bigseb
Alibre Super User
I recently purchased a Creality CR-X. Here are my thoughts:
The CR-X is essentially a CR-10S Pro with a fancy dual extrusion system. Firmware is Marlin 1.1.6 ( same as the original CR-10 and all subsequent CR iterations). The hardware is slightly different from the CR-10 mainly in that the control box contents are housed under the bed, there is a 4.5" touch screen, there are two Z rods and steppers and it is now a 24V system.
The printer came in two pieces, the base and the gantry. Assembly was super straight-forward and from unboxing to first power on took all of 30 minutes. The printer was extremely well packaged btw.
Creality supply an older version of Cura (15.04.6) with the printer. The installer was corrupted on the supplied SD card but downloading a new one was easy peasy. The installation required a bit of care as a lot of the install process was in Chinese. Application of common sense was required to install the software.
The supplied g-code on the SD ran perfectly first time. I need to stress that absolutely no modification was done to the printer, no calibration, nothing. I did not use their supplied filament either but rather what I had open already. The print quality was very good.
After this I started calibrating and adjusting things. First I calibrated the extruder steppers. They were slightly under-extruding so I adjusted for this by adding an M92 command to the start gcode. Once this had been done I did not need to adjust the extrusion multiplier. I also noticed a layer offset at Z8.5 and Z10. This was repeatable. I removed the Z threaded rods and checked them but they were dead-on straight. I then found that Creality had assembled the rods to the steppers using flexible couplers but had not allowed for a gap between the stepper shaft and the rod. This essentially removed the flexibility from the coupler. I raised the rods slightly (about 1mm) and that removed the layer offset.
The dual extrusion system is EXCELLENT!! No other word for it. The reason why this printer received so many negative reviews is because of this system, specifically the purge tower. The tower is a throw-away item so, yes, there is quite a bit of waste but the nozzle must be purged between layers as there is only one nozzle. This system is actually exactly the same as the Prusa multi-material gadget that is the rage right now. The CR-X uses a Y-piece to feed one nozzle but with a bit of tinkering one could add more extruders. Bottom line: one nozzle means NO OOZING so dual prints look great.
Here is one of my latest prints. It is a stand for one of my MOTU figures. The filament is Filaprint iron gray PLA and Filaprint black PLA. Designed using Alibre Design Expert
One down, eighteen to go.
Software-wise, I think Cura 15.04.6 works perfect out the box. I have tried Cura 4 which works fine but not as straight-forward as the former. Simplify3D works too but is a schlepp to work with. Not a big fan of S3D to be honest. Cura 15.04.6 allowed me to slice my own model pretty much out the box. Creality explain how to set up dual extrusions by lining up the filament with markings on the bowden tube but they don't say that when doing single extrusion prints you need to feed the filament into the nozzle til it bottoms out. Single extrusion prints are excellent as with all CR units.
Out the box this printer works! No question. To up the quality to what I think it should be I have done slight calibrations and checks that haven't cost a penny. The only expense I am spending is to add TL smoothers after the stepper drivers as the output signal is a bit jaggy and result in slight salmon-skinning. Maybe its just me being super anal but TL smoothers only cost a couple of bucks so I will add them anyway. Maybe not everyone wants to go to that level. I have six steppers so for six smoothers it costs about £25. The supplied glass build plate is concave by 0.1mm in the centre. Don't know how the Chinese manage to stuff up something critical. But flip the plate over and its dead flat. Levelling is manual but incredibly easy using the wizard on the printer. One modification I may make later on is to add brackets for extra stability to the gantry/base as the gantry is held in place using only four M6 metric cap screws. To be honest this seems sturdy enough (it is only a 3D printer after all) and print quality isn't affected. But I am German and I want things to be indestructable. As long as you don't move the printer using the gantry you'll be fine.
Overall, for £625 (including the shipping costs) from Amazon this printer is amazing. Fantastic quality dual prints at 300mm x 300mm x 400 for £625? Thats a steal. Incredibly blown away by this printer.
PROS:
Price
Build volume
Print quality
Upgradability
Build quality
CONS:
Supplied glass build plate not flat (other side is flat though)
Only 4 M6 screws holding the gantry
Stepper drivers could be better.
Documentation could be better
The CR-X is essentially a CR-10S Pro with a fancy dual extrusion system. Firmware is Marlin 1.1.6 ( same as the original CR-10 and all subsequent CR iterations). The hardware is slightly different from the CR-10 mainly in that the control box contents are housed under the bed, there is a 4.5" touch screen, there are two Z rods and steppers and it is now a 24V system.
The printer came in two pieces, the base and the gantry. Assembly was super straight-forward and from unboxing to first power on took all of 30 minutes. The printer was extremely well packaged btw.
Creality supply an older version of Cura (15.04.6) with the printer. The installer was corrupted on the supplied SD card but downloading a new one was easy peasy. The installation required a bit of care as a lot of the install process was in Chinese. Application of common sense was required to install the software.
The supplied g-code on the SD ran perfectly first time. I need to stress that absolutely no modification was done to the printer, no calibration, nothing. I did not use their supplied filament either but rather what I had open already. The print quality was very good.
After this I started calibrating and adjusting things. First I calibrated the extruder steppers. They were slightly under-extruding so I adjusted for this by adding an M92 command to the start gcode. Once this had been done I did not need to adjust the extrusion multiplier. I also noticed a layer offset at Z8.5 and Z10. This was repeatable. I removed the Z threaded rods and checked them but they were dead-on straight. I then found that Creality had assembled the rods to the steppers using flexible couplers but had not allowed for a gap between the stepper shaft and the rod. This essentially removed the flexibility from the coupler. I raised the rods slightly (about 1mm) and that removed the layer offset.
The dual extrusion system is EXCELLENT!! No other word for it. The reason why this printer received so many negative reviews is because of this system, specifically the purge tower. The tower is a throw-away item so, yes, there is quite a bit of waste but the nozzle must be purged between layers as there is only one nozzle. This system is actually exactly the same as the Prusa multi-material gadget that is the rage right now. The CR-X uses a Y-piece to feed one nozzle but with a bit of tinkering one could add more extruders. Bottom line: one nozzle means NO OOZING so dual prints look great.
Here is one of my latest prints. It is a stand for one of my MOTU figures. The filament is Filaprint iron gray PLA and Filaprint black PLA. Designed using Alibre Design Expert
One down, eighteen to go.
Software-wise, I think Cura 15.04.6 works perfect out the box. I have tried Cura 4 which works fine but not as straight-forward as the former. Simplify3D works too but is a schlepp to work with. Not a big fan of S3D to be honest. Cura 15.04.6 allowed me to slice my own model pretty much out the box. Creality explain how to set up dual extrusions by lining up the filament with markings on the bowden tube but they don't say that when doing single extrusion prints you need to feed the filament into the nozzle til it bottoms out. Single extrusion prints are excellent as with all CR units.
Out the box this printer works! No question. To up the quality to what I think it should be I have done slight calibrations and checks that haven't cost a penny. The only expense I am spending is to add TL smoothers after the stepper drivers as the output signal is a bit jaggy and result in slight salmon-skinning. Maybe its just me being super anal but TL smoothers only cost a couple of bucks so I will add them anyway. Maybe not everyone wants to go to that level. I have six steppers so for six smoothers it costs about £25. The supplied glass build plate is concave by 0.1mm in the centre. Don't know how the Chinese manage to stuff up something critical. But flip the plate over and its dead flat. Levelling is manual but incredibly easy using the wizard on the printer. One modification I may make later on is to add brackets for extra stability to the gantry/base as the gantry is held in place using only four M6 metric cap screws. To be honest this seems sturdy enough (it is only a 3D printer after all) and print quality isn't affected. But I am German and I want things to be indestructable. As long as you don't move the printer using the gantry you'll be fine.
Overall, for £625 (including the shipping costs) from Amazon this printer is amazing. Fantastic quality dual prints at 300mm x 300mm x 400 for £625? Thats a steal. Incredibly blown away by this printer.
PROS:
Price
Build volume
Print quality
Upgradability
Build quality
CONS:
Supplied glass build plate not flat (other side is flat though)
Only 4 M6 screws holding the gantry
Stepper drivers could be better.
Documentation could be better
