Creality K1 3D Printer – CoreXY High-Speed Printing

Please Note: After the first release of the K1 3D Printer, Creality took community feedback and released an improved hotend and extruder to be included with all future orders. We are happy to confirm, our Creality K1's will feature this improved hotend that elevates the K1 from a good printer to a great one.

Speed is one of the factors that tend to slow down the creative process when it comes to 3D printing masterpiece projects. The 3D printing industry has long since evolved a solution to that problem. The high-speed CoreXY design was exclusive to only the most advanced printer kits that Makers painstakingly built like the powerful Voron kits. But the everyday Maker lost out; Not anymore! After Creality’s foray into high-speed printing with the Ender 5 S1, which reached 250mm/s, they stepped into the deep waters and drew out the K1 3D Printer that lets you crank up the speed and quality to unholy levels.

The Creality K1 is considered Creality’s new flagship 3D printer and for good reason. Stepping away from the classic design that they’ve produced for years with the Ender and CR series. Finally, the CoreXY printer design is striking 3D printers into the high-speed golden age. The K1 reaches a whopping 600mm/s and arrives preassembled so you can start printing after just a few bootup steps. This is truly a professional printer that’s accessible to beginners for its easy use and fair price. Fully enclosed and ready to keep the temperature at sizzle inside there, you can easily print materials like PLA, PETG, TPU, and ABS straight from the box. The K1 is like nothing we’ve seen from Creality before.

What’s a High-Speed Printer like the Creality K1 have to Offer?

• Well, High-Speed Printing that Blows Our Minds – The Creality K1 is a coreXY design that is optimised for speed while providing stable print quality. Every aspect of this printer’s sturdy frame to a high flow hotend comes together to give you 600mm/s print speeds and a whopping 20000mm/s² acceleration. Creality’s first coreXY 3D printer certainly does impress. Print your first Bency in 13min. You can fine-tune your speed to print fast and pump out high quality prints every time.
• Improved High Flow Hotend with Direct Drive – To accommodate the rate your filament is shooting out of the nozzle, the K1’s hotend has to be up for the task. Creality provides a direct drive dual-gear extruder to smoothly feed your filament. The hotend itself reaches 300°C with all-metal parts and a ceramic heater to reach those high temperatures faster. At full blast, the K1 hotend achieves 32mm³/s flow. Creality also boasts less stringing thanks to a large 18W auxiliary fan that enhances the model cooling as each layer goes down. After the first release of the K1, Creality listened to community feedback and improved their K1 hotend assembly for stable reliability. The new version is made of CNC'ed steel alloy, giving you a sturdy hotend that lasts.
• Flexible Ultra-Stick A Plate Build Surface – The K1 sports a new magnetic flexible build plate called the A Plate. This coated steel flex plate offers 220x220mm build volume and holds fast onto your first layer. It is highly recommended to use a glue stick on this bed. Not to help it stick, but to help it unstick! The glue acts as an intermediate layer to help you remove prints. Also, the flexible bend of the plate helps you pop them off.
• Creality OS Speedy CPU – With great speed comes great processing power. At its core, the K1 holds the Creality OS as the brains behind the operating system, with snappy dual-core 1.2GHz power and 8G ROM to store up to 400 model files. This hardware is equipped for high-speed printing and comes with WiFi.
• Klipper Software and WiFi Control – Yes, the Creality K1 is their first step away from Marlin operating and into the wide possibilities of Klipper. With their modified Klipper firmware, you can enjoy the smart connected network and control your 3D printer straight from your PC or phone. With space to install a camera, the software will even let you monitor your prints after a bit of tinkering. See your print progress, temperatures, and speeds from anywhere.
• Fully Enclosed and Preassembled – The Creality K1 is boxed in to keep your printers free from stray cool winds and printing at optimal temperatures. Enclosures are particularly useful for printing temperamental filaments like ABS. Preassembled and ready to go, the K1 will have you printing within minutes without needing to interpret Chinese English assembly instructions. The sleek design of this printer is gorgeous and works so well.
• Automatic Bed Levelling – The features just keep coming on the K1. A strain gauge within the print head itself gives this printer automatic bed levelling. You can truly be hands-free as you press print, sit back, and watch the K1 make magic.

We can go on all day about the new standard that the Creality K1 has set for the everyday hobbyist 3D printer. As one of the best available in the market, this printer is a game-changer to any Maker’s workshop and brings 3D printing even closer to a common household device to have in homes across South Africa. The Creality K1 is a professional level 3D printer that’s smashing into the hobbyist’s price range with user friendliness any beginner can get started with.

Our Verdict on the Creality K1 3D Printer:

We're thrilled to share the Creality K1 3D Printer, and it's safe to say that this printer has left us seriously impressed. This boxed in preassembled masterpiece stole the spotlight for us with its blazing-fast printing capabilities. With speeds that leave others in the dust, the K1 is a true speed demon, delivering your creations swiftly without compromising on quality. Whether you're a seasoned Maker looking to boost productivity or a newbie eager to bring your ideas to life in record time, the K1 has got your back.

But speed is just one piece of the puzzle. The K1 is Creality’s dive into a coreXY design and Klipper firmware, a double whammy of great choices. Unfortunately, they don’t give complete access to all of Klipper's potential in their Creality OS version, but the software has merits and now you can monitor and control your prints from your phone or PC over WiFi. Finally, no MicroSD card is in sight. USB or remote transering your print files is the future. They went for hands-free and meant it, even eliminating manual bed levelling. This is a pivotal moment in the 3D printing industry. We’ve never seen this before from Creality, although it is a clear response to the popularity of printers like Voron and Bambu Labs.

We can see how this became their new flagship 3D printer and we hope more of this fantastic design is coming. It’s got a focus on convenience while pumping our fast quality prints. We can go on all day about the new standard that the Creality K1 has set for the everyday hobbyist 3D printer. The Creality K1 is a professional level 3D printer that’s smashing into the hobbyist’s price range with user friendliness any beginner can get started with.

If you’re interested in a different opinion, Chuck at CHEP reviews the Creality K1 3D Printer on his YouTube Channel with this informative helpful video:

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.