3D printing has never been more approachable. Printers are cheaper, faster and far easier to live with than they were even a few years ago, and Elegoo has been one of the brands pushing that change. When I reviewed the original Elegoo Centauri Carbon last year, it stood out as an enclosed CoreXY printer that delivered premium features at a surprisingly low price. It was an excellent starter printer, but it wasn’t perfect.
The Centauri Carbon 2 builds directly on that foundation. I’ve been using it for weeks now, with close to 200 hours of print time, covering everything from quick PLA jobs to longer multi-colour prints using the new Canvas system.
The Centauri Carbon 2 keeps the same general footprint and enclosed CoreXY design as the original, with a build volume of 256 × 256 × 256 mm. It’s compact enough for a desk or workshop bench while still offering plenty of room for most practical prints.
Build quality is solid throughout. The die-cast aluminium frame gives the printer rigidity, and that pays off when printing at higher speeds. There’s less vibration and fewer audible resonances compared to the first Centauri Carbon. Elegoo has clearly put work into fan tuning and motion smoothing, too, because the CC2 is noticeably quieter. In silent mode, it sits around 45 dB, making it much easier to live with if you’re working in the same room.
One of the most welcome physical upgrades is the internal lighting. The original printer’s light was simply too dim to be useful. On the CC2, the new LED strip is bright and evenly spread, making it easy to see what’s happening even through the tinted glass door. It’s a small change, but it significantly improves day-to-day usability, remote monitoring, and time-lapse footage.
The new 5-inch touchscreen is another step up. It’s brighter, more responsive and feels closer to using a modern smartphone than an embedded printer display. The updated operating system builds on what was already familiar, but adds polish and better integration with the new features.
Setup is refreshingly straightforward. Out of the box, the Centauri Carbon 2 is mostly assembled, and getting from unpacking to first print doesn’t take long. That said, the combo kit includes spool holders and the new Canvas system, which has to be assembled to the main unit.
Automatic calibration handles bed levelling, Z offset, and pre-print checks, so you don’t have to manually tweak screws or guess nozzle heights.
The partial bed-levelling feature is particularly useful. Instead of probing the entire bed every time, the printer focuses on the area you’re actually printing on, cutting levelling time by up to 75%. In practice, this makes starting prints feel snappy rather than procedural.
Loading filament is also simple, especially with the Canvas system installed. Whether you’re using standard spools or Elegoo’s RFID-tagged filament, the process is clear and well-guided on the screen.
On paper, the Centauri Carbon 2 is stacked with features, especially for its price point. It supports printing with PLA, ABS, TPU, PETG, and fibre-reinforced filaments, thanks to a fully enclosed chamber, a heated bed that reaches 100°C, and a hardened steel nozzle rated to 350°C.
The CoreXY motion system, driven by dual 4260 stepper motors, allows for high-speed printing without sacrificing accuracy. Elegoo claims speeds up to 500 mm/s, though in real-world use, the sweet spot is lower if you care about surface finish.
Air filtration is handled by a composite HEPA and activated carbon system, which helps reduce odours and ultrafine particles. It’s not a replacement for proper ventilation if you’re printing more demanding materials, but it’s reassuring for home use.
Sensor coverage is extensive. Filament runout, clog detection, fan checks, cutter status, and power-loss recovery all run quietly in the background. In my testing, these features rarely drew attention to themselves, which is exactly how they should behave. I unintentionally got to test the power-loss feature during a power outage. When the printer powered back on, it asked if I wanted to resume the print, and I did. The print continued from where it stopped and finished the job. You could see an uneven layer where the print stopped, but at least it finished.
This is where the Centauri Carbon 2 really separates itself from the original. One of my biggest criticisms of the first Centauri Carbon was the lack of remote monitoring. It only supported LAN mode, and without spaghetti detection, leaving a long print unattended felt risky. Now, thanks to support in the Elegoo Matrix app, you can monitor prints remotely, view the live camera feed, and pause or stop a job if something goes wrong. The camera feels like a big upgrade, too. Image quality is far better – mainly due to the upgraded lighting, making both remote monitoring and timelapses actually usable.
While I really like the app, you do need to connect your printer to the cloud, as it does not work in network-only mode. I am fine with that, but some people may have privacy concerns.
Enabling a cloud connection also lets you access the printer remotely through the slicer, which I find very useful. I often browse for models during my lunch break at the office and send them straight to the printer. By the time I get home, the print is usually finished and ready to be lifted off the build plate.
Multi-material printing is handled by the new Canvas system, which I received as part of the combo kit. This was promised for the original printer but never released, which may still leave a sour taste for some users. That said, the Canvas works well here. It uses four independent motors and side-mounted spool holders, each feeding filament through its own PTFE path into a buffer on top of the printer.
The advantage of this design is speed and compatibility. Filament doesn’t need to be rewound all the way back through a long tube during colour changes, which keeps swaps fast. Cardboard spools work fine, and you can even run larger spools externally if you want. The downside is exposure to ambient air. There’s no humidity control or active drying, so in more humid environments, moisture-sensitive filaments will need extra care.
RFID filament detection makes loading new filaments much easier. I received two of the new Elegoo spools, which include NFC tags that automatically register the filament type and colour when tapped on the Canvas reader. This system isn’t locked down. Elegoo is committing to an open RFID standard, meaning users can programme their own tags if they follow Elegoo’s encoding method.
Support for Nexprint is also new and is integrated directly into Elegoo Slicer. It lets you browse, download, and print models in a single workflow. The library isn’t as large as Printables or MakerWorld yet, but it’s growing, and the one-click approach is beginner-friendly.
Print quality is excellent across the board. PLA prints come out clean with sharp details, smooth surfaces and consistent layer lines. The automatic Z offset does a great job of nailing first layers, and bed adhesion has been reliable with the double-sided (smooth and textured) magnetic build plate.
With ABS and fibre-reinforced filaments like PLA-CF, the enclosed chamber and stable temperatures make a noticeable difference. Warping is minimal, and dimensional accuracy is good even on longer prints. TPU prints smoothly too, provided speeds are kept sensible.
Multi-colour prints using Canvas have been consistently impressive. Colour changes are clean, purge waste is well managed, and I didn’t experience any misfeeds or failed swaps during testing. After nearly 200 hours, that reliability matters more than headline specs.
The Elegoo Centauri Carbon 2 is a serious step forward from the original, not just a minor refresh. It keeps the affordability and ease of use that made the original great, while fixing its biggest flaws and adding features that make it more convenient while still being a capable workhorse. If you’re looking for a quiet, capable and well-rounded enclosed 3D printer that punches above its price, the Centauri Carbon 2 is one of the strongest options currently available.
€439 Centauri Carbon 2 Combo
