Elegoo Neptune 4 Complete Setup Guide: Unboxing, Klipper Pad, and First Print

The Elegoo Neptune 4 line (Neptune 4, 4 Pro, 4 Plus, and 4 Max) sits in the same budget-to-midrange bracket as the Anycubic Kobra 3 and Creality K1 series covered elsewhere on this site: a Klipper-based mainboard, factory auto bed leveling, and a direct-drive extruder capable of real print speeds out of the box, at a price well under the Bambu or Prusa ecosystems. It's a genuinely different machine from the Kobra 3, though — Elegoo ships its own Klipper front end (Klipper Screen-based "Klipper Pad" on the touchscreen models) instead of Anycubic's ACE Pro workflow, and the tuning steps that matter differ enough to be worth their own walkthrough.

What's in the Box and First Assembly

The Neptune 4 ships mostly pre-assembled: the gantry, X-axis, and toolhead come installed, and final assembly is largely bolting the frame uprights to the base and connecting the pre-routed cable harnesses. Budget 20–30 minutes for physical assembly. Before powering on, check the belt tension on the X and Y axes by hand — shipping vibration occasionally loosens a belt idler, and a loose belt will show up later as ghosting/ringing on prints rather than an obvious mechanical fault, which makes it a frustrating thing to diagnose after the fact instead of catching now.

First Power-On and Klipper Pad

• The Neptune 4's touchscreen runs a Klipper-based interface Elegoo calls Klipper Pad — functionally similar to KlipperScreen (covered in our standalone KlipperScreen guide) but themed and packaged by Elegoo specifically for this printer line.
• Connect to WiFi through the network settings menu on first boot; this also enables remote monitoring and file transfer without needing to shuttle a USB stick or SD card back and forth for every print.
• Check for a firmware update immediately — early Neptune 4 units shipped with bed leveling and pressure advance bugs that Elegoo patched within the first few months, and updating before your first real print saves a troubleshooting session later.

Auto Bed Leveling and First Layer

The Neptune 4 uses a strain-gauge load-cell probing system (similar in concept to the pressure-based probes covered in our auto bed leveling sensors comparison) rather than a physical BLTouch-style pin. Run the auto bed leveling routine from the touchscreen menu before your first print and after any time you remove or reinstall the build plate. Because it's a load-cell system, keep the bed and nozzle clean during probing — a stray blob of filament on the nozzle tip will throw off every probe point uniformly and produce a first layer that's subtly wrong everywhere rather than obviously wrong in one spot, which makes it easy to miss until the print has already failed.

After auto leveling, do a manual Z-offset (baby-stepping) check on a single test print: the load cell gets you a level mesh, but the absolute nozzle-to-bed distance still benefits from a human eye on the actual first layer squish, the same first-layer calibration step used across every FDM printer in our beginner workflow guide.

Slicer Setup

SlicerNotes for Neptune 4 OrcaSlicerBest-supported third-party option; community-maintained Neptune 4 profiles cover the base, Pro, Plus, and Max bed sizes separately — pick the right one, since the Plus and Max have significantly larger build volumes Elegoo SlicerElegoo's own PrusaSlicer/OrcaSlicer fork with pre-loaded Neptune 4 profiles; the easiest path for a first print but slower to get community profile updates than OrcaSlicer CuraWorks with a manually added custom printer profile; less convenient than the two options above for this specific machine

Tuning Priorities After the First Print

• Pressure advance: Run the standard Klipper pressure advance tower/tune test (covered in our Klipper input shaper and pressure advance guide) — the Neptune 4's direct-drive extruder benefits noticeably from this on corners and fine detail.
• Input shaper: The Neptune 4 Pro and Plus/Max variants include an accelerometer for automated resonance testing; run SHAPER_CALIBRATE from the Klipper console once you've confirmed the frame is fully tightened, since a loose frame bolt will produce a resonance graph that looks like a hardware fault rather than a tuning opportunity.
• E-steps and flow: Verify with a 100mm filament extrusion test before trusting dimensional accuracy on anything precision-fit, the same e-steps calibration process used across every FDM printer.

Common First-Week Issues

SymptomLikely fix Inconsistent first layer despite passing auto levelingClean the nozzle tip before probing; recheck load cell mount bolts for shipping looseness Ghosting/ringing on printsCheck belt tension and frame bolts; run input shaper calibration on Pro/Plus/Max models WiFi drops during long printsUpdate to current firmware — this was a known early-firmware bug on several Neptune 4 units Under-extrusion on PETG or ABSVerify hotend temperature calibration and check for partial nozzle clogs from the factory PLA test print

The Neptune 4 line delivers a genuinely capable Klipper machine at a price that undercuts most of the competition covered on this site, but "Klipper machine" cuts both ways — you get the tuning depth of input shaper and pressure advance, and you also inherit the responsibility of actually running those calibrations instead of trusting a black-box firmware default. Spend the first evening on bed leveling, pressure advance, and input shaper before you judge the print quality, and the Neptune 4 holds up well against printers costing considerably more.