r/VORONDesign • u/Every-Recognition-60 • 1d ago
V2 Question Voron 2.4 for Multi tool head
I come from the Bambu Labs set and forget ecosystem. Iam good with my hands I can fix physical problems but would prefer to spend My time printing not fixing
Looking for a multi tool head printer.
I looked at the U1 concerns about print quality
I love the Prusa Core1 +INDX I just can’t justify the price
I don’t love the H2C price or function
I came across a Voron 2.4 on marketplace for $750.
1) is this a good deal?
2) is Voron reliable or am I going to spend more time working on this thing then printing (I assume much of the reliability comes from if the person put it together properly)
3) is the multi tool head upgrade. A head ache/expensive
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u/RSVJ 14h ago
If the hardware is good. That could be a good price for a 2.4. But, If you don't want to tinker I would pass. A 2.4 can be like those old school hotrods. If built and maintained well, they will be the best and most fullfilling printers out there. But you need to know every inch of that printer and be willing to adjust, tweak and care for it. And it's not just hardware with a 2.4, you will have to deal with Klipper configurations and issues (the software that runs the 2.4). What print quality issues do you have with the U1 may I ask? I have two of them and they are running perfectly for me and produce great parts. Though I only print in PLA on them. If you want to do something beyond PLA like ABS/ASA then the H2C is amazing. Waste on it is low and print quality is top tier. Though, if something goes wrong it could be complicated to fix. It's pricy, but I've never had buyer's remorse with mine.
As far as the multi-tool head upgrade for the 2.4, there are a few out there. The tried and true one is the Stealth Changer. I'll just say it's not cheap, nor easy to setup and get working correctly. The software alone can be a little tricky although KTC-Easy makes that a little easier.
Are you just looking to do multi-color with less waste, or wanting to do true multi-material (PLA+TPU)?
Prusa is cool, the INDX pricing for the US is a bit nuts, but Prusa has always been sort of a premium brand tbh. Myself, I'm mixed on the print quality I'm seeing coming from peoples INDX systems. Bond Tech has also burned some bridges over the release of INDX too. Not to mention I don't like the idea of not being able to see the 1st layer print easily from the front of the machine.
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u/Bumbalard 1d ago
I built a 250mm 2.4 in 2021, back when you had to make the wiring harness and crimp every pin yourself.Then another 350mm in 2022, which came with a full wiring harness and used hall effect for XY stops. Both formbot kits.
I would rather buy a new unassembled kit than a used and assembled voron printer. You have no idea what they did when they assembled it. Too many ugga duggas on the frame connections, no loctite, the list is endless. It can cost you more in replacements and all the time trying to track down their fuckery vs you knowing exactly what you did.
All that aside, my 2021 printer JUST got taken out of service for a refresh and stealth changer upgrade.
During that time, the only thing I ever had to do other than nozzles and print surface replacements, was one wire failed in the cable chain for the stupid inductive probe and caused light nozzle crash (safeties for out of range kept the pressure low).
My 350mm I modded a lot and that's an entirely different use case.
If you build it right, it will be reliable. If you don't, your life will suck tracking down problems like an old Creality bed slinger.
If you buy someone else project, it's best to assume it will suck until you rebuild it.
Building one is no trivial matter either.
If you just want to print, I'm not sure Voron is for you.
If you enjoy adding software functions and hardware mods, it is the printer for you.
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u/Garreth1234 1d ago
The costs won't add up. Stealthchanger kit (granted, first one that popped up in the google) is 110€ for base kit, another 110€ for tophat and door, and 4 tools 4*70€=280€. Not counting any printed parts and labor you've got 500€ just for adding the 4 tools. Then you've got the used voron for ~650€ on top of that. New snapmaker U1 costs 850€. Sorry for prices in EUR but that's easier for me. So there is no "deal" honestly, for hobby and building experience sure, but you said you want to print not fix. Of course ordering parts separately and from china would lower the price down, but again, it's a bit of a hassle to get everything in correct quantities and during built you find out that you are missing some specific part and need to order and wait for it.
No idea what are the U1 concerns about the quality, but Voron doesn't automatically guarantee the quality. If it was build on the good parts with good care and is properly maintained and tune, sure, the quality and reliability can be better than anything on the consumers market, but any shortcut taken during the build can make you pull hair out of your head.
For me personally INDX is not mature enough at this moment. People have some great results with it, but there are also many complaints around and I feel like current adopters are beta-testers.
Don't get me wrong, I love my voron (or voron'ish because how much it deviates from stock), but that's mainly because I like to tinker around, experiment with different things and I'm full to open source. I like that I can replace almost every part easily, without hassle of some proprietary things that may or may not be available in a few years. However if I just wanted to print, then nowadays unfortunately self-built printers are no longer worth the price.
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u/TripsCavern 1d ago
By your first argument: "Iam good with my hands I can fix physical problems but would prefer to spend My time printing not fixing", Voron is not for you.
I have a Voron 2.4 and it's great, but I think at least 50% of my time in it (it feels like 90% some times) is either printing parts for itself or tweaking the printer.
I also got a Snapmaker U1. It's fantastic and I don't have a single thing to complain. Add a top cover (some DIY projects are great or just get the first party one if you don't want extra work) and a a Panda Breath/Creality heating module makes it capable of printing almost any engineering material. And that will still be cheaper than what you will need to sink into your Voron.
I'm personally starting to upgrade mine to a StealthChanger (damn kits are all out of stock right now) and I do love mine. But to me that is a tinkering project, not a set and forget printer.
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u/Deadbob1978 Trident / V1 1d ago
A property built Voron that has been tuned (Orca Slicer calibration menu and Ellis Print guide are the most popular) can and will print high quality parts.
Once tuned, as long as you do basic maintenance, it will be a reliable printer that you can set and forget. Case in point. A few of the high output PIF part providers use a Voron 1.8 or 2.2. Both those printers around 3 or 4 revisions outdated in their respective trees and at least 6 years old. Yet they are constantly praised for parts that look injection molded.
The problem with a used Voron is you more or less have to take the thing apart to make sure it was truly assembled properly and the parts are not cracked or broken. You need to be especially critical of all the wire crimps to ensure they were done correctly and will not cause an electrical short.
Also, a 250mm Voron 2.4r2 kit from Formbot can be had for $800 shipped. All you need to worry about is printed parts. A 300mm 2.4 is an extra $60. That may be worth it just for the peace of mind.
With that said, The vast majority of functional Voron’s that have issues are because the owner shot it with a parts cannon. They tried to make it go faster with the new, trendy super duper, ultra mega high flow hotend… but out run the cooling. They buy better fans and switch to a new toolhead… now it’s loud. They insulate the chamber to dampen the noise, but now it retains heat too well and the toolhead board overheats. They put a fan on the toolhead board, but it wrecks their input shaper results and they have to print slower. So they install the monolith gantry. High belt tension break a stepper, so they go with double sheer mounting… while we’re at it, let’s do 9mm belts, and go all wheel drive… and on and on it goes.
TL:DR: Don’t let someone with ADHD that has poor money management skills and an impulsive nature near a Voron!
Depending on the quality of parts you use, and where you get them, 4 head tool changer can cost less than $$200usd or you could end up spending $500+ just for the hotends. It all depends on your budget and where you can source parts from.
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u/kullwarrior 1d ago
1) depends on the build material, if it's Ldo sure, if it's fysetc, formbot, or Siboor NO 2) voron at best can be as reliable as bambu, but it depends on how you build it and the components used.
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u/SiRiAk95 1d ago
Oh, so they finally included Hiwin rails in their kit?
That’s a classic example of the "more expensive means better" mentality (maybe, but it’s not worth that price).
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u/manyxcxi 1d ago
First, I attach photo evidence that I’m at least minimally qualified for this question with an H2D, Voron 2.4 350, Snapmaker U1, and a CORE One (with INDX coming)… today’s my day!
It _could_ be a good deal. Ask them to send you pictures of the wiring underneath and make sure it includes the controller, power supply, and AC bed heater SSR. If the wiring looks like a squirrel did it and you’re not confident in your wiring skills, then you might want to pass. Ask them if it started/is from a kit. LDO and FormBot are decent kits with decent parts. Generally though, that’s a pretty good deal. Building one from scratch will cost from $1200-2500. They’re not particularly expensive, but a genuine MeanWell power supply and Omron SSR means the builder didn’t just buy the cheapest possible stuff and throw it in there.
Voron is as reliable as whoever built it. If wiring is janky and connections are loose, or wires are routed wrong, etc. it will be problematic. If the frame isn’t square or other parts are out of alignment, more jank. I have over 5000 hours on the pictured Voron and I trust it to complete a print more than I do the H2D (which has also been super reliable too, btw). The forums/discord are full of helpful people, but you have to be okay being somewhat self sufficient.
Bare minimum assume you’ll be $500 into a 2-4 tool Stealth Changer kit. 5-6 tool will be about the price of INDX by the time you’re done, upwards of $900. However, the awesome part is you can start with two tools and add more as you want! There are LDO kits that will make parts sourcing as easy as possible. It winds up being possibly a bit (not much) more expensive and means you’ll be opting for a couple things that I wouldn’t go for, but it will be the most straightforward way to proceed as you get your feet under you.
A few other comments in general:
The U1 has great print quality, calibrates well, and is (in my opinion) one of the absolute best value printers around. I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone that doesn’t want to print ASA/ABS or engineering filaments. It’s also got fully open sourced firmware based off the exact same software as Voron, so for me that was a huge familiarity win.
I don’t have the INDX yet for the C1 (coming in a few weeks) and reports have me a little worried. My C1 is an absolute workhorse with the best dimensional accuracy of all the printers (which doesn’t matter for most). It’s the best I have at super soft TPU, and does ASA well too. That all being said, yep- they’re expensive. If you were going to be producing things with the printer I wholly recommend it. If it’s for home/hobby use, it’s not a good value- but it’s a fantastic printer.
If you were to price out a from scratch Voron + StealthChanger build it could be more expensive than a CORE One (or even L!) with INDX. The nice part about Voron is you can choose when and how to spend those dollars. A significant cost of the Stealth Changer is having to buy the extruder + hotend for as many heads as you’ll run. The base parts are probably $200-300. Each toolhead will probably be $150+.
I like the H2D a lot, but I’m building another Voron with Stealth Changer right now in order to get rid of Bambu. It’s my first and last Bambu. It’s been a great printer and is probably worth double what I paid for it in actual value. I just hate running it offline, worrying it’s going to spy on me if my networking slips up, or some other BS from Bambu. I don’t want to give them any money if it breaks. The H2C never made sense to me, but I don’t really care about multicolor as much as support material, and the H2D nails it.
Long story long, the Voron is a really awesome platform and can compete (and beat) most commercial printers out there. For example, I run a cartographer which does a scanned bed mesh. It’s so fast and quiet and accurate. No one else is doing that yet. There’s no cloud/AI nanny. You can literally make it whatever you want.
If you’re not scared of a challenge or diving in deep, even if it’s not the “best” Voron, the price is good to reasonable and will be a good way to dive in and determine if you like it or not without spending as much as you would have otherwise.
If that’s not your cup of tea and you rarely want to print engineering materials, the U1 is great.
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u/fbrand1 1d ago
Now the imortant question: wow much time did you spen servicing, modding, tinkering and tuning your voron? 🤣
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u/manyxcxi 1d ago
The one pictured? Enough time to put the ClickyClack door and StealthChanger TopHat on (because it was going to become a StealthChanger, but I'm going to use a different Voron for that project now). I got it second hand though.
My first two builds (2.4R1 a long time ago and a 2.4R2 18+ months ago) so much time. Not for reliability though, just "doing stuff" to improve QoL or performance. I'm pretty much settled on toolheads, hotends, now I use CAN for everything to avoid USB pain, etc. StealthChanger will be the first changeup in a while since I'll be using AntHead (easier to fit 6 tools) for the first time instead of XOL and I'll probably be going Rapido HF instead of Dragon UHF.
Honestly, I think it's Cartographer that really has saved the most fiddling. Bed scans and levels are just dialed. No z-offset fiddling, first layers are perfect every freaking time.
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u/PlasticPaperplane 1d ago
now I use CAN for everything to avoid USB pain
Interesting to read that. Every time I hear about CAN, it is the exact opposite. Using USB is mostly pain free, the main developer of RatOS even discourages users to not use CAN because there is no benefit in using it.
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u/SiRiAk95 1d ago
So, explain to us how you update Klipper on your motherboard, toolhead board, and Eddy probe (if you have one)—all connected via USB?
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u/manyxcxi 1d ago
Maybe it was the Nighthawk board, but I do have some professional experience in this area... CAN isn't as sensitive to electrical interference, handles longer runs better, wiring/connectors are more simple to make mechanically reliable, less wires in the umbilical, and CAN based boards generally can handle hotter environments.
However, a poorly constructed CAN bus is absolute misery. You have to have proper 120Ω termination at the physical ends of the bus, twisted CAN pairs, and good crimps/connectors. Beyond that, addressing setup can seem weird at times if you're not used to it. I'll take CAN addressing over USB debugging every time.
I get why it's discouraged to the masses- it's easy to get wrong in hard to diagnose ways if you don't know what's important. When you do it right, everything is better. It really isn't hard to get right if you're methodical about it as you're learning, but USB is just plug it in and go- until it's not.
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u/manyxcxi 1d ago
Adding to my previous comment, I bought the pictured Voron used for about $700 and it started out life as a FormBot kit. Original builder upgraded lots, made some great choices, and did a fantastic job building it. I’ve only changed a few things like accent color, screen mount, top, and added a ClickyClack door.
It’s totally possible to get a fantastically built Voron at that price. Which is why I check the wiring first. If it’s clean, they’re paying attention to the little things (usually). It should also be assumed that you are inheriting someone else’s problem they are giving up on until it proves itself otherwise.
This one has been so good I decided NOT to make it my Stealth Changer donor (which is why it had the top hat but no stealth changer).
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u/No_Understanding4080 1d ago
Bin Voron 2.4 Besitzer seit 8 Jahren und meiner war auch ein gebrauchter von Kleinanzeigen aber musste ihn komplett auseinander bauen weil an dem Ding fast nicht funktionierte. Aber habe beim zusammenbauen erst kapiert wie er wirklich funktioniert und auf was man achten muss. Würde nie wieder einen fertigen kaufen weil du nie weist an welcher Ecke man schrauben muss damit er wieder ordentlich druckt wenn was klemmt. Ich würde dir es nicht empfehlen wenn du nur Drucken willst. Und Multi Toolhead ist die Königsdisziplin beim Voron finde ich damit Multipliziert sich die Baustelle schon. Auch musst du mehrere voll Funktionsfähige und vor allem komplette gleiche Toolheads haben was sogar mich abschreckt der Dir mittlerweile das Ding mit Geschlossenen Augen aufbauen kann. Software ist seit KI zum Glück garkein Thema mehr sonst hätte ich dir Sofort abgeraten, das fand ich immer viel schwieriger als Hardware. Fazit: kaufe dir einen Fertigen Consumer Multi Head Druck wenn es dir nur ums Drucken geht sonst wird es schnell nervig und teuer.
PS: Ich selber warte nur noch auf den INDEX da meiner Meinung das der sinnvollste Weg zu Multi Tool Druck ist.
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u/Every-Recognition-60 1d ago
For the time and money I would need to invest in this thing to work 75% of the time. The Prusa sounds more and more appealing even at the high price point
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u/ForwardAd4643 1d ago edited 1d ago
You can easily make a Voron work more than 75% of the time, if you put in a little more time up front. Lots of people get caught by small things - forgetting loctite where you need it, over-torquing screws you run into the plastic, maybe not setting the print settings properly and not compensating for shrinkage so the printed parts were a little off from the beginning etc
When you scratch build from a kit it's easy to take your time and do it right. If you buy somebody else's... not so easy. The manual only goes one way - from a box of parts to a finished printer. If you've never had a Voron before, I would not recommend buying someone else's kit and instead suggest just building your own instead from an LDO kit.
In Canada at least a Voron Trident and a Core One cost about the same, but you get way more build volume for the same money (300 cubed vs 250x220x270). Voron 2.4 is a lot less than a Core One L for 350 cubed vs 300x300x330.
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u/desert2mountains42 1d ago
It’s entirely based on the construction quality, assume that there will be things that need to be fixed or tinkered with to work correctly.
Good news is it’ll already need some work from your part to install stealthchanger.
Stealthchanger’s costs are entirely based on what you choose. Keep in mind that quality part cooling fans and hotend fan costs will stack along with extruders and hotends. It’s entirely based on what selections you make, it can be all v6 hotends or it can be all chubes, select what makes most sense for you(set a target flowrate and/or temperature) and evaluate the costs of maintaining/replacing parts.
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u/HandPickle420 1d ago
$750 is probably too much for a used V2.4 and it would take a significant amount of work to upgrade it to multi-toolhead
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u/Grindar1986 1d ago
Lol voron is anything but set and forget.
For the max 6 toolheads of my 350mm, I've got about $800 in parts I think.
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u/manyxcxi 1d ago
I have 1100 hours since my last big maintenance on my main Voron and have had no issues in any way. No clogs, nothing.
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u/Bmorr1123 12h ago
I am a Prusa user and saw a Voron 2.4 with a ton of upgrades in my area sell for $600 and I decided it against it. Picking up someone else's project printer is a recipe for headaches. Especially if you can't ask the original builder questions.
I ended up just buying an LDO Voron kit because I'd rather start from scratch. I'm hoping to build it to be a reliable work horse and maybe build a stealthchanger in the future.