would be a great alternative for my requirements

[–] r6e@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago

I have the LDO Rev. C kit, and it is rock-solid. They're releasing the Rev. D kit soon, and I can only imagine that'll be even more refined. I printed my own parts using a combination of Phaetus aeWorthy ABS-GF and 3DXTech ABS-CF.

If your printed parts are good-quality, you follow the directions precisely, and stick to the kit (no mods beyond the LDO-provided ones), I see no reason it shouldn't provide years of trouble-free service.

[–] barsquid@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Did you do a Voron kit? I'm considering doing one and was hoping you had a supplier you'd recommend.

[–] r6e@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I did the LDO kit, revision C. I'm very happy with the quality of the kit and included options/mods.

However, the documentation is... fragmented. It all exists, but it's spread across the official Voron build guide, the Stealthburner build guide, and the LDO print guide, addendum, wiring guide, etc. Super annoying. And there's no canonical part checklist, so it's easy to accidentally print unnecessary parts.

That seems to be a problem with most kits, though, so more of a heads-up.

LDO is releasing their revision D of the kit soon, so you can either wait for that or get a discount on a clearance revision C kit. I know KB3D is supposed to have them 20% off soon if not already (no affiliation, I just chatted with them at MRRF).

[–] barsquid@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

That's the kit I was considering! I figure if their motors are alright they probably are reliable for the other parts. Thank you for all that and the suggestion for discounts!

[–] dave881@lemmy.world 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I don't have any experience with this printer, but am similarly curious about it's viability as a "budget Voron"

Regarding upgradabilty, I saw this video recently with an attempt to turn it into a multi-tool head printer. It's a work in progress, but I thought it was interesting

[–] mortalic@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Ooof I've got a vivedono troodon (voron clone) and that thing is constantly breaking. It's broken right now! I might just give the thing away if someone would come get it!

Compared to my Prusa where everything just works it's not even close. The troodon is like a creality but without the cheap budget parts being widely available.

Does anyone know what slicer profiles exist for the sv08?

[–] UsefulInfoPlz@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

I’ll take it! I love my trodon 2.0. It hasn’t missed a beat. I’ve been running it nonstop for about a year.

[–] r6e@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Funny timing, ModBot just released a video on the SV08 today:

While he missed some of the issues I pointed out in my other comment, I largely agree with the review and it's worth a watch. He makes a good point towards the end about it not being a "Voron for cheap"

[–] wfh@lemm.ee 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Ah perfect timing indeed.

The key takeaway indeed matches yours: it's not a Voron despite being heavily inspired by it, there are some annoyances but at this price point it's forgivable and most of them seem to have workarounds (someone in the comments suggested letting the machine fully soak heat before performing Z-offset calibration), the open-source nature might bring a lot of third-party upgrades in the future.

Also, the reviewer's unit has some abnormal wear on the belts. Does it match your experience?

All in all, it seems to be a decent budget CoreXY printer with a very large volume at 1/3 the price of an LDO Voron kit + PIF parts, with a much quicker assembly but some potential pitfalls.

If this eventually becomes the Ender 3 of CoreXY printers that can be frankensteined into a a much higher quality printer over time, I'm all for it.

[–] r6e@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

That's an apt summary :)

I haven't seen abnormal wear yet. There are a couple spots that are tricky to align correctly, so I'm wondering if that happened to him and he unknowingly fixed the alignment when replacing the belt. It's worth being detail-oriented and triple-checking everything when assembling.

But I've been having some clicking on Z-axis moves recently. My suspicion is that I accidentally got some filament debris where it shouldn't be. I haven't opened it up to investigate yet, so if it's a machine issue, I'll update here.