Sapphire Plus
The Sapphire Plus from Two Trees a large coreXY 3D printer
Packed well but bad QC before Packing
After opening the box, I find that the printer is properly packaged and it has foam protection on all sides to ensure the package arrives safely. I had a damage stepper motor bracket and a slight off bed. (new parts are send)
Some Part allready assembled
The printer comes with some parts already assembled. The assembly took around 4.5 hours. The manual for the aseembly is very bad look for videos on the card or youtube.
DONT FORGET!!! to use lubrication on Z screws NOT INCLUDED.
Linear Rail
I had to change my backlash nuts with some I laying arround. There was alot of backlash on the stock nuts and I did not want to go with them. After the change it did go very well and smooth.
Dual Z
This is a great fureture and works very well. It is a closed loop belt that ensure the Z motors are in sync. Now you have tro remeber to messure the distance in top and buttom on the rail if it is of like mine was then correct it before you start up your printer.
BMG long distance extruder
Sapphire Plus comes with BMG long distance extruder clone. I dont like that so I wil change that to a direct drive system instead.
Sapphire Plus spec.
| Manufacturer | Two Trees |
| Model Name | Sapphire Plus |
| Build Material | Sheet Metal |
| TMC Drivers | 2208 |
| Board | MKS Robin Nano V1.2 board 32 Bit |
| Hotbed Size | 310 x 310 mm |
| Print Size | (300 x 300 x 350) mm |
| Machine Speed | 1000 mm/s Max. |
| Power Parameter | 220V / 110V 360W |
| Filament Materials | PLA, ABS, PETG, wooden filament |
| Max. Extruder Temperature | 260 °C |
| Max. Heated Bed Temperature | 100 °C |
| Max. Print Speed | 300 m/s |
| Connectivity | USB, TF-Card |
| Display | Touchscreen Control |
Hotend is bad
Hotend is really bad it is made of aluminium, with the remote bowden system and I had alot of trouble with clog and extrusion.
Did test it and it was hard to get good prints in start with the hotend, so did the direct drive and that helped alot and now I get really good looking prints. I did notice the hotend cooling fan had some trouble and sometimes stopped I did replace it and did PID tunning and now it runs even better.
My Direct drive upgrade
build I did change the long distance bowden to direct drive from I did download from thingiverse.
I did improve my prints alot and the bad hotend just turn from bad to a okay hotend.
Design with a good frame
There’s a small 40mm fan that blows the air out of the printer. A fan blows over the stepper drivers. But all the fans are loud and 1 part cooler fan did fail after about 10 hours print and the fan that cool stepper driver are also going to get replaced it has started to make more noise. The PSU fan is very loud and that has to be replaced.
After sale support
Support from aftersale is very bad at first they ignore the problems I had with the printer.
After I did send video and pictures they did respond but not very well. The hotend problems I was told it was because I did not know how to use it. I did make a videos of it with my mobile. The Fans I was told that it was because I did not insure wires and filament not was in the way so it was also a user error.
After long time they did say that maybe they had to look at theese problems.
Coming up in upgrades
I will post a upgrade for this printer, it is a very simply upgrade but it makes the printer much better and print jobs easier and better.
It will change the printer from a average printer to a good printer and that is with the bad stock hotend.
The Review
Sapphire Plus
The Printer out of the box works okay but needs to be check on VREF before use. After sale support is very bad. After some mods the printer is really good and I will recomend the you make a direct drive.
PROS
- Build Quality is really good and the printer is solid
- Original MKS board and screen
- firmware upgrades with the Micro SD Card
- Linar rail system
- Z motors synchronized
CONS
- Quilty check
- After sale support
- Hotend
- Instruction manual really bad
- No lubricant
- firmware with missing futures
- Fans
- Z is not 350mm but 320mm
- Not for a beginner to assemble
The Sapphire Plus being shipped these days is missing the Z axis belt synchronization. Also the Z axis linear rails are mounted to 2040 extrusions which slot into the base like the corner extrusions do. Finally all of the wiring is already connected to the MKS board, and already wrapped in the cover.
The Z axis steppers are no longer the double shaft type, so you can’t add back belt synchronization without buying new steppers along with pulleys and belt. I added belt synchronization to my Ender 3, which was the best mod I ever did to get consistent layer height.
They also use all of the stepper driver sockets now, so you can’t upgrade to dual extruders. They need separate drivers for the Z axis so they can run them independently to align each side, as there is a limit switch for each Z axis rail now.
You got the upgaded one of Sapphire Plus but beware. There are dual z endstops but they are not working very well. I ask the manufacturer and got this answer:
The problem you are talking about is that only one side of the Z axis can be stopped when triggered, but the other side does not stop after being triggered. The firmware has not been modified to dual Z axis…..
What a joke!? They sell printers but the firmware doesn’t work. LOL
The new firmware they had send to me ist not working. The main bin file is the same; they only modified the Z2 values in the config but it is the main problem of the firmware and not the config file. I tried original MKS 2.0.3.4 which supports the dual z endstops but there are some other lacks in display some icons. My printer is still not working and i disassembled it and repacked in the package.
Hi Michael
Yes That is a joke. I have a custom firmware in now and that seems to work for me pretty good and I have not had any issue with “yet”
I had a wire problem on the bed. It had problem to get over 65. If I wanted 70 the last 5 took about 15-25 min.
But it is running now and I use it often.
Greate pieces. Keep posting such kind of information on your blog.
Im really impressed by it.
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website.
Hello, after fighting a lot with my Sapphire plus, I had to adjust all the drivers since the motors skip steps, I made a pid and stepper adjustment of the extruder and then one of the z-axes did not work, I updated the firmware and came back to work, a few days ago I updated the firmware again and again the z axis stopped working, after adjusting many parameters from the printer I found the solution. The next problem was with the barrel, it clogged very easily, it is very bad, I changed it for quality ones and I put direct extrusion.
Thank you for your comment…. I agree with the problems you have had… I also did firmware update but all functions of the printer did work after that, but had problems with the hotend clogged so I also made it a direct drive still with the orig. hotend and it has not clogged since and it prints very good now.
Its a really good printer for the money, have had zero problems with it and my old printer is utter crap compared to this. I can run this at 240mm/sec whitout any issues. Though it probably does not actually hit that speeds because of accelerations. But overall everything that actually matters, is great in this. Its extremely solid frame with linear rails.
I have not had to modify anything on this. While my previous printer was a never ending project.
I agree that the fans are low quality, but i really do not care about that. Will replace someday maybe if i can be bothered.
I’ve made some step by step instruction guide about how to assemble the printer [here](https://blog.cyril.by/fr/3d-printers/sapphireplus-assembly-tips), with the common errors that leads to never ending issues. Hope it helps!
Thank your hope is will help others… mine prints super nice
Ok…
This is going to sound like sour grapes (for which I apologise) but I feel I should warn anyone considering buying this printer: *only* consider it if you are willing to spend double your initial outlay plus a *lot* of time and effort to get this machine to realise it’s full potential.
Issues I had:
– bent top frame (as per several other reviewers on YouTube)
– bent z axis linear rail & jammed carriage
– inoperative and then intermittent extruder stepper
– exposed mains wires
– earth wiring not present + no route to earth (tested)
– inoperable firmware (stuck in boot – crash – reboot loop)
– inner wall of hotend damaged + poorly machined nozzle leading to constant jams
– two main wiring looms made too short for the toolhead to move to full X and Y, leaving me with 160 X 140mm print area!!
– very warped heated bed
There are other issues too, but those were the worst.
I’m a member of two trees user groups now and it’s clear that two trees quality control is non existent, for things like CE & FCC violations to occur.
If you buy this printer, do so from an informed standpoint. You may get lucky, but he prepared for the worst.
I’ve replaced the hotend, main board, steppers, linear rails and ball screws. Still left to do: fit new build plate, SSR and silicone heater, grind out the ridiculous mks screen recess and weld a small plate in ( so an enclosure won’t have a gaping hole in the bottom), repaint, bolt my DIY enclosure on to the frame and then dial in the firmware.
A lot of work and I could have done it less expensively had I built from scratch.
Good for you, to those that haven’t had problems, but “you’ve been warned” to those considering buying these printers, because two trees customer service is completely unprofessional.
Received printer quickly. no damaged parts. assembled entire printer in about 3 hours. All hardware worked OK, but there was NO software (firmware). downloaded Marlin 2.0.x bugfix and listened to the “danville” YouTube”.
she was 99% accurate.
I will post my configuration.h and configuration_adv.h” in next few days. Extruder is good but heated nozzle assembly cloggs frequently, suggest mosquito or volcano.
lb – dallas texas.
Looking forward to see your config 🙂