The Ender-3 series was once an insurmountable gap in the field of consumer 3D printing, with cumulative sales of millions of units. Today, we have ushered in the era of high-speed 3D printing, and Chuangxiang 3D has also moved towards a new starting point, launching a new generation of flagship high-speed 3D printer - K1.
Speed is one of the biggest highlights of the Creality K1, and its maximum print speed reaches 600mm/s, which is equivalent to 12 times the speed of a conventional FDM 3D printer. And, with an acceleration of 20,000mm/s², it can reach full speed in 0.03 seconds. In addition, the K1 is not just a high-speed print, it is also a complete machine that is assembled and can be used by the user right out of the box. It is also equipped with fully automatic hot bed leveling, a lightweight printhead with built-in vibration sensors, a fully enclosed chassis, and an efficient cooling system.
Imagine 3D K1 assessment results
Merit:
Simple and stylish appearance
Ultra-fast printing speeds
The configuration is cost-effective
Fully enclosed chassis design
Shortcoming:
High-speed printing is noisy
Replacement of consumables is not smooth
The display occasionally freezes
Overall, it's a super-fast and easy-to-use 3D printer, and it's very affordable. The K1, which Chuangxiang 3D calls the "King of Speed", is already on sale, and we will conduct a comprehensive review of this machine next.
Equipment parameters:
- Molding Technology: Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM/FFF)
- Product dimensions: 355 x 355 x 480 mm
- Print size: 220 x 220 x 250 mm
- Maximum printing speed: 600mm/s
- Printing platform: PEI smooth spring steel plate
- Maximum nozzle temperature: 300°C
- Maximum temperature of the hot bed: 100°C
- Slicing software: Creality Print (supports other third-party software)
- 支持材料:PLA、ABS、PETG、TPU、PA、ASA、PC、PLA-CF、PA-CF、PET-CF
- Printing method: U disk printing, LAN printing
- Operation interface: 4.3 inch color touch screen
- Product net weight: 12.5kg
- Market price: 3299 yuan
Unboxing
The Creality K1 is a fully pre-assembled machine that simply removes it from the carton, removes the foam that holds the machine in place, and removes the accessory box.
It contains all the tools you need to run your 3D printer, including a display, grease, bevel pliers, poke pins, USB sticks, plastic blades, glue sticks, power cords, plastic feet, Hyper-PLA testing supplies, open wrenches, tubes, Allen wrenches, screwdrivers, sleeves, and stickers.
In addition, an instruction manual is included. According to the instructions in the manual, first install the display screen and the material pipe, then connect the power cable and start the machine. Next, load the consumables, place the top cover on the machine, remove the three screws that hold the hot bed, and follow the boot guide of the display for the next step.
First, you need to connect the printer to a local wireless network. In addition, you also need to download the Chuangxiang Cloud mobile app and register an account. After registering and logging in, you can bind the printer to your account by scanning the QR code. After completing these steps, proceed to the device self-test session, which takes about 15 to 20 minutes. Resonance compensation through vibration optimization during self-test is also known as input shaping. At the same time, fully automatic array leveling is performed to ensure that the printer is flat when printing on the first layer. After the self-test is completed, the next formal printing can be carried out.
devise
frame
The entire body of K1 adopts solid aluminum alloy one-piece die-casting technology and is machined by CNC. This rigid frame guarantees smooth and quiet printing movements even at high speeds.
At the same time, the K1 is a 3D printer with a CoreXY structure, and the XY axis is integrated through two stepper motors and a timing belt. In addition, there is a separately adjustable belt tensioner next to the motor to control the tension of the belt to avoid timing belt slipping or jumping. This structure reduces the weight of the moving parts, resulting in less inertia and higher accelerations with the same driving force.
The Z-axis of the K1 consists of three sets of screws and optical shafts, which are connected to the same motor by a belt at the bottom of the chassis. Again, there is a belt tensioner here. In addition, the chassis is equipped with a switching power supply and a new circuit motherboard with a dual-core 1.2 GHz CPU and 8GB of storage memory, and burned Klipper firmware.
Chassis
The K1 adopts a fully enclosed chassis design, with plastic panels on both sides of the machine fixed by screws, and a glass panel directly in front of the machine for easy viewing of the operation inside the machine, and fixed by magnetic strips. At the top is a raised plastic top cover, also magnetically fastened for easy access, especially when printing PLA material, which can be removed.
The whole machine adopts a gray frame with a closed black translucent panel, which looks simple and atmospheric and full of technology. An enclosed print space keeps the internal temperature stable, which is especially important for consumables with high shrinkage such as ABS, to prevent the model from cooling too quickly or too prematurely to cause print failure.
In addition to installing a chassis fan on the rear panel to control the chamber temperature, the K1 also installed an 18W auxiliary turbo cooling fan on the right panel of the machine. The fan is designed to blow air to the currently printed layer, further enhancing the cooling effect of the model and effectively reducing wire drawing and warpage.
Hot bed
The K1 uses an aluminum alloy hot bed with uniform thermal conductivity and can be heated to 60°C in only 180 seconds. The single-sided PEI-coated flexible panel has perfect adhesion, and when cooled, the print panel can be removed and bent to easily separate the printed model. In addition, the PEI coating on the surface of the K1 panel is more fine, which makes the underside of the printed object smoother, which is pleasantly surprising. At the same time, the rear end of the magnetic print plate has two small screws in the card slot, and the panel can easily snap into place.
In addition, the K1's hot bed embedded sensor array enables multi-point detection compensation leveling. Therefore, you will not find the leveling screws under the printing hot bed, and there is no need to painstakingly hold a piece of paper to adjust the distance between the nozzle and the print bed.
Extrusion with nozzles
The K1 adopts a twin-gear direct drive extruder for better control of extrusion and retraction of consumables. In addition, the compact short-range print head design weighing only 190 grams provides more possibilities for high-speed 3D printing.
The hot end of the K1 is equipped with a newly developed ring ceramic heater that can raise the temperature to 200°C in 37 seconds. The all-metal hot end is able to withstand temperatures up to 300°C and can support printing of most materials.
In addition, a vibration sensor is built into the nozzle, which can automatically compensate for machine resonance during high-speed printing, effectively eliminating vibration on the surface of the model.
The nozzle shell is equipped with a cooling fan and adopts a simulated air duct design, so that the wind directly blows to the model, further improving the heat dissipation effect of the model and meeting the needs of high-speed 3D printing.
It is worth mentioning that the K1 is equipped with a 4.3-inch color touch screen for interacting with the printer. The touchscreen is beautiful and responsive, and the interface layout is simple and clear. With the touchscreen, you can easily move the shaft, control the temperature and fans, and perform operations such as feeding or unloading with one click.
At the same time, you can visually view model thumbnails. In addition, K1 also provides a print history function, so you can view the models printed in the past, from which you can choose the one you like and reprint it.
In terms of details, the K1 has a lot of optimization. For example, the design of the energy chain allows the PTFE feed tube to be better secured. In addition, there is a toggle switch above the extruder, which is placed on the right side to manually load or unload consumables. Especially when the nozzle is blocked, it is convenient to clean the nozzle directly with a poke needle without disassembling it.
Plastic feet are also equipped on the four corners of the machine, which can absorb vibrations during printing, further reducing the noise caused by high-speed printing. You can also print using the included 16GB USB flash drive, which is located on the front of the machine.
In addition, if you look closely, you will also find that the K1 will stay next to the auxiliary fan after each print to speed up the heat dissipation of the nozzle. In addition, the K1 is also equipped with practical functions such as lighting, material break detection, and power failure to further improve the user experience.
Test
In the printer, four sliced test models were prepared in advance, including the first leveling model, the 600mm/s thin-wall printing model, the movable cat model and the Benchy boat model. The final print of these models is perfect, and it is no exaggeration to say that a print speed of 600mm/s is achievable in practice.
Taking the common Benchy boat as an example, ordinary 3D printers often take more than 1 hour to print, while the K1 only takes a staggering 13 minutes and 43 seconds. Even at such high speeds, the printed boat remained of extremely high quality, without any vibrations, while other details were flawless.
Software
K1 is equipped with proprietary slicing software Creality Print, which is a slicing software based on the open-source software Cura, optimized for imagining 3D printers. The software is simplified in terms of parameter configuration and adjusted for different materials, allowing users to easily slice and print with one click simply by selecting the machine and material used.
The default printing speed of K1 is 300mm/s, where the filling speed, inner wall speed is 300mm/s, the default speed of the outer wall and top/bottom is 200mm/s, and the speed is 500mm/s when unloaded. Although there is a gap with the advertised maximum printing speed of 600mm/s, this speed is already quite fast, surpassing most similar machines on the market.
In addition, Creality Print also supports LAN printing function, which can send files directly to the printer through the LAN, realizing the convenient operation of one-click printing. If you choose a camera, you can also monitor the printing process in real time, perform time-lapse photography and other functions.
Another advantage of this software is that it integrates the model library of Imaginary Cloud. Users only need to log in to download the model they need to print directly in the software. These functions are also supported in the Chuangxiang Cloud mobile app, and also provide community functions for users to share and communicate.
Under the default parameters, we divide the material tray into two parts, the upper and lower parts, and print it separately. Once printed, they can be stitched together very precisely, and the surface of the printed object is very smooth.
- Material used: white high-speed PLA consumable
- Printing speed: 300mm/s
- Nozzle temperature: 210°C
- Hot bed temperature: 60°C
- Layer height: 0.2mm
- Filling: 15%
- Duration: 4 hours 24 minutes.
In comparison, traditional 3D printers print at 50mm/s, which takes 10 hours and 49 minutes.
Under the same parameters, the color of the high-speed PLA consumables was simply replaced from white to gray and 5 articular dragons were printed, which took 8 hours and 24 minutes. Although there is some wire drawing on the surface, by adjusting the retraction setting, I believe that better results can be obtained.
Because the tests used high-speed 3D printing consumables, they have been designed with rapid melting and high flow rates in mind. Therefore, if you want to achieve the same quality at high speed printing if you use common materials, you need to adjust the corresponding printing parameters, such as increasing the print temperature and calibrating the retraction setting.
Spit
While the K1 looks like an impeccable high-speed 3D printer, there are still some issues that could be improved.
First of all, in more than a month of testing, I noticed that the K1 is much louder than most other 3D printers, and the main source of this noise is generated when all the fans are turned on at the same time, with the auxiliary fan on the right and the printhead model fan being the main sources of noise.
When printing stops, the noise level reaches 80 decibels with both fans turned on at the same time, and the duration of this process depends on when your machine's nozzle temperature and hot bed temperature drop to 40°C. After printing many times, I found that the time is generally more than 7 minutes, unless you close it manually, it is really noisy.
Secondly, if you replace the consumables after the end of printing, also without turning off the auxiliary fan, the extruded consumables will be blown into the fan, which is likely to cause damage to the fan. In addition, after some people on the Internet react to the addition of the top cover, the energy chain may collide with the switch of the consumables extruder, causing it to be in an open state, resulting in insufficient extrusion force of consumables, and eventually leading to a lack of material in the model. But in use, I haven't encountered this issue at the moment.
But also in this position, I encountered many times the problem that the consumables could not be pushed to the inside of the extruder, resulting in the inability to automatically load the consumables, but when the position of the feeding pipe was adjusted, the problem of automatic feeding was solved. In addition, when operating the display, sometimes press too fast, there may also be a crash, at this time you can wait patiently, or restart the machine.
Finally, high-speed 3D printing also has a lot to do with materials. There have been several times before the problem that the consumables cannot be bonded to the first layer, which is related to the consumables used, because they are all ABS, PLA-CF materials, but the default parameters are used. If you slow down the first layer of printing or apply glue, the probability of successful printing can be greatly improved.
conclusion
After using the K1, I believe that if you want to buy a closed Core-XY 3D printer with Klipper firmware, then the K1 is a good choice at this price point. You know, Chuangxiang 3D has always been known for providing users with better quality at the lowest price. With a print volume of 220 x 220 x 250mm, the K1 can meet the needs of most people, while the closed complete case can print high-performance materials, and the 4.3-inch color touch screen and auxiliary fan are good hardware blessings.
If you have more budget, it is recommended to buy the premium version of the K1 K1 Max directly, which is not only larger (molding size up to 300x300x300mm), but also has advanced AI lidar and AI camera, which makes it able to automatically detect if printing fails or works fine.
But if you want an alternative, consider the slightly pricier Topbamboo P1P, which has almost the same print speed and comes with a surveillance camera. At the same time, the AMS system can also be upgraded for a fee for multi-color 3D printing. But it doesn't have a casing and can't print high-performance materials like ABS or ASA as easily as the K1.
If you have enough hands-on ability, you can also consider the Vorron Voron 2.4. It's another high-speed Core XY 3D printer, but it takes 100 hours to assemble alone, and it's more expensive. If you're a beginner, the K1 out of the box is more friendly to you.