Creality Ender 3 S1 3D Printer

Recently, Creality 3D has set a stronger focus than ever before on producing amazing beginner-friendly machines which open the world of 3D Printing up to everyone. At DIYElectronics, we are passionate about bringing great quality 3D Printers to the South African market and growing the Maker Community. We believe the Creality Ender 3 S1 is one of the best to come out of Creality, as it essentially includes everything we loved about the Ender 3 V2, except now sporting major mouth-watering upgrades. At a glance, it’s easy to see that there are a lot of cool new bells and whistles that even experienced 3D Makers would be intrigued by, although what we love most about this 3D Printer is that it’s been designed with the core focus on ease-of-use and convenience.

The Ender 3 Series has always been a reliable range of 3D Printers, with high-quality machines that are favourites for many casual hobbyists on a budget. The Creality Ender 3 S1 however, swoops in with a refreshing spin on our expectations. We can clearly see the inspiration drawn from Creality’s ground-breaking CR-6 SE in this new Ender 3 S1 design with automatic bed leveling, a Sprite Direct Drive Extruder, and other classy features. The Creality Ender 3 S1 is well worth its price tag for the fact it arrives pre-installed with many of the upgraded parts you may have bought later on for your 3D Printer anyway. In fact, Creality’s self-developed upgrades on the Ender 3 S1 are most of the best upgrades we recommended in our DIYElectronics Ender 3 V2 Upgrade Video on YouTube, and there are more included in this machine that we hadn’t thought about!

Great Features of the Creality Ender 3 S1:

• “Sprite” Direct Drive Extruder – Newly developed by Creality themselves, the Sprite Direct Drive Extruder reaches up to 260°C and its interesting dual-gear design is perfect for printing PLA, ABS, PETG, and various flexible filaments like TPU. Feeding with up to 80N force, this extruder minimalizes the distance your filament must travel to the hotend. Loading new 3D filament becomes pain-free and the extruder’s extra control brings cleaner print results. The main standout difference between the Sprite and other Creality extruders is the heatsink, which integrates into the mounting plate, allowing the cooling fan to blow completely through the heatsink. Creality claims this change significantly reduces the chances of clogging, leaving you to enjoy 3D printing issue free.
• CR Touch Automatic Bed Leveling – Although the Ender 3 S1 still provides the classic manual levelling knobs on the print carriage, the installation of the CR touch means your struggle to find that perfect level is over. Automatic bed levelling is a popular upgrade that’s beginning to become a standard feature for modern 3D Printer models. With this in mind, Creality has improved their original BL Touch into the CR Touch with a metallic sensor pin and optical sensor technology. Your Ender 3 S1 will automatically level using 16 points on the bed surface and automatically compensate for any differing height points while printing.
• Flexible Magnetic PC Spring Steel Sheet – The Ender’s standard glass bed is now replaced on the Ender 3 S1 with a PC-coated spring steel bed which peels off the platform and flexes to pop prints easily off the bed. This sturdier and tougher print surface performs wonderfully for good bed adhesion. Flexible build plates bring a new level of convenience to your 3D Printing experience, eliminating any need to shovel your 3D Prints off the bed as it often feels like using a scraper.
• Dual Z-Axis Motors and Dual-leadscrews – Although the new Sprite Extruder is a lightweight design, Creality has gone a step further to include dual Z-axis screws and motors. This extra power and synchronized coordination means your x-axis gantry, where the hotend sits, is guided smoothly as it moves up during your print. Because of the additional weight of a direct drive extruder with the print head, problems may arise if the X gantry is off-balanced or wobbles, creating poor quality 3D prints. However, with two Z-axis motors on the Ender 3 S1, the stability of the X-axis is ensured and makes for an overall safely reliable machine.

The Ender 3 S1 shines on your work desk as a faithful fully loaded companion ready to take the next challenge you throw at it. We can’t stop ourselves from also mentioning that the Ender 3 S1 again gives us a 32-bit silent motherboard with ultra-silent drivers, a filament runout sensor, a convenient toolbox drawer, and mercifully a full-sized SD card slot alongside a Type-C USB connection port. These small thoughtful additions on top of the fantastic features discussed above are exactly why the Ender 3 S1 is a gem to have that every Maker will find joy in using.

Our Verdict on the Creality Ender 3 S1 3D Printer:

With so many fun features drawing our eyes, the Creality Ender 3 S1 had the attention of the whole team at DIYElectronics. We couldn’t help drawing comparisons and dubbing this machine a delightful mashup of the Ender 3 V2 and the CR-6 SE 3D Printers. Eager and more than happy to bring this fantastic printer to our customers, we are in love with its ease-of-use focus for anyone ready to get involved in 3D Printing for the first time.

With that in mind, we truly feel the Creality Ender 3 S1 has everything you need to hit the ground printing in what many often view as a very inaccessible hobby. While it is true you must be prepared to do some self-learning, the Ender 3 S1 has a simple 6 step assembly process that gets you printing almost right out of the box. You will be creating beautiful masterpieces within a matter of days or even hours. And remember, if you ever get stuck, there are mountain-loads of resources available online, DIY Communities that can help you troubleshoot quality issues, and many different guides and tutorials on YouTube just waiting for you to learn from.

With its automatic bed levelling, easy direct drive loading of filament, and easy print removal with a flexible build plate, the Ender 3 S1 near eliminates many of the struggles beginner Makers experience when starting out. Even if you are not a beginner, these awesome features are certainly attractive and will elevate your 3D Printing experience with so much more convenience.

The 3D Printing Nerd on YouTube posted a great video, that shows him unboxing, assembling, and testing the Ender 3 S1. His reflections of all the premium features on this machine are a good second-opinion for you to have a watch:

Although Creality 3D have been working within the industry since 2014, their addition of the Creality CR-10 series is what really catapulted them to the front line of competition, as it offered substantially better quality compared to other 3D printers – while simultaneously reducing the cost and complexities of the machines.

The quality of Creality’s 3D Printers and accessories shows through in their market history, with the brand selling around 3000 printers in their first year on the market, followed by about 10,000 sales over the next year. Now, Creality easily sells around 30,000 or more 3D printers each year, with sales continuously rising as they bring out more models. These are impressive numbers when considering the fact that they entered the industry as unknown competitors, quickly rising through the ranks and now even competing with Wanhao and similar top brands.

If you are looking for excellent 3D Printers that offer affordability without compromising on quality, Creality 3D is certainly a brand that you should take note of. From the basic Creality Ender 2 all the way up to the large build volume Creality CR-10 S5, there are few other brands who are capable of offering such a refined package while still maintaining some of the most enticing prices in the industry.