You Can Print This Tiny CoreXY 3D Printer

While the rest of the world was concerned with going bigger, a handful of real enthusiasts were trying to make 3D printers smaller. The Voron 0 is one popular example and it is great, but its build cost is surprisingly high — the prices of parts don’t scale down much. So, Alex Yu designed this affordable, printable mini coreXY 3D printer that is even smaller than a Voron 0.

This printer, called Encore, has an overall size of just 219×221×262 mm. Despite that small package, it has a surprisingly generous build volume of about 120×120×120 mm. That’s still small, of course, but it is enough to be genuinely useful.

What really sets the build apart is the 3D-printed chassis. That is not normally the type of thing I condone, because 3D printers need decent rigidity and thermoplastics tend to flex. But this is a unique case. The small size of the printer made it possible to print the bulk of the chassis as a single piece, which is adequately rigid. It is a bit like building a unibody car instead of a body-on-frame truck.

The rest of the design is pretty conventional. It has a coreXY motion system, with steel rods and linear rails, NEMA 17 stepper motors, a Voron 0 heated bed, a Bambu X1/P1-style hot end, a BMG-style Bowden extruder, and a MellowFly E3 Pro V3 RRF control board.

Yu doesn’t provide a build cost, but I estimate it to be under $130. That’s pretty fantastic. And the Encore doesn’t look like a novelty. The print results are perfectly respectable and this little printer would be a great choice to bring to a tradeshow or event.