This is the brand-new Creality CR-6 SE.
This is an early beta unit that Creality sent me to evaluate. They've got
a Kickstarter pre-sell thing going on. I was able to print a bunch of stuff on it,
try out its features like auto level, touchscreen, so I can give you the
rundown on this. And I also compared it to an Ender 3 so if you want to know
more detail stick around right here at Filament Friday. Filament Friday is
brought to you by these patreon supporters. Here it is out on a box. You
can obviously tell is mostly assembled which is nice. Now the first thing I
noticed is the aluminum extrusion is smooth on the front and the back. The
sides still have a groove for the wheels. It looks really nice. The back of it, dual
lead screws and dual stepper motors. And it also has a belt between the two. I
think that's to keep them in sync. The top of the extruder is covered but it's
definitely different than what the stock Ender 3 or CR 10 have. Whether it can
handle ninjaflex? I'll have to dig into this and find out. It's got a filament runout
sensor and below that a junction block for all the connectors including a
single connector that goes from here up to here. So there's a cable for that
somewhere I just gotta find it. The hot end itself is different than the CR 10
and Ender 3. I could tell by looking at the back of it, it's different. It's
got a silicone sock over the heat block and a unique nozzle. it's a different
nozzle than what's on the Ender 3 or CR 10. It's got a single fan on the side
with duct work to blow down on the nozzle and it's got an LED to light it
so you can see that first layer going down a lot easier. The fan itself that
cools the hot end is a lot smaller. It looks like the one that's on an e3d v6.
Hopefully it's a lot quieter now. This is supposed to also have a strain gauge
sensor so when the nozzle hits the bed, that's how it does Auto level. It's a
Bowden setup and whether this PTFE tube goes all the way down we'll find out. It
does have an optical sensor here. You break that with this bracket for Z but
it's got Auto level for Z so I'm not sure the purpose of this. Guess we'll
find the base itself has an adjustment for
the Y belt and there's an X adjustment up here.
That's nice. I've shown that on an Ender 3 video. I like that feature. All the
electronics are contained in this box and even has a touchscreen display that
goes on the front here. It's got a glass bed and a real wide base, wider than an
Ender 3 Pro. It's got a glass bed with a textured top but you can also remove
it. It's got these release locks so you can lift it up and it's smooth on the
bottom so you can pull it off and you could probably put a different board on
here if you want with like Build-Tak. But this snaps into clips at the
back and you just lock it in place. There's no adjustment wheels. It's got
all these little spacers in here. In fact one fell out I don't know where it goes
but it sets it to a fixed height because it's got auto-level. So there's no
adjustment there. The electronics itself, the board is up here, it's got a full
size SD card and a micro B connector for the cable. I got to find that as well. So
hopefully I find the two cables that one on this one. And that's different. mini B
is what's on the ender 3 and CR10. This is a micro B and like I said a
full-size SD card. Not the tiny one. The power supply is back here cuz here's a
switch for the 230 or 110 volt. I'm told it's a meanwell, we'll take it apart to
find out. The plug is over here and a switch on the side. There's a few
connectors to connect up and then it's it's machined out for this to fit in
with screws to hold it in place. It's got a handle that screws on to the top. They
did give me a US cord which is nice, and this is a spool holder. This is
injected molded. It snaps on to the side like this and actually pivots so you can
change the angle if you don't have as much space. But this is nice. I like the
side spool holder, although I have shown that trick to do it from the
back. but this one's pretty nice. I do like this and it does come with a full
sized spool of filament. One-point-seven-five yellow. That's nice.
So before I put this together I want to take that panel off and see what
electronics are inside to see whether it's 8-bit or 32-bit. I flipped the base
over so I could get to the electronics. There's a cover over the
power supply and then there's a cover over the electronics similar to what the
Ender 3 has or Ender 3 Pro really because it's coming from the bottom. It's
got a big fan here bigger than what's on the Ender 3 or Ender 3 Pro.
Hopefully it doesn't mean louder. We'll find out. Now it does have an 8-bit
processor. It's an atmel, it's a 2560 so it's it's larger, its 256 K versus 128 K of
the Ender 3, so there's more memory to put on you know, Auto level or
hopefully maybe linear advanced? I don't know what's actually in the firmware.
They didn't send me that. But the drivers they have heatsinks on them and I can't
easily take them off because it's really glued in place I was able to contact
Creality and they confirm they are 2208 silent stepper drivers. It does have a 30
amp fuse and beefier wires than what's on the ender 3. And as far as power,
there is a meanwell power supply. Looks very similar to what's on an Ender 3 Pro
It's a 350 watt 24v Meanwell powersupply. I assembled this thing in like ten minutes so I
didn't even really film it. There's four bolts that mount the top to the bottom.
Just go through the bottom just like a CR 10. And then there's like five
connections. There's two for the stepper motors; one and two at the back. There is
a wire for the optical sensor here in the front for Z that's keyed so you
can't really get it wrong. There's a connector for the LCD touchscreen that's
located so you can't get that wrong. Two screws to hold it in place. And then
there's one continuous ribbon cable. It comes out of the back it goes into that
junction box and continues all the way into the hot end, snaps in place, and then
they give you these little spring clips or little snap clips that are reusable
to hold everything to the PTFE tube. There is the spool holder, it snaps into
the rail. It does pivot and then the handle. The handle goes on with two screws and
t--nuts so other than that that was pretty much it. Now if you're looking for
the tools, it's in this drawer at the front. This is a drawer just like what
you'd see on most people's Ender 3. You find this on Thingiverse, well this
is just an injected molded version of the same thing. Now let's look at this
hot end because it is unique. I did take it off let me show you what that looks
like. Two screws you can take the cover off the hot end and there's the fan
that's blowing down on the filament. Here's the fan that comes off the front
of the hot end. It's really kind of a small fan and then here's the hot end.
You can see it's really a different design. Its fins, but it's hollow and right and
left. There's a center channel so that's the new hot end. And it's mounted to this
this lever arm that can move. And that's where the strain gauge is, underneath
that. There's a strain gauge that senses that movement and that's how it does the
auto level. The PTFE tube goes all the way down to the nozzle, just like the
existing Ender 3, CR 10 no different, but the coupling is different. It's two
pieces one is a screw in piece and then there's a snap in ring that has a metal
insert that actually grabs the PTFE tubing. So you can snap this out or pop it out.
They give you two replacements and that's what holds the PTFE tube. The nozzle
itself is a little different but it's based on the same size and shape it just
got some weird look to the top of it so the one on the right is at Ender 3
the one on the left is what came with this machine. Patreon supporters asked me
about build size. It is advertised 235 by 235 by 250. We know the Ender 3
measures 235 by 235 but it's 220 by 220 official build area. Well this one
measures 255 by 245 and you can see it's taller so this definitely has more build
area than Ender 3. Now let's actually print something. The first thing after
turning it on is they recommend you do Auto level. So you press Auto level, it
goes through a 16 pointing measurement and then you can adjust the Z offset. So
I did the sample print which is actually a 200% benchy. The first layer went
down pretty nice and then it finished the prin. The print looks good. I wouldn't
say its spectacular, but it's pretty good. Patreon supporters wanted to know how
loud it is. Well this is an Ender 3 with two mods; a metal extruder and a
silent board. So it's pretty quiet and this guy is just slightly quieter than
an Ender 3 with a silent board. If you have a stock Ender 3 this is a
lot quieter. So what about print quality? Well that 200% benchy? I printed it on
this guy. Same filament, g-code and they are identical. I wouldn't
say they're grea,t I think it's more slicer than machine but they're
identical. So then I tried a CHEP Cube on this guy. Just real quick CHEP cube and
I was shocked. It's got terrible ringing on the Y even some on the X, and then I
dug deeper it turns out the firmware here has the acceleration limited to 500
and the jerk to 10, so I never set that in my start G code. On this guy it doesn't
have that. So I found the jerk of 8 and acceleration of 500 in the G code for
this guy. So I put that in my start G code. Re-Sliced this and I re-did it with
a 200%, so I could really see any ringing or any effects and it's, almost none.
There's a little bit on the Y but it came out really clean. It looks really good.
And this was at my 0.12 profile. I did the same thing in this guy
it's slightly better because there's no glass bed so there's no ringing
whatsoever. But this is really good. Now I did get warping, so the Z offset was
still wasn't right and I also cleaned the bed. I was worried it wasn't sticking.
So then I wanted to try PETG and so this is the result. It started out good but it
showed signs of warping again and it broke loose and I came back to a ball of
string. So I cleaned it one more time and got the same results, it broke off. So I
cheated a little bit at that point because this just wasn't working. Well I
put one swipe of glue, just one swipe of glue stick. Zoup zoup and got a beautiful
benchy out of PETG. All I did was use my 0.12 profile but at 240 degrees
C using Prusa's Prusament and this is a really nice benchy. Very clean. So PETG
printed just fine. And then I wanted to try ninjaflex or TPU.
Here it is. The real flexible stuff like a rubber band, went through this
extruder. No issues. I did have to adjust the Z offset one more time
because it didn't stick the first layer and then I got it right. And this just, it
printed beautifully. This extruder top is different. It's completely covered. I wish
they would have injected molded that clear. So then you could see inside see
the filaments, see the gear and the idler wheel. And it's just
an idler wheels not dual gear. So when you flip this the whole top pivots and
that releases the wheel from the gears. So you can move the filament in and out And
you flip it back and then it locks it back in. And they trap the filament
pretty well that way you can print like ninjaflex. There is a unique little
screw on the side here that's part of a wedge. And that's how you adjust the
tension on the spring. If you do take this apart, it's not easy to put it back
together, not impossible, but it's not easy. So it's okay. I still would prefer
an EZR over this but hey that's my choice. But is it worth it?
Creality told me this thing's suggested retail price is $429
That seems a bit high to me. Now it does
have auto-level built in but for that it should have a 32 bit board, and I
think that's coming. But I don't know. There's other machines like the Sovol
SV 1 or the Xfinity genius. They're very similar to this for about a hundred
dollars less. Now both of them have Auto level available. BL touch so you have
to add it. So this one has it, so that would justify it. But the price is 429. This guy
with the silent board is about two hundred dollars less. Now I had to
install this silent board but still for $229 versus $429 I'm
getting about the same print quality. So it really comes down to; do you want a
machine with Auto level with all these features ready to go put together or do
you want a machine that is a kit and that you want to play with. You want to
put your own 32 bit board or whatever board on it. Your own extruder. This
is, this is really for the tinkerer and to save some money. This is like a very good
starter printer and you're going to pay a little more but everything's put
together. That's the difference. Now the real question is there's also an Ender
3 v2 that I did a video on. I only had a virtual
machine, I haven't got my hands on one yet, that falls in between these two. I
don't know where that one's gonna fit price-wise or what's gonna happen there.
That's the real mystery to me. But right now these are the two that are
available, though they're taking pre-orders for the v2, when I get one of
those I'll compare it. But this is available on Kickstarter right now. If
you can get this for $349 or less, I think it's worth it. But overall, I like it. I
think it's a good machine. What do you guys think? Let me know in the comments
below. If you like what I'm doing here maybe check out some of the videos
popping up and please click on that CHEP logo and subscribe, that way you don't
miss an episode. I'll see you next time right here at Filament Friday.