Stop making mediocre Ender-3s! Flashforge Voxelab Aquila Review

The Flashforge Voxelab Aquila is yet another Ender-3 clone - in this case, a near carbon copy of the Ender-3 v2. It copied all of its flaws and yet added new ones - so the question is, what justification is there for this printer to exist when it's bringing absolutely nothing new to the table?

00:00 Voxelab Aquila Review
01:01 Print Quality
02:01 Slicer
02:56 LCD Screen
04:31 Hotend and Extruder
05:18 Cable Management
05:46 Electrics / Electronics
06:07 Heated Bed
07:02 Thermal Safety
10:38 New Features?
12:43 My Conclusion
15:04 One more uninspiring Cheeseburger

Read the article to this video here:

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[MakersMuse]

Hehe you're gonna love cubicon's new printer.

[MadeWithLayers]

Update on the thermal runaway situation: To this day, the Aquila is still shipping with the same buggy firmware that crashes on fault. Flashforge Voxelab say they're working on an update.
They have additionally confirmed that Aquilas in the field are seeing shorting issues with the thermistor - the exact fault that would trigger the thermal runaway in Voxelab's faulty firmware.
Be careful out there if you're using an Aquila and if you haven't done so already, flash a community firmware. 🤞

[ZURAD]

I can tell that Tom is really starting to lose patience here lol

[marsgizmo]

Excellent video and well said Tom! 😌 The amount of Ender copies without basic safety features and lack of innovation is also driving me crazy 🤦‍♂️

[dannybush]

Thank you for an excellent review of this machine. I found out everything you did the hard way as usual I bought mine. Although it is basicly an E3V2 now, it cost me another $120 to get it there. I do love to tinker, but this machine was the most tinker prone machine I have used. The statement you discussed early in the vid about the carriages and the wheels caught my attention. You mentioned locking the wheels after they were adjusted. That is totally new to me. I have been printing for four years now and I have never heard this bit of knowledge mentioned before. I would love to hear more about it and all of the reasons for it. That would be a most enlightening video for sure. Thanks for all you do.

[Chad.The.Flornadian]

Props to you for telling it like it is. I love that you and Angus are seemingly fed up with the tactics of the 3D printing companies and no longer sugar-coating your reviews.

[PatrickRankin]

I just wanted to address some things, even though I mostly agree with this video. First, the Aquila is an Ender 3 V2 clone not a Ender 3 clone. It's priced at an Ender 3 level. It was at the time of release, $100 less than a Ender 3 V2, plenty of money left over for filament and upgrades. Second, the analogy of the cheeseburger is not a good one for individuals who couldn't afford a "hamburger" in the first place. The Aquila was always marketed as an entry level printer, so for some, an affordable cheeseburger sounds amazing when you've had nothing.

[Pile_of_carbon]

Two of my friends bought their 3d printers around the same time. One bought a Prusa and the other bought a cheap clone printer. One of the printers was still in use a couple of years later while the other one had a thermal runaway and melted itself on first start-up. One of my friends is still into 3d-printing.

[machineman]

The Aquila is the second printer that I have owned. I was going to buy the Neptune, but it wasn't available at the time. The best feature is the price, it prints well, and I haven't had any major issues with it. I flashed third party firmware, and added a 3d touch probe.

I do appreciate your review, all of the other reviews that I have seen of this printer, don't mention any of these problems

[mortalwombat]

Sure, it's just another E3v2 clone with nothing really setting it apart feature-wise. But you're kinda overlooking the ~$90 price difference. That's huge, and more than justifies its existence. You can buy an E3v2 for $280, or for the same money you can buy an aquila, a cheap all metal hotend, a knockoff BLtouch, a hardened steel nozzle, and a spool of filament to print brackets to attach them. So for the same price as an E3v2, you can have a *much* more functional printer (some assembly required).

You say this offers nothing over an E3v2? It's only 2/3rds the price. That's a significant upgrade.

[MysticGrower]

Just bought my second Aquila last week. This time I bought a micro swiss hotend, bmg extruder, and wham bam flex plate along with new fans all at the same time so when I assembled it initially it was all upgraded. I then added Alex's firmware to it and printed a vertical mount for the screen along with new fan shroud for better fans/CR-Touch add-on. Love my Ender 3v2 but it cost me $620 after fully upgrading it where as the Aquila cost me $420 for the same print quality and reliability. I did have to replace the thermistor when I upgraded the hotend because it was glued in and broke trying to remove it, but hearing about your issues it may have been a blessing in disguise.

[mdbssn]

For some reason, I feel like this review is a standout in your usually good videos. I think something about the pace of succinct differences and critiques that are not only pointing out issues, but actually explaining the failure modes and what would be a better option means you've packed an awful lot of understanding and experience into 18 minutes.

[PaulLemars]

Thanks for the Video Thomas, I didn't realize my original Ender 3 is 4 years old. It's been a reliable tool for me. But I'm not going to lie, I've had to learn it's needs and make mods where appropriate. The extruder is all metal, the bowden tube is capricorn, the bed is lightweight glass and the SKR controller to fix the thermal runaway issue. The problem with the low end of the market is that innovation costs money and far too many consumers look at price (myself included) as the deciding factor. In my defense this route has given me a better appreciation of what's needed for a successful print and has made me far more robust when things go wrong.

I will say however I truly appreciated that Creality released the Ender 3 as open source. Spares and firmware can be got anywhere. If My Anycubic Linear Kossel Delta ever punked out on me to the point where it was unrepairable I would just buy another Ender 3.

[FilamentFriday]

Nice summary. And yes, a firmware update from 3rd party is recommended. But I’m curious your thoughts. If someone only has $200 to get started with 3D printing what printer would you recommend (other than Neptune 2 which has similar issues/features)?

[edumaker-alexgibson]

If the engineers were only told to watch Tom's old videos, a lot of zero-cost problems could be avoided...

[Dave_the_Dave]

The key selling point of these 3d printers and the cheeseburgers is the same: it's cheap, it's available, and you basically know what you're going to get. The sameness of them is a feature.

[denisbeck]

That's an interesting review Tom, thanks! I didn't quite get your opinion about the Aquila being actually worse than the Ender 3 V2. I recently acquired an Aquila as my first 3D printer. I wasn't going to print 24/7 and after some research about the available printers I decided on the Ender 3 V2. I've seen some reviews on the Aquila and my impression was, that it's basically the same or maybe a slightly better machine. At the time of my purchase the Aquila + three spools of filament sold for about the same price as the Ender 3 V2. Was it a good decision? I don't know, especially in the long run.

As I understand it, there is no printer in this price range that doesn't require some degree of tinkering. And even with my limited knowlege about 3D printing I was aware of it. Gladly, my printer doesn't have an air gap between the glass plate and the heated printing bed. After assembling the printer, first thing I did was checking for a new version of the firmware. I actually expect it to be a fairly widespread behavior, but maybe that's just me. I ended up replacing the firmware with a custom built one after I realized that the one provided by the manufacturer didn't support a routine for changing filament, or a manual bed leveling routine, or many other things.

But in the end it's just a clone, cutting a piece of the market cake that the Ender 3 (V2) dominates. The Ender 3 V2 doesn't come with a BL Touch, so why would you expect a clone to do so at a significantly lower price point? I don't agree that the manufacturer intended to add one and decided otherwise before shipping. I think they just provide the customer with an easy option to upgrade. Both printers are noisy. Both have the same extruder setup that seems to fail on everybody after some time. Both have part cooling coming only from one side. Yep, it's a clone.

The only thing I would ague is, whether it's really worth buying a machine in this price segment at all. And the answer depends heavily on the individual use case.

[mewserino]

As an owner of one of these, thank you for sharing the thermal runaway problem. Firmware update now a high priority.

[DPrintSOS]

I think the number one selling feature for these machines is the price. You can get in at a crazy low price and "DIY" yourself a better printer as you go. I think if COULD afford a better machine, you wouldn't be looking at a clone. Right?

[anthonyrich]

Great work, Tom. I would be nice if FFF printer reviews would start out testing the three thermistor failure modes - both for the hot end and the bed - before even looking at anything else. It will never matter how quickly nor how well it prints when it fails basic thermal protections and can burn your house down. Thermal protection doesn't seem to get much air time any more.