Now on Kickstarter- the Creality CR-6 SE 3D Printer

Hey everyone! I’ve got a 3D printer here that my sponsors at Creality tell me has some really cutting edge features, the CR-6 SE. It’s got a special new, high performing bed material, new touchscreen interface and a fully automatic bed leveling system they say has never been done before. I’m pretty skeptical, we’ve got some real amazingly creative folks in the RepRap community and there isn’t a lot they haven’t tried already. So let’s unbox this bad boy and see if it’s as good as they say. They sent me a T-shirt. Yeah, it’s their 6th anniversary. Okay, this is the filament. The touchscreen but it comes separately so I have to put it on myself. The filament holder.

01:46 - This is actually 3D printed, a 3D printed accessory. Cable The gantry. Alright, the toolbox is actually hidden underneath here. Without the usual paper box that comes with all the little bags. They packed them all in one unit like this. The screws, they are supposed to go in like before, they go underneath here. Wow, they even upgraded the flush cutter. Alright, let’s take a look at the display. Okay, let’s switch to English. The touchscreen is very sensitive, very responsive. Not bad, it looks much better and it feels much better. Let’s peel off the sticker and level the bed. I really like this lever. Before I level the bed, I have to put in the filament which means I have to heat up the nozzle. Let’s go to prepare, Preheat PLA. So much easier to feed the filament in.

06:11 - This is auto-leveling so I just click auto-leveling. And it will go through all the 16 points on the bed. Alright, that’s it. Finished the auto-leveling. So for all of you Creality owners out there, finally, we have real SD card now, not those microSD cards anymore. Big deal, let’s put it in. Let’s see what’s on the card, let’s try to print the 3D Benchy. As you can see we have an optical switch on the Z-axis that means your first layer is going to be very accurate.

07:17 - Okay, I am going to show you something really neat. I am going to apply pressure on the nozzle, you see the blue light going on here? This is their auto-leveling system and it’s using the strain-gauge up here. It’s very unusual, very cool. Okay and this is their new extruder, I kind of took it apart. It can handle TPU no problem. And you can feed the filament through very smoothly, so far there is no problem, I really like it. And I really like this filament holder, you can move it from side to the back, it really depends on how much space you have.

07:54 - Right now it is 3D printed but on Kickstarter, it’s going to be injection molded. Straight out of the box, that’s a beautiful Benchy. Very happy about that. Okay, you need very good tolerance on this model and it came out perfectly. This model was printed without support, it’s a very challenging model. You can see some hair here and there, but this is one of the better prints (of this object) I have ever seen.

08:31 - Who cares about the print? Who’s that model? I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a stunning girl in my life, she is beautiful. And for our friend Angus aka Maker’s Muse, the torture cube, a really really difficult print. It prints out perfectly the first time, I am so happy to see it. Thanks to Angus for this model, I am going to link to it in the description box. Okay, a few observations. Obviously, this is almost a finished product, the advantage of crowdfunding is cost- group orders mean lower prices.

09:10 - The only thing I’d like to see done before it ships is a good variety of slicer profiles and test models on the SD card. This printer is different enough that the profiles of other Creality printers just don’t give acceptable results. I think the nozzle and the bed leveling system give good enough results to justify using them over stock Creality hardware. My concern is it will be a while before those are available through Aliexpress and other online retailers as replacement parts the way most Creality parts are. I don’t really like only being able to get parts from one vendor.

09:52 - Creality is good about stocking and shipping spare parts, but still, it’s just my personal preference. In terms of assembly time, usability, and print quality the CR6-SE is a clear winner over my previous favorite, the Ender-3. It’s an exceptionally good value and has many of the upgrades that are most common for Creality printers already integrated. Final verdict, the CR6-SE has substantially better print quality out of the box than any other Creality printer I have used, or any printer I know of for its price and build area. If you can get it for under $300 to $350 it’s a great value.

10:36 - The CR6-SE replaces the Ender-3 as my pick for the best 3D printer for a beginner to buy. Although for very tight budgets, the Ender-3 at $200 is still phenomenal. I’ll link to the Kickstarter page in the description. That’s it for today, I’ll see you all next time. And remember if I can do it, anyone can do it! .