I'm printing a lot of CF-PLA on mine, and it's working flawlessly, an ancient roll of Proto-pasta, the original formulation, brittle as hell. Taking the reverse Bowden out of the cable chain is essential, added hinged risers for the lid to give it plenty of clearance.
Easiest way to induce heat creep is not letting the fan cool off the hotend completely after a print. New filament isn’t coming in so old filament is cooking while the heater temps are transferring directly up into the heat sink due to the fan not being on to dissipate the heat. Do this enough times and your eventually if not immediately get a clog. I point out something so obvious because you do that at least once in this video ( 21:35 ). I was even thinking “he’s gonna clog that nozzle not letting the hot end cool off”.
Yes, that is an issue. If you power down before it has cooled then you’ll have a nice surprise to take up some time and possibly spare parts when you switch it back on. When you have a super-reliable machine that never requires power-cycling to escape weird intractable errors then this wouldn’t be as annoying. My AMS unit is cursed, though, so no such luck. 😾 (Did manage 19 hours of a 20 hour print yesterday / this morning, though. So I guess that 95% reliability now. Winding the filament in, stops at print-head, thinks a bit, winds back out, repeats about five times, then claims there is a blockage. Pull filament entirely, pull power from AMS then reapply, load filament, and it now works. I had about eight of these over 60 layers, so a nice semi-random problem.)
C stands for Customer feedback revision! As Creality loves to substitute user testing and feedback part of the product design cycle with a new revision after a few months.
I have a k1 and I do like it. I fixed most of the small issues and also have it rooted and running stock klipper and fluidd now. I was excited for the new hot end but now am on the fence. I would say the best way to print carbon fiber nylon , petg etc is to use a 0.6mm nozzle. I had issues with heat creep and the nozzle getting plugged up when printing cf material. The only one I had no issues with was cf PLA when using a 0.4mm nozzle.
Hey! thank you for this review, just ordered mine yesterday as an upgrade for a 3 year old ender 3 pro. I think I really needed a change and this looked like a good fit for my needs. You gave me some hope and excitement for when I eventually get it some time soon!
Sound can't escape through very small gaps due to "wave guide beyond cutoff". That is if the opening is much smaller than the wavelength of the sound, the sound won't propagate through the opening. So high frequency noise might escape, but low frequency noise won't.
That is cool! I didn't know that. I guess what I'm noticing is the higher frequency hissing noises and possibly stepper motor ringing leaking out through the smaller gaps. A lot of mechanical noises is they are a broad spectrum noises, so it's a combination of lower and higher frequencies.
@@NathanBuildsRobots The term "wave guide beyond cutoff" actually refers to microwave electromagnetic waves, it's the reason why the microwaves can't go though the door of your microwave oven, thanks to the metal mesh in the glass. The same principle also applies to sound. Anyone building a ported speaker cabinet will run into this when sizing the port opening.
Probably already being said but remove the bowden tube out of the chain and you can even print carbon nylon out of the regular K1 series (with a nozzle change) i made a vid about it using the bondtech nozzles. Alround a well needed update, thanks for sharing!
For clogged nozzles I use a cheap rework station instead of a torch to avoid degrading the nozzle/heat-break. When used with the metal NoClogger (available on amazon) there's essentially no clog you cant remedy. Hope that helps in the future, & great vid!
I had a similarly bad clog on my K1C 1 week into owning it, spare nozzles are also not available (probably for months), so I just turned off all the fans, turned the hotend all the way up and after waiting a couple of minutes to heatsoak the entire nozzle assembly I could just push the clog out the top with an old guitar string. The whole extruder and nozzle construction is solid and pretty easily serviceable if you know what you're doing.
I did exactly that with my Bambu Lab P1S. I used kapton tape to build up the Bowden tube for a good fit to the guide-ring section at the top of the head. Tried a couple of printed ‘guides’ for the Bowden, but they weren’t that successful.
It's too bad you had issues with the nozzle. I was hoping you'd cover printing ASA or ABS with it. I've been printing a lot of ASA in my K1. I wrap it in blankets and use the bed to bring the internal temperature up to 50°C, then as it's printing it slowly creeps up to 60°C and I get beautiful ASA prints. However, the heat brake fan will fail at those temps.
Good to know that the K1 heat break fan can't take the heat of a pseudo heated chamber. I drape a clear 30 gallon trash bag over my Neptune 4 Pro and the 110 C bed gets the "chamber" temperature up to 55 C and ABS prints very well, but the little model light LED built into the hot end dimmed so much after 100 hours of printing ABS that it's now useless, but so far everything else has withstood the improvised heated build chamber on this open frame bed slinger.
Agree. It's useless unless you get into the CF nylon like he said. I'm amazed at how many people just parrot the claims of filament manufacturers when it comes to CF infused filament.
@@meikgeik Dude, there is no magical relationship between PA (Nylon) and carbon fiber. If it makes PA filament stronger in ways, than it also does the same for PLA or others.
What I learned in sound pollution class is that human perception of sound is logarithmic, thats why every 10 point decibels increase multiplies the sound level by 10 times. Lets suppose the hole in the K1 door is 1/25 the doors size, you will have a 96% energy reduction in the sound waves, but in decibels it will be like 12 decibels less. Closing that little hole correctely may get to 99%, but it will be only another decibel.
I returned a K1 after i did dimensional print tests, found 0.8-1.6% dimensional variance. For me that's a lot for mechanical parts. I was about to check the belt tension and square and immediately saw the belts didn't line up in parallel on the X gantry. And if we remember a2 + b2 = c2, that means the closer you get to either side the belt's pull on the tool head will move further from 1:1 the closer it gets to either pully. Another thing that bothered me was the nozzle temps jumping +/-3c printing at max speed. The 4020 blower it has is impressively powerful, and about 3x as powerful as the standard 4020 blower (normally 0.8A and the K1's is 0.3A). But still got +/-1-2c at normal speeds of 200mm/s 3K accel when the fan was running far slower. I ran PID on the hotend about 5 times, patted my head and rubbed my tummy etc. I have another printer with a volcano hotend and klipper shows about +/-0.5% nozzle temp variance printing at 325mm/s with 4.5K accel. And the parts showed, on the K1 i did notice on parts that they would have glossy corners and small sections then matte on straight sides/faster motions. I would blame thermal mass on that, but idk because i returned it before i felt like tearing the whole nozzle apart. I printed the benchy included on the USB, it came out nearly perfect.. SUPER impressive. I just couldn't rely on it for engineering parts. And i knew that going in, especially with long belt runs on Core-XY that lend to "inaccurate" travel
@@joeking433 all of them really, the belts have a small amount of stretch till they yield then tension raises significantly per unit "stretched" after that. (Edit) And if it's not perfectly square and tramed, that will compound. But! Where not running CNC/Milling machines... Soo, for the most part the 'plasticity' of what is printed can usually fit together just fine. I did get mine down to >0.05% in X, Y, and combined. Just as good as a CNC that hasn't been maintained 😁. One great tip I got from someone's video was to clock the linier bearings in a + position, so that the bearings ride on the axis. That noticeably got rid of a ton of slack Just looked up position accuracy on Gates GT2 6mm belts, their doc shows 0.010in/0.3mm per 92 teeth on 20 grove pulleys @6.6lbs with a 200step motor. *I always put mine to 7lbs as its enclosed and I imagine the rubber teeth get soft
@@joeking433 ohh, sorry. You can make most printers really accurate. I just know of three that have bad pulley positions, the K1, Ender V3 SE/KE, and Duplicator i3 I bought many years ago and still own. Which I had to design a new bed Y stepper bracket for. If they don't have said design flaws, then it's just a matter of squaring the machine perfectly then tramming the bed. I don't think any of them will come perfectly square or with the perfect belt tension. But! If you put a gun to my head... Pre built PRUSA and Bambu. Bambu has a patent on the auto tensioning system on their printer, only drawback is the extra long belts Core-XY printers use will introduce less accurate positioning. BUT! Idk, I haven't compres them.
I think what causes your "VFA" is slicing from a STL (point cloud model) where arcs are basically polylines, and I think the print head is doing accel/decel at each line segment when cornering and therefore extruding more near the intersection. I would try feeding a Gcode file that uses geometeric arc interpolation (G02, G03) and see if the problem goes away.
I'm using Creality Ender PLA filament @ 300mm /sec and as fast as 500mm/sec tops and still prints good, In everyday printing you can't have both fast and good prints.
What I‘d like to see for all these Bambu Lab, Qidi, Creality CoreXY-printers, are 3rd party hotend assemblies that allow flexible nozzle changes using standard nozzles without requiring to screw or deal with cables. Just a smple mechanism that makes nozzle changes as fast as Formula 1 tire changes. This may be even provided by hobbyists with knowledge in mechanics and electrical engineering.
I am waiting on the BIQU Panda hot-end. It’s the E3D Revo hotend system adapted for the Bambu Lab machines. It’s certainly possible that there will be something made for the K1 series. I have the Revo system on a (only slightly modified, only one careful owner, honest…) Ender 3. It is very good, with only having to mess with the z-offset a bit on nozzle-change. Using the nozzle to probe should make this an effortless option for the Bambu Lab machines.
Why do Creality users always need to print out mods to make the printer more usable or to fix serious bugs in hardware other manufacturers don't have? For 249,-€ you get a Creality printer with 6 years old technik. For 299,-€ you get a brand new Bambu Lab A1 mini with options to ASM Lite. And you don't need to print any mods for the A1 to make it usable :)
Its really hard to load filament because it goes through such a sharp turn just before the hotend. You have to push filament hard into the tube at the back while it tries to grab it.
The bed isn't warped, just tilted. To fix I'd need to adjust the leadscrews, which they should be doing from the factory on a printer at this price point.
@@NathanBuildsRobots yea you're right, definitely tilted. I really wish the K1C was a bit more polished. I'm currently looking for a premium printer to replace my ender 3 s1 pro and I really don't want to have to go with an X1C 🤣. If I didn't need a good printer now, I would build a voron.
@@NathanBuildsRobots - Any style of Bowden tube is a real drag when printing TPU. I won't buy a printer with a Bowden tube and I'd remove the reverse Bowden from a K1 and feed from above.
@@Liberty4Ever I tried printing TPU on my K1 without any PTFE tube, but the filament wasn't feeding into the extruder properly. So I just started using a really short piece and now I have no problems.
@@raf_the_riffer - Thanks for the TPU report on the K1. I'm seriously contemplating a K1 Max, mostly to print some larger ABS parts (possibly ASA-CF) for a new product but I'd also want to use it to print TPU parts.
Replacing this channel's signature fan-ripping mods with burning nozzles is TIGHT ! I like the direction this is taking 😂 I still miss the throwing-over-the-balcony tantrums though. Pretty please ???
I like the cable chain improvement, but the rest of the stuff it seems my regular K1 is just as good if not better. My 3d printed hepa/activated carbon filter seems way better, my Triangle Labs "diamond like" nozzle seems way better -- and I can put a 0.6 on it if I want to print CF materials. You can just buy and trivially install the same "AI Cam" on the K1.
Remove the bowden tube from the last buckle on the cable chain. Then the bend is correct. My original bowden tube actually got worn out after 100 h and snapped.
Creality's US store does not have replacement nozzles for the K1C ! I asked in the store chat when/if they would be available and they had no idea !! This is a major problem!
If you have a look at the settings on the homepage of the touchscreen you have the option to adjust the fans either on and off or percentages of that,, I recently bought a k1 and it's very similar to the k1c
How did the filament break in the bowden tube, but was still in the tube? wouldn't the extruder continue pulling the filament from the break? I think you got a clog and the filament broke from the constant flexing as the motion system continued on.
I think you're right. The filament had a dent in it from the filament grinding away at it. Not sure if it was a nozzle clog or heat creep that caused it, but either way, not good. I suppose there is a possibility that it was bad filament that caused it as well.
Exactly what I was wondering. What I learned on my K1 Max is that the extruder gears get so hot that they will soften if not melt PLA filament. After a rushed change from an enclosed ASA print to Creality Hyper PLA the PLA filament melted inside the extruder. Once that happens, you can't make the extruder push out filament and the filament acts like a pin, preventing you from disassembling the extruder to clear the jam. Sucks.
Thanks for your elaborate video. 34:00 maybe next time you could insert the nozzle in a separate heat block outside of the printer and hook it up a bench power supply, then you should easily be able to push the residual stuff through with that tool.
Got mine in today. already 6 prints on it. All were great hyper pla prints. Only complaint is they lip needs to be higher (already found a riser to print) and I agree on the bowden tube. Overall very happy with it for only $549 us
Long time lurker, first time poster. Nathan, thank you for what you do, and for the humor and thoroughness your reviews bring to the 3D printing community. I feel as though we are in the Apple VS PC mentality with 3D printers now. Bambu Labs is clearly the “Apple” of 3D printers, elegant looking, largely work well, but locked down, and not very customizable. The other brands, such as Creality seem to fall under the “PC” moniker of work well enough, lots of customization options, and huge community support. It’s a good time to be a 3D printer enthusiast!
The Creality K1 is like the Microsoft Surface Laptop of 3D printers. Not quite the same as apple. But not quite a PC either. The Ender 3 is the true PC analogy, and it's still my favorite printer for superb customizability.
Nathan! Thank you for bringing all these awesome videos to us! I have a question if you could help me out, With all these new printers coming out, i remember your amazing review on the Ender 5 S1 and want to ask at its current reduced price(even cheaper refurbished!!) do you think the Ender 5 S1 is still viable? Being easily fixed and modded?
I'd rather get an Ender 3 V3 SE or KE. There's not much point in having a cube printer if it doesn't come with an enclosure, at least thats what I think.
It's like such a nice printer with a few really sloppy flaws. I hate the notch in the door for the screen as well. Had to have been a better solution like even a flip out screen. The Bowden tube angle is really just ridiculous. I have been running the Creality carbon fiber PLA, not Hyper series, and it's nice. Pretty much prints like normal PLA except you have to use minimal if any retraction to avoid clogging. If you were running retraction, likely what caused your issue as well. The filament expands, cools in the bimetal heatbreak, and then jams extrusion. Despite running 0-0.2mm of retraction, stringing is very limited. It is still surprisingly flexible, but has a sudden breaking point. Really nice matter outside finish is probably the biggest upside.
Actually seeing the Unicorn Nozzle I thought the "C" in K1C stands for "Colour". For Prusas mk3(s(+))+MMU2 were a lot of complains how hard/unreliable tuning of unload/ramping of filament was. This was greatly improved if people changed to the Revo hotend. The integrated heatbreak/nozzle combo leaves much better filament tips on unload. So you might can do filament changes with an ERCF without cut&poo. If you take a look at the new K2, there might be a chance it can do multicolour without cut&poo. Faster and less waste. The k1c nozzle cost about $4 to $5 on Aliexpress. So you can call it an consumable. If it realy helps automatic filamentchangers to reduce time and waste, the downside of not being able to clean it if it cloggs might be worth the compromise.
I mounted my klipper screen at eye level because it takes very little time being hunched over before I get tight muscles and migraines. Some people have neck problems.@@NathanBuildsRobots
My printer is on the table next to me as I'm seated at my computer. The display at the bottom of the printer is at eye level. Putting the display on top of the printer would force me to crane my neck up to see it, or stand up.
the amount of aliexpress tabs that are open 💀 Overall amazing review! I was thinking of buying myself a K1C, most other reviewers were bashing the printer for not being a Bambu or Prusa yet seemed to not be able to mention why. And all reviewers seem to think we have money to spare... I am slightly worried about network security with this new printer, its web interface is cool but insecure... and with political prejudice I am slightly worried for network security because Creality is situated in China, who don't have the cleanest track record when it comes to spying... I will put this printer on a separate network and hope for the best...
When clearing out the clog, why not heat up the metal rod to glowing red and then placing it down the heatbreak/nozzle instead of heating up the whole hotend?
Hi Nathan, hope your well and the fight with this printer was not too a pain? I just awhile ago on 31st December 2023, Got my 1st ever enclosed fast klipper 3D Printer the Qidi X-Plus-3. It been a great printer. But I had a big problem just last week where I left the printer doing a overnight print for the 1st time and woke up the next day to find that the model had un-stuck from the bed and was melted in the ball of death around the printing fast at 400 per second head. the ball was fully wrapped around the lower part of the hot end. I stopped the printing, and had to spend about 30 minutes slowly hot gun heating the ball of now set melted white PLA and carefully poking it off. I got it off and it had split the silicone sock and that had got partly stuck in the middle of that ball. The thing is, I had the bed auto leveled fine and done a great z off set as the model before printed with zero problems so the leveling and off set must have been okay? I got to now remove the hot end ceramic heater block and cooling fins and clean the rest of the melted PLA off them. Qidi do have a 2nd hot end in the box of a Hardened nozzle hot end So I fit that for now! Qidi are a great company for helping us so they said they will send me another normal copper hot end heater block unit. Just a pain as the bed was clean and had fresh glue layer so odd indeed it failed. Anyway I love the speed and detailed printing my X-Plus -3 does just thought you like to wear about my issues?
Someone needs to add a sensor or switch that can detect that kind of error. Computer vision might be able to do it, but a dedicated Senator should be great because it would ideally be more reliable
exclude is cool. its on my bambu as well :) them be alot of tabs open there buddy ;) also u should print some jaw grips for ur vice. metal on metal leaves marks.
Burning the filament out created your own problems. Do you not have a heat gun? A hot air gun will get hot enough to melt lead without setting anything on fire. That might have allowed you to get the stuck filament out. I think they could do better with the Bowden tube routing though.
I'd be interested in a K1C Max. I'd delete the reverse Bowden tube. I print a LOT of TPU and that's a complete non-starter but it's a PIA for all filaments. There should be a domed lid with a filament feed hole in top. I'd root it and put real Klipper on it. Klipper is awesome. Why do most 3D printer manufacturers want to install their own Kripple Klipper? Is it false pride, pretending they invented the firmware when all they did was strip out some functionality and tweak the user interface? It really bugs me that all of these large manufacturer high speed printers use nozzles that are essentially Volcano nozzles but just different enough to make them proprietary. It's even worse that they launch the printers with the nozzles back ordered. I bought a new extruder and hot end assembly for my Neptune 4 Pro just to ensure production wouldn't grind to a halt. After several months I was able to order a set of brass nozzles that should be here in a couple of days but there are still no hardened steel nozzles. I contacted Micro Swiss and begged them to make a really good extruder and hot end for the Neptune 4 series. These low cost printers are getting to be very good but mediocre extruder assemblies are their weak point in print quality, reliability and maintainability.
LOL. It can't print Nylon Carbon fiber. An Ender 3 can print all of the materials this can print and it's only $100. Also, on the ender 3, you can literally just throw parts away instead of fixing/troubleshooting them. Hotend clogged? $10. Throw the whole damn thing away and install a new one.
I didn't realize how much I missed your videos until the uploads paused. Welcome back good sir.
That honest review was really a good one. No signs of hiding something or showing just the good sides. Keep that good work up👍
I'm printing a lot of CF-PLA on mine, and it's working flawlessly, an ancient roll of Proto-pasta, the original formulation, brittle as hell. Taking the reverse Bowden out of the cable chain is essential, added hinged risers for the lid to give it plenty of clearance.
Oh finally a new video from my favorite 3D printing influencer.
I think I speak for everyone when I say. Thank god your safe... a few of us thought Bambu got to you after the last video😅
Actually, they did get me. I have been re-educated. This is Nathan's pro-bambu replacement clone.
Fr
They would probably feed me to a Panda if the had to re educate me .
@@NathanBuildsRobots Bambu Builds Robots lol
Still waiting for multicolor. Any updates?
Easiest way to induce heat creep is not letting the fan cool off the hotend completely after a print.
New filament isn’t coming in so old filament is cooking while the heater temps are transferring directly up into the heat sink due to the fan not being on to dissipate the heat. Do this enough times and your eventually if not immediately get a clog.
I point out something so obvious because you do that at least once in this video ( 21:35 ). I was even thinking “he’s gonna clog that nozzle not letting the hot end cool off”.
Yes, that is an issue. If you power down before it has cooled then you’ll have a nice surprise to take up some time and possibly spare parts when you switch it back on.
When you have a super-reliable machine that never requires power-cycling to escape weird intractable errors then this wouldn’t be as annoying. My AMS unit is cursed, though, so no such luck. 😾
(Did manage 19 hours of a 20 hour print yesterday / this morning, though. So I guess that 95% reliability now. Winding the filament in, stops at print-head, thinks a bit, winds back out, repeats about five times, then claims there is a blockage. Pull filament entirely, pull power from AMS then reapply, load filament, and it now works. I had about eight of these over 60 layers, so a nice semi-random problem.)
no buddy i see what you are saying but that is not heat creep.
The most honest 3d printer review on youtube!
Keep up the good work!
Greetings from Brazil
A new hinge!!
Uncle Jessy proof hinge 🤣🤣🤣
Did you get your consultancy fee?
C stands for Customer feedback revision! As Creality loves to substitute user testing and feedback part of the product design cycle with a new revision after a few months.
I was just thinking I hadn't seen anything new from you in a while. Welcome back!
Thank you!
That editing at around 13:10 got me, love it!
They should release a stripped down version called the S1P and then make a better version of that and call it the S1S
I have a k1 and I do like it. I fixed most of the small issues and also have it rooted and running stock klipper and fluidd now. I was excited for the new hot end but now am on the fence. I would say the best way to print carbon fiber nylon , petg etc is to use a 0.6mm nozzle. I had issues with heat creep and the nozzle getting plugged up when printing cf material. The only one I had no issues with was cf PLA when using a 0.4mm nozzle.
That's probably why they sent me a spool of CF-PLA. I'm going off script with possibly predictable results?
You open browser tabs (23:12) makes me feel so happy.
Finally your back, yes! We can use you way better at creality k1 line critics. Actuall change is posible!
Hey! thank you for this review, just ordered mine yesterday as an upgrade for a 3 year old ender 3 pro. I think I really needed a change and this looked like a good fit for my needs. You gave me some hope and excitement for when I eventually get it some time soon!
Sound can't escape through very small gaps due to "wave guide beyond cutoff". That is if the opening is much smaller than the wavelength of the sound, the sound won't propagate through the opening. So high frequency noise might escape, but low frequency noise won't.
That is cool! I didn't know that.
I guess what I'm noticing is the higher frequency hissing noises and possibly stepper motor ringing leaking out through the smaller gaps.
A lot of mechanical noises is they are a broad spectrum noises, so it's a combination of lower and higher frequencies.
@@NathanBuildsRobots The term "wave guide beyond cutoff" actually refers to microwave electromagnetic waves, it's the reason why the microwaves can't go though the door of your microwave oven, thanks to the metal mesh in the glass. The same principle also applies to sound. Anyone building a ported speaker cabinet will run into this when sizing the port opening.
Funny that the first selling point in their ad is "CLOG FREE All-metal Extruder Kit".....
In my best Project Farm voice:
We're gonna test that!
Probably already being said but remove the bowden tube out of the chain and you can even print carbon nylon out of the regular K1 series (with a nozzle change) i made a vid about it using the bondtech nozzles.
Alround a well needed update, thanks for sharing!
For clogged nozzles I use a cheap rework station instead of a torch to avoid degrading the nozzle/heat-break. When used with the metal NoClogger (available on amazon) there's essentially no clog you cant remedy. Hope that helps in the future, & great vid!
I had a similarly bad clog on my K1C 1 week into owning it, spare nozzles are also not available (probably for months), so I just turned off all the fans, turned the hotend all the way up and after waiting a couple of minutes to heatsoak the entire nozzle assembly I could just push the clog out the top with an old guitar string.
The whole extruder and nozzle construction is solid and pretty easily serviceable if you know what you're doing.
The filament tube needs to come out of the cable chain to relieve that sharp angle.
great video thanks,
I did exactly that with my Bambu Lab P1S. I used kapton tape to build up the Bowden tube for a good fit to the guide-ring section at the top of the head.
Tried a couple of printed ‘guides’ for the Bowden, but they weren’t that successful.
It's too bad you had issues with the nozzle. I was hoping you'd cover printing ASA or ABS with it. I've been printing a lot of ASA in my K1. I wrap it in blankets and use the bed to bring the internal temperature up to 50°C, then as it's printing it slowly creeps up to 60°C and I get beautiful ASA prints. However, the heat brake fan will fail at those temps.
Good to know that the K1 heat break fan can't take the heat of a pseudo heated chamber. I drape a clear 30 gallon trash bag over my Neptune 4 Pro and the 110 C bed gets the "chamber" temperature up to 55 C and ABS prints very well, but the little model light LED built into the hot end dimmed so much after 100 hours of printing ABS that it's now useless, but so far everything else has withstood the improvised heated build chamber on this open frame bed slinger.
Hey there he is, Congratz on the K1C
You can set the preview images in Orca. You can choose between several file Formats and sizes. One will fit the X1C. Try .PNG and 256x256
You can reduce the speed of the fans in the slicer, I have my side blower fan at 40% max so it never sounds like a jet engine.
Damn, the title alone is brutal. Can't wait to watch it.
Nathan, you look more like a scientist than an engineer.
Glad you're back chill homie 😊
The camera looks very crisp
I remember buying X2 after watching your thorough review and it has served me well, lets see if I can resist getting this one.
the new batch of K1's come with rubber feet WOW! externally now look like twins
For me ... I couldn't care less about carbon fibre, but I love the updates for other filaments!
Agree. It's useless unless you get into the CF nylon like he said. I'm amazed at how many people just parrot the claims of filament manufacturers when it comes to CF infused filament.
@@meikgeik Dude, there is no magical relationship between PA (Nylon) and carbon fiber. If it makes PA filament stronger in ways, than it also does the same for PLA or others.
19:30 ATF called, they asked for Form 4 and Form 1 for your printer enclosure
It's a fully semi automatic silencer
13:00 - best edit on youtube - 2024
OMG he is back!!
What I learned in sound pollution class is that human perception of sound is logarithmic, thats why every 10 point decibels increase multiplies the sound level by 10 times. Lets suppose the hole in the K1 door is 1/25 the doors size, you will have a 96% energy reduction in the sound waves, but in decibels it will be like 12 decibels less. Closing that little hole correctely may get to 99%, but it will be only another decibel.
Creality K1C vs Flashforge Adventurer 5M Pro with one to buy? Base on your reviews?
I took my ptfe tube out of the closes holder on the cable chain to the print head in order to give it a easy bend into the extruder
yeah I would definitely do that for this printer, especially when printing stiff filaments
Could also print a former to limit the radius of the curve into the extruder
I returned a K1 after i did dimensional print tests, found 0.8-1.6% dimensional variance. For me that's a lot for mechanical parts. I was about to check the belt tension and square and immediately saw the belts didn't line up in parallel on the X gantry. And if we remember a2 + b2 = c2, that means the closer you get to either side the belt's pull on the tool head will move further from 1:1 the closer it gets to either pully.
Another thing that bothered me was the nozzle temps jumping +/-3c printing at max speed. The 4020 blower it has is impressively powerful, and about 3x as powerful as the standard 4020 blower (normally 0.8A and the K1's is 0.3A). But still got +/-1-2c at normal speeds of 200mm/s 3K accel when the fan was running far slower. I ran PID on the hotend about 5 times, patted my head and rubbed my tummy etc. I have another printer with a volcano hotend and klipper shows about +/-0.5% nozzle temp variance printing at 325mm/s with 4.5K accel. And the parts showed, on the K1 i did notice on parts that they would have glossy corners and small sections then matte on straight sides/faster motions. I would blame thermal mass on that, but idk because i returned it before i felt like tearing the whole nozzle apart.
I printed the benchy included on the USB, it came out nearly perfect.. SUPER impressive. I just couldn't rely on it for engineering parts. And i knew that going in, especially with long belt runs on Core-XY that lend to "inaccurate" travel
I'll check on the gantry, good catch
Is there a printer that is known for having little dimensional variance?
@@joeking433 all of them really, the belts have a small amount of stretch till they yield then tension raises significantly per unit "stretched" after that. (Edit) And if it's not perfectly square and tramed, that will compound. But! Where not running CNC/Milling machines... Soo, for the most part the 'plasticity' of what is printed can usually fit together just fine. I did get mine down to >0.05% in X, Y, and combined. Just as good as a CNC that hasn't been maintained 😁. One great tip I got from someone's video was to clock the linier bearings in a + position, so that the bearings ride on the axis. That noticeably got rid of a ton of slack
Just looked up position accuracy on Gates GT2 6mm belts, their doc shows 0.010in/0.3mm per 92 teeth on 20 grove pulleys @6.6lbs with a 200step motor.
*I always put mine to 7lbs as its enclosed and I imagine the rubber teeth get soft
@@MrHeHim What printer would you recommend for having little or no dimensional variance is what I meant.
@@joeking433 ohh, sorry. You can make most printers really accurate. I just know of three that have bad pulley positions, the K1, Ender V3 SE/KE, and Duplicator i3 I bought many years ago and still own. Which I had to design a new bed Y stepper bracket for.
If they don't have said design flaws, then it's just a matter of squaring the machine perfectly then tramming the bed. I don't think any of them will come perfectly square or with the perfect belt tension. But! If you put a gun to my head... Pre built PRUSA and Bambu. Bambu has a patent on the auto tensioning system on their printer, only drawback is the extra long belts Core-XY printers use will introduce less accurate positioning. BUT! Idk, I haven't compres them.
I dont understand why they put that notch in the bottom of the door glass... Why not mount the screen at the top or at the very bottom below the door?
😂😂😂😂 not even 5 minutes and you broke the door handle 😂😂😂
I think what causes your "VFA" is slicing from a STL (point cloud model) where arcs are basically polylines, and I think the print head is doing accel/decel at each line segment when cornering and therefore extruding more near the intersection. I would try feeding a Gcode file that uses geometeric arc interpolation (G02, G03) and see if the problem goes away.
Your jokes are so dry, they are actually funny. Keep up the good work.
I'm using Creality Ender PLA filament @ 300mm /sec and as fast as 500mm/sec tops and still prints good, In everyday printing you can't have both fast and good prints.
What I‘d like to see for all these Bambu Lab, Qidi, Creality CoreXY-printers, are 3rd party hotend assemblies that allow flexible nozzle changes using standard nozzles without requiring to screw or deal with cables. Just a smple mechanism that makes nozzle changes as fast as Formula 1 tire changes. This may be even provided by hobbyists with knowledge in mechanics and electrical engineering.
I am waiting on the BIQU Panda hot-end. It’s the E3D Revo hotend system adapted for the Bambu Lab machines. It’s certainly possible that there will be something made for the K1 series.
I have the Revo system on a (only slightly modified, only one careful owner, honest…) Ender 3. It is very good, with only having to mess with the z-offset a bit on nozzle-change. Using the nozzle to probe should make this an effortless option for the Bambu Lab machines.
Dude those "CREALITY" metal stickers have shreaded my fingers more than once... 99% chance I rip them off soon...
Lol sticker owies, that’s a new one 😂
Ruthless like always. Keep up the good work👌.
Why do Creality users always need to print out mods to make the printer more usable or to fix serious bugs in hardware other manufacturers don't have? For 249,-€ you get a Creality printer with 6 years old technik. For 299,-€ you get a brand new Bambu Lab A1 mini with options to ASM Lite. And you don't need to print any mods for the A1 to make it usable :)
Because we are super users, un-like those with apple devices!
Its really hard to load filament because it goes through such a sharp turn just before the hotend. You have to push filament hard into the tube at the back while it tries to grab it.
K1C i.e. "we rushed a product, used our customers as the testers and did some half baked changes". At least they kept their signature warped beds.
The bed isn't warped, just tilted. To fix I'd need to adjust the leadscrews, which they should be doing from the factory on a printer at this price point.
@@NathanBuildsRobots yea you're right, definitely tilted. I really wish the K1C was a bit more polished. I'm currently looking for a premium printer to replace my ender 3 s1 pro and I really don't want to have to go with an X1C 🤣. If I didn't need a good printer now, I would build a voron.
I don’t even bother with the top cover or the PTFE tube. I hang my filament above and feed it through a 2 inch PTFE tube lol
Yeah I'm going to start doing that if I ever attempt CF nylon again.
@@NathanBuildsRobots - Any style of Bowden tube is a real drag when printing TPU. I won't buy a printer with a Bowden tube and I'd remove the reverse Bowden from a K1 and feed from above.
@@Liberty4Ever I tried printing TPU on my K1 without any PTFE tube, but the filament wasn't feeding into the extruder properly. So I just started using a really short piece and now I have no problems.
@@raf_the_riffer - Thanks for the TPU report on the K1. I'm seriously contemplating a K1 Max, mostly to print some larger ABS parts (possibly ASA-CF) for a new product but I'd also want to use it to print TPU parts.
Replacing this channel's signature fan-ripping mods with burning nozzles is TIGHT ! I like the direction this is taking 😂
I still miss the throwing-over-the-balcony tantrums though. Pretty please ???
I'm gonna need a taller balcony
Burning nozzles is super easy, barely an inconvenience.
I like the cable chain improvement, but the rest of the stuff it seems my regular K1 is just as good if not better. My 3d printed hepa/activated carbon filter seems way better, my Triangle Labs "diamond like" nozzle seems way better -- and I can put a 0.6 on it if I want to print CF materials. You can just buy and trivially install the same "AI Cam" on the K1.
How much AI does it have though? :D
The repeated shots of the print head going weeeeeep 😂.
Good info NBR. I thought when they said K1C it was a joke.
Remove the bowden tube from the last buckle on the cable chain. Then the bend is correct. My original bowden tube actually got worn out after 100 h and snapped.
Where you been?! I’m not even here to see the printer anymore haha
Mission accomplished
Ahhh Nathan, Our studios may not match but our browser tab count does.
Creality's US store does not have replacement nozzles for the K1C ! I asked in the store chat when/if they would be available and they had no idea !! This is a major problem!
IF you make a new standard nozzle you need a plan for rolling it out. hopefully they will have them in stock soon!
If you have a look at the settings on the homepage of the touchscreen you have the option to adjust the fans either on and off or percentages of that,, I recently bought a k1 and it's very similar to the k1c
How did the filament break in the bowden tube, but was still in the tube? wouldn't the extruder continue pulling the filament from the break? I think you got a clog and the filament broke from the constant flexing as the motion system continued on.
I think you're right. The filament had a dent in it from the filament grinding away at it. Not sure if it was a nozzle clog or heat creep that caused it, but either way, not good.
I suppose there is a possibility that it was bad filament that caused it as well.
Exactly what I was wondering. What I learned on my K1 Max is that the extruder gears get so hot that they will soften if not melt PLA filament. After a rushed change from an enclosed ASA print to Creality Hyper PLA the PLA filament melted inside the extruder. Once that happens, you can't make the extruder push out filament and the filament acts like a pin, preventing you from disassembling the extruder to clear the jam. Sucks.
Thanks for your elaborate video. 34:00 maybe next time you could insert the nozzle in a separate heat block outside of the printer and hook it up a bench power supply, then you should easily be able to push the residual stuff through with that tool.
You'll have less problems if you put your printer on a solid table. $10 card table shaking around will screw things up quick.
I thought my table was pretty solid. It's not an optical bench or anything but it's pretty sturdy for a desk.
The unicorn nozzle may have died, but its sacrifice was not in vain…
@NathanBuildsRobots "K1 Bed Leveling Kit" on printables managed to get me bed down to 0.52mm variance. And it's a really quick print.
Got mine in today. already 6 prints on it. All were great hyper pla prints. Only complaint is they lip needs to be higher (already found a riser to print) and I agree on the bowden tube. Overall very happy with it for only $549 us
Long time lurker, first time poster. Nathan, thank you for what you do, and for the humor and thoroughness your reviews bring to the 3D printing community. I feel as though we are in the Apple VS PC mentality with 3D printers now. Bambu Labs is clearly the “Apple” of 3D printers, elegant looking, largely work well, but locked down, and not very customizable. The other brands, such as Creality seem to fall under the “PC” moniker of work well enough, lots of customization options, and huge community support. It’s a good time to be a 3D printer enthusiast!
The Creality K1 is like the Microsoft Surface Laptop of 3D printers. Not quite the same as apple. But not quite a PC either.
The Ender 3 is the true PC analogy, and it's still my favorite printer for superb customizability.
Orca slicer does have a print preview icon
Love the Erev Shel Shoshanim background music...
Thanks for the video. BTW are you planning to review when the FLSUN S1 and T1 comes out?
dude buys a carbon printer but doesnt try printing any carbon fiber nylon
16:35 "Klipper like interface" Fluidd is Klipper just like Mainsail is, its just a bit different UI
I only speak "Creality print"
Nathan! Thank you for bringing all these awesome videos to us!
I have a question if you could help me out, With all these new printers coming out, i remember your amazing review on the Ender 5 S1 and want to ask at its current reduced price(even cheaper refurbished!!) do you think the Ender 5 S1 is still viable? Being easily fixed and modded?
I'd rather get an Ender 3 V3 SE or KE.
There's not much point in having a cube printer if it doesn't come with an enclosure, at least thats what I think.
@@NathanBuildsRobots very true! Think its worth waiting for the Ender 3 V3? What would your price guess be for it?
For a nozzle clog I heat up the nozzle and blow pressurized air into the .4mm nozzle
It's like such a nice printer with a few really sloppy flaws. I hate the notch in the door for the screen as well. Had to have been a better solution like even a flip out screen. The Bowden tube angle is really just ridiculous. I have been running the Creality carbon fiber PLA, not Hyper series, and it's nice. Pretty much prints like normal PLA except you have to use minimal if any retraction to avoid clogging. If you were running retraction, likely what caused your issue as well. The filament expands, cools in the bimetal heatbreak, and then jams extrusion. Despite running 0-0.2mm of retraction, stringing is very limited. It is still surprisingly flexible, but has a sudden breaking point. Really nice matter outside finish is probably the biggest upside.
Hasnt even started printing and already repairing the door handle :D
Actually seeing the Unicorn Nozzle I thought the "C" in K1C stands for "Colour". For Prusas mk3(s(+))+MMU2 were a lot of complains how hard/unreliable tuning of unload/ramping of filament was. This was greatly improved if people changed to the Revo hotend. The integrated heatbreak/nozzle combo leaves much better filament tips on unload.
So you might can do filament changes with an ERCF without cut&poo.
If you take a look at the new K2, there might be a chance it can do multicolour without cut&poo. Faster and less waste.
The k1c nozzle cost about $4 to $5 on Aliexpress. So you can call it an consumable. If it realy helps automatic filamentchangers to reduce time and waste, the downside of not being able to clean it if it cloggs might be worth the compromise.
I think was really nice about bamboo printers is they don’t mount their screens on the bottom, so it prevents neck cramps……
How much time do you spend looking at the screen?!
I mounted my klipper screen at eye level because it takes very little time being hunched over before I get tight muscles and migraines. Some people have neck problems.@@NathanBuildsRobots
Well, now that you mention it, I guess not too much 🤔😂
My printer is on the table next to me as I'm seated at my computer. The display at the bottom of the printer is at eye level. Putting the display on top of the printer would force me to crane my neck up to see it, or stand up.
I just got this one in and How do I remove the styrofoam from behin and below the build plate?
Nevermind, figured it out.
Honestly this might be my next printer. It seems pretty awesome so far, and the price is really good.
watching this over and over till mine gets here 🤣😂😅🍻🍻
Patreon showed its true colors. Please consider another intermediary for your donation platform needs. ArsTechnica has the scoop.
Hey Nathan! Thanks for the upload. Question. Did Creality make any revisions for the extruder for the K1C?
I don't think so, but I didn't take it apart to check
I heard you were out at Luke's and took some footage - when will we be seeing that? I'm headed up there next month to pick up a Stablebot!
Nice, I'll be editing that video next, should be less than a week from now!
I see ur having fun wit the table😂
The fan is cooling both the PCB and the heat-break heat sink.
the amount of aliexpress tabs that are open 💀
Overall amazing review! I was thinking of buying myself a K1C, most other reviewers were bashing the printer for not being a Bambu or Prusa yet seemed to not be able to mention why. And all reviewers seem to think we have money to spare... I am slightly worried about network security with this new printer, its web interface is cool but insecure... and with political prejudice I am slightly worried for network security because Creality is situated in China, who don't have the cleanest track record when it comes to spying... I will put this printer on a separate network and hope for the best...
When clearing out the clog, why not heat up the metal rod to glowing red and then placing it down the heatbreak/nozzle instead of heating up the whole hotend?
That's a good idea
Hi Nathan, hope your well and the fight with this printer was not too a pain?
I just awhile ago on 31st December 2023, Got my 1st ever enclosed fast klipper 3D Printer the Qidi X-Plus-3. It been a great printer. But I had a big problem just last week where I left the printer doing a overnight print for the 1st time and woke up the next day to find that the model had un-stuck from the bed and was melted in the ball of death around the printing fast at 400 per second head. the ball was fully wrapped around the lower part of the hot end.
I stopped the printing, and had to spend about 30 minutes slowly hot gun heating the ball of now set melted white PLA and carefully poking it off.
I got it off and it had split the silicone sock and that had got partly stuck in the middle of that ball.
The thing is, I had the bed auto leveled fine and done a great z off set as the model before printed with zero problems so the leveling and off set must have been okay?
I got to now remove the hot end ceramic heater block and cooling fins and clean the rest of the melted PLA off them.
Qidi do have a 2nd hot end in the box of a Hardened nozzle hot end So I fit that for now!
Qidi are a great company for helping us so they said they will send me another normal copper hot end heater block unit.
Just a pain as the bed was clean and had fresh glue layer so odd indeed it failed. Anyway I love the speed and detailed printing my X-Plus -3 does just thought you like to wear about my issues?
Someone needs to add a sensor or switch that can detect that kind of error. Computer vision might be able to do it, but a dedicated Senator should be great because it would ideally be more reliable
So it definitely needs a better filament sensor that not only checks for the presence of filament but also whether it is still moving.
Would you suggest the k1c or the flashforge 5m pro? They are the same price for me.
I like the 5M pro more. Less issues.
There are some mods for the k1 out there if you’re into that but that drives the price up
@@NathanBuildsRobots mods for the k1c? Not k1. What kind of mods are you talking about?
@NathanBuildsRobots do you mean mods for the k1 or k1c? As I'm asking about the k1c and flashforge 5m pro, not the base k1.
Thank you for so detailed and helpful review!
This things shakes soooo much
C = Color, it will be an AMS competitor, but too bad I love my P1S
exclude is cool. its on my bambu as well :) them be alot of tabs open there buddy ;)
also u should print some jaw grips for ur vice. metal on metal leaves marks.
Burning the filament out created your own problems. Do you not have a heat gun? A hot air gun will get hot enough to melt lead without setting anything on fire. That might have allowed you to get the stuck filament out. I think they could do better with the Bowden tube routing though.
How dare you use the Aurora Tech Channel print montage music! Hahaha JK.
I'd be interested in a K1C Max. I'd delete the reverse Bowden tube. I print a LOT of TPU and that's a complete non-starter but it's a PIA for all filaments. There should be a domed lid with a filament feed hole in top. I'd root it and put real Klipper on it. Klipper is awesome. Why do most 3D printer manufacturers want to install their own Kripple Klipper? Is it false pride, pretending they invented the firmware when all they did was strip out some functionality and tweak the user interface?
It really bugs me that all of these large manufacturer high speed printers use nozzles that are essentially Volcano nozzles but just different enough to make them proprietary. It's even worse that they launch the printers with the nozzles back ordered. I bought a new extruder and hot end assembly for my Neptune 4 Pro just to ensure production wouldn't grind to a halt. After several months I was able to order a set of brass nozzles that should be here in a couple of days but there are still no hardened steel nozzles. I contacted Micro Swiss and begged them to make a really good extruder and hot end for the Neptune 4 series. These low cost printers are getting to be very good but mediocre extruder assemblies are their weak point in print quality, reliability and maintainability.
K1 is compatible with standard Volcano nozzles, I've been using them since I bought the printer.
LOL. It can't print Nylon Carbon fiber. An Ender 3 can print all of the materials this can print and it's only $100. Also, on the ender 3, you can literally just throw parts away instead of fixing/troubleshooting them. Hotend clogged? $10. Throw the whole damn thing away and install a new one.
I really like the Ender 3 🥰
Well.. this just proves that the k1 series been out really too fast and "underingeneered"… but this is the creality way … 🤷🏻♂️