I don’t think so. It looks like it lacks ABL, and the time savings from a core XY with ABL or auto first layer are MASSIVE. Also your print quality increases exponentially.
Take a look at the FlashForge 5M if you want a budget auto first layer printer, or the Qidi line for a slightly more robust printer (but needs more manual intervention).
And if you’d like to focus on printing and not tinkering forever, get a Bambu. Any of them.
Creality isn’t a bad company, they’re just hindered by the ignorant. The Ender 3, the baseline, old 8 bit model - was a perfectly fine machine if you knew what needed to be tight, and what didn’t.
The new 3v3 SE is a wonderful machine at like $180 with direct drive, magnetic PEI bed, dual Z screws, and the works. It doesn’t require all the knowledge that the old versions did. It’s a perfectly fine beginner machine.
The problem with Creality is just that everyone bought one as an enthusiast, so they told all the non-enthusiasts it was a great machine, and without that same level of knowledge, those people fell HARD. In doing so, they returned and claimed that creality machines were garbage. But they really weren’t. As far as bottom-of-the-barrel budget machines go, they were pretty alright.
The Elegoo Neptune 4’s are pretty good. Avoid Anycubic FDM machines, but their Resin printers are good. Avoid Dremel; their nozzles are literally a smaller MK10 nozzle from 12 years ago with nichrome wire wrapped around it. They are unserviceable. Nozzle clogs, and you just buy a $35 replacement everything. Avoid XYZPrinting. New-gen Creality is good for beginners in this new higher-expectation world. Old-gen Creality, don’t even bother unless you’re getting it for <$50 and know enough to repair it yourself. (Old Gen is Ender 3, CR-10, Ender 3 v2, Ender 3 Pro, anything with “Neo” in it. Yes, Ender 3 is a version number. Yes, Creality is basically calling their printer the Ender v3 v2. Only Ender worth getting is the Ender 3, v3 (SE, KE, etc)) - If you have the budget, the Creality K1 Max is really the only alternative to a Bambu if you need a larger build size. Possibly the Sovol SV08 - but as much as I love the Klipper team, it is NOT the most user friendly on that front. If you like techy-stuff, the SV08 isn’t as polished as a Bambu, but may be worth the price/size ratio.
Ignore people telling you to print carbon fiber, most of them are idiots. Glow in the dark is also destructive to your machine, avoid that unless it’s DAS filament (who ball-grind their glow powder, so it’s not abrasive to brass nozzles and other softer parts of your machine).
Sovol machines are a pretty good Prusa-alternative. They cloned the machines quite well, and are much cheaper.
Stick with PLA for everything until you find a situation in which it fails. Move up to PETG after that. Don’t get caught up in the “TPU Trap”. Great, you can print a phone case. What are you going to do with the REST of the roll? TPU doesn’t work in remote-drive systems. YES, some of us who are headstrong can force it to work, but generally just accept that it doesn’t, and if you MUST use TPU, make sure you’re using it on a direct drive machine. If you have an enclosed machine, feel free to move up to ABS/ASA, HIPS, and others. Be prepared for the stinky. They do smell like burning styrofoam depending on the mfg.
Anyone selling you a used machine - you are adopting their problem. They wouldn’t be selling it to you otherwise. There is ALWAYS a problem. Buy new when possible. Also, though I HATE Jeff Bezos, get your shit from Amazon. It’s not their product, and if it’s defective, they’re not going to give you the run-around in replacing it. I’ve seen lots of people even told to keep the old/busted machine (great for spare parts later!). Amazon don’t give a shiiiiiiiiit. This isn’t possible for some machines: Bambu for example. They just don’t work with resellers.
And don’t go getting the cheapest bullshit filament you can buy. Stay above the…eh…$18/spool range. Lower than that, and you start getting some crusty shit.
If you have pets - good…fucking…luck. Pet dander, and all the shit they add to the air, is cancer to 3D printers. There is not a single pet owner that I have met where they aren’t constantly servicing their machine due to clogs.
It really isn’t. It’s the users who are mostly to blame. The one I see all the time, is users who replace the PTFE without knowing how that whole system works. Especially people who replace the PTFE with Crapricorn tubing.
I’m just going on personal experience, 1st e3v2 I bought had a bent gantry extrusion (box was not damaged) and I had to deburr several of the holes. Luckily microcenter is local to me and I was able to exchange it. 2nd one was good for about a month before I had to replace the extruder as the teeth had worn off to the point it would slip and make that fun clicking sound we all know and love. I was only printing standard Inland PLA, nothing filled or overly abrasive. All ghings being equal, as someone new to the hobby at the time, spending more time and money trying to get it to print “ok” versus trusting it to not fail a 10+ hour print finally got to me. Not sure about their newer machines as my Ender experience left a bad taste in my mouth. Personally, when people ask what I’d recommend, I default to Prusa or Bambu (I went with Bambu), or Sovol or Quidi for more budget friendly options. I’ve heard Creality’s newer stuff is better, but I’m not planning on buying any more of their stuff. Eventually I’ll jump down the Voron rabbit hole, but too many other projects at the moment, plus a 350x350x350 machine is going to take up serious space in my print room.
Tl;dr : if you have a creality machine and you’re happy with it, by all means. One can only speak on their personal experience.
I have pretty unique experience here in that I run a 3D printer repair shop. I have my hands on literally thousands of machines per year (an avg of 3-4 a day or so).
I’ve never once seen a bent gantry extrusion. The Ender 3 was known for a faulty period between 2020 and 2021 where they made a non-glass-filled extruder levers; and that caused a lot of extrusion headaches with PLA.
And I’ve never seen a brass hobbed gear for the extruder wear down on just normal PLA. White-PLA can be a little bit abrasive, but glow in the dark is just as bad as carbon fiber.
Again, looping back to the non-glass-filled lever, I have absolutely seen PLA tear the shit out of that thing though – nearly cut it in half. But that’s not a QA problem; that’s a design/engineering problem.
I kind of agree with what you’re saying on creality, but if you look at their core xy machines compared to other manufacturers of a similar price point, it’s just not worth it (K1).
To your point about larger size, Qidi XMAX3 is where it’s at. It’s rock solid and customer support is amazing. They’ve sent me free parts due to clogs and helped diagnose issues on the printer (this is what Creality lacks, support). It runs on Klipper and is easily modified, and it’s fully enclosed with a heater.
I also think a “beginner” machine has shifted. Most people want to print, not maintain. And now we have plenty of machines that need little maintenance.
Creality machines do excel at tinkering, swapping parts, and doing fun mods. But you need to know that’s what you want when going in. Even then for a beginner I’d say get something rock solid for your first printer, and get a tinkering machine for your second.
I agree with everything you’re saying about filament. The only thing to use CF with is Nylon if you need it to be a little more rigid, but it will eat your nozzle.
ASA and ABS won’t only smell, it will poison you. Do not hang out if you can smell it.
As per Amazon and their return policy, totally true. If you’re not buying there make sure they have a solid customer support, like Qidi and Bambu. Creality wouldn’t take a return for the world.
Absolutely on the K1. Nobody should be buying it. Only time I ever recommend them – is when referring to the K1 Max. And that’s only when people want: A - To Print Fast, and B - Something larger than Bambu. But I’m starting to move toward suggesting the SV08 if I can see they are at least a little bit technical.
Obligatory anti-Bambu pro Prusa comment here for achieving goal of printing without constantly boring around with printer. With Lemmy generally being so conscious of data privacy concerns, I’m surprised to see so much pro-bambu talk here.
I like Prusa as a company but their products are nowhere near as competitive as they were 2 years ago when every printer was a bed slinger. The fact that they still want $1,000 for a fairly basic bed slinger is pretty ridiculous.
I chalk it up to not being able to drop prices to the level of the Asian market with a European work force.
As long as they continue to innovate, build quality products, and have great customer support, I’ll consider it a cost and not a loss.
I don’t think so. It looks like it lacks ABL, and the time savings from a core XY with ABL or auto first layer are MASSIVE. Also your print quality increases exponentially.
Take a look at the FlashForge 5M if you want a budget auto first layer printer, or the Qidi line for a slightly more robust printer (but needs more manual intervention).
And if you’d like to focus on printing and not tinkering forever, get a Bambu. Any of them.
Avoid creality.
Creality isn’t a bad company, they’re just hindered by the ignorant. The Ender 3, the baseline, old 8 bit model - was a perfectly fine machine if you knew what needed to be tight, and what didn’t.
The new 3v3 SE is a wonderful machine at like $180 with direct drive, magnetic PEI bed, dual Z screws, and the works. It doesn’t require all the knowledge that the old versions did. It’s a perfectly fine beginner machine.
The problem with Creality is just that everyone bought one as an enthusiast, so they told all the non-enthusiasts it was a great machine, and without that same level of knowledge, those people fell HARD. In doing so, they returned and claimed that creality machines were garbage. But they really weren’t. As far as bottom-of-the-barrel budget machines go, they were pretty alright.
The Elegoo Neptune 4’s are pretty good. Avoid Anycubic FDM machines, but their Resin printers are good. Avoid Dremel; their nozzles are literally a smaller MK10 nozzle from 12 years ago with nichrome wire wrapped around it. They are unserviceable. Nozzle clogs, and you just buy a $35 replacement everything. Avoid XYZPrinting. New-gen Creality is good for beginners in this new higher-expectation world. Old-gen Creality, don’t even bother unless you’re getting it for <$50 and know enough to repair it yourself. (Old Gen is Ender 3, CR-10, Ender 3 v2, Ender 3 Pro, anything with “Neo” in it. Yes, Ender 3 is a version number. Yes, Creality is basically calling their printer the Ender v3 v2. Only Ender worth getting is the Ender 3, v3 (SE, KE, etc)) - If you have the budget, the Creality K1 Max is really the only alternative to a Bambu if you need a larger build size. Possibly the Sovol SV08 - but as much as I love the Klipper team, it is NOT the most user friendly on that front. If you like techy-stuff, the SV08 isn’t as polished as a Bambu, but may be worth the price/size ratio.
Ignore people telling you to print carbon fiber, most of them are idiots. Glow in the dark is also destructive to your machine, avoid that unless it’s DAS filament (who ball-grind their glow powder, so it’s not abrasive to brass nozzles and other softer parts of your machine).
Sovol machines are a pretty good Prusa-alternative. They cloned the machines quite well, and are much cheaper.
Stick with PLA for everything until you find a situation in which it fails. Move up to PETG after that. Don’t get caught up in the “TPU Trap”. Great, you can print a phone case. What are you going to do with the REST of the roll? TPU doesn’t work in remote-drive systems. YES, some of us who are headstrong can force it to work, but generally just accept that it doesn’t, and if you MUST use TPU, make sure you’re using it on a direct drive machine. If you have an enclosed machine, feel free to move up to ABS/ASA, HIPS, and others. Be prepared for the stinky. They do smell like burning styrofoam depending on the mfg.
Anyone selling you a used machine - you are adopting their problem. They wouldn’t be selling it to you otherwise. There is ALWAYS a problem. Buy new when possible. Also, though I HATE Jeff Bezos, get your shit from Amazon. It’s not their product, and if it’s defective, they’re not going to give you the run-around in replacing it. I’ve seen lots of people even told to keep the old/busted machine (great for spare parts later!). Amazon don’t give a shiiiiiiiiit. This isn’t possible for some machines: Bambu for example. They just don’t work with resellers.
And don’t go getting the cheapest bullshit filament you can buy. Stay above the…eh…$18/spool range. Lower than that, and you start getting some crusty shit.
If you have pets - good…fucking…luck. Pet dander, and all the shit they add to the air, is cancer to 3D printers. There is not a single pet owner that I have met where they aren’t constantly servicing their machine due to clogs.
Agree with everything with one caveat - creality QA is absolute dogshit.
It really isn’t. It’s the users who are mostly to blame. The one I see all the time, is users who replace the PTFE without knowing how that whole system works. Especially people who replace the PTFE with Crapricorn tubing.
I’m just going on personal experience, 1st e3v2 I bought had a bent gantry extrusion (box was not damaged) and I had to deburr several of the holes. Luckily microcenter is local to me and I was able to exchange it. 2nd one was good for about a month before I had to replace the extruder as the teeth had worn off to the point it would slip and make that fun clicking sound we all know and love. I was only printing standard Inland PLA, nothing filled or overly abrasive. All ghings being equal, as someone new to the hobby at the time, spending more time and money trying to get it to print “ok” versus trusting it to not fail a 10+ hour print finally got to me. Not sure about their newer machines as my Ender experience left a bad taste in my mouth. Personally, when people ask what I’d recommend, I default to Prusa or Bambu (I went with Bambu), or Sovol or Quidi for more budget friendly options. I’ve heard Creality’s newer stuff is better, but I’m not planning on buying any more of their stuff. Eventually I’ll jump down the Voron rabbit hole, but too many other projects at the moment, plus a 350x350x350 machine is going to take up serious space in my print room.
Tl;dr : if you have a creality machine and you’re happy with it, by all means. One can only speak on their personal experience.
I have pretty unique experience here in that I run a 3D printer repair shop. I have my hands on literally thousands of machines per year (an avg of 3-4 a day or so).
I’ve never once seen a bent gantry extrusion. The Ender 3 was known for a faulty period between 2020 and 2021 where they made a non-glass-filled extruder levers; and that caused a lot of extrusion headaches with PLA.
And I’ve never seen a brass hobbed gear for the extruder wear down on just normal PLA. White-PLA can be a little bit abrasive, but glow in the dark is just as bad as carbon fiber.
Again, looping back to the non-glass-filled lever, I have absolutely seen PLA tear the shit out of that thing though – nearly cut it in half. But that’s not a QA problem; that’s a design/engineering problem.
I kind of agree with what you’re saying on creality, but if you look at their core xy machines compared to other manufacturers of a similar price point, it’s just not worth it (K1).
To your point about larger size, Qidi XMAX3 is where it’s at. It’s rock solid and customer support is amazing. They’ve sent me free parts due to clogs and helped diagnose issues on the printer (this is what Creality lacks, support). It runs on Klipper and is easily modified, and it’s fully enclosed with a heater.
I also think a “beginner” machine has shifted. Most people want to print, not maintain. And now we have plenty of machines that need little maintenance.
Creality machines do excel at tinkering, swapping parts, and doing fun mods. But you need to know that’s what you want when going in. Even then for a beginner I’d say get something rock solid for your first printer, and get a tinkering machine for your second.
I agree with everything you’re saying about filament. The only thing to use CF with is Nylon if you need it to be a little more rigid, but it will eat your nozzle.
ASA and ABS won’t only smell, it will poison you. Do not hang out if you can smell it.
As per Amazon and their return policy, totally true. If you’re not buying there make sure they have a solid customer support, like Qidi and Bambu. Creality wouldn’t take a return for the world.
Absolutely on the K1. Nobody should be buying it. Only time I ever recommend them – is when referring to the K1 Max. And that’s only when people want: A - To Print Fast, and B - Something larger than Bambu. But I’m starting to move toward suggesting the SV08 if I can see they are at least a little bit technical.
The normal K1? Forget it. Don’t buy it.
Obligatory anti-Bambu pro Prusa comment here for achieving goal of printing without constantly boring around with printer. With Lemmy generally being so conscious of data privacy concerns, I’m surprised to see so much pro-bambu talk here.
I like Prusa as a company but their products are nowhere near as competitive as they were 2 years ago when every printer was a bed slinger. The fact that they still want $1,000 for a fairly basic bed slinger is pretty ridiculous.
I chalk it up to not being able to drop prices to the level of the Asian market with a European work force. As long as they continue to innovate, build quality products, and have great customer support, I’ll consider it a cost and not a loss.
Bambu has community firmware.
I second the Qidi recommendation. Both of mine have been champions thus far.