Creality K1 and K1 Max 3D Printer Overview: Anticipated Velocity ​​with Surprising High quality

In the last year, 3D printing has made a huge leap in speed. Creality is one of the largest 3D printer manufacturers in the world, so it makes sense to produce new printers to keep up with the latest trends.

Typically, Creality makes low-budget, entry-level devices, so I was concerned that the K1 and K1 Max – the company’s new flagships – wouldn’t be able to play with them best fast 3D printers. However, I was wrong. The K1, especially the K1 Max, are solid entries into this new world of 3D printing and well worth the money.

8.5

Creality K1 Max

How

• Large building plate

• Great prices

• Very fast

• A fantastic first coat every time

I do not like it

• Multiple points of failure with filament feeding

• Bad food slicer

While the K1 is Creality’s flagship model with a great price and some fantastic features, the real winner of the pair is the K1 Max. The additional build volume, lidar bed leveling, and time-lapse camera make the K1 a machine I recommend to everyone, who wants to produce large props under time pressure.

8.0

Creality K1

How

• Good price

• Very fast

• App supported

I do not like it

• Slicer isn’t that great

• The app is very ad-heavy

The Creality K1 and K1 Max have the same overall build quality, although the Max has a nicer finish than the K1. The Max features a glass top instead of a plastic top, adding to the premium feel. Of course, the Max has a larger build area, making it a larger machine overall, but almost all other mechanical parts are identical to the K1.

Both machines are direct-drive, rear-fed, and feature the same hot end that can withstand temperatures around 300 degrees Celsius. I may have had more trouble feeding the filament from the back of the K1 Max due to the additional size. It kept getting stuck in the many kinks and curves of the PTFE tubing. It wasn’t a dealbreaker; A little wiggling usually solved the problem, but I did bend the material a few times. Not ideal.

K1 and K1-Max specifications

Setting up both machines was incredibly easy. These things are designed to be as plug-and-play as possible, and it shows. From unboxing to first test print it took less than 5 minutes, including setting up the WiFi and downloading the app to my phone.

A note about the phone app: While it’s great to keep an eye on your expression via the camera when using the K1 Max or just the K1’s control panel, Creality Cloud has its share of critics. The app consists of three main components: the workbench, where your physical printers can be monitored; the Slicer, where you can upload models to be sliced ​​and sent to the printer; and the library, where a shop of models can be downloaded and printed. The workbench works incredibly well and allows you to monitor all aspects of a press. You can speed up the process, pause it, or adjust the fans to your liking while printing. It’s pretty awesome.

However, the other two parts of the app are a little more suspicious. People across the 3D printing industry fear that using the app will allow Creality to use IP it does not have permission to use. This is a big problem for the 3D modelers who originally created the model, as they could lose out on revenue if Creality offers their work for free. For this reason, I’ve avoided using these parts of the app, although to try it out I sliced ​​the CNET test print with the slicer and it worked well.

James Bricknell/CNET

In terms of build quality, the K1 and K1 Max are a mixed bag. Both are well constructed, but the workmanship leaves something to be desired. The important parts like stepper motors, leadscrews and belts are all well assembled and don’t look cheap. Then when you look at the Creality logo and see that it’s placed there crookedly, as are several other stickers, you get the feeling that some of the more human details haven’t been taken into account as well. Again, none of these cosmetic flaws change the print quality, but when you’re spending $600 or more on a product, you expect the logos to be straight.

Regardless of strange logos, the K1 and K1 Max models print extremely well. Gone are the days when you spent months modifying your Creality Ender 3 to produce a good print. These things are ready to use straight away. While Creality offers a potential speed of 600mm/s, the practical speed limit I found was 300mm/s, which is still a huge improvement over 3D printers from just a year ago. Use Hyper Series PLA – a material with a high viscosity when molten so it can be printed faster – gives the best result at this high speed, but even using PETG at 150mm/s gives incredible results. This dragon from Kijai Design is printed in PETG and no details are lost even at high speed.

James Bricknell/CNET

Both 3D printers performed well in the CNET torture test, with the K1 Max doing slightly better than the K1. I think this is where lidar-assisted bed leveling helped as all the tolerance test sticks could be removed. With these pens there is a risk that the first layer will stick if it is not perfect. Therefore, very few printers manage to use all four layers. There was hardly any ringing noise with either printer, and the overhang and lockup tests showed that the K1 and K1 Max performed excellently, even at high speeds. For more information on how we use this test, see our list of the best 3D printers.

With its larger build area, the K1 Max is particularly fun to play around with. The K1 is a decent machine, but it doesn’t stand out from the crowd as much as the K1 Max. It’s amazing to have a fully enclosed printer that doesn’t take up a lot of space and can print full size cosplay helmets, and with a price tag At under $1,000, it’s a must-have for anyone making outfits or armor.

James Bricknell/CNET

Every model I’ve printed, whether on the K1 or the K1 Max, has turned out very well. There were some imperfections visible at 300mm/s, but if you slowed everything down, say 150 to 180mm/s, and reduced the layer height, the prints were as good as anything I’ve done on machines like Prusa’s MK3s+ . was the reigning king of 3D printers just two years ago. It’s a testament to how far software and hardware have advanced in such a short period of time. Remember, 180mm/s is still three times faster than almost any printer available in 2021. So when I say “everything slows down,” that’s a relative statement.

Whichever of these 3D printers you want to buy, the cheap K1 or the big old K1 Max, you’ll get an excellent device for the price. Creality has always created machines that needed tweaking to produce high quality models, but these two run great right out of the box.

If you have $900 and want to choose a model, the K1 Max is my choice. The additional features it offers, like lidar bed leveling and a time-lapse camera, are great, but the build volume of 300 x 300 x 300mm makes the entire machine very special. But if you have like $600? The K1 is a good choice, although I think that Bamboo Lab P1P is slightly better.