Wood, Wires, and Widgets

In 2022, I bought my first 3D printer – a Creality Ender 3 S1 Pro. It has been quite a love/hate relationship. It is delightful when it works, but not because FFF printing is so cool. Sadly, it is delightful when it works because it works so seldom that I’m happy if it is working at all.

In the three years that I owned it, I have:

• Replaced the mainboard.
• Replaced the entire extruder. The fans are not filtered. The filament feeder frequently jams. The heater element wiring is too short and too stiff, placing constant strain on its extruder PCB connector. The connectors are not intended for frequent disconnects and reconnects, so with each rebuild, I had to hope and pray that the electrical paths were still good. Too often they were not.

• Replaced the hotend 3 times. The Ender 3 hotend wiring is really troublesome. The cheap connector on the extruder PCB side is fastened solely with solder joints; it has no mechanical reinforcement. The temp sensor solid enamaled wire is prone to breakage, and the sensor cannot be replaced without replacing the entire hotend. You might ask: “Why would the sensor wire break? It doesn’t flex during printing.” No, but it flexes during every extruder rebuild, and rebuilds happen way too often.
• Replaced the entire cable harness from mainboard to extruder, which failed because the conductors are constantly being flexed and the cable has too many twists and turns that aren’t properly supported and reinforced.
• Purchased a SonicPad “upgrade” that was DOA – the power button did not operate, so you couldn’t turn it on!
• Purchased five build plates because extruder crashes ruined them.

• Rebuilt the extruders far too many times to count: filament jams, geartooth wear, fan cleanings, broken/stripped nozzles, and on and on… Disassembling an Ender 3 extruder is a very tedious, time-consuming process. So many, many, MANY screws!
• Upgraded to Klipper and an external dedicated printing laptop, which was a great upgrade while it lasted – unfortunately the printer only survived a few months after that upgrade.
• Purchased an official Creality enclosure that was a huge disappointment – the clear flexible window was very thoroughly creased to pack the enclosure into its shipping box, and I was never able to see thru it properly.

Then there are all the software defects. Don’t get me started on the software defects! I crashed my extruder so many times because the printer forgot its home position or its Z offset.

Last week, the printer nearly destroyed itself several times because the Z-axis touch sensor failed and the printer’s motors tried to tear the machine apart. I purchased a replacement CR Touch sensor, only to learn that the sensor was not the problem in the first place.

I have my theories, of course: the path from the sensor to the mainboard involves four different cheap connectors and two different cables, one of which flexes constantly during printing. Any of these could be a fault point. But this brings me to my New Year’s resolution:

I RESOLVE TO SPEND LESS TIME FIXING OTHER PEOPLE’S PROBLEMS.

A quick accounting shows that i spent $500 to purchase the printer and another $470 exclusively on repairs. This does not include upgrades, accessories, or consumables like nozzles. It also does not include DOA purchases that were returned for refund. This is just replacing components that failed during normal use.

I am tired of keeping a metric ton of Allen keys on hand. I am tired of figuring out where the amazing variety of machine screws go. I am tired of the hit-and-miss bed leveling system that could have been so simple with only a software change.

I am especially tired of a company that boasts that it is “open source” but I cannot find the source for anything in any of its products. Creality is not alone. Linux is available under GPL license terms. Android’s AOSP uses an Apache 2,0 license. Ever tried to get the source code to your Android phone? How about your car’s infotainment system?

I am also really, REALLY tired of figuring out which products are which. At the time of writing, if you say you have a Creality Ender 3, then you might have any one of these:

• Ender 3
• Ender 3 Pro
• Ender 3 V2
• Ender 3 Max
• Ender 3 S1
• Ender 3 S1 Pro
• Ender 3 S1 Plus
• Ender 3 Neo
• Ender 3 V2 Neo
• Ender 3 Max Neo
• Ender 3 V3
• Ender 3 V3 Plus
• Ender 3 V3 SE
• Ender 3 V3 KE

Here’s the thing that the Creality marketing team does not understand: When a vendor says their product is compatible with the Ender 3 series, it’s probably not compatible with any particular Ender 3. The Ender 3 series uses a range of mainboards, cables, extruders, and other parts that are totally incompatible with each other. I have an entire box of spare cables and accessories that were built for other Ender 3s. Fortunately I won’t have to keep this box for much longer.

My overwhelming impression of Creality as a company is: they are tactically focused and not strategically focused. They fix problems or invent new features and roll them out as fast as possible, without anything resembling a plan. Some might call this “agile.” I’ve been working with technology for awhile now (“awhile” being over forty years) and I call it an unsustainable business model.

It is January 1 of 2025, and I have just ordered a Prusa Mk4S to replace my Ender 3 S1 Pro. I don’t know for sure that the Prusa will be better. There are a few complaints online, but you can find complaints about anything online. All the same, I am cautiously optimistic. Just looking at the list of self-checks and diagnostics built into the Prusa has convinced me: this product was deliberately thought-out, planned, and designed.

Check back. I’ll give my impressions as soon and as often as I can,