This week the maker world split between good news and a cautionary tale. Elegoo dropped a genuinely interesting budget CoreXY printer with real multi-color output, while Prusa is dealing with a nozzle controversy that is worth understanding before you buy or upgrade anything with a hotend. Add a new speed-painting tool for the workbench and a reminder on resin safety, and that is the lineup for this Maker Monday.
Elegoo Centauri Carbon 2: A Budget CoreXY Printer With Real Multi-Color
Elegoo just put out the Centauri Carbon 2, a CoreXY machine that undercuts a lot of the multi-color competition on price. It runs speeds up to 500 mm per second with acceleration up to 20,000 mm per second squared, a hardened steel nozzle rated to 350 degrees Celsius, and a 256 by 256 by 256 mm build volume, all in a $359 package. Pair it with Elegoo's CANVAS multi-spool feeder and you get up to four colors on a single nozzle with automatic filament loading and RFID detection for the spools. My take: this is exactly the printer I would point a friend to if they want multicolor prints without paying AMS money. It will not out print an X1C on raw speed and reliability, but for the price it closes a gap that used to force people into much more expensive setups. I want to watch how the CANVAS system holds up over a few hundred hours before I call it a daily driver.
Prusa's Nozzlegate: Why Your Hotend's Nozzle Material Actually Matters
Prusa's INDX line hit a real snag this month. Bondtech, who supplies the hotend, admitted that the nozzles shipped with early INDX kits and Founder Edition units were not actually hardened to the spec Prusa advertised. Independent testing put the material at 30 to 32 HRC instead of proper hardened steel, which means those nozzles wear fast on anything abrasive like carbon fiber or glass filled filament. Prusa pushed kit shipping to mid-August, promised free replacement hardware for early buyers, and extended the return window to 60 days while Bondtech works out a fix. The lesson for the rest of us: nozzle material claims are marketing until you can verify them, and a soft nozzle wrecks your dimensional accuracy long before it fails outright. If you print abrasive filament on any printer and are not sure what is actually in your hotend right now, a set of genuinely hardened steel nozzles is cheap insurance. I keep spares on hand for exactly this reason.
Army Painter Speedpaint Marker Starter Set: Fast Shading in a Pen
Army Painter brought its expanded Speedpaint Marker range to Gen Con this year, and the Starter Set is the one worth grabbing if you have not tried the format yet. You get nine acrylic contrast colors plus one metallic marker, all in a felt tip that lays down shading and highlights in a single pass, priced at $63.71. Ten extra tips are included so you are not stuck when one wears down. My take: Speedpaint already cut hours off basecoating minis, and the marker format makes it even faster for large batches or army scale painting where you just need consistent, good looking results without babysitting a brush. It is not a replacement for layered highlighting on a display piece, but for anything going on the tabletop this is a serious time saver.
Build a Real Resin Safety Kit
A quick one for anyone running resin. Uncured resin gives off vapors that a basic dust mask does nothing to stop, and bare hands should never touch it. A proper half face respirator with organic vapor and P95 cartridges, like the 3M 7512P1-DC at $48.98, actually filters what resin printing puts into the air. A box of nitrile gloves, not latex, at under $10, keeps resin off your skin where it can build up sensitization over time. This is not exciting content, but it is the cheapest upgrade you can make to your print setup, and it is the one piece of gear I would not skip no matter how careful I think I am being.
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That's Maker Monday
That's the maker world for this week. If any of this got you thinking about a custom print, paint, or engraving, come see what we make on the commission page. See you next Monday.
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