TL;DR version. At $20 it’s just OK. At the MSRP of $40 it’s a loser. I paid $25.
In a nutshell, Creality started with a great idea but managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I loved the concept until day two, when I realized just how off the mark it was. Hopefully, this review will help other community members make informed decisions. I suspect this product is going obsolete soon, as it’s out of stock in most places and being discounted on Amazon—a usual harbinger of pending obsolescence.
Click for summary of hits and misses.
Hit's
- Easy to install. There really isn’t much too it.
- Accurate. It was as accurate as my cheap $10 kitchen scale.
- Spins freely enough but I already had a roller bearing solution previously so if you don’t have that, then add a plus.
- Solid Build quality
Misses
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Activating the scale requires touching the screen. This also zeros out the scale which loses the calibration you had from the empty spool, thus reducing its effectiveness as a print in progress tool. Dumb!!! Just Dumb.
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USB interface is only for charging. While it’s charging you cannot use the scale function. Dumb!!! Just really Dumb!!!
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The lack of continuous operation is a fatal flaw in my view. It would be so easy to allow it remain plugged in and stay on, instead, you have to touch it to reactivate and as I said, that also zeros out the weight. Again just plane dumb.
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Lack of USB communication. Think of the DIY potential if the USB port was a data communications channel allowing it to be interfaced to 3rd party products such as a Raspberry Pi or Arduino. You could set it up with Home Assistant and report how much filament is left on the spool or even calibrate the scale with stored empty spool tare weights.
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Just as with everything else that is not a printer such as their dryers which I reviewed here, Creality has virtually no support on their website. In fact, it’s almost impossible to find, I only found it on the store site. https://store.creality.com/products/3d-digital-spool-rack-s-single
They don’t give you a decent mounting option for anything other than a Creality printer which sort of tells you that like their dryers, this is not a focus and it’s something they likely did not design and just threw up against the wall to see if it would stick.
Mounting Options
While there are side adapters for this spool holder on Printables. I couldn’t find one for mounting on the original P1/X1 spool holder. So I came up with these two variations which I posted on Printables.
There’s another review on this with Chuck Hellebuyck on his Filament Friday YouTube channel.
There are a number of DIY versions of this concept, many of which have the live measurement, capture and calibration features I’d have expected, which I am thinking of trying to build myself but having had the time.
Click Here for the verdict.
Verdict
If you want a handy nearby second scale for your filament that is always attached to your printer, then at $20, it’s only 2X a kitchen scale and it’s always there. But all in all, after all was said and done, more was said than done when it comes to this product. It’s a pity because it has sooooo much potential.