Anycubic Kobra S1 Max Combo Review: Big Enclosed CoreXY

The Anycubic Kobra S1 Max is an enclosed CoreXY FDM printer with a 350×350×350mm build volume, a 350°C hotend, a 120°C bed and an actively heated chamber that holds 65°C; Anycubic rates it at 600mm/s with 20,000mm/s² acceleration. The Combo bundle adds the ACE 2 Pro feeder for four colors, expandable to sixteen.

The short verdict

The Kobra S1 Max is the cheapest way to get a 350mm cube with a heated chamber and a 350°C hotend — the Combo lists at $919 where Creality asks $1,499 for a K2 Plus Combo. It's aimed at people printing large functional parts in ABS, ASA, polycarbonate and carbon-filled blends who also want multicolor. It is not a set-and-forget machine though: a chunk of owners fight recurring nozzle clogs and a toolhead cover that pops off mid-print, and early shipping dates slipped by months.

Specifications

All numbers come from the official Anycubic FAQ and the store listing. The printer's UI ships in ten languages, so menu navigation isn't a barrier.

What's in the box, and how shipping went

The Combo ships in a 35 kg box (31 kg for the base model) and arrives mostly assembled. You get two hardened steel nozzles: 0.4 mm already in the hotend and 0.6 mm in the accessory kit. The ACE 2 Pro is a separate 368 × 291.5 × 236.5 mm, 3.7 kg module that sits on top and needs only a signal cable and mains power — the PSU is built in, no wall wart.

Shipping is its own story. Pre-orders ran until January 31, 2026 from $749, but units only started moving in early April. Some buyers waited about four months; a few had orders cancelled and refunded in May. By summer it normalized — May orders landed within roughly 3 to 20 days. One buyer ordered on May 22, it shipped June 9 and arrived on the 12th.

350mm of build volume is the whole point

Against the regular Kobra S1 and its 250mm cube, volume grows by 174%. That's the difference between slicing a helmet into four glued pieces and just printing it. The cube shape matters too: Kobra 3 Max has a bigger build area at 420×420×500mm, but no enclosure heating and no 350°C hotend, so big ABS parts are a fight.

One owner logged 600+ hours in the first month and ran Lich King armor, Frostmourne and Shredder armor back to back — so it handles large cosplay work in series. Another prints functional PETG and ASA parts on long jobs and reports zero issues.

About that 600mm/s number

600mm/s is a firmware ceiling, not a working mode. Retail listings quote 300mm/s as the recommended speed, which is far closer to reality. Mr Resin's spec breakdown says it plainly: nobody prints real production runs at that speed, and the figure mostly applies to travel moves. Acceleration is also more modest than the Creality K2 Plus at 30,000mm/s².

Multicolor drags the average down further: each filament swap takes roughly 56 seconds, plus the purge into the new color. The same review pegs realistic multicolor throughput at 150–200mm/s. Anycubic's "Benchy in 15 minutes" claim is a demo profile, not how you'll print functional parts.

The 65°C chamber and engineering filaments

Active chamber heating to 65°C is what separates the S1 Max from both the smaller S1 and the Kobra 3 Max. A warm chamber removes the main cause of warping and layer separation on big ABS and ASA parts: the plastic cools slower and more evenly. Paired with the 350°C hotend and 120°C bed, that unlocks eight engineering filaments — ABS, ASA, PC, PA, PA6-CF, PC-CF, PC-GF and PET-CF. The hardened steel nozzle is standard, so carbon-filled blends won't chew it up in two spools.

The warm chamber has a downside marketing skips. For PLA and PETG, that heat is a liability: it creeps up the heatbreak, softens filament above the melt zone and jams the path — classic heat creep. Anycubic's answer is a pair of external circulation fans that pull ambient air through the chamber, but experienced owners have a simpler one for PLA and PETG: leave the door open.

ACE 2 Pro: four colors, drying, and one hard incompatibility

The ACE 2 Pro is Anycubic's second-gen filament system. Compared to the original ACE Pro it adds a sealed bay with active dehumidification, temperature and humidity sensors, remaining-filament estimation and reworked feed and buffer hardware. Loading and unloading speed is rated at 50mm/s, and the four independent brushless motors are rated for 5,000+ hours at under 48 dB.

• Drying at 35–65°C for 2 to 24 hours, in three modes: dry-then-print, dry-while-printing and standalone drying
• Drying only works with the printer powered on — the unit can't dry offline on its own power cable
• It holds a maximum of two spools at a time
• Up to four units daisy-chain to a Kobra S1 Max, which is how you reach 16 colors (you also need two 4-in-1 hubs and one 2-in-1)
• Anycubic advises against cardboard spools — paper dust and warped flanges break the feed
• Rated power is 235 W / 300 W

The drying isn't just a spec sheet line. One owner pulled a seven-year-old PLA spool from 46% down to 29% relative humidity in four hours, and it then printed better than on the machine it replaced. If you're new to why that matters, we have a full write-up on drying filament.

It isn't trouble-free either. Jam posts show up regularly: one owner had support replace the feed gear and buffer mechanism because the unit couldn't retract filament after pushing it through. Another lost ACE 2 Pro detection entirely after an emergency stop, and power cycling didn't bring it back; in a similar case the culprit was a blown resistor on the 4-in-1 hub board. And the structural caveat: one nozzle means every color change is a cut plus a purge, so multicolor burns filament.

What owners actually complain about

First, clogs. In a June 12, 2026 thread an owner describes filament melting at the base of the nozzle, hardening there and refusing to push through — he ends up pulling the nozzle and heating it from below. Others chime in: one went through three nozzles on plain PETG, another jammed both the stock 0.4 mm and the bundled 0.6 mm, a third with three machines says PETG jams constantly. Meanwhile, in the same thread, an owner running two machines reports 600+ hours on PETG, PLA-CF, marble and silk PLA with no clogs at all. The variable seems to be settings, filament and whether the door is open — the general causes and fixes are in our nozzle clogging guide.

Second, the toolhead front cover. It's held on by magnets, and owners report it dropping off on roughly one print in ten, then getting dragged around the plate. The regular Kobra S1 has the same habit. Three fixes circulate: a printed magnetic cover from community models, a strip of thick double-sided mounting tape across the seam, or Anycubic's own quick-release cover, which the company now sells as a separate part — a quiet admission that the stock mount isn't right.

• Clogs at the nozzle base, mostly on PETG, ABS and ASA — open the door, raise nozzle temp, keep the hotend clean
• Toolhead front cover falls off — printed cover, mounting tape, or the official quick-release part
• ACE 2 Pro feed jams and slipping — worst cases need a feed gear and buffer replacement under warranty
• Printer loses the ACE 2 Pro after an emergency stop — fully unplug it, disconnect USB and Ethernet, power the unit after the printer reconnects to the cloud
• Filament catching on the cutter inside the toolhead during swaps
• Some owners blame specific firmware updates for new first-layer and clogging trouble

If your first layer went bad after an update, start with the universal causes — they're the same on every machine and covered in our first layer troubleshooting guide. Routine upkeep lives in the maintenance guide.

Software: stock slicer, OrcaSlicer and Rinkhals

Out of the box you get Anycubic's slicer and mobile app: remote monitoring, the 720p camera and power-loss recovery. On the machine itself there's flow dynamics calibration, accelerometer-based vibration compensation, and adaptive leveling that, per Anycubic, identifies the model's area and probes only that region.

If the stock stack isn't enough, there are two live escape hatches. First, OrcaSlicer ships Anycubic Kobra S1 Max profiles for 0.25, 0.4, 0.6 and 0.8 mm nozzles; they landed in nightly builds in early June 2026. Second, the Rinkhals custom firmware lists the Kobra S1 Max in its compatibility matrix, tested against stock firmware 2.6.9.6 and 2.7.1.4. It layers Mainsail and Fluidd on Moonraker, adds root SSH, USB camera support and an app system, and keeps stock Anycubic features working.

Pros

• A true 350×350×350mm cube — helmets, enclosures and large functional parts print in one piece
• 65°C active chamber plus 350°C hotend and 120°C bed: ABS, ASA, PC, PA6-CF and PET-CF without a DIY enclosure
• Hardened steel nozzle as standard, so carbon-filled filament doesn't destroy it in a month
• The ACE 2 Pro dries filament at 65°C while printing and tracks humidity — no separate dryer needed
• Scales to 16 colors with four units, which is nearly unheard of at this price
• LeviQ 3.0 probes 49 points, so the first layer on a big plate is predictable
• Rinkhals custom firmware with Mainsail, Fluidd and SSH is active and maintained
• Official OrcaSlicer profiles for four nozzle sizes
• Price: the Combo costs noticeably less than a Creality K2 Plus Combo ($1,499) at the same build volume
• Ten UI languages on the machine

Cons

• A share of owners clog constantly on anything but PLA — filament solidifies at the nozzle base
• The toolhead front cover drops off on roughly one print in ten
• No backward compatibility with first-gen ACE Pro units
• One nozzle for every color: a purge on each swap and about 56 seconds per change
• Real multicolor throughput is 150–200mm/s; the 600mm/s headline doesn't describe daily use
• Up to 2200 W at 220 V with the chamber heater — long prints show up on the power bill
• 55 dB with chamber heating makes it a poor roommate in a living space
• Winter 2026 pre-orders waited up to four months, with some cancellations
• Not a great first printer: it expects you to understand your slicer and materials

How it compares

On paper the S1 Max wins outright: the same volume as a K2 Plus for substantially less money. The gap shows up in the details — component quality, firmware polish, and how support handles you when something breaks. One r/anycubic member laid out his path honestly: he returned the S1 Max, paid up for a Bambu Lab H2D, and still called Anycubic's value "almost irresistible." If ecosystem and predictability matter more than raw volume, look at Bambu; if you want the most build volume and temperature per dollar, this is it.

Within Anycubic's own lineup the choice is simpler: our Kobra lineup comparison shows the S1 Max is the only model with a heated chamber, while the Kobra X remains the pick for anyone who wants a printer that just runs.

What it costs in 2026

Prices are as of July 22, 2026. Anycubic discounts aggressively: the Combo has dropped to $799 during summer sales. If you're not in a hurry, waiting for the next sale is worth a couple hundred dollars. Warranty is one year with a 14-day return window.

Who should buy it

Buy it if you need a big cube and engineering materials and you already know what flow, retraction and nozzle temperature do. Owners coming from other machines are consistently happy: 150 hours without an issue for one, 600+ back-to-back hours for another, long PETG and ASA parts for a third. It's a solid workshop machine for cosplay builds and small-batch functional printing.

Don't buy it as a first printer. Owners say so themselves: it forgives less than the marketing suggests, and when something goes sideways you'll be debugging before support can help. A simpler open-frame machine is a better start, with a 350mm heated-chamber cube as printer number two. One more thing: if you already run first-gen ACE Pro units, price in the switch — they won't connect to the S1 Max.

FAQ

Sources

• Anycubic Wiki — Kobra S1 Max FAQ: dimensions, weight, speeds, nozzles, compatibility
• Anycubic Wiki — ACE 2 Pro FAQ: drying modes, power, limitations
• Anycubic store listing: pricing, bundles, LeviQ 3.0
• r/anycubic — clogging thread and the long-print reliability thread
• r/anycubic — toolhead cover thread
• Rinkhals — custom firmware compatibility matrix and releases
• OrcaSlicer — Kobra S1 Max machine profiles
• Mr Resin — critical spec analysis, April 2026
• Notebookcheck — launch coverage and pre-order terms