FlashForge Artemis is an easy-to-use 3D printer, perfect for first-time makers, students, and casual printers. This is an open frame printer with direct drive and Z-axis build plate for stable motion and smooth printing.
Artemis is mostly plug and play. It comes fully assembled and is easy to set up. I took it out of the box and printed it within 20 minutes. It came with a generous starter pack containing two full spools of filament and an upgraded PEI build plate.
Artemis also has built-in WiFi and comes with an easy-to-understand bespoke slicer. With a retail price of $499, it’s designed to compete with the best entry-level 3D printers and gives you clean prints, but it’s expensive, has a small build volume, and requires manual bed leveling. I have.
Specifications: FlashForge Artemis
| build volume | 190 x 195 x 200 mm (7.5 x 7.7 x 7.9 inches) |
| material | PLA/TPU (up to 260 degrees) |
| Type of extruder Bowden | direct drive |
| Nozzle .4mm MK8 | .4mm (for high flow only) |
| build platform | PEI textured spring steel sheet and coated glass, heated |
| bed leveling | assist manual |
| filament runout sensor | yes |
| connectivity | USB stick, Wi-Fi |
| interface | color touch screen |
| machine footprint | 406 x 416 x 469 mm (16 x 16.4 x 18.5 inches) |
| machine weight | 10 kg (22 lbs) |
FlashForge Artemis: included in the box
FlashForge Artemis comes with everything you need to set up your printer plus some extra parts. Includes tools to maintain the printer, 3 extra nozzles, glue stick, print removal tool and USB flash disk. It also comes with a PEI coated flex sheet and an attachable adhesive back magnet and two full size filament spools.
A USB flash disk contains the test model, PDF manual, and FlashPrint slicing software. A paper quick start guide provides instructions to get your printer up and running.
Designing FlashForge Artemis
The FlashForge Artemis is a cube-style open frame 3D printer with a Z-mount build plate that moves up and down while printing. Most cartesian printers, such as the Ender 3 S1 Pro, have the bed mounted on his Y-axis, which moves back and forth rapidly. This style of machine is more compact than a typical bed slinger and produces smoother prints due to the gentle upward movement of the build plate.
Our test unit had a bright orange plastic case, but you can also opt for royal blue.The large touchscreen is responsive, with well-spaced buttons and easy-to-read menu options. I don’t like the rear-mounted spool holder, which makes spool replacement somewhat difficult. But the easy-to-load direct drive makes up for it.
According to FlashForge’s website, Artemis can reach velocities of 180 mm/s and comes with a high-flow nozzle, but the cooling fan is not working. I was able to get good performance out of the machine at 80 mm/s (a bit faster than the 50-60 mm/s you get with standard printers), but pushing faster is questionable at best.
Artemis has an odd size high flow nozzle that must be purchased directly from FlashForge. The printer comes with he three spares, so it will be a while before I need to order more. Unfortunately, at the time of this review, no nozzles for Artemis are listed on his FlashForge website.
Curiously, Artemis comes with two build sides. A factory-installed glass plate and another her PEI flex plate with magnets that you can add yourself. His website on FlashForge shows a rather misleading diagram that looks like the build plates stack, but they didn’t. The glass is held in place with brackets on the back and latches on the front to keep the plate snug. No room for extra thickness of magnets. Once you choose to install the flex plate, there is no turning back. Personally, I prefer flexplates, so I’m fine with this.
Files can be moved via USB thumb drive or built-in WiFi. Setting up WiFi was pretty easy, but it’s only accessible via FlashPrint.
Assembling FlashForge Artemis
FlashForge Artemis ships fully assembled and requires only unpacking. Simply clip the various zip ties that hold the tool head in place and pop it into the spool holder.
Leveling FlashForge Artemis
FlashForge Artemis helped with manual 3-point leveling, a step down from the fully automatic bed leveling of cheaper competitors such as the Elegoo Neptune 3 Pro. Move the printheads to three leveling points (one in the back and two in the front). A menu screen guides you through the entire process with very clear instructions.
You will need plain paper laid out on a bed of glass. Click Control → Level to launch the program. It starts with a single rear point that moves the nozzle up and down on command from the screen. Lower the nozzle until there is a slight amount of friction between the nozzle and the paper when you slide the nozzle. This sets the z-height. The next two points are at the front corners. Here, use the knob to adjust the bed up or down until the paper just meets the resistance.
Loading Filament into FlashForge Artemis
The spool holder is attached to the back of the printer, which makes loading filament a bit awkward. The machine has a reverse Bowden. That is, a tube is used to spool the filament from his holder, over the top of the machine and into a direct drive.
The Bowden tube fits snugly over the tool head and has no lever. The filament is pushed out of the spool into the tube and stops when resistance is encountered. Press “Load Filament” on the touch screen. It heats the hotend up to 200 degrees and feeds the filament automatically.
File/software preparation for FlashForge Artemis
Flashforge Artemis comes with its own FlashPrint slicer specially tuned for Artemis. It’s a full-featured slicer on par with Cura, with a basic mode for quick slicing and an expert mode for those who want finer control. It also has the ability to connect to machines via WiFi, saving you the trouble of dealing with USB sticks.
If you use Cura or PrusaSlicer, you’ll need to create your own profile from scratch. For this review, I continued to use FlashPrint so that I could take advantage of WiFi file transfer.
Printing with FlashForge Artemis
FlashForge Artemis comes with two full rolls of FlashForge PLA (one white and one black). If you want more exciting materials like silk or multicolored filaments, check out our guide to the best filaments for 3D printing.
Artemis also comes with two unusual build plate options. A coated glass plate is factory installed and includes a PEI flex plate and magnets. Sadly, once you switch to flex plates, you can’t go back. The clip is held in place by a hard-to-access screw and doesn’t have enough space to hold both the glass and the magnet. So I ran a few prints on the glass bed before switching to PEI plates.
The first print I ran was McGybeer’s Cali-Dragon in the black PLA provided. I used a glass build plate that was already installed and it came loose and created a ridiculous whip topping effect on my head. On the second try I added glue as recommended in the manual and it held up well and printed beautifully with smooth sides and clean antlers. . This print took 46 minutes using FlashPrint default settings, layer height 0.18mm, 50mm per second.
I wanted to print something impressive next, so I created Kijai’s Moon City 2.0. This is an improved and more detailed version of the classic print. The result is stunning: crisp detail, pointed turrets, and smooth inner planetary walls with no stringiness.This was printed with FlashForge Baked Titanium PLA (opens in new tab)with a layer height of 0.2 mm, it took 16 hours and 9 minutes to print.
Before testing PETG, I decided to install a textured PEI flex plate. Then I had to stick the magnets to the aluminum heatbed and throw away the glass plate. PEI plates are suitable for his PETG and do not require an adhesive barrier to prevent them from sticking permanently to the glass.
PETG runs perfectly on Artemis and is seen in this stacked Fred the Frog.print with Inland Translucent Green PETG (opens in new tab) 3 hours 54 minutes for a layer height of 0.2 mm at a standard speed of 50 mm/s.
The TPU couldn’t load, so it was a bust. The feed system was unable to grab the filament. I couldn’t even squeeze in because the entry point is deep inside the shrouded tool.
Conclusion
FlashForge Artemis is a great machine that offers a plug-and-play experience, especially for beginners and makers who don’t want to mess with the printer as part of their setup. Regular filament handled very well, but the “easy load” tool head couldn’t grip his TPU.
The machine comes with a very extensive starter pack that includes two rolls of PLA filament and build plate upgrades. The built-in WiFi is a treat, especially considering the cost of adding a Raspberry Pi to the printer at the moment.
The FlashForge Artemis is expensive at $499, but it’s a solid choice if you want a pure plug-and-play experience to start your 3D printing journey. However, if you want to save a little money while increasing build space and automatic bed leveling, we recommend the Elegoo Neptune 3 Pro, which currently retails for $230. The highly portable Creality Ender 2 Pro retails for $169.
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