I get curious too. I have to often balance that with the realities of life right now though. I’ve taken 3d printing to more than just a hobby at the moment too, so the time I put into it is a bit more focused on my overall goals, and the purchases I make are better served when they reflect those goals. I haven’t really had much in the way of money to play around with.
My impression from others is that Creality’s latest offerings, like the K1/K2, are respectable enough. In the current landscape, if Bambu wasn’t here, but the offerings were the same from other manufactures, I’d be a little more interested in the K1/K2 offerings. Although I probably favor Anycubic over Creality. I do appreciate that they’re serving up a larger build platform, and it’s where Bambu lacks. I’ve got larger models! I’ve got a Kobra 2 Max for those jobs though.
I think the XL kind of stands out in a way, that sets it apart from the regular thought process and just floats on that, it’s cool and I want to play with it, factor. The Core one would be interesting to mess with too. I’m not so big into Prusa these days, but I would love to mess with either of those… or a Voron!
For an alternative, my flashforge adventurer 5m Pro has been rock solid. Flashforge recently released new firmware to go along with a new phone app and a newer version of Orca -flashforge.
Only down side, not much of one really, is no multi color unit.
Looks like they’ve delayed their 5X as well, but I wasn’t interested in it.
I do have a pair of S1’s preordered and will give my K3 to one of my boys.
I was tempted to try the K1C, my understanding is it’s the K1, but 3rd version, less issues (K1, K1SE, K1C). I thought better of it after friends creality experiences.
It was a 1 month wait for the printer cfs? combo, so i have no news about it yet. Could ship in the next 1-2 weeks. Im probably going to end up using it as a modding platform. One thing crealities are good for is attracting tinkerers that make pretty cool mods. And huge aftermarket support. Im imagining awd idex with aftermarket extruder, hotend, bed etc for fairly cheap usually. That with a heated chamber, auto belt tension, filtration, should make for fun.
Im also looking forward to programming some rfid chips.
As long as it doesnt end up being an flsun S1 experience, all will be ok. I like that the new creality slicer is based on orca
Agreed! If I sometimes sound sour about Creality, it’s probably just flashbacks from my first, earlier experience with Creality, near the start of Covid. More recently, last spring I acquired a factory refurbished CR10 SE for use as a dedicated TPU printer, and aside from arriving with a defective power supply fan, which was both easy and cheap to replace with an even better fan from amazon.com, it has given me no meaningful problems.
That said, when I print on the CR10 SE, you’ll never guess the X1C feature that I miss the most: the spaghetti detective!
Why? I find It makes a meaningful difference in avoiding Blob of Death when the printer is running unsupervised. I took it for granted on the X1C, and it wasn’t until I was once again forced to use printers without it that I realized what a good decision Bambu made by including it in the X1C loadout.
The K1C is the second version, the K1SE came last.
The K1 is and will be my last Creality printer ever.
The K1 was not ready at launch, and was a mass produce beta unit. A big joke IMO.
And 10 month later they have released the K1C addressing the biggest issue of the K1, the VFAs, and add some minor things to it in order to make it a “new product”.
During those first 10 month of the K1, they have released 3 new revised version of the extruder! What a mess🤦♂️
The K2 is MAYBE ready now, but I’m done being a beta tester for Creality.
My last creality was a cr10s pro. Had a Stealthy swiss hotend. Microswiss mounted in a stealthburner. Fun printer, but yeah, no protections. I actually saved my biggest blob ever. Its impressive lol. Fastest I was ever able to get decent prints was 200mm/s
Don’t be fooled it’s basically the same printer as the K1C but strip down (no side fan, no cam, no doors ,no lid, no side panels, no cable chaine).
And there is no much difference between the K1 and K1C. (Smaller pulleys on the XY motor, that’s what actually reduce the VFAs, new proprietary nozzle design, slightly revised door hinges, a seal on the side of the door, and a slightly more powerful cooling fan, and a super small cheap carbon filter, just to be able say there is one).
And I know what I’m talking about I have redraw the whole K1 ^^`
Nice looking blob of a quite a respectable size… Say, this blob does look very familiar… wasn’t featured (actually played a major part), not that very long ago, in a highly popular sci-fi/horror movie?
Yup. I picked one up in November to give it a try, partly because of the positive WOM from regular users. In contrast to my X1C, the lack of spaghetti detection makes me reluctant to let the Pro 5M run completely unsupervised. What surprised me the most so far is that running with just the generic Flashforge Orca Slicer PETG settings, without any tuning, it actually prints PETG both faster and better than my X1C. I haven’t yet done a meaningful compare/contrast on the print profiles to see what gives it this advantage, but in the meantime I default to using it to print PETG whenever the need arises. When I ran the comparison test prints, I used the exact same spool of Elegoo white Rapido PETG in both printers, so the differences can’t be from that. i.e. literally the same spool, not two different spools (a separate one for each printer) of the same type and brand. No, literally the same spool. I moved it from one to the other while doing the test prints to eliminate any chance that the print differences were due to filament differences. Youtube reviewers pretty much never go that extra mile, but you really do need to do it properly in that way in order to be 100% sure.
I’m not claiming that it is, in totality, a superior machine to my X1C. It falls short in a number of areas, and I won’t create distraction by going into that here. Nonetheless, for a machine that I picked up brand new for $329, I’m surprised it manages to do better in even a narrow category, like PETG printing.
Actually you can say this exact same thing about ANY creality printer.
Some people learn that on their 1st creality printer. Some don’t.
On the other hand I have friends who bought creality printer instead of literally any other because “creality is more established brand”
The patent isn’t for “rotating” nozzle per se, just a double nozzle in single toolhead with mechanism allowing switching between the two so that either one or the other is in the straight down position.
I think we would all agree that by now the A1 has been on the market long enough that calling it “new” at this juncture in time seems a bit disingenuous. I can accept applying the label “new” to differentiate it from the recalled version, and thereby offer additional reassurance to would-be buyers that they’d be purchasing the fixed version and not the fire-hazard version. But… if that’s the case, how does “pre-sale” figure into this?
i was looking into maybe getting anycubic s1 and came across this https://youtu.be/GWEpZZQ_G58 (while i dont speak german, YT kindly auto-dubbed it to english)
2 things jumped out at me:
not all-metal hot-end, despite claiming max temp upwards 320C???
the dryer in the ACE is controlled by the printer, so printer had to be on???
Also, there’s an animation on the product page which strongly suggests the PTFE does not come into contact with the hot-end. Have a look and see if you agree.
Worth checking the idle power if that’s your concern, but if it’s well designed the idle power could be quite low. i.e. So what? I often leave my X1C turned on so that I can send it a print at the drop of a hat. If I don’t foresee using it for a long time, I kill the power remotely with a smart switch. Luckilly I can also switch it remotely into standby mode by just restoring power via the smartswitch. As basic as that sounds, though, not all printers will do that. For example, the Flashforge 5M Pro. You need a fingerbot, or equivalent, to wake the 5M Pro up into standby after powering it on remotely.
I think the “PRE-SALE” part of it might means that it’s not ready to ship but if you want to go ahead and order it now and be prepared to wait, you’ll get a cheaper price.
My K3 at idle is using ~10 watts. I’m sure most of that’s the fan running full speed whether idle or printing(which is kind of annoying, K3 fan is definitely louder than the 5m Pro booted up at idle).
