I am the owner of a small business that builds and sells high precision optical test equipment. My product comprises parts that I had previously had manufactured using CNC turning and milling of aircraft-grade aluminum, at a very high cost due to my low sales volume. I transitioned to SLS (selecting laser sintering) of Nylon a couple of years ago, using very expensive SLS equipment owned by another company. This enabled me to reduce cost. However, I hoped to further reduce cost by purchasing my own 3D printing equipment.So, after reviewing the offerings and reading reviews of various 3D printers, I ended up purchasing the Artillery Sidewinder X1 3D printer, along with another competing unit (at more than twice the cost), just before Christmas 2020. I have now had sufficient experience with both units to state that the Artillery is by far the superior printer. If I could award more than 5 stars to the Artillery, both in terms of speed and quality of output, I would. The Artillery unit produces PLA parts for my test equipment product that is of sufficient aethetic quality to sell right out of the printer, without the need for post-production re-work! To say that I am please would be an understatement!Unfortunately, my experience with the Artillery unit didn't start off that way. In one of my first efforts to print a part, the PLA gobbed up right at the print head. What a mess! I ended up having to heat up the hot end (print nozzle area) in order to try and extricate the gobbed up mess. The gob actually pushed the rubber-like boot surrounding the nozzle away from the print head. So, the boot thingy went in the garbage, along with as much of the gob of PLA as I could remove. I am happy to say that the printer now works EXCEEDINGLY well without the boot thingy!Also, I had some trouble getting used to how much glue stick stuff to smear onto the build plate, so my parts wouldn't come unstuck. But now, that problem is solved.I also had some trouble figuring out what to do with the warp in the build plate. The leveling process works just fine to level the four corners of the build plate. However, the build plate is warped downward at the center (like a dish), so the slide-the-paper-under-the-nozzle trick was useless for achieving the proper distance from build plate to nozzle at the center of the build plate. Since my parts tend to be small-ish, I just decided to concentrate on getting the proper distance from nozzle to build plate at the center, and not worry about the edges of the build plate. So, I carefully adjusted the four corner leveling adjusters in order to evenly raise the build plate to the proper spacing to the nozzle at the center of the build plate.I am extremely pleased with the ease of use of the Ultimaker Cura slicer software. The printer profile for the Artillery unit that is bundled with the Cura slicer seems very well tuned for the Artillery. The only tweak I have made is to increase the internal density level for parts from 20% to 30%. At 20% density, there is excessive "print through" of the internal light weight scaffolding of the part which shows up on the outside of the part and degrades the cosmetic appearance.The bottom line is that I am very pleased with the Artillery Sidewinder X1 3D printer! I would just recommend to the manufacturer that they review the need for the boot thingy surrounding the print nozzle.I have years of experience with assembling and troubleshooting consumer and professional 3-D printers. If you're OK with DIY tinkering this printer is a nice starting point to enable big prints. The fast heating glass bed and ribbon cables are very nice features.But my printer was not 100% functional out of the box. The extruder came with giant globs of hardened filament stuck all over the heat block and nozzle. The blue silicone sock was stuffed full of filament of at least two different colors (red and natural). The hobbed gear had filament residue in its teeth, meaning the extruder was clearly used. After considerable cleaning (see picture of some of the debris) and closer inspection I noticed that the nozzle and heat break were not properly tightened against each other to prevent back pressure leaks during extrusion. This caused very uneven extrusion during my first few test prints, which I aborted due to the leaky globs. I'm not sure whether LOVLOY shipped me a used extruder or if Artillery's QC process involves a hasty test extrusion, but in my case the "QC Pass" sticker was ornamental at best. I heated the nozzle to remove and clean it, then reinstalled it so that it butted up properly against the heat break to eliminate the leaking. This requires an adjustable wrench to hold the heat block and a 7 mm wrench (I recommend using a socket) for the nozzle.I was curious whether I was shipped an entirely used printer so I cracked open the lower case. Some not very good 3-D printed wire guides had come loose (probably during shipping), but aside from the easy to peel back "warranty void if opened" sticker there was no other sign that the lower part was used. There was a small amount of hot glue to keep a few plugs in place.The stock firmware was functional but did not offer convenience features like linear advance and manual mesh bed leveling to account for the slightly wavy glass bed. After going through the built-in 5 point leveling with the adjustment knobs, there was about 0.1 mm total runout between low and high points while heated. To get mesh bed leveling I upgraded the touchscreen and printer firmware to more recent community supported versions while I had the case open.1 month, 200 hour update: Y carriage was missing a washer, and extruder is clickingAfter a month and 200 hours of use the Y-axis was not moving perfectly smoothly, with little hitches at certain points. Adjustments of the Y carriage eccentric bearings did not work as expected, as if the wheels were fighting each other. On disassembling the Y carriage, I discovered that one wheel assembly was missing a small 1 mm washer, putting it 1 mm out of line with the others. The wheel bearing that was missing the washer seemed to be slightly gritty when moved by hand, indicating that the axial load may have damaged the bearing. Cleaning the Y extrusion, replacing the bad wheel, and putting an appropriate 1 mm washer in place fixed this issue for me. The spare parts bag did not include an appropriately sized washer but it did have two spare wheels.The second issue I'm experiencing is that the filament feed idler arm is crooked to the left and making frequent clicking noises because the filament does not have a smooth path down into the extruder. I will be pre-emptively buying or printing a few replacements because this piece is known to break. My spare parts bag did not include a spare, unlike what I've read from other reviews.I got this printer monday was printing in 30 min (would have been quicker if the instructions were up to date) and it has been going since with no issues at all! 10/10