On today's episode I'm gonna look at the Ender five. I'll compare it to the
Ender three and then I'll give you my final thoughts on today's Filment Friday
This episode of Filament Friday was brought to you by these patreon
supporters. Full disclosure this machine was sent to me by creality
not from banggood or gearbest or some affiliate link. Creality sent me this
machine because they wanted to get my opinion on the Ender five so that's what
this video is all about. Now the price of this machine is more than an Ender three.
It retails for $319 at the Creality site. This guy is like one hundred
and seventy nine dollars at gearbest or banggood so even cheaper then you can
get it on the Creality site. The retail price is actually cheaper than
what they're selling at the affiliates which is very interesting. The Ender five
comes as a kit similar to the Ender three but actually easier to assemble.
It's got a top section and a bottom section already put together and then
the back section here with the two rods that's also fully assembled. All you have
to do is attach the bed to it. Now the bed took four screws but there's
actually slots for six screws the manual said to only install four so that's what
I did. I think in the future I may add those extra screws. The assembly itself
took maybe thirty minutes and it comes with a very good manual, step-by-step
pictures and description to help guide you through it. It's probably the best
manual I've seen Creality put out. I did have a couple problems in the
process of assembling this. They were really really minor but right here
there's a screw in the back here on both sides that would not line up.
I could not shoot the screw in. Well it turns out when this was assembled it was
not assembled flat or at least it shifted during shipping so I had to
loosen the screw on both sides and then push everything down and then these
brackets lined up and I could put the screw in place.The big difference
between these two printers is how they work. This one is closer to a core X Y. Now
core XY which the Ender four was, has two motors at the back and it
controls everything through belts. Now the Ender four had like an
h-bridge type setup and so everything is controlled by those belts. Ender five has
the motor on the side here so it's really not a true core XY printer. The
idea with the belts is everything is lighter so it can print faster but with
this motor here you've now got weight so it's not quite the same thing. The main
difference between these two is the build area. Now the x and y are the same
between the two but the Ender five has a taller build area. In fact it's 300
millimeters tall which is the same as my CR 10 mini back here. So what does that
give you? Bigger prints. This was printed on the Ender five. This was printed on
the Ender three. You can see the height difference. It's that extra fifty
millimeters. What I did is just up sized this vase. This is 120 percent, this is 140
percent. So you can go, just the same X&Y on both these guys but you can go fifty
millimeters taller on the Ender five. So I did print those vases in vase mode.
Both printed fine. Both this one which is the latest Ender three that I did a
review on in a previous video. And this is as far as I know the latest because
Creality sent it to me. And I printed a few things. I printed the dog
which was the standard print that's the Ender three sample print. It's on here -
printed fine no issues. I also printed this lion sample print that they
had on there. I think this is for the smaller CR 100 which I'm gonna be
reviewing very soon. And then I printed my CHEP cube up size 150%. The print
quality was really good. I'm not seeing any ringing at all on the sides. Maybe
just a slight amount and it would probably be from the weight of this
carriage moving. But it measured exactly thirty millimeters by thirty millimeters
it's a little bit shorter in a Z but that's because of how I had it set up.
Now there is question about core XY type printers. Can they print circles. The
Ender four had that problem that it didn't print circles very well. So my
patreon supporters who knew I was reviewing this said can you test it for
printing circles. So I printed my chest pawn and this thing it's actually one of
the best chess pawns I've printed in awhile. And it's perfectly round so this
thing does circles beautifully, But again it's not a true core XY but
it prints circles just fine. This is the latest printer and it has an anti
backslash nut on the threaded rod which is supposed to stop the bed from falling
although this one I think it needs another turn. I'm gonna have to take it
off and give it another turn because it's not tight enough because this bed
actually falls down a little bit when it's just sitting. Another thing is the
electronics. I know some people have reviewed this and said it's got a mean
well power supply. Well let me show you what's inside this box which is where
the electronics are. But to access them you got to flip the printer over and
take a cover off and there you can see the power supply and the circuit board
and the power supply on some early machines was an actual Meanwell power
supply. This one has a Landy power supply. I don't know how good that is I don't
know how it compares to a meanwell but it's not a meanwell power supply.
Another thing it is a one point one point four control board. But it's not the
one point one point four that Creality was selling separately that has
TMC drivers, a bootloader and supposedly a working thermal runaway protection.
This particular one point one point four is the same one thats on my Ender three.
It's got the 4988 drivers and I took a heatsink off just to prove it. Here's a
picture of the chip itself you can see the number on it and it doesn't have a
bootloader and it doesn't have working thermal runaway protection. At least not
a properly working thermal runaway protection. So it's not the one point one
point four they were selling separately. Another question I got asked by my
patreon supporters was print speed because the core XY, true core XY which
doesn't have this weight should be able to print faster. So what I did is I
actually printed a benchy on both these guys: the Ender three and the Ender five
at a hundred millimeters per second. And so I printed on both and I've got to tell
you there's no difference. I really can't tell the difference between these two. I
would say neither one is a beautiful print but for 100 millimeters per second
it's not bad. But they both are showing the zebra stripes, the, you know, that the
TL smoothers would take away. And that just proves it's got the 4988 drivers on
it. But overall I wouldn't say this prints
any faster than the Ender three. As far as print quality it's basically the same
thing. But the one thing that really bothered me about this is it's got the
magnetic bed. The same as the Ender three pro. And the magnets themselves really
don't hold beyond 85 degrees C. So at the price of $319 i don't understand why
they didn't put a glass bed on this guy. They've got their own creality glass bed.
it could clip on. The CR 10 mini comes with a glass bed. Why couldn't they put
one on here and clip it on. This bed isn't moving back and forth so the
weight of this is not a big deal and as long as that backlash nut is held
properly it shouldn't sink the bed at all. But when I do put this on it is
heavier and it will drop a little bit. But that should have been included for
this price in my opinion and at that point you could print up to 100 degrees
C on the bed which is good for ABS. I mean you could enclose it and put a
cover and make it somewhat of a put the Capricorn tubing out and you could
easily make this into an ABS machine. Overall I like this Ender five. It's
actually a decent printer. It's been printing really good for me right out of
the box but the price is the only thing I question.
I mean 319 dollars for this it's still not a bad price but when you compare it
to the Ender three it seems a bit expensive. And there's a few things that
they should have done is not change the power supply. You should have left the
meanwell. You should have put on a glass bed. In my opinion those two should be
there and then install that new one point one point four board with the TMC