This is the Ender-3 V3 Plus made by Creality. The V3 Plus is the latest edition of the next generation Ender 3 series 3D printers. Plus means this model now comes with a larger build volume of 300x300x330mm. It also new upgrades including support bars to reinforce the upright gantry, thicker rods on the Z and Y axis, larger motors for the Core XZ motion system and dual motors for the Y axis. Additionally it has built in smart features such as the hands-free auto bed level system and auto Z offset, input shaping, the direct drive extruder and fast printing with speeds up to 600mm/s.
Key Specs
- Core XZ Motion System 600mm/s (300mm/s typical print speed)
- 300x300x330mm Print Size
- 300c Hotend and 100c Heated Bed
- Direct Drive Extruder
- 0.4mm Tri-Metal Unicorn Nozzle
- 4.3” Color Touch Screen
- WiFi and Offline printing
- New Creality 5.0 Software
Packaging
The printer comes well packaged and is mostly preassembled and almost ready to go. The aluminum alloy upright gantry has the tool head installed along with the Core XZ motion system. Next up we have the base which is solid and well-built made from an aluminum alloy and this has the hotbed attached and all the cabling installed.
In the box there’s also support braces for the upright, the spool holder, an anti-tangle material rack, the 4.3” color touch screen, a USB stick, unclogging tool, cable ties, there’s bolts, clips and tools for assembly, a 200gram roll of white Hyper PLA filament, power cord, the user manual, and a sticker sheet.
Assembly
Assembly for this printer is super easy and even for beginners it’s a straight forward process to set up the machine. The manual has clear instructions on how to assemble the printer and with all the complex parts are already setup, parts just need to be bolted together, along with plugging in a few cables. The new generation of the Ender 3d printers are some of the quickest and easiest 3D printer kits to assemble.
Switching on the printer it takes about 28secounds to boot up and on the initial power up we need setup and configure the printer and run the self-check system. This will check and test the hot end, the hot bed, all the fans, run the input shaping and set the auto bed leveling.
Build Quality and Features
Taking a look around the printer the V3 PLUS has a solid cast aluminum alloy build just like the V3 for the base and the upright gantry. It’s solidly built and well design with rounded corners giving it a clean modern look. The main upgrade to the structure is the support bars for the upright gantry, this adds rigidity to the frame to minimize movement in the upright which is especially important for print quality on faster and taller prints.
The V3 PLUS utilizes a Core XZ motion driven by 2 larger stepper motors and belts, there’s no z lead screws and instead this system runs on thicker linear rods to help minimize Z banding and for faster printing. This design also includes an automatic X and Z belt tensioning system built in. The motion on the Y axis is also upgraded with thicker rods and the PLUS model now has 2 motors at either end of the Y axis to move the larger build plate.
The print volume is 300x300x330mm which is plenty of room for medium to large sized projects. On the bed we have a magnetic flexible build plate with a textured PEI print bed surface. The flexible plate makes it easy to remove 3D printed models once they cool, simply by lightly flexing it and removing the printed part.
The V3 PLUS has an auto bed level system and auto Z offset, and for users this is great as there’s no need to make adjustments manually, and the bed level is totally hands free and the process is completely taken care of by the machine. The Z offset can still be manually adjusted on the touch screen if needed. The bed heats up quickly and it reaches a max temp of 100C degrees. At the back we have the filament run out sensor located and this will pause prints if it detects filament has runs out.
The print head contains the direct drive extruder with a locking lever for the filament. And we have dual cooling fans with air ducts cools down the freshly printed layers. The hot end has a ceramic heater for quick heating and it comes with a 0.4mm hardened steel tipped nozzle installed, that reaches temps of up to 300C which is good for a variety of materials like PLA PETG and flexible TPU
The Unicorn nozzle can be swap out with optional 0.6mm or 0.8mm nozzles. The larger nozzles are good for faster printing of prototype parts where you need less detail.
The Ender 3 V3 PLUS is running Creality’s OS which is based on Klipper, this gives faster calculations resulting in faster, smoother and higher quality prints. The 4.3” color touch screen is the same as found on the flagship K-Series printers, providing much better interaction with the machine with more information being displayed. The user interface is responsive and easy to navigate on the touch screen, and we can control the printer, start prints and view settings and see the print progress. For printing methods there’s a USB side port for printing with a USB stick, or with the built in Wi-Fi we can send prints directly from Creality Print slicing software or from Creality Cloud Printing which allows printing, control and remote monitoring. The V3 Plus has print speeds up to 600mm/s with 300mm/s set as the default printing speed the software.
First Print
For the first print we will begin with the high speed Benchy boat, that’s included as a pre sliced file on the printer. It’s a fast print for a Benchy boat and it’s a good first test print to check and confirm the printer is working well. The finished model printed in 14 minutes and it printed out well for a super-fast Benchy print.
Software
Creality has recently upgraded the slicing software and now we’re using Creality Print 5.0, it’s a big upgrade and it offers a clean and intuitive user interface, making it easy to prepare and slice files. There are default presets for slicing files which I find work well. These can be easily customized and adjusted for the models requirements. Once we have a model sliced as a g-code file it can be sent directly to the Ender3 V3 PLUS over Wi-Fi or saved onto a USB drive. It’s good using WIFI and a lot quicker than having to move files from a PC to a printer with SD cards or USB drives. Within the software we can control and monitor the one machine or multiply 3D printers. Making it easy to send jobs, adjust settings and watch over the printer. Prints can also be monitored from the Creality Cloud app or from a mobile device.
More Prints
Onto more prints and we’re printing a place Expanding Ring and this is printed with orange hyper PLA. For prints like this it really important to have a good bed level for the first layer and that the filament adheres to the bed. The model has lots of small individual parts that need to be printed accurately for it to be able move once complete. The finished model had some fine webbing on the print, but with good tolerances all the parts moved freely. I switched out the spool holder for a filament dryer which fixed the webbing in the next prints.
The next print is a detailed Millennium Falcon design printed with black PLA, again it needs a good first layer to capture all the details and the auto bed level along with the PEI build plate create an excellent first layer. The finished model is really nice looking and its very clean print. And to complete the model the two parts are fitted together.
The Orange Vase is printed using the spiral mode which starts with a few base layers and then prints one 0.4mm wall around the edges to create the model.The PEI plate hold models well when printing and allows the printed model to be easily removed as soon as it starts to cool. The final print turned out great and the printer performed as expected. A super clean print with a nice smooth surface finish.
Final Thoughts
After using the printer, I find it to be producing excellent quality prints, all the printed models turned out clean, accurate and with smooth surfaces. Using the filament dryer improved the quality of the prints and also the path of the filament. Another thing to note was the Screen was little hard to see when the bed was fully extended to the front, so the display might be better placed at the side or top of the printer.
The Plus model improves upon the V3s excellent build quality and the newly added support bars and upgraded parts that increase the strength and rigidity are a welcome addition, it makes it the most solid performing printer from the Ender V3 series (better than SE, KE and V3) And with the release of the newly updated Creatilty Print 5.0 software it makes it a highly competitive 3D printer package.
Overall the Ender 3 v3 Plus is well suited for someone whos looking for the latest and best Ender 3 that’s easy to use, produces excellent print quality and has a larger build volume.
Product Links
Watch the full detailed video review here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GFcCVACnrE
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