Artillery Sidewinder X1 Review – Why you should buy it

Sidewinder X1 Product Overview

The Sidewinder X1 from Artillery is a great example of a company listening to a market. The X1 has all the features you could want in an introductory printer at a competitive price point. I was not expecting to like it as much as i did but my creality has been seeing less and less use since i got the sidewinder.  

Best Features. 

First off this printer is sleek, the cable management is one of the best in the industry and definitely top of the sub $500 price point. The unconventional use of ribbon cable at first worried me but its been rock solid. The frame is sturdy and keeps the printer label print after print. Finally the clone volcano hotend is surprisingly close to the quality of the genuine part and is a great choice for this printers massive 300*300*400 build volume  

Additional Features on this 3D Printer

Building on from the great hotend the direct drive extruder with a clone titan extruder is another great addition that I have been waiting to see stock from creality. This entire machine feels like the engines over at Artillery took the CR10 and improved every single aspect of it. Not releasing new versions every few weeks with very little difference between them. The Artillery Sidewinder X1 has dual Z motors and lead screws. No chance of your motors falling out of sync as it also has a top timing belt.

Other brands not including this makes no sense to me so it’s good to see Artillery not only having lots of features but a great implementation.  Touch screen interface and USB stick printing. Which i could have an entire rant on USB needing to become a standard for printer interfacing. I thought the Ultimaker 3 3D Printer was going to lead the way but at least Artillery is following the right path. Finally another great feature is the addition of swappable drivers on the mainboard of The Sidwinder X1. So down the line you can install higher quality drivers and some community firmware changes.

Feature requests

Sidewinder X1 is absolutely stuffed to the brim with features so it’s hard to find something lacking; especially at this price point. However if there was an upgraded option for auto bed leveling i would definitely pay a little extra for it. Call me lazy but once you have printers with it’s hard to go back.  

Improvements on the Sidewinder X1

 The only problems I had with this printer is with the optical endstops, i really would like them to be switched with mechanical. I found them to be difficult to install and slightly slow to trigger on my machine. They work well but they are not my preference and i plan to change them on my machine to mechanical ones. 

Specs

I tried to lower the laundry list of specifications to only the ones i think you will care about the most if your in the market for this 3D printer. 

Review Conclusion 

The Sidewinder X1 is a great 3D printer at an incredibly compelling price point and is a great mid range introduction to consumer 3D printing. I truly think it’s one of the best 3d printers you can get under $500. Artillery should make a cut down version of this with smaller print volume and features to target a $200 price tag. I really think it would be a great option for the people still crazy enough to have not jumped into 3D printing. This Printer is a great printer and definitely worth your time.