The K1 is a cutting-edge 3D printer that redefines the world of 3D printing with its features and performance. Designed with CoreXY kinematics, advanced print cooling, and an ingenious bed levelling system, the K1 revolutionises the 3D printing experience. This comprehensive Creality K1 3D Printer review will determine if this innovative product delivers what it claims.
Here, we will also see whether it is a worthy investment for 3D printing enthusiasts. By exploring the capabilities and unique features, we will share our insights and experience after using the product.
Continue reading our Creality K1 3D Printer Review to learn about its appearance, features, specs, and performance. But before anything else, let us look at its contents and packaging.
Creality K1 3D Printer Packaging
Embracing an unparalleled approach to packaging, the K1 arrives in a wooden crate, setting it apart from conventional printer deliveries. Unlike others, the printer comes as a 99% pre-assembled product, requiring minimal effort for setup.
Creality ingeniously ships the K1 encased in a wooden crate reinforced with standard cardboard packing inside to protect its glass sides.
This novel packaging and effortless setup procedure contribute to the reputation of Creality as an innovator in the 3D printing world. Its thoughtfully designed packaging guarantees safe delivery. The user-friendly setup allows you to work on 3D printing endeavours without hassle.
While inspecting the box for our Creality K1 3D Printer Review, we saw that everything was complete. The company included the essentials necessary to set up your printer, including the following:
- Tools for Maintaining the Printer
- Side Cutters
- USB Stick
- Plastic Scraper
- Small Spool of White Hyper PLA from Creality
- PDF Copy of its Manual
- Creality Slicer Copy
- Pre-sliced Models in .stl and .gcode Format
You will find a helpful and easy-to-follow video to help you operate the K1 inside the USB stick.
Creality K1 3D Printer Review – Design and Functionality
The K1 is a cutting-edge, fully enclosed Core XY printer boasting a modern and stylish design. A standout feature is the separation between the printing chamber and electronics, cleverly positioned at the base of this printer.
This strategic arrangement serves a dual purpose: while the printing enclosure remains hot, the electronics enjoy adequate ventilation. It ensures everything stays aired and functions optimally.
A notable evolution from its previous Sprite Extruder design is evident in the K1. Recognising the demand for enhanced printing speed, Creality introduced a new style to meet the requirements of high-performance printers.
With these advancements and improvements, the K1 establishes itself as a formidable contender in the 3D printing landscape. It then promises an efficient and impressive printing experience.
The product is a direct dual-gear extruder featuring a customised circular pancake stepper motor. It also sports a locking mechanism that helps clamp the gears to the filament.
What caught our attention was the locking mechanism. It works effectively by stopping the extruder gears from slipping out when the filament enters at high speeds. Generally, standard spring-loaded extruder arms do not apply adequate pressure for such.
Creality K1 3D Printer Print Bed
The printer features a regular Ender-sized print bed surface, measuring 220x220mm. This size is adequate for your standard 3D prints, but not more than this measurement.
For the surface material of its print bed, Creality opted for something new. There is no PEI-coated bed or a coarse PC-coated surface. Instead, they integrated an almost smooth surface with a slightly bumped texture.
CoreXY Kinematics
The way the K1 gets its print head moving is excellent, and it is called CoreXY kinematics. It is known for its speedy printing functions, which differs from the slower Cartesian setup usual in other 3D printers.
The secret behind its swiftness is that it keeps things lightweight. They cleverly mounted the X and Y steppers on the frame, reducing the moving mass. It means the print head glides like a pro across the print area with minimal ringing and print quality issues.
Print Cooling
Incorporated within the K1 is a notable enhancement in the print cooling system. This advancement involves using two or three distinct fans crucial in solidifying the freshly printed layers.
The first component comprises the print head fan measuring 40×20mm. It sports a blower design to channel air through a shroud and target the nozzle area. Replacing the previous Sprite 40×10mm fan, this upgraded version improves cooling efficiency around the nozzle area, proving itself highly effective.
What is even better while writing our Creality K1 3D Printer Review is the large fan on the side.
This addition helps push plenty of air across the print to cool the layers down immediately. It also ensures that the product prints new layers above already hardened ones.
Its third fan is more of an enclosure than a print type. It measures 60mm and is ideal for exhausting fumes and VOCs.
Key Features of the Creality K1 3D Printer
Incredibly Speedy
The K1 works 12x faster than a standard FDM 3D printer, providing 100% efficiency and breathtaking speed. It will help cut your printing time, improving efficiency to create more work.
Aside from speed, the printer uses less energy to provide optimised output, making everything more eco-friendly. And most importantly, it allows you to focus on creating beautiful prints for your needs.
With its 20000mm/s² acceleration, the printer can ramp up to 600mm/s in just 0.03 seconds. It means the printer can deliver full speeds in only 90% of your printing time.
Speed and Accuracy via the Nimble Setup
The printer also uses the Nimble Core XY with a 190g printhead to provide less motion inertia. This combination provides agility and swiftness while printing.
Full Blast with 32mm³/s Flow
The K1 sports a new ceramic heater that encircles the hot end. It can heat 200 degrees in 40 seconds and melt filaments in a snap. It also comes with a dual-gear direct extruder that delivers 50N extrusion force.
Additionally, it has a hot end made of a titanium alloy heartbreak, plus a nozzle of copper alloy. These work efficiently in up to 300 degrees.
Model Cooling via Dual Fans
Upon observing the product for our Creality K1 3D Printer Review, we noticed the fans integrated by the company. The printhead houses a large fan featuring air ducts to directly cool the printer. An 18W auxiliary fan along its build chamber is present for optimising the cooling effect.
Because of the fans, the model hardens before warping or stringing occurs; plus, it allows overhangs and support-free badges.
Creality K1 3D Printer – The Print 4.3 + Speed Genes
Print 4.3 from Creality is its latest self-developed slicer. It includes presets and streamlines the slicing method into three sections. This feature is even better because it helps increase printing speed with arc path, variable line width, etc.
Quick Creality OS + Hardware
The printer uses the Smart Creality OS. It features a user-friendly UI that syncs data and works with your Smartphone, PC, Cloud, and add-on modules.
The dual-core 1.2GHz CPU powers top-speed printing easily. Its 8GB ROM can save 400 model files while allowing quick reads/writes.
Minimal Operation for Increased Convenience
The aluminium alloy heat bed uniformly spreads heat. It can reach up to 60° Celsius in less than two minutes. Plus, it has strain sensors embedded to generate a levelling mesh with accuracy.
In addition, a tap allows the K1 to self-test the extruder, fan, heat bed, camera, levelling, etc. It will notify you of any errors via a prompt on the display.
The K1 also has a heat-resistant build plate with a frosted surface, making it work with various filaments. It is also bendable, allowing for easy print removal.
Excellent Design of the Creality K1 3D Printer – Suitable for Any Space
We will discuss what makes the design of this product excellent in our Creality K1 3D Printer Review.
After removing the K1 from the box, we immediately noticed its classy compact design. It is one of the most compact 3D printers within its range of build volumes. As a result, it is easy to set it on your desk or workbench.
Stands Firmly at High Speeds
The K1 has a rigid die-cast aluminium frame that can stand steady even when printing at fast speeds. It never fails to deliver superior print quality.
Convenient Control and Monitoring
The K1 works with both a USB drive and WiFi when printing files. You can control it remotely from Creality Print or Creality Cloud via a network connection. Plus, it allows cluster control if you have more than one K1 printer online.
You can also receive notifications on your smartphone or PC if the printing is successful or abnormal.
No Ringing at High Speed
The printhead of the K1 has a G-sensor to measure the resonance frequencies of high-speed printing. It also automatically tweaks the printer to reduce the frequencies and prevent ringing or ghosting on prints.
Reduced Z-banding for Subtle Texture
Creality enhanced the Z-axis with more accurate positioning to minimise Z-banding, making the texture more subtle.
Specifications
- Print Technology: FDM
- Extruder: Sprite Direct Drive
- Supported Filament: PLA/TPU/PETG/ABS/PET/Carbon
- Rated Voltage: 100-120V~ / 200-240V~, 50/60Hz
- Rated Power: 350W
- Ambient temperature: 10°C-30°C
- Maximum Nozzle Temperature: 300°C
- Maximum Heated Bed Temperature: 100°C
- User Interface: 10.9cm touchscreen-
- Slicing File Formats: AMF, STL, OBJ
- Printing interface: USB Flash Disk/LAN Printing
- Machine Weight: 12.5kg
- Dimensions: 355 x 355 x 480mm
- Maximum Build Dimensions: 220 x 220 x 250mm
Hands-on with the Creality K1 3D Printer
In our Creality K1 3D Printer Review, we will discuss our entire hands-on experience with the product. It includes setting it up, using its touchscreen interface, software, print quality, and performance during operation.
Creality ships the K1 pre-assembled. Once out of the package, you must unscrew the three screws securing the build plate. Next, plug the touch screen and attach the filament holder with a screw.
The printer features an intuitive 10.9cm colour touchscreen that offers a seamless and responsive user experience. Navigating through it and its menu system is effortless and user-friendly.
Combined with Creality Slicer, the printer showcases miniature previews of your prints to choose the desired print jobs. Moreover, the K1 uses a specialised version of Klipper, enabling it to retain a comprehensive history of all its past print jobs.
Setting up the Creality K1 3D Printer
The initial setup process is straightforward and user-friendly. The printer provides clear prompts, guiding you through each step.
The printer performs a comprehensive self-check to verify proper functioning and calibration during setup. Doing so ensures everything is in order before commencing its operation.
After progressing through the on-screen prompts, you will reach the self-test phase. This test covers various aspects of the 3D printer, including the nozzle and automatic levelling. Our experience showed that the K1 took approximately 15 to 20 minutes to complete this testing phase.
The calibration process may take longer than anticipated, approximately 15 minutes. You can store the results for future prints, so it should not be inconvenient.
Assuming the calibration proceeds smoothly, you can initiate a test print without delays. However, we advise attaching the provided rubber-dampening feet before starting any printing tasks.
Regarding connectivity options, the K1 offers three convenient methods for sending files. You can transfer files via a USB stick or WiFi over your home or office LAN. Or, you can use the Creality Cloud platform instead.
Performance
As previously mentioned, the Creality K1 3D printer has a compact sample spool of Hyper PLA. It is a cutting-edge high-speed filament developed by Creality. This filament boasts exceptional strength and delivers smooth prints even at impressive speeds of up to 600mm/s.
The print quality achieved by the K1 is fantastic, especially considering its rapid printing capabilities. The print bed also had a uniform temperature, which prevented warping and other problems.
During our tests, we had no issues with the hot end of the K1. We did not notice uneven extrusion, clogging, or other similar issues. Plus, it handled different types of filament perfectly.
Prints came out incredibly smooth and fantastic looking, even when just running the stock settings. We did not need to tinker to adjust anything with the printer and it printed flawlessly straight out of the box.
Creality K1 3D Printer Review Summary
The K1 from Creality is excellent for 3D printing enthusiasts who want speed and user-friendliness. After testing it for our Creality K1 3D Printer Review, we noticed its potential and advantages for beginners and experts.
This 3D printer offers unparalleled printing speeds and does not compromise performance or print quality. Plus, it works with multiple types of filaments. We appreciate its innovative bed levelling system and other upgraded technologies that saved us time working on more prints.
The K1 is a reliable 3D printer offering significant printing speed advantages and reliable bed levelling. We highly recommend this product since its superior performance is ideal for those who need fast, high-quality prints.
Visit the official product page of Creality for more details about the K1 3D Printer.
