Worth The Price? Creality Ender 3 S1 3d Printer Review

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In today's video we take a look at the brand new Creality Ender 3 S1. This is Creality's latest offering in their popular line of printers. This follows in the footsteps of the original Ender 3, Ender 3 Pro, and Ender 3 V2. There are some serious upgrades with the highlights being automatic bed leveling as well as a dual gear direct drive extruder. We will go over the printer's specs, unboxing and set up, how it prints, and I will give you my final thoughts on this machine.

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[ame]

I agree with you on their product lineup. I was considering picking a creality printer up just to try one out, and after wasting a few hours trying to decide on one, I decided against it lol. they should slim their lineup down to like 4-6 models and focus on making those way better

[wtflolomg]

Having gone the "Ender 3 Pro modding adventure route" I'm going to say I really regret not spending a bit more money and getting an S1 to start with. Modding ultimately costs more in money, and of course, consumes a LOT of time and material dialing them in - where the S1 delivers most of the mods you will NEED right out of the box. It's possible my experience with the E3P (and a Tevo Tornado) helped make my experience easier with the S1 (I got a Tenlog TL-D3 Pro IDEX up and printing great within an hour of unboxing), but really, it was just a great experience. As you yourself mentioned, there are still mods to be done to the S1 (I highly recommend the "pro" community firmware upgrade and a lightbar), and I'll likely upgrade the hotend before too long - but that's not a mod that will frustrate me like the mods I did on my E3P. It's a pretty terrible experience trying to mod a printer, only to find you are missing a critical component or need to print a tool (but your printer is disassembled) because Creality press-fit a gear on your extruder motor, for example... I also have a dual Z-axis mod for my E3P that went back in the box because of binding issues... so the Ender 3 S1 gets a big thumbs up from me for all levels of 3D Printing enthusiasts. Far fewer headaches with troublesome mods just to bring a printer up to decent and consistent performance.

[SirNarax]

This is kind of what I was waiting for these years. While the costs have been down for a while I was waiting for someone to develop both a lowish cost and require next to no setup. While I want a 3D printer to pursue a hobby I have no intention on turning 3D printing into the hobby. It is a tool and I don't want to have to work on it but work with it. I am currently debating if I want to just get the Ender 3 and tolerate some of the more manual aspects or if I want to just bypass that but pay a good bit more for the S1.

[marsgizmo]

excellent review! 👏
I also think it should come with a full metal hotend, we need to get rid of those PTFEs near the high temps

[BarrettAnderies]

I flashed Klipper on my Ender 3 S1 last week and the performance is unreal. The stock firmware is okay, but the print speed is unacceptably slow and you get terrible ringing at higher speeds. With Klipper with pressure advance and input shaper tuned, I can print at 100mm/s and 3000mm/s^2 with incredible results. If you have a Raspberry pi and accelerometer I highly recommend you try it out.

[MikeC]

Great overview of the Ender 3 S1 Printer. I agree with you that Creality should have included the things found in the S1 Pro into their first model and just charged another $50-$70 for the only model. I did purchase the S1 several weeks back and have been very pleased with it’s performance and the quality of the prints I’ve gotten so far. I had originally purchased the CR-10 Smart, but had some serious bed leveling issues that couldn’t be resolved easily so I took it back. I order the CR-10 Smart Pro (with the camera) and got an email saying it would be shipped by the end of April so I picked up the S1 to get me started in 3D printing. Fortunately or Unfortunately the CR-10 Smart Pro arrived the day after I got the S1, but I was able to convince my wife that I could keep two printers busy and that has been the case since then. I really like the S1 and would highly recommend it as a first printer over the standard Ender 3 just for the upgrades you get that most people seem to add anyway.

[robertjohnhopkins]

Just got this for the kids to print models for £230 and cant wait to play with it more than them. I know this is the hobby I've been waiting for.

[willmar]

I bought 2 Voxelab X2 and modify the Hot end with Gold coast Robotics all Metal hot end, harden steel nozzle, Ghub flexible metal plate, new RGB quiet fans and works Great been printing every Day for past 3 months all that for $80.

[MrGerhardGrobler]

Nice video 👍. Watched it after I bought my Ender 3 S1....
I own an original Ender 3, an Ender 3 Max, Biqu B1 and now the Ender 3 S1.
Out of the box it worked great.
But that 1st layer...
Permanent filament embedding...
So I have been fine tuning my Z offset. But happy with my purchase.
I need a printer that works.
No fiddling with bun files and all that. It must work out of the box, not be over complicated to work, and the warm tip settings and the cure profile had me getting the same results as the pre-sliced files on the 8GB memory card.
So a 9/10 printer for a straight user, not for mods.

[ztynzo]

I think Creality tends to try to flood the market with variations on their printers, and I personally don't understand it. (I mean they've been doing it and making money, so it seems to be working for them, but I am convinced it divides up their focus, away from QC, customer feedback, etc).

I'd rather they produce fewer product lines and focus that extra energy on things like QC or being able to source additional features at lower rates.

[MTNDEWGANG]

i just bought the pro sprite extruder for my base ender 3, upgraded the board, plate added tensioners from a dead v2. I basically have a poor mans s1, lacking a bed leveler, and runout sensor.
It was a journey to say the least, but for convience, the s1 pro would defintley be a good buy for a casual user if they want all the fancy stuff right out of the box.

[mr.spongylikeaboss]

Creality already sells 2 all metal throats for the Ender S1 a Titanium one and a bi-metal one.. both under $30. They also sell a hotend kit that come with the metal throat, a heatblock with cartridge thermistor, and a 50W heater. You can also buy the Sprite Pro Extruder by itself. So, lot's of options.

[WKfpv]

The other reason to buy the S1, and that's why I got a S1 pro, is I already have a highly moded V2, and I picked it as my second printer.

[btmedic]

theres a modified cooling fan duct on thingiverse that i feel works pretty well. Ive also discovered that if you position your model in such a way that the majority of the length of any overhang is in alignment with the y axis, that you can get some pretty crazy overhang angles successfully printed. Im waiting for availability to buy a sprite pro and swap out the stock sprite. I just wonder if Id be able to flash over the standard e3s1 to the e3s1 pro firmware for the increased temperature range, i sure hope so

[JasonGillmanJr]

I picked up an S1 as my first printer back in February, and I've honestly been quite happy with it. I've got no issues modding things, but in this case, I wanted something that could get up and running relatively expediently because I don't think my seven year old son would be as patient as I getting things spun up.

I will say that going with the mrisoc custom firmware (which you did show the github page for in the video) is an absolute no brainer. It allows you to go up to 9x9 for the autolevel mesh (although in my experience it failed after the 64th point, so I can only do 8x8), and has the bed tramming assistant. It's amazing how much the bed could be adjusted when you can actually look at the autolevel mesh.

As mentioned, though, kinda of a surprise the hotend isn't all metal. I've been getting by printing PETG (just watched your video on that today) for most of my prints at 235/65, but I definitely would like to make things all metal at some point for a buffer.

[hassosigbjoernson]

Well ... if someone wants a really good equipped printer, then the S1 Pro (for half the price of an prebuild Prusa Mk3S+) is a solid choice!
With the Sonic Pad its even faster. It's also always nice to the option to upgrade the machine somehow if needed or wanted, even if it's just for fun!
Thats one thing the Bambu Lab P1P lacks.

[lexzbuddy]

We just bought one, it has a faulty SD card slot. The UK vendor and Creality are dragging their heals with replacement. Absolutely terrible support. So we haven't managed to print a thing and nobody is willing to replace it or supply a new main board.

[joehiden]

I am with you on all metal hot ends. It is stupid to limit the first-time owner to 250 degrees C and a PTFE tube. I love to mod things but have not been able to get the Ender 3 V2 Neo to update software and I am using the SD card that came with the computer. So, I formatted the card with the 4096 byte allocation size, downloaded the software from Creality's website. I bought a Sprite to upgrade my Neo and could not get that software installed either. Maybe I have a bad SD card. The one out of my camera would not allow me to do the 4096 byte allocation so I went back to Creality's card with no luck. Great job on the video. I want the Sprite Pro and hope I do not have to buy the S1 Pro to get it.

[billlong]

You can buy a replacement all metal hotend directly from Creality that allows up to 300C temps.

[JustinJJHCS]

Yes The Creality ender3 S1i one of the best for your money.. More effective if you activate leveling corners and mesh bed leveling..