Anet A8 is one of the popular and inexpensive 3D printers around and comes with disassembled in a box. Everytime you can find genuine or cloned versions at Gearbest or Aliexpress China based stores
Although its installation is extremely simple, it takes a while. To make installation faster and smoothly, Anet technical team has published 3 separate videos. Anet A8 model is revised from time to time. The installation steps mentioned here covers the model sold until the end of 2019.
Let’s follow the videos explaining the build steps, respectively.
Video-1 Preliminary testing of all electronics and moving parts
You can skip this step, but our recommendation is to make sure that all motors, power supply, sensors etc. are working properly before the installation, by pre-building those parts for testing purposes.
Video-2 Unboxing and First Installation Steps
When starting, notice that the body of the printer consists of acrylic material, not metal, as a feature of its cheapness. These acrylic pieces are covered with paper tape. It is mounted with these tapes in the video, but in order for your device to look aesthetic, first take off the tapes of the acrylic parts.
Warning: Do not remove the yellow tape on the build plate. This is necessary for the filament printed during printing to adhere to the plate. Do not be afraid if the loops are deformed by accident, you can buy tape or use a material that adheres to the tray called Buildtak or PEI in 220×200 mm size. Alternatively you may want to get glass or mirror in 4mm thinkness to put on the plate.
Video-3: Installation Continued
Video-4 Final Settings and Calibration
Finally, watch this video carefully.
If you do not have the optional bed levelling sensor, you can skip that section. However, having a bed levelling sensor will really make your life easier. You can choose the popular BL Touch sensor instead of the sensor described in the video. A bit expensive but worth it.Or cloned version 3d Touch. You can find instructions in this blog how to install a bed levelling sensor on your Anet A8.
You have now set up your Anet A8 3D printer and are ready to print. You’ve probably come across it while researching the printer on the Internet that the printer’s electrical cable has a security weakness. This is true, and you can make your printer safer and more comfortable with someupgrade as many people do. How can you do that? There are plenty of videos and resources on the internet, but I have compiled many of them with my own experience and found that there are various alternatives for each upgrades. I try these alternatives on my own printer to discover which ones are more efficient and useful.
In this article you can find upgrades that we strongly recommend for your Anet A8 printer.
For now, we recommend you to browse Facebook groups and pages for Anet A8.
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/1648343058562776
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/1796854373691789
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/372594423244984
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/524425597980884
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/1068531466501015
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/637339463142882
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/anet3dprintersupport
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/1968807610002212
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/250748465640826
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/c3dforum
- https://www.facebook.com/groups/1344349485693577
Suggested test and calibration print samples
For test printing, you can print sample images in the Test file GCODE folder in the SD memory came with the printer. If you wnat some more advanced ones download following examples. Thingiverse site will be your best frined for models, things, etc.
http://www.3dbenchy.com Famous bencchy
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1278865 XYZ kcalibration cube
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2467332 Temp Calibration Tower
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1545913 Calibration Cat
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1363023 Test your 3D printer! v3
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2797420 Bed level test
