You’d be forgiven for thinking that 3D printing is still an expensive hobby, only available to people with a large amount of disposable income, but that has very quickly become anything but the case. However, with so many printers out there vying for the spotlight, it’s very difficult to make one stand out. That being said, the Ender 3 S1 plus is a brilliant larger sized option.
Compared to printers such as the Anycubic Kobra, is the S1 Plus one of the best 3D printers on the market? Well, that’s exactly the question we set out to answer.
Easy to set up, easy to print
Given the size of the box it would be very easy to think that the Ender 3 S1 Plus would be difficult to set up, but that is far from the case. Simple instructions, combined with all the required tools included in the box make for a very simple and quite fun build. Everything slots together in a very neat fashion and is all very logical.
Once all set up and powered on, the menus are all very simple, well laid out and easy to follow, and the levelling was simple to do as well. While the printer has auto levelling of the print nozzle, a certain level of manual levelling will be required to ensure the build plate is properly level. This can be done using the manual screws under the print bed, which are large and easy to operate.
Overall, the set up of this printer was very quick and the time from unboxing to getting started was very quick.
The only item included in the box however which should come with a bit of a heads up is the included filament. The filament included within the box of the actual printer comes loose, and without a spool. This means that it is very tangled and should not be used for prints, since it’s very easy to have an incident where the print fails not even halfway through due to the filament getting caught.
Creality Ender 3 S1 Pro Features & Speed
This is the largest printer on the Ender 3 line-up with a 30x30x30(cm) build area, allowing for some quite large builds. This would be an excellent choice of printer for someone who produces cosplay for instance, where larger parts and segments can easily be made with a good level of detail and quality without having to create many sections to the item. With a print speed of 150mm/s, this is directly in line with the Ender-3 S1 and Ender-3 S1 Pro. The bed temperature can reach a maximum of 100°C and the nozzle a maximum of 260°C, directly in line with the Ender-3 S1, but slightly lower than the Ender-3 S1 Pro’s maximum of 300°C Nozzle Temperature.
The print quality is also excellent, with minimal layering noticeable, and there is hardly any noise from the printer so it was very easy to simply run in the background without worrying too much about a large amount of noise from the motors.
Alongside this, there is a brilliant 4.3-inch touch screen, orientated vertically, giving a large amount of control to prints in progress, as well as ease of viewing the remaining print time and important metrics such as bed temperature and nozzle temperature.
In addition, there is the ability to send files to the printer either by USB Type-C or via an SD card. USB Type-C was easy to use a USB stick with, however one thing to note is only specific SD cards types can be used. SD-XC cards that have high capacity, or high speeds, may not show on the printer as readable media. We are unsure why this is, however, it is something to note if you use a camera SD card interchangeably with the printer.
As a note, the nozzle temperature should be increased to allow for better adhesion between layers, as on the first test print with the Ender-3 S1 Plus there wasn’t a great deal of adhesion as the layers hardened up too fast. Simultaneously, it may be best to preheat the plate to 65 degrees with the included PLA, as there were some slight issues with the first layers slightly warping due to cooling down a little fast. While this is certainly not an issue with the printer, it is something to note.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Ender-3 S1 Plus is an exceptional FDM 3D printer, with a large range of features that should keep any enthusiast very happy. Large models are a breeze, and with a wide range of filament types available on Creality’s website, there’s no shortage of different applications either.
The Ender-3 S1 Plus is available directly from the Creality website and is priced at $529 in the US and €539 in Europe.
