Creality Ender 3 Review

After sitting on the sidelines for several years and watching as consumer 3D printers took off, I finally took the plunge and purchased one of my own.

In order to get the sale price I had to purchase directly from Creality. This felt a little risky, as I was unsure if my product was going to ship all the way from China on the slow boat, or if they had stock in the states ready to ship. The tracking information was a little vague, so I never really found out. But I can say that it arrived in a little under two weeks, and the customer service I received when inquiring about my purchase was friendly and fast.

The package arrived in good condition with no problems. As the photo shows it was packed in a neatly and organized manner with all related parts kept together and even a partially connected wiring harness. The instructions were more helpful than I expected, but occasionally skipped a step and seemed to be written by someone who spoke English as a second language.

An abbreviated view of my assembly process can be seen in the series of images below. All said, it was a fairly simple process. Anyone who is comfortable taking something apart and putting it back together should have little trouble assembling the Ender 3. The points where hardware line up are pretty apparent, and the wire connectors are clearly labeled to avoid wrong connections where possible. (Although I did accidentally swap my Z and X axis once while adding a modification.)

Getting up and running required a small amount of detail work. I needed to tighten the pulleys that connected the extruder head to the gantry and level the heated bed. But there were plenty of videos and forums to help with that. (If you’re curious this video demonstrates a good manual method from about 2:00 - 2:40.)

Once I had it running I wanted to print anything and everything! There are tons of fun little items available for free on Thingiverse that are perfect for beginners and print in a few hours. The files will need to be converted from .stl to .gcode first though. Currently I use a free slicing program called Cura by Ultimaker.

The video below shows the printer in action. It’s fun to watch and I recommend always monitoring the first layer of a print to make sure everything adheres well to the bed. If that all goes well the rest of the print is usually good.

Printing a little snap-pack robot!

As much as I enjoyed printing and assembling the little snap-pack robot seen below not everybody in my household was as convinced of the wisdom of my purchase as I was. However, I soon found ways to prove the usefulness of my new printer beyond just cool toys and do-dads. When I successfully printed a new nozzle for our Dyson vacuum that functioned just as well as any we could have bought the value of my purchase started to become clear. Since then I have been tasked with printing custom cookie cutters, puppy statues, and anatomical heart models just to name a few.

The latest project I’ve enjoyed is not unique to the Ender 3, but a fun part of owning any printer. Part of the beauty (and “Skynet-ish” terror) of a machine that can make more objects is that you can use those objects to improve the machine. I’ve only implemented some basic modifications so far, but they are working well. The images below show the cable chain and z-axis stablizer I recently printed. Both serve to simply improve the organization of components and safe guard against damage. But the fact that I printed them on the same machine makes it that much cooler in my opinion.

All things considered, I have high recommendations for this little printer. It has a decent build space, is simple enough to assemble and use, and available for a very reasonable price. If you are interested in 3D printing as a hobby the Ender 3 is a good fit for you.