Tenlog Hands 2 3D Printer Review

EDIT: Order the Tenlog Hands 2 from Banggood HERE and use coupon code BG04a4f7 to get it for only $358USD!

Hey guys, back at it with another review!!

This time I opted for the Tenlog Hands 2 which you can purchase from here if you’re interested: LINK HERE

Why did you choose to review this printer?
I have free choice to review any printer on the market, and I’d love to eventually get through all the printers out there. The reason I chose this printer is because I’m looking for specific features that i currently believe are important and at a certain price point. This printer features direct drive extruders, and it is a dual printhead machine meaning it can do multi colour, multi material, or duplicate prints. I’m yet to try a dual printhead machine, and there did seem to be a few options available but this is the cheapest one I could find that had dual direct drive extruders. I did seem to not be able to find much info on the actual extruders, but we shall find out tonight!

Initial packaging thoughts/ unboxing
So the box was a little smaller than the artillery I recently received but in the same neighbourhood for size. 

Stupidly I opened the bottom of the box not the top (facepalm)

Anyways I flipped her over and got into it, here’s the step by step process of me unboxing it:

Now overall everything was packed well, and nothing was damaged despite a damaged section of the external cardboard that suggested the box has had an impact during shipping.

Assembly overview
Much like the Artillery Genius, assembly was a breeze in comparison to the Anet A8 Plus or even the Ender 3:
First step was mounting the gantry to the base, just 4x M5 screws as usual, I will note I slid the base off of the table to put the screws in this time instead of tipping the whole thing on tits side, this did work better.

Next step was to mount the extruders, and I am very impressed by the mounting system which is 2 CNC aluminium pieces that key together with 4 screws, this is a very accurate method and would make the extruders basically hot-swappable.

Now i’m at about 5 minutes after starting assembly and the thing looks done… lol.
Next was plugging in the wires, i’m going to put these pictures and see if you notice something (an unusual double up)

I had to do a double take for a second…. 2x limit switches on the z-axis?!?!?! THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER. It is a common mod to have a z-sync belt that ties the z-axis lead screws together so that the z axis doesnt become unlevel during power off (this is a big issue with my CR10S5), but that is a dodgy bandaid compared to just re-homing both sides of the z axis independently and I am really pleased with this feature.

Next is plugging in the extruders and heated bed, I like the use of standard connectors for the extruders as they would be easy to place, but cable management is lacking, I think I might make some rollers that go on top of the gantry for the extruder cables to rest on.

So final physical build step is the spool holders, pretty straight forward:

Now It was power up time, I’ll put some pictures of the screens here, I like the different menus.

Bed levelling…

Some settings

The included SD card and reader are quite nice, I also like the chrome on the slots in the printer.

Next it was time to load up the filament, I added in the two rolls and put the filament into their respective extruders. The extruder drive seems similar to the creality one but you cant really see inside it.

You push down on the piece where my thumb is to be able to push the filament through

On the display you have to type in the temperature

This brings the printer into a printable state so we will move to the next step!

What were the first print results (included test print)?
I put the included test print on:

Initial results were looking okay, but i was wondering why it didnt have a prime/wipe tower for the dual colours, this left some straggly filament leakage on the edge of the print at first so I wasnt overly impressed, but I was amazed by the quality after I broke off the straggly bits.

The accuracy of the printer really amazed me. I went ahead and found the Low-Poly pokemon models… here is the one I printed last night…

It still needs some tuning but I am really happy for now.

How can I setup this printer in cura?
Included on the SD card is a copy of cura that has a profile for this printer pre-loaded. I’m not a fan of re-installing cura just to get this profile out though so I will host it up on my website when I do the blog post for this printer.

Are there any quirks about this printer?
I was suprised by how thick the glass bed was, pretty much double the thickness of most that i’ve seen at 6mm.

Are the special features of this printer useful?
I expect the dual colour and dual material capabilities of this printer will be extremely useful for me for special prints and if you have a bit more to spend on a printer this is a feature i’d definitely consider. The fact that all of the other features like direct drive extruders and the limit switch setup make it a very good starting point of a printer, nothing really needs to be done to print things like TPU and the print quality seems as good as any.

What are some good points about this printer?

• The Glass bed is very thick (6mm)
• Dual Z-Axis Limit switches
• Dual Direct drive extruders
• Inductive limit switches
• Touchscreen interface
• polished design
• Standard connectors

What are some bad points about this printer?

• Extruder connectors seem a little dodgy and I worry they won’t last, but easy to replace or manage
• Price is higher ($379USD)
• Not much else.

Final thoughts – Who should purchase this printer?
I dont think this would be a common first printer as people generally gravitate towards something in the Ender 3 price range, but I think if you are wanting to do flexible materials in multi colour then this is definitely the way to go. I scoured the internet looking for multi colour capable printers with this feature set and it’s incredibly hard to find, especially not at this price. I absolutely love the Dual limit switch setup, and its cool to see it level one side, then the other and then check the first side again. Mostly what I like about this printer is that at this point I wouldn’t change much about it at all, I’m not thinking about all the mods i’m going to do to it it’s just ready to use already.

If you guys have any questions please let me know, multi material printing is new to me and I’m looking forward to learning more about it and sharing it with you all!