Review: JGAurora A5 3D Printer “DIY Kit”

Posted on / by Stephen /
So…. where to start with this… I’ve had the Aurora A5 for a few months now after I cashed out my 401k when our company got purchased so I had the money to spend on a new printer. The requirements were simple… a larger print bed. There’s already a ton of videos of unboxing this thing on Youtube so I’m not even going to bother going that route, instead I’m just going to give you my take and thoughts on this printer. Enter the JGAurora A5 3D Printer “DIY Kit”. I put the “DIY Kit” bit in quotations because this is one of the most idiot proof kits to assemble. There’s literally 3 pieces to it that have to all be screwed together combined with 3 connectors and you’re done. I think there’s 5 screws in all that have to be put in place. Removing the foam that was stuffed everywhere was the hardest part of building this thing. With a build area of 305mm x 305mm x 320mm this was a huge upgrade for me and I was immediately drawn to the Black Diamond coated print bed which was designed to hold your prints on the bed with no adhesives or anything. This might be all well and good for some but there’s a thought that the printer sent to me was a return that accidentally got tossed back in the mix. So we have the larger print bed requirement met, the Black Diamond coating on my bed came with a nice series of deep scratches through it which honestly didn’t bother me as much as some of the other problems I encountered which furthered the case this was a return that got accidentally shipped out. Appearance wise the Aurora A5 is a beauty, it’s sleek, it’s black, and it’s big. The metal gantry and casing for the electronics immediately caught my eye and I was sold when I saw some of the features it had. Furthering the look is the filament holder that sits on the backside of the printer and makes it really easy to change the filament when you need to without cluttering up your workspace with another filament holder like the Anet A8 for instance. Right off the bat I tried to print the Money Cat 3D model that came preinstalled on the little jump drive that came with the printer. I had already followed the destructions for leveling out the bed and hit the print button on the touchscreen located on the front of the printer. I was amazed by this feature and it made it so easy to get to the files and get it started. Halfway through the print it died. After talking to some folks on the Facebook group and fiddling with a few things I got it going again and was hopeful. I upgraded to the Marlin software which was really a lot easier than any of the other 3D printers I’ve messed with. So, the money cat again…. it died once more. So I went back to the Facebook group and we determined that my stepper drivers were flawed, further investigation into this discovered scorching under the motherboard. I got with Gearbest and they gave me a partial refund and I ordered a new motherboard and stepper drivers. I installed it all with some spacers to get the board off the metal casing. Once everything was hooked back up I got it fired up and attempted the money cat again… and it worked. About 2 months of happy printing goes on before I notice that my prints are having problems sticking to the bed. I ended up giving up on the Black Diamond bed and just removed the 4 little metal clips holding the build plate on and flipped the glass, works great now. Well it works great now after I had to rewire the hot bed because the cheap connector on the heat bed melted. Right now that’s about it for the problems I’ve had so let’s recap and summarize:
  • Motherboard grounding on the metal casing
  • Stepper Drivers shorting out because of the aforementioned issue
  • Deep scratches on the Black Diamond bed coating
  • Black Diamond bed coating didn’t work for very long
  • Melted connector on the heated bed
So at this very moment it’s up and printing just fine, I’ve been running ABS almost exclusively through it and haven’t had any issues with that yet. Now let’s look at the features… As I said before, it’s not exactly a diy kit, there’s only 5 screws and 3 connectors you have to connect before it’s assembled. There’s the all metal frame and casing for the component which really gives a very professional look and keeps your desk a lot cleaner. Right on the front is a touchscreen panel with lots of features on it, you can adjust the temp, level the bed, move along the axis, change out the filament, etc etc etc… it’s loaded. On the right hand side is a place for a USB cord to attach the printer to your computer… don’t bother, and don’t bother using the other USB port to print from the jump drive. There’s problems with something in the software that causes it to stop mid-print. Save yourself the headache and while you’re waiting for your printer to arrive get an SD card extender and hook it up inside, again, there’s lots of videos showing how to do this on Youtube so I won’t waste my time on that. One thing that was advertised with these printers was WIFI printing, it doesn’t exist so that was kind of a bummer. I’m ok with being able to print without it tethered to the computer and the recovery feature in case of power failure ACTUALLY WORKS !!! That’s right, if you loose power at 75% on a 2 day long print, you won’t waste the filament, just resume and it will finish from right where it left off. So here’s the breakdown…

JGAURORA A5 specifications

  • Technology: FFF FDM
  • Year: 2017
  • Assembly: Semi-assembled
  • Mechanical arrangement: Cartesian-XZ-Head
  • Manufacturer: JGAURORA
  • Manufacturer country: China

Materials

  • Filameter diameter: 1.75 mm
  • Compatible with 3rd party filaments?Yes an open material system
  • Printable material(s): HIPS
  • Printable material(s): PLA
  • Printable material(s): Wood

Build volume

  • 3D print size: Medium
  • Print size millimeters (xyz): 305 x 305 x 320 mm
  • Print size inches (xyz): 12.0 x 12.0 x 12.59 inches

3D printer and printing properties

  • Layer height: 100 – 300 Microns
  • Feeder system: Bowden
  • Extruder type: Single
  • Nozzle size: 0.4 mm
  • Max extruder temperature: 464 °F / 240 °C
  • Max heated bed temperature: 230 °F / 110 °C
  • Max print speed: 100 mm/s
  • Frame: Aluminum
  • Closed print chamber: No, an open structure
  • Temperature controlled print chamber: No
  • Bed leveling: Manual (assisted)
  • Print bed details: BDG heated platform
  • Display: 2.8″ Color touch screen
  • Firmware: Closed-source
  • Connectivity: SD, USB
  • Built in camera for monitoring: No
  • Print recovery: Yes
  • Filament sensor: Yes

Requirements

  • Slicing: JGCreat, Cura, Simplify3D
  • Operating system(s): Linux
  • Operating system(s): Mac OS X
  • Operating system(s): Windows
  • Input: 110 – 220V

Dimensions and weight

  • Outer dimensions inches (xyz): 18.9 x 21.0 x 21.3 inches
  • Outer dimensions millimeters (xyz): 480 x 536 x 543 mm
  • Weight lb: 37.5 pounds
  • Weight kg: 17 kg
All in all I’m pleased overall with the printer. I’ve learned over the years how 3D Printers work and can address most problems easily enough so there’s nothing really bad that can’t be fixed for a few bucks here and there.