NEW Tevo Tarantula Pro REVIEW 2020 - full review, pros and cons!

Now, before we get to the video, if you're new to the channel, I wanted to let you know that we try to stay up to date on all things 3D printing, from filament and printer reviews to in-depth slicer analysis, as well as a plethora of how-to videos. So if you haven't already, make sure you hit that subscribe button and ring the bell so you can be notified every time we post a new video. Hey guys, Tech Nibbers here. Today we're doing our review of the TiVo Tarantula Pro. I've gotten some awesome models off this thing and I will show them to you, but first, we're going to go over some specs and talk a little TiVo. Alright, so before we get too far into this actual review, let's go over some of the specifications of the TiVo Tarantula Pro. Print speeds are generally ranging between 60mm to 150mm per second. This is actually quite fast. Has a build volume of 235x235x250, and this is equal to 9.25 inches in both the X and Y direction, and 9.84 inches in the Z. It will print any resolution between 0.05 and 0.35. It will print outside this range, but this is the recommended resolution range for this printer. It comes with a Mark III heated bed with a maximum temperature of 70 degrees Celsius, and the hot end is a volcano, capable of heating super fast and reaching a maximum temperature of 240 degrees Celsius, which will allow you to print with most filaments. TiVo Tarantula Pro comes with an aluminum frame and an open structure design. Kind of a drawback if you're planning on printing ABS, but no worse than the Ender 3. Comes with an LCD screen that may appear small at first, but it is amazingly clear and crisp. The board is an MKS Generation L version 1.0. Uses a full size SD card, as opposed to the micro, and comes with a direct USB connection to interface with your PC as well. Alright so now that we've discussed the capabilities of this machine, and specifications, I would like to go over some of the models that I've printed and discuss some of the things that I've experienced while printing with this machine. So the first thing I want to show you, and I will have some clips and pictures popping up as we go through this, but mostly I am going to just show you these models, and I apologize for the poor lighting at the moment. We're working on that. As you can see we got the nice new blue Yeti mic, courtesy of one of our Patreon supporters, and a new camera as well. Lighting will be next, but this is the model I was talking about. This model was actually printed with no support. So as you can see, this is at least a 60-65 degree angle here, and it came out smooth and perfect. So I'm very very pleased with the overhang capabilities of this machine, and the bridging capabilities as well. As you can see on the Venus de Milo here, this arm here has an extreme overhang. Now that, also printed with no support. I know you probably don't believe me, but I'm telling you, this literally printed in thin air. Watch this. So here's my TiVo Tarantula Pro, just nonchalantly printing on nothing. It did put a little droop of filament down there, and proceeded to build up from that, and pretty much came out flawless after a little bit of post-processing. I did clip that little droop there, and you can't even tell that it printed that without support. And while we're discussing the bridging and overhang capabilities, I did also print a technivorous overhang test. Now this guy here is available on Thingiverse as one of my things, and you can see it goes all the way up to a 70 degree angle. Now this one does have a slight amount of droopage on that 70 degree angle, but the 60 degree is perfect. No, excuse me, 75. The 60 degree is perfect. So I am going to make another one that scales in between 60 and 75, and find the exact angle at which I need support with this model. But judging by the Venus de Milo, apparently I don't. And I have a couple other models I'd like to show you. One of them is this Batman bust. I do a lot of these Batman busts. This one came out super fine. The details are nice. The overhangs came out pretty well. The other one I wanted to show you is this guy. This was done in Kira's vase mode, another very, very fine example of a good model. For those of you who don't have a printer and are looking at this for your first printer, you should know this vase here printed in about an hour and ten minutes. But that is not normal for an object of this size. Vase mode is a special mode that allows you to print a one-layer thin perimeter around the wall of an object and build it up, basically creating a hollow object with low structural integrity. So pretty much just aesthetic and for looks. But this Batman bust right here also took about an hour and 50 minutes. So longer than the vase, but it is solid and very, very, very well made, I might say. I'm actually really enjoying the prints I'm getting off of this machine so far. But let's talk a couple of pros and cons. Pros, you have the volcano hot end. Now that is the biggest pro with this machine because it heats filament super quickly, it lays down filament super quickly, and you can get really nice prints at super high speeds. I'm very, very impressed with this system and in fact, I would like to mod out my other printers to have a volcano hot end and I'm looking in how to do that. The other thing that I printed while printing this machine was this thing here. Now we'll go ahead and file this under con. Normally when you get a new printer, they put files on the SD card and one of them is a test print. This is the test print that came with this printer. I'm using it for a spool holder. It looks like a spool holder and functions as a spool holder, but I'm not quite sure what it is. It just said something support on the model. It probably is a spool holder judging from the way that it works so well as one, but I'm not sure how they intended for me to mount it to the machine. So I've kind of rigged something up and this is working pretty well as well. But that brings me to the con of the fact that there is no spool holder with this. On the Ender 3, it comes up here and you can just hang your spool and run your filament. You have a lot of options for adjusting it and sure, here, you can easily just print one, but what do you do with the spool while you're printing the spool holder? I had mine set next to it and it kept falling over and causing issues so I had to rig something up. I haven't had any issues since I put the spool holder on there. That's kind of obvious. It's kind of a silly oversight, although it does encourage you to get into modding your own printer. So on the pro side of things, this is a very, very easily moddable printer. As you can see, I have made a new hotend cover here. I modded that myself. It's not available on Thingiverse yet, but I'll get it up in the days to come. There are several other mods that I need to make to this, which brings me back to another con. The next mod I will be making will be a belt tensioner. Now my belts haven't gotten loose yet, but they are a little bit tricky to fasten when you first put them on and if they are loose when you attach them, you'll be getting wobbles and vibrations and those will cause errors in your print and you don't want that. So the longer I run this, especially at the high speeds that the Volcano is capable of, the looser those belts are going to get. What a belt tensioner does is basically goes on the end of here and has a mechanism to where you can screw a knob in most cases and put a little bit more tension on the belt to keep it tight without unfastening it from here because fastening these two parts are what causes you to have looseness in your belt to begin with, not pulling them tight enough. It's an awkward angle that you have to pull them back at and keep them tight while fastening the belt together. That is not really a major deal. Like I said, I fastened mine down properly the first time and haven't had any problems with it, but this is a kit printer. So if you're building it from scratch and you don't know what you're doing, you're going to have a hard time if you don't know that the belts need to be tight, if you don't make sure that the frame is square and things like that. So if you are going to purchase one of these printers, I will put a link down below. They will be a, it's an affiliate link. It'll be to Banggood. They normally ship from China and can take up to three weeks, just full disclosure. I did get my printer in about a week, so it wasn't too bad and it was around $200. So full disclosure, that affiliate link, I get a little bit of money off that. If you buy one through there, no pressure, but we always appreciate help on the channel. The other thing I wanted to say is if you're looking at buying this for your first printer, make sure that you are at least a little bit technical savvy because it is a kit. You do have to build it from parts. It doesn't come partially assembled like the Ender 3 or some other printers. It is in pieces. The instructions are pretty clear and should you have any problems putting it together, I do have a video for building this actual printer and I will put a link to that up right here. I'll have a card pop up. Not sure what it's going to say yet, but yeah, that thing right there, whatever that is, just go ahead and click on that and it'll bring you to the video on how to put this machine together. Thanks for sticking around, guys. This has been my review of the TiVo Tarantula Pro. If you want to get a number out of me, so far I'm giving this guy four out of five stars. The only reason I'm not giving it five out of five stars is because I haven't spent enough time with it for it to malfunction on me properly. Come back in a couple of months and we will do a full thorough review, go over some of the other things that I have printed, and give it a final score. But for now, I am really, really impressed with this printer and if you're thinking about picking one up, definitely do it. It is worthwhile as a purchase. As always, this channel is brought to you by these fine Patreon supporters. If you'd like to support the channel on Patreon, head over to www.patreon.com slash technivorous. All right, guys, that's going to be the end of this video. As always, thank you. I'll put a video up right here that you can check out for more of our stuff. And if you're still here and you haven't already, why don't you click right here and subscribe to the channel?