Creality Ender-7 Hands-on Review

Creality Ender-7 Hands-on Review

Creality released their new 3D printer Ender-7 in June 2021, it was advertised that this brand new product breaks through their other 3D printer of 50mm/s-100mm/s, can reach up to the speed of 250mm/s, which exceeds the normal printing speed in the market. There is no doubt that with such a fast speed printing, it can be a good way to save your printing time and make your work presentable faster. But does it work as accurately and consistently in the high speed mode as it claims to? Let's take a look.

Design & Features

Design

Creality Ender-7 Hands-on Review

As a growing 3D printer brand, Creality has risen to fame in just a few years, its quickly squeezing into the FDM 3D printer market is not only based on the price and quality of its products, but also by its own innovation and creativity. They release some new products almost every year, responding quickly to customer requests and looking for the potential opportunity. This time, Creality aims for the bullseye of fast printing, the feature that almost no one asks for. And the design of Ender 7 is also significantly different from their previous products.

According to the team of Creality, the design of Ender 7 references the appearance of "Temple of Athena Nike", the famous and historic temple in Greece, unlike the 4-column temple built with white marble on the left and right side, the Ender 7 only has 3 triangular distributed "Roman column" to support its top.

Ender 7 follows past Creality CoreXY machines in the Ender 6 and CR-30, continuing adapting CoreXY architecture, which is widely sought for its enabling of fast, high-quality printing. Because CoreXY operates with a system of two long, stacked belts – each independently responsible for diagonal motion, but working together, axial – belt tensioning and placement of the pulleys are important.

But Creality has an answer to the tension problem, though, by implementing a high-rigidity motion system into the Ender 7: linear rails. Bearing-block linear rails are often considered the ideal motion guide. They’re incredibly stiff, making them ideal for a demanding system like CoreXY, yet still able to swiftly glide across an axis.

Features:

  • 250 mm/s High-speed printing · High precision linear rail · Core-XY Structure · A customized high volume nozzle · Customized high-power motors · High-speed cooling fans · High-efficiency operational control algorithm · Minimalist aesthetic design

Price & Specs

Price:

The retail price is $729
Buy on Pergear:  Creality Ender 7  (5% off)
Buy on Amazon: Creality Ender 7  (5% off)

Start Date: 09/30/20219:00 AMPDT

End Date: 10/25/202111:59 PMPDT

Specs:

PROPERTIES Build volume: 250 x 250 x 300 mm Feeder system: Bowden drive Print head: Single nozzle Nozzle size: 0.4 mm Max. hot end temperature: 260 ℃ Max. heated bed temperature: 100 ℃ Print bed material: Coated glass Frame: Aluminum Bed leveling: Manual Connectivity: SD card, USB cable Print recovery: Yes Filament sensor: Yes Camera: No

MATERIALS Filament diameter: 1.75 mm Third-party filament: Yes Filament materials: Consumer materials (PLA, ABS, PETG, Flexibles)

SOFTWARE Recommended slicer: Cura, Simplify3D, Repetier-Host,Creality Operating system: Windows, Mac OSX, Linux File types: STL, OBJ, AMF

Unboxing and Assemble

Creality Ender-7 Hands-on Review

The Ender 7 arrived in a large box, it weighs about 22kg, similar to Ender-6. It comes with partially assembled and was well packaged.

You will get the following parts in the package: 3D printer base frame Z-axis series component Z-axis profile Top component Printing Platform Accessory tool sets (metal scrapers, screws, shears, power cords, plate hand, nozzles, consumables, etc.)

Following the users manual and the guide blog, you can easily know how to install this printer. To be honest, just as the official says, you can finish the install within 30 minutes, and there is not too much room to make mistakes if you follow the setup steps. All the connectors are different and you can easily put all six modules together by just plugging them in and tightening the screws. The build quality is great, the materials used are high quality, every part is designed well, stable and sturdy. And larger stepper motors will provide this much-needed torque and power to the X and Y axes as well as the extruder.

Test

Creality Ender-7 Hands-on Review
Creality Ender-7 Hands-on Review
Creality Ender-7 Hands-on Review
You can buy the materials here.

Speed is not the only thing that affects the print time, the thing that is really slowing us down is acceleration. Printer needs a specific amount of time to reach certain speed, it does not happen instantly. So with models like 3D benchy, the distance between one point and another is so small , that the printer never reaches its top speed, so when you print on ender 7, the print time is not greatly reduced.

That's said there will be not much visible advance when you print small model. The printer speed comes out when you printer the big project, and it will goes smoothly when the printer speed accelerate.

Tested with a 164.4 x 164.4 x 245.4 mm vase model When compare the estimated print times on Creality Slicer, it shows 30 hours of the Creative 3D Ender-7 and the printing time of Ender-3 V2 is 44 hours, there is a 14 hours time difference, you did save some print time.

To avoid too much interference from the outside world, this test uses offline printing to record actual print speeds. Ender-7 actually print this vase model in only 23 hours, which is 7 hours faster than the estimated time, and the Ender -3 V2 printer actually took 40 hours to print the vase.

The glass pallets made of silicon carbide make it extremely easy to remove the vases printed with this product, without the transitional sticking phenomenon.

Finally, let us check the result of this vase printed by Ender-7, the structure is symmetrical, no obvious deformation and distortion in the body, when you look closely and carefully, you can still see the existence of excess drawing when printing, but you can use sandpaper to lightly sand to solve this problem.

In my opinion, this print test is successful, it saves me more than 14 hours, and the result comes out cheerful. Over I'm impressive by this ender 7. But if you are just planning print small model, you can find better solution in other 3D printer.

Printed vase from customer

Creality Ender-7 Hands-on Review

The competition

From the article on All3DP.com, there are 3 similar products: Creality Ender 6, Prusa MK3S+, and Two Trees Sapphire Pro

Creality Ender 6 Ender 6, the previous generation of ender 7, they are both CoreXY printers. Their print bed is both 250 x 250 mm, but the height of Z-axis is different. Ender 6 offers potentially taller prints with a 400 mm high Z-axis, the Ender 7 is 300mm. What’s more, the Ender 6 is semi-enclosed with acrylic panels and can be further furnished with a removable top cover to fully enclose it — stabilizing printing temperatures and protecting parts from environmental influences. But the fastest print speed of Ender 6 is 150mm/s. Price: $569 Shop: https://www.creality.com/goods-detail/ender-6-3d-printer

Prusa MK3S+ The Prusa MK3S+ is upgraded version of Prusa MK3S,offering 250 x 210 x 210 mm print volume. Featured a removable PEI spring steel print sheets, automatic Mesh Bed Leveling, filament sensor and power loss recovery (power panic). Price: $749 Shop: https://shop.prusa3d.com/en/3d-printers/180-original-prusa-i3-mk3s-kit.html

Two Trees Sapphire Pro The Saphire Pro is another CoreXY printer, offering a decent 235 x 235 x 235 mm print volume and a semi-automatic bed leveling sensor. With its price tag of $300, it is one of the most affordable CoreXY 3D printers currently available, and we found the machine to work quite well once you get the initial hiccups under control. Price: $499 Shop: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Two+Trees+Sapphire+Pro&ref=nb_sb_noss

Conclusion

As a 3D printer that focuses on printing speed, the ender7 does accomplish its goals in some ways. It produces quality prints and is reliable, easy to use, quiet and versatile. It will fit in just as well at design studios, prototyping companies, and architectural firms.

You can buy the Ender 7 if you want a high-speed, well-equipped CoreXY 3D printer and don't mind a few minor design flaws on the Z axis and the fact that the print volume is small. And it is important to note that using high speed printing without reaching sufficient temperature may result in fragile products printed from the infill (several customers have reported this problem).

Overall, this is a good product with budget price for the 3D printer beginner. You will be happy with its performance, especially since it greatly reduces your wait time for print results.

Creality Ender 7: Specs, Price, Release & Review: https://all3dp.com/1/creality-ender-7-review-3d-printer-specs/ 

Creality Ender 7 - Unboxing and first impression: https://youtu.be/UoH5sYyT5CU 

Creality Ender -7 Unboxing & Assemble: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qJdEsnO4AQ 

 

Q&A: Some customers may want to know what to do if the Teflon tube is curled at the extruded end of the machine?

Improving the stability of the feed is good for the stability of the print quality and reducing the friction between the Teflon tube and the material
It is recommended to use adhesive tape to stick the Teflon tube to the side plate as shown in the figure, or print the print parts fixed.

If you want to download the fixed print profile(stl), check out this link: 
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1X6dj9w2bGOlj7NqM45r_TMWN_X_beciI/view?usp=sharing

Leave a comment

All comments are moderated before being published