Hello everybody and welcome to another video. In today’s video I will taking a look at
the New CR10 V3 printer which came out recently. This is the follow up video from the initial
unboxing experience so if you’re curious about what it’s like to put the machine
together, make sure to check out that video in the description bellow. Now full disclaimer
before we begin. I purchased this machine with my own money and was not paid to do this
video so everything you see here will be based on my own opinion.
To start things off this machine is a large printer which prints a dimension of 300x300x400mm
and can reach hotbed temperatures of up to 100°C with a printer nozzle temperature of
up to 250°C. Unlike many 3D printers this machine uses a direct extruder which pushes
the filament directly into the nozzle instead of the traditional bowden tube. This feature
makes is quite suitable for printing flexible filaments which is what was tested for this
machine. Also included with the machine, is a run out filament censor which is located
a the top of the machine along the spool holder.
If you getting this machine yourself, you’ll want to keep the spool holder height in mind
since it does take up more room because of it’s current location. This is however useful
if you’re more limited in your overall space since you can easily place this on a table
which doesn’t have any fixtures above it. I personally did end up liking the fact that
the control box was separate since this allowed me more options in placing the machine. I
for instance placed the 3d printer sideways but oriented the box controls towards the
front of the table so I would have easier access. Having the control box separate also
makes repairs a good deal easier since you can completely disconnect the machine in order
to do the proper maintenance without having to deal with the whole unite.
The hotbed itself has a very unique design in that it’s easily removable which makes
replacements easier in the future and I do which more companies designed their print
beds in a similar manner for this reason. This design also makes is possible to upgrade
the print bed in the future with a flex plate which is great news for those who enjoy tinkering
with their machines. The print bed is also pre-insulated to help retain the heating temperatures
and is a welcome improvement to what can be typically seen in most printers today. I did
see some reports about the V2 model having issues maintaining it’s heat however this
isn’t something in which I found to be an issue with the model that I currently have.
While having a touchscreen is more visually appealing and less daunting to those who are
new to 3D printing it is still fairly easy to navigate. The machine does come with some
basic instructions which do help significantly in this area. There are some things you may
wish to know since they can often be taken for granted. For instance, if you the filament
sensor goes off because there’s no more filament available and goes into standby.
In this case the nozzle will cool down which is a good thing for safety reasons however
it will mean that you need to reheat the nozzle prior to changing the filament. This is something
you can easily do by going to “Prepare + Preheat PLA + Pre Heat nozzle” This will
only pre-heat the nozzle at which point you can remove the filament in question. Be very
careful not to jostle the nozzle otherwise your print will shift and this could cause
the layers to be more brittle when they come apart.
Now although the direct extruder is great for working with flexible filaments you definitely
want to be aware that it can be difficult to maintain. The way it’s assembled, the
wires do get pinched very tightly onto the side of the housing which does keep them out
of the way however it can make reassembly interesting to deal with. Nozzle replacement
shouldn’t be too affected however just keep in mind that you’ll want to raise up the
print head before you do so. Creality has a very good tutorial on their YouTube channel
which walks you through the steps and I recommend that you look at that video for more details.
Most blockages can be removed with the aid of the provided tweazers so keep those nearby
should you need them. For more severe blockages, you will most likely need to use the included
needle to help push the blockage up and out but in most cases it can be removed by doing
a cold pull. From a complete cool down state, start heating the nozzle up to temperature
while pulling on the filament. This causes any deposits to be lifted up with the filament
since they become just hot enough to stick to the filament being pulled out. This may
have to be repeated 2 or 3 times but does a more thorough cleaning of the nozzle. One
thing to keep in mind is that the extruder does have a bowden tube placed inside of the
heat sink so on occasion this may need to be replaced however this should be a rare
occasion.
The nozzle does ship with a 0.4 nozzle along with it’s replacement however I would suggest
that you replace these with a 0.6 or 0.8 since this will reduce your print times significantly
for larger prints. If you require more detailed pieces and are willing to wait significantly
longer than it may still be worthwhile. When it comes time to removing the filament, You’ll
want to push this portion forwards until the filament comes out. Make sure the nozzle is
heated before you do this otherwise this will be far more difficult to achieve and could
result in the filament snapping within.
The filament run out detector currently only accepts 1.75 filament which isn’t unsurprising
since the filament trajectory could be problematic when the print head comes too close to it’s
maximum height. I’ve had some issues with the filament snapping since it doesn’t have
a bowden tube to help guide it’s trajectory. Fortunately this was mostly an issue with
the cheaper filaments which were more brittle however part of this could of been caused
by the extremely tight filament sensor. This filament sensor produces a lot of friction
which may be the source of this issue and I would like to see this address in the future.
When the filaments snaps, it doesn’t trigger the run out sensor because of it’s current
location. This was far less pronounced when printing with TPU but was aggravated when
using soft PLA. Having the sensor away from the print head is still very much appreciated
since it make filament removal easier however I would like to see the angle of the spool
revised along with the run out sensor. Having a gradual entryway to the filament sensor
would get ride of the hard edges which seem to be causing the friction and should be a
minor fix in the future.
The frame is very well supported and given it’s size I’ve experienced very little
Z-Wobble which is very much appreciated. For the wiring, some areas have been glued to
help ensure that their connection points don’t come lose over time which is a good call since
I’ve definitely experienced this issue with other machines in the past. The only thing
to keep in mind is that this will make it more difficult to replace such wires in the
future because of how they are currently attached however if they last much longer then this
shouldn’t be an issue. All the cables are clearly labeled so tracing connections are
a lot easier and will make future modifications easier to achieve. Along with the sturdy frame,
the machine has silent stepper drivers and a built in mosfet. Although I personally prefer
when the mosfet is separated from the board because it’s easier to replace, I can appreciated
the fact that there’s one less item to troubleshoot in the future.
So how did this machine perform? Well let’s start with the default Test print that comes
which the machine. These prints are always a good way to make sure that you’re machine
is functioning correctly and should always be the first thing that’s printed. So in
my case I choose the dog and although it’s difficult to see just how well it printed
because of the filament color that came with the machine it did very good. I then tried
printing with flexible PLA which I soon discovered had a tendency to get stuck because it shaved
so easily within the gear system. The results however were very comparable to the dog print.
With that out of the way, I immediately changed to a 0.8 nozzle to see just how well it could
print with a wide variety of materials. Once again I printed with the flexible PLA as well
as some regular PLA and TPU filament. Here were results of the standard Benchie Test.
I then followed up this print with a large scale print for my client in TPU which for
NDA reason I can’t show on video. I can say that the 4 day print was very comparable
in quality to my small Benchie Test print in TPU. I also 3d Printed a bust of one my
sculptures. To test the full build volume, I then printed a vase in vase mode.
This machine is really good. Especially if you already know that you want to use it for
flexible filaments. While the user interface is perhaps not as modern, it does the job
quite fine and with a couple of tweaks this could be an even greater machine. So would
I recommend this machine? It’s a good machine if you already have some basic experience.
I probably wouldn’t recommend it as your first printer because of the user interface
and most user’s don’t require such a large build volume starting off. This is a very
good upgrade to your current repository and is an affordable next step.