3D Printer Kit review: Creality Ender 3

Mystery Box

     New year, new printer in the workshop. Over the 2018 holiday season, I purchased a Creality Ender 3, so this is my mini-review of what's in the box and my experience using it to date. On first getting the box, it comes with just the shipping label stuck to the outside of the printer's box, so it's clearly marked as to the contents, it weighs about 6 kg at a rough guess, so be ready for a large and heavy package.

Interior of shipping box with top foam removed

    Opening the box reveals that much of the interior is packed with this grey plastic 'foam', quiet dense and sturdy. Unpacking revealed that all parts were securely nested in fitted holes, wrapped in cling film for the extrusions, and in multiple bags for the smaller parts.

Gantry parts fresh out of the box

Ender 3 base and Power supply freshly unpacked

     The printer is about half built straight out of the box, all the electrical systems are pre-installed and it's mostly just a matter of following the instruction sheet that's at the top of the box to get it fully assembled. I would recommend plugging the included microSD card into a computer, there's an animated video clip on it that goes through the entire build process step by step, it helps clarify a couple of points in the printed instructions. I did make a couple minor changes to the printer during assembly, mostly optimizations that the user community has come up with over the past year or so. 

Part cooling fan ducts, stock on the left, thing:3079610 on the right

     Probably the single most crucial change I made was to replace the stock part-fan ducting with thing:3079610, a 360 printed duct that puts the air where it's needed and not into the side of the heater block like the original will. I've been down the road of part-fans blasting the heater block on the Sculptor i3MK3 variant ducting, once is quite enough for that issue. This silly piece of plastic is probably why early versions of the Ender 3 shipped with the firmware thermal watchdog disabled, a problem that's apparently been solved on the one I received since a cold snap a couple of days after assembly set off the 'Min-Temp' error code.

thing:3303879 installed backwards

thing:2934313 installed

     Other than the part duct, the other changes were mostly minor optimizations, a cover for the milled slot in the base that the electrical bundle runs through (thing:2934313), and one of the many side-mount adapters for the stock spool holder (thing:3303879). But aside from those, I assembled the printer as designed and set about testing it.

Assembled Ender 3 almost ready to print

     After a bit of research turned up that Cura was the best slicer option for the Ender 3, I loaded up Cura 3.6 and discovered that it has a perfectly tuned profile for the Ender 3 baked right into the default preset package. Overall print quality is quite good, I've still got some slight nozzle drool issue, but I'm fairly sure that's just the PLA that I'm using. One issue that I found with the default 'Fiberboard' bed surface plate is that it warps under the stress of large surface prints, this lead to a couple of layer shift incidents during a long print, so I sourced the magnetic bed that's included on the 'Pro' version to try instead.

Early test print with default 'fiberboard' showing bending issue.

Ender 3 Magnetic Bed Sheet freshly installed.

     Once switched over to the magnetic version of the build plate, it's been fantastic performance all the way. I'd definitely recommend this printer to anyone who is just getting started with 3D printing, the quality and performance can't be beat at this price point.

Ender 3