Creality Ender 3 Review
By Glenn Horan. Posted
This article was originally published as part of HackSpace magazine, which has since been incorporated into Raspberry Pi Official Magazine.
Only a few short years ago, the thought of getting a consumer-grade 3D printer, that works out of the box, for anything under £1000 was a maker pipe dream. Today, thanks to Creality, we’ve very nearly got just such a printer for under £200.
The Ender 3, like many printers in this price range, arrives as a kit. Opening the box, we are greeted with a printer that’s around 80% assembled and includes a full-colour manual detailing the twelve-step building process. There’s a selection of essential tools required to build the printer, and some additional tools that are useful for its day-to-day operation (a selection of Allen keys, a scraper, a microSD card, and USB adapter – to name but a few). All of the parts are well labelled, with the screws neatly organised into labelled bags. From box to first print takes between one and two hours, and there is plenty of help available online, via the Ender 3 subreddit and Facebook pages.
Our favourite thing about the Ender 3 is the frame – it’s made entirely from aluminium extrusions, rather than wood or acrylic found in its contemporaries, which gives it an incredibly solid feel.
The level of stability this provides means that it can achieve very good-quality prints, even at higher speeds. As if that wasn’t good enough, the Ender 3 also boasts a Bowden extruder setup.
While the debate of Bowden vs direct-drive extruders is a lively topic among the 3D printing community, Bowden systems do offer a few undeniable advantages. A Bowden setup has the stepper motor that feeds the lament into the hot end mounted on to the frame, rather than on the extruder itself. This means there’s less weight being swung from side to side as the printer operates, resulting in the ability to print faster while maintaining print accuracy.
WHAT’S IT CAPABLE OF?
This printer has a long list of excellent features that really make it a delight to use. All the wires are neatly hidden away within the frame, or bundled neatly into the stylish black cable tidy.
A spool holder, which sits on top of the machine, reduces the footprint that it takes up on your desk. The power unit itself not only comes with a switch and a removable plug, but it operates at 24 volts, meaning that the bed can heat up in a fraction of the time of its competitors, which are usually kitted out with 12 V units.
There are small rubber pads on each corner of the base to help dampen the sound it makes, and there are large wheels on the bottom of the bed to allow very quick and precise bed level calibration. The build plate is also removable and flexible, allowing users to remove their prints easily, cleanly, and with little risk of breakage.
So how does it print? Every Ender 3 comes with a pre-prepared file to do a test print of what we’ve come to call the ‘Ender Dog‘, and we were very impressed with the results with no calibration or tweaking (with the exception of the necessary Z-levelling). We’ve consistently been impressed with what this printer can do. The quality of prints, particularly when using a higher resolution, is amazing for this price.
If functional prints are more your bag, the sturdy frame and Bowden extruder will theoretically allow you to print things quickly (or at least quickly in the world of 3D printing).
THE BOTTOM LINE
As expected, there are a few small downsides to the Ender 3. The springs on the underside of the bed aren’t very strong (more tension in the springs means less build plate movement, and less calibration needed between prints), but it’s both cheap and easy to replace these.
Printers manufactured before 2019 do not have thermal runaway protection, which is a pretty important safety feature, so make sure that it’s enabled on your printer.
Unfortunately, the board running the Ender 3 does not have a friendly bootloader, which makes it a little tricky to update the firmware. While there are tutorials online that detail the process, it’s definitely an inconvenience if you want to do additional tinkering to improve the printer.
For the price and print quality, though, we can live with these issues. The Ender 3 has raised the bar for budget 3D printers.
Verdict: 9 out of 10
You won’t find a better printer in the sub £200 range.
Around £180. creality3d.cn
Software engineer and 3D printing enthusiast
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