Overview of Anycubic 4Max Pro
Overview of the Anycubic 4Max Pro printer.
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Introduction
The Anycubic 4Max Pro is an FDM 3D printer designed to print a variety of 1.75 mm plastic filaments that includes: PLA, PETG and ABS. It was a relatively cheap printer that was produced by Anycubic in the 2019-2020 timeframe. It was subsequently replaced by a new model, the Anycubic 4Max Pro 2 that aimed to improve handling of engineering filaments. However, these printers don’t seem to have been very popular and there is not that much information on them on the Internet.
This article discusses aspects of the first iteration of this printer: Anycubic 4Max Pro.
The main characteristics of this printer are:
- Single toolhead FDM printer for 1.75mm filaments.
- Build volume of 270mm × 205mm × 205mm (WxDxH).
- Enclosed printer with external dimensions of 466mm x 410mm x 454mm (WxDxH) without top cover.
- Glass “Ultrabase” heated baseplate.
- A Titan type direct drive extruder with a V5 hotend fitted with a 0.4mm brass nozzle.
- Maximum hotend temperature of 260C.
- Maximum bed temperature of 100C.
- Claimed support for PLA, ABS, TPU and HIPS filament types.
- Comes with Marlin 1.1.7 firmware.
- SD-card and USB 2.0 connectivity.
- Auto power off at the end of the print.
This printer has a large, cubic, plastic case that encloses the printer. There is a hinged plastic door at the front that provides access to the build area. The top has a large hole where the toolhead moves. This hole can be covered by a plastic lid to help keep heat inside the printing chamber for printing with filaments that need a hotter enclosure.
Around the back there is a crude protuberance for hanging a spool of filament from and a filament run-out sensor. A PTFE tube connects the filament run-out sensor to the extruder.
Printer Case
The case of the printer consists of a number of large plastic panels attached to an inner metal frame by screws and clips.
The disassembly guide describes how these panels may be removed from the printer frame.
Electronics
The electronics for the printer are housed in its base. To gain access, the bottom cover must first be removed as described in the disassembly guide .
The electronics in the base of the printer consists of a number of interconnected boards
The Trigorilla Main Control Board.
This is the main control unit for the printer that runs the Marlin firmware and controls the motion and extrusion of the printer. This board is a Trigorilla v1.0 board.
The Trigorilla control board is connected to a daughter board via a ribbon cable. This daughter board provides the SD Card slot at the side of the printer.
Stepper Drivers
Plugged into the Trigorilla control board are 5 stepper drivers on daughter stepstick boards. Two different types of stepstick drivers are used:
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Trinamic TMC2208 drivers on X & Y axis.
These drivers provide superior operation of the X & Y stepper motors, in particular giving quieter operation of these axis. It should be noted that the TMC drivers normally operate the stepper motors in the opposite direction to older driver modules. The 4Max Pro printer has the wiring of the steppers to the X & Y positions of the Trigorilla board reversed so that all modules drive the steppers in the same direction.
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A4988 drivers on Z and E axis.
The drivers use the older A4988 drivers that are not as quiet as the TMC2208 drivers. Note: this board was fitted with a fifth A4988 driver that was not used in this printer.
The stepper drivers are cooled by a radial fan.
Power On/Off Board
The power On/Off board controls the power going to the printer, switching the printer power on or off using a relay.
The power on/off board provides the following functions:
- Allows the push button on the front of the printer to turn the printer power on or off.
- Permits the printer firmware to switch the printer off at the end of a print.
Toolhead Interface Board
The toolhead of this printer is connected to the control board via a ribbon cable. This ribbon cable carries signals such as: extruder stepper signals, hotend heater power, power to the fans. The toolhead interface board adapts the discrete wiring for these signals to the ribbon cable that leads to the toolhead.
Touchscreen
The front panel touchscreen is located under the printer top panel instead of the base of the printer. Refer to the disassembly guide for information how to remove the printer panels to gain access to this touchscreen.
Toolhead
This printer uses a cartesian motion system where one NEMA 17 stepper motor moves the X-gantry in the Y-direction. Another NEMA 17 stepper motor attached to the end of the X-gantry moves the toolhead in the X-direction along this gantry. The X-gantry is composed of two horizontally placed 8mm steel linear roads with the toolhead running along these using a Makerbot style carriage.
A ribbon cable is used to connect the toolhead electronics with the control board in the base of the printer.
Under the toolhead cover is a Titan style direct drive extruder. There is also an electronics board that adapts the signals in the toolhead ribbon cable to discrete connections for the extruder, hotend heater and fans. Two blower fans cool the hotend and the print.
Inserted into the bottom of the toolhead is the hotend. This is a V5 style hotend block with a bronze 0.4mm nozzle.
The hotend comprises of:
- V5 style aluminium block.
- 0.4mm bronze nozzle.
- 5mm diameter heatbreak.
- Proprietary Anycubic heatsink.
- 12V 40W heater with a 2-pin XH2.54 connector.
- NTC 100k 3950 cartridge thermistor with a 2-pin PM2.0 connector.
- Length of PTFE tubing
The toolhead in this printer has a number of weaknesses.
- The PTFE tube in the hotend can melt at operational temperatures. It needs to be replaced with a length of high temperature Capricorn tubing. This replacement is described in this guide.
- The firmware shipped with the printer has the wrong thermistor set in its configuration. To avoid temperature errors, a new version of Marlin firmware needs to be installed into the printer with the NTC 100k 3950 thermistor configured for the hotend. The Knutwurst Marlin 2.x image has the corrected thermistor configuration for this printer. This Marlin 2.x firmware can be installed in the printer by following this guide.
- The cooling duct for cooling the print is notoriously poor. A number of new designs for cooling ducts can be found online that may improve the print cooling.
- The ribbon cable connecting the toolhead to the printer electronics is delicate and known to suffer damage. A cable chain may reduce this issue somewhat.