I’m just going on personal experience, 1st e3v2 I bought had a bent gantry extrusion (box was not damaged) and I had to deburr several of the holes. Luckily microcenter is local to me and I was able to exchange it. 2nd one was good for about a month before I had to replace the extruder as the teeth had worn off to the point it would slip and make that fun clicking sound we all know and love. I was only printing standard Inland PLA, nothing filled or overly abrasive. All ghings being equal, as someone new to the hobby at the time, spending more time and money trying to get it to print “ok” versus trusting it to not fail a 10+ hour print finally got to me. Not sure about their newer machines as my Ender experience left a bad taste in my mouth. Personally, when people ask what I’d recommend, I default to Prusa or Bambu (I went with Bambu), or Sovol or Quidi for more budget friendly options. I’ve heard Creality’s newer stuff is better, but I’m not planning on buying any more of their stuff. Eventually I’ll jump down the Voron rabbit hole, but too many other projects at the moment, plus a 350x350x350 machine is going to take up serious space in my print room.
Tl;dr : if you have a creality machine and you’re happy with it, by all means. One can only speak on their personal experience.
I have pretty unique experience here in that I run a 3D printer repair shop. I have my hands on literally thousands of machines (an avg of 3-4 a day or so).
I’ve never once seen a bent gantry extrusion. The Ender 3 was known for a faulty period between 2020 and 2021 where they made a non-glass-filled extruder levers; and that caused a lot of extrusion headaches with PLA.
And I’ve never seen a brass hobbed gear for the extruder wear down on just normal PLA. White-PLA can be a little bit abrasive, but glow in the dark is just as bad as carbon fiber.
Again, looping back to the non-glass-filled lever, I have absolutely seen PLA tear the shit out of that thing though – nearly cut it in half. But that’s not a QA problem; that’s a design/engineering problem.
I would imagine the one I returned got shipped back to the manufacturer or distributor, I can’t say for certain, but I’d guess most people who had such an obvious defect out of the box would do the same thing, might explain why you’ve never seen one. And, yes, I improperly lumped the poorly spec’d brass extruder gear into QA, you are correct, it was poor design. My point stands, Creality, at least from the period I bought mine, (likely manufactured during that era) had poor QA / poor design. I eventually got tired of manually trimming the bed every few prints, installed the Creality abl switch which really didn’t do much other than highlight the fact that the glass/PEI Creality beds seemed to warp on me. Once again, I’m speaking on my own experience, and if you’re new to the hobby and feel that Creality printers have improved enough to the point where they are reliable and relatively hands-off maintenance-wise, feel free to purchase one. My advice is worth exact as much as everyone else’s, one random voice on the internet.
My advice is worth exact as much as everyone else’s, one random voice on the internet.
That’s…not true at all. If I gave someone advice on how to do a brain surgery, they’d be idiotic to listen to me. Same with 3D printers. Your replies echo the hordes of uneducated 3D printer owners who don’t know where to locate these things.
Glass is manufactured using a float method - it cannot be manufactured non-flat unless it is intentional. (It CAN, however, be pulled out-of-flat with clips and clamps though!) Which shows the straws you’re grasping at because you didn’t have the knowledge available to you at the time as to what was causing your issue. In fact, you mentioning the ABL not working even further displays that your lack of knowledge was the entire issue. Bed leveling cannot work if the physical machine is not working according to the kinematic model. That model expects the X gantry to move perfectly parallel, and the head to be tight, and move exactly how much the machine thinks it’s moving. Yours wasn’t because you didn’t put it together correctly.
The fact that you’ve made the same mistakes that I see plenty of people making over and over and over again - means that your opinion is misinformed, and sharing it is not only not helpful, but actually detrimental to the greater discourse. This is why I left the 3D printing Reddit community, because masses of users were parroting “Dry Your Filament!” for every single problem out there.
Your issue with the bed leveling has more to do with how the X axis gantry is assembled on the older Ender 3’s. You want the left-cluster of eccentric spacers to be snug; and you want the ones on the right to be looser. The X axis gantry on the Ender also needs to be TIGHTENED. (the ones that are impossible to get to unless you take the X gantry off of the frame) It’s fighting shear forces, because creality was too stupid to design the left gantry brackets correctly, and many people leave these far too loose.
So what was happening, was your X gantry wasn’t moving parallel and staying that way - it was doing the wobbly-worm as your X gantry moved on the Z axis. It’s not a problem with the machine, it’s a problem with the education of the user.
But I love that you’re here, because you’re the EXACT example I was looking for. Creality gets a bad rap, from people like yourself who didn’t understand the mechanics behind how the printer was supposed to work. So you go on the internet and talk crap about them, because your experience was bad. Your bad experience was completely due to your own uneducation, but because you had that bad experience - you’ll never say it was you - you’ll blame Creality.
Remember: The Creality Ender 3 was designed, and deployed in an era where a majority of users were still building their machines from scratch, or from parts kits. It wasn’t a microwave-oven, and it still pushed what could be done by making the machines cheaper and available to more people. When viewed in a vacuum from the perspective of all the progress we’ve made today - absolutely, it’s a machine that doesn’t even compare. But that doesn’t make it a bad machine, just an old one.
It’s my opinion that they need to flat-out just discontinue the Ender 3, Pro, v2, Neo, etc – but they probably premanufactured millions of these things and they likely still want to get rid of the stock that’s out there. It’s still a wonderful machine - again - IF you know how it’s supposed to be properly assembled.
And if you listen to CHEP on YouTube, then you’ve assembled it wrong.
So I will repeat myself one more time for clarity: You were uneducated. There’s nothing wrong with that, so long as you’re willing to educate yourself. I was in your shoes 12 years ago when I first started, and I made the same stupid mistakes (though, it was with the community who were curious to try things at the time, vs this new generation of 3D printer owners who have no interest in the 3D printer at all).
Also, I agree with the statement that nobody should be buying an Ender 3, pro, v2, today. The v3 SE, KE - are worthwhile machines though, and one users uneducated trials from years ago does not echo what rings true today. If that were the case, QiDi should be in the garbage - because they were once one of the worst machines on the market. But they’re a pretty good machine now.
Sure thing, chief. You were there when I bought the 1st one, there when I returned it for another one, and then held my hand through the tough times with the 2nd one. I salute you.
That was MY experience. You, as a 3d printer repair shop owner, had / have a different one. When a shop takes one back for a blatant defective part, do they send it to you? When that non-glass filled, poorly casted brass geared extruder breaks and it’s an easy-enough $15ish dollar swap, does it cone to you? Or do the majority of people just try it and it works long enough for them to think, “well maybe if I just throw a little more time and money into it, it’ll be good enough”? I. Me. The guy who’s responding. Had multiple bad experiences with Creality printers. I’m done with them. My Bambu has been great since I’ve bought it, no maintenance aside from cleaning the carbon rods and the stray strands that make their way under the build plate. I repeatedly said, that was MY experience. I won’t recommend them to anyone until I see major changes in their hardware. Feel free to disagree, but you’re trying to argue with me regarding what I dealt with for far too long before I bought a printer that… wait for it… just works.
I’m just going on personal experience, 1st e3v2 I bought had a bent gantry extrusion (box was not damaged) and I had to deburr several of the holes. Luckily microcenter is local to me and I was able to exchange it. 2nd one was good for about a month before I had to replace the extruder as the teeth had worn off to the point it would slip and make that fun clicking sound we all know and love. I was only printing standard Inland PLA, nothing filled or overly abrasive. All ghings being equal, as someone new to the hobby at the time, spending more time and money trying to get it to print “ok” versus trusting it to not fail a 10+ hour print finally got to me. Not sure about their newer machines as my Ender experience left a bad taste in my mouth. Personally, when people ask what I’d recommend, I default to Prusa or Bambu (I went with Bambu), or Sovol or Quidi for more budget friendly options. I’ve heard Creality’s newer stuff is better, but I’m not planning on buying any more of their stuff. Eventually I’ll jump down the Voron rabbit hole, but too many other projects at the moment, plus a 350x350x350 machine is going to take up serious space in my print room.
Tl;dr : if you have a creality machine and you’re happy with it, by all means. One can only speak on their personal experience.
I have pretty unique experience here in that I run a 3D printer repair shop. I have my hands on literally thousands of machines (an avg of 3-4 a day or so).
I’ve never once seen a bent gantry extrusion. The Ender 3 was known for a faulty period between 2020 and 2021 where they made a non-glass-filled extruder levers; and that caused a lot of extrusion headaches with PLA.
And I’ve never seen a brass hobbed gear for the extruder wear down on just normal PLA. White-PLA can be a little bit abrasive, but glow in the dark is just as bad as carbon fiber.
Again, looping back to the non-glass-filled lever, I have absolutely seen PLA tear the shit out of that thing though – nearly cut it in half. But that’s not a QA problem; that’s a design/engineering problem.
I would imagine the one I returned got shipped back to the manufacturer or distributor, I can’t say for certain, but I’d guess most people who had such an obvious defect out of the box would do the same thing, might explain why you’ve never seen one. And, yes, I improperly lumped the poorly spec’d brass extruder gear into QA, you are correct, it was poor design. My point stands, Creality, at least from the period I bought mine, (likely manufactured during that era) had poor QA / poor design. I eventually got tired of manually trimming the bed every few prints, installed the Creality abl switch which really didn’t do much other than highlight the fact that the glass/PEI Creality beds seemed to warp on me. Once again, I’m speaking on my own experience, and if you’re new to the hobby and feel that Creality printers have improved enough to the point where they are reliable and relatively hands-off maintenance-wise, feel free to purchase one. My advice is worth exact as much as everyone else’s, one random voice on the internet.
That’s…not true at all. If I gave someone advice on how to do a brain surgery, they’d be idiotic to listen to me. Same with 3D printers. Your replies echo the hordes of uneducated 3D printer owners who don’t know where to locate these things.
Glass is manufactured using a float method - it cannot be manufactured non-flat unless it is intentional. (It CAN, however, be pulled out-of-flat with clips and clamps though!) Which shows the straws you’re grasping at because you didn’t have the knowledge available to you at the time as to what was causing your issue. In fact, you mentioning the ABL not working even further displays that your lack of knowledge was the entire issue. Bed leveling cannot work if the physical machine is not working according to the kinematic model. That model expects the X gantry to move perfectly parallel, and the head to be tight, and move exactly how much the machine thinks it’s moving. Yours wasn’t because you didn’t put it together correctly.
The fact that you’ve made the same mistakes that I see plenty of people making over and over and over again - means that your opinion is misinformed, and sharing it is not only not helpful, but actually detrimental to the greater discourse. This is why I left the 3D printing Reddit community, because masses of users were parroting “Dry Your Filament!” for every single problem out there.
Your issue with the bed leveling has more to do with how the X axis gantry is assembled on the older Ender 3’s. You want the left-cluster of eccentric spacers to be snug; and you want the ones on the right to be looser. The X axis gantry on the Ender also needs to be TIGHTENED. (the ones that are impossible to get to unless you take the X gantry off of the frame) It’s fighting shear forces, because creality was too stupid to design the left gantry brackets correctly, and many people leave these far too loose.
So what was happening, was your X gantry wasn’t moving parallel and staying that way - it was doing the wobbly-worm as your X gantry moved on the Z axis. It’s not a problem with the machine, it’s a problem with the education of the user.
But I love that you’re here, because you’re the EXACT example I was looking for. Creality gets a bad rap, from people like yourself who didn’t understand the mechanics behind how the printer was supposed to work. So you go on the internet and talk crap about them, because your experience was bad. Your bad experience was completely due to your own uneducation, but because you had that bad experience - you’ll never say it was you - you’ll blame Creality.
Remember: The Creality Ender 3 was designed, and deployed in an era where a majority of users were still building their machines from scratch, or from parts kits. It wasn’t a microwave-oven, and it still pushed what could be done by making the machines cheaper and available to more people. When viewed in a vacuum from the perspective of all the progress we’ve made today - absolutely, it’s a machine that doesn’t even compare. But that doesn’t make it a bad machine, just an old one.
It’s my opinion that they need to flat-out just discontinue the Ender 3, Pro, v2, Neo, etc – but they probably premanufactured millions of these things and they likely still want to get rid of the stock that’s out there. It’s still a wonderful machine - again - IF you know how it’s supposed to be properly assembled.
And if you listen to CHEP on YouTube, then you’ve assembled it wrong.
So I will repeat myself one more time for clarity: You were uneducated. There’s nothing wrong with that, so long as you’re willing to educate yourself. I was in your shoes 12 years ago when I first started, and I made the same stupid mistakes (though, it was with the community who were curious to try things at the time, vs this new generation of 3D printer owners who have no interest in the 3D printer at all).
Also, I agree with the statement that nobody should be buying an Ender 3, pro, v2, today. The v3 SE, KE - are worthwhile machines though, and one users uneducated trials from years ago does not echo what rings true today. If that were the case, QiDi should be in the garbage - because they were once one of the worst machines on the market. But they’re a pretty good machine now.
Sure thing, chief. You were there when I bought the 1st one, there when I returned it for another one, and then held my hand through the tough times with the 2nd one. I salute you.
That was MY experience. You, as a 3d printer repair shop owner, had / have a different one. When a shop takes one back for a blatant defective part, do they send it to you? When that non-glass filled, poorly casted brass geared extruder breaks and it’s an easy-enough $15ish dollar swap, does it cone to you? Or do the majority of people just try it and it works long enough for them to think, “well maybe if I just throw a little more time and money into it, it’ll be good enough”? I. Me. The guy who’s responding. Had multiple bad experiences with Creality printers. I’m done with them. My Bambu has been great since I’ve bought it, no maintenance aside from cleaning the carbon rods and the stray strands that make their way under the build plate. I repeatedly said, that was MY experience. I won’t recommend them to anyone until I see major changes in their hardware. Feel free to disagree, but you’re trying to argue with me regarding what I dealt with for far too long before I bought a printer that… wait for it… just works.