Tevo Little Monster 3D Printer: Review the Specs
The Tevo Little Monster delta 3D printer kit offers a large build volume and interesting features. Let’s review its specs and features.
The term “little” in the name Tevo Little Monster is somewhat misleading: Tevo’s first Delta 3D printer kit has one of the biggest build volumes available on the market. With a price of average $800, it’s not exactly cheap, but let’s see how this 3D printer kit compares to other machines with a big print volume.
Review the Specs
Here are the specifications of the Tevo Little Monster 3D printer kit:
- Technology: FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling), single extruder system, Delta 3D printer
- Build Volume: 340 mm (diameter) × 500 mm
- Layer Resolution: 0.05 – 0.4 mm
- Connectivity: micro SD card, USB
- Printing Speed: up to 150 mm/s
- Filament diameter: 1.75
- Nozzle Diameter: 0.4 mm
- Operational Extruder Temperature: max 280C
- Operational Heatbed Temperature: max 120C
- Heated Bed: Yes
- Supported Filaments: PLA, ABS, PETG, HIPS, Wood
- Input rating: 110V/220V AC, 50/60Hz
- Printer Dimensions: 455 x 510 x 412 mm
What Special about This Printer?
The Tevo Little Monster 3D printer comes as a partially preassembled kit. It offers some interesting features on the Tevo Little Monster 3D printer that you don‘t find in most printers.
- Delta 3D printer: As with most delta 3D printers, the moving components of the Tevo Little Monster are very lightweight. That makes the hotend easier to travel, resulting in faster printing speed (up to 300 mm/s with greater accuracy). Also, Delta 3D printers are great when it comes to building higher objects.
- Large build volume: The Tevo Little Monster is made for big prints. If you are looking for alternatives, you will find large format 3D printers like the Creality CR10 5S (500 x 500 x 500mm) or the BigRep Studio (500 x 1000 x 500). When it comes to the price, the Tevo Little Monster lies somewhere in the middle.
- Fast assembly: Unlike its predecessors Tevo Tarantula and Tevo Black Widow, the Tevo Little Monster comes 80% pre-assembled. You should be able to start your first print in 1-2 hours. After unwrapping, you have to attach the rods to the base and top, patch the cables, install the extruder, feed the filament, install the software and start your first print with the Tevo Little Monster.
- Great components: Most of the mechanical parts are CNC milled aluminum or made with lasercutting. The printer makes a very study impression.
- Extuder: The Extruder system of the Tevo Little Monster also comes pre-assembled, you just have to wire it. Everything is clearly labeled. It is a clone of E3D’s Titan flying extruder system with a Volcano nozzle, one of the best hot-ends you can currently buy. Thanks to a probe, the Tevo Little Monster auto-calibrates before each new print job, so you can be sure that the print bed is leveled perfectly.
- Heated Bed: The ceramic 3D printing bed can heat up in just 2 minutes to 140 °F / 60 °C. It draws its power from the AC current directly, so it heats up fast. Unfortunately, the build plate cannot be removed easily.
- Hackable: The Tevo Little Monster is highly hackable. Some parts are also made open source.
Models can be loaded via an SD card. Alternatively, you can hook up the machine to a computer and print directly from there.
When it comes to 3D slicing, the manufacturer offers a dedicated version of Cura. Also, there are profiles for Cura (included) and Simplify 3D and Slic3r.
What are the Issues?
There are some minor issues with the Tevo Little Monster that we came across:
- Older version of Smoothieboard: The Tevo Little Monster runs on a clone of the Open-Source Smoothieboard, which was very popular in 2013 to 2015. Since then, the board has undergone several revisions and – as of 2018 – is currently at version 2. Tevo Little Monster runs on version 1.3. This is not a problem per se, but there are more modern 3D printing boards out.
- Needs updates: Tevo throws in two SD cards in the box. The micro-SD card holds pre-installed software and some sample prints. The other one is needed to flash the Smoothieboard to the latest version. The provided instructions are clear. If you want to get better prints, you should definitely do this.
- Adhesives: If you are printing tall objects, you better use some extra adhesives on the print bed, as they tend to come off. This is not a flaw of the Little Monster itself, but a problem with large Delta 3D printers in general.
- Touchscreen interface woes: The Tevo Little monster is controlled via a fast and responsive touchscreen interface that you can pluck from the top of the printer. Unfortunately, it has a very short ribbon cable – but you can easily replace that.
- Customer Support: Some people on the forums complained about Tevo’s customer support, which – according to them – is notoriously hard to reach. Also, the support section on their website falls short when it comes to the Tevo Little Monster.