Large print volumes need stiff frames, as even slight movements are amplified by a gantry 40 cm above the print bed. The CR-10 V2 is made from aluminium extrusions which don’t always produce the sturdiest frames, so in order to improve stiffness, this version has a cross-brace that supports the z-axis. Creality calls this the ‘golden triangle’, though it comes in matt black. Under this frame is a ceramic-coated glass print bed.
The CR-10 V2 arrived well-packaged in protective foam, and required only minimal assembly. The z-axis gantry had to be attached to the base, the cross-brace needed screwing in place, and a few wires needed connecting up. The instructions weren’t quite as clear as they could have been, but despite this, we had a working printer in about an hour, with only minor frustration.
The control board and power supply are in an external unit, which seems to annoy some people, but we don’t have any problem with this. The connecting wires are bundled into three chunks which are well protected enough not to feel vulnerable. The only downside to it, for us, is that we struggled to fit the whole lot in our slightly limited workshop space.
There’s a filament outage sensor mounted on the frame, but this is so close to the filament drive that it’s nigh on impossible to get the old filament out and replace it, should the filament run out. Perhaps there’s a technique to this that we haven’t discovered yet.
We followed the setup guide to the letter, but couldn’t get a working 3D print on the machine until we wiped the print bed (ceramic-coated glass) down with isopropyl alcohol. This isn’t a particularly unusual step in 3D printing, but it is a little unfortunate that this (or some other bed preparation routine) isn’t detailed in the ‘getting started’ guide, as it would be dispiriting for a beginner to struggle to get a working print from their new machine.
Once we did get everything up and running, we found the printer capable of producing good-quality 3D prints, and running incredibly quietly while it does this. The machine came with an SD card preloaded with two models
(a cat and a dog), as well as manuals and the slicing software.
Although you can use just about any 3D printer slicer with the CR-10 V2, the Creality- branded version of Cura that is included (you can also download this from the website) comes with settings that reduce stringing. This is particularly important as Bowden-driver printers such as this are prone to accumulating these little hairs of plastic, created when the nozzle moves without printing. Using a different slicer may leave your prints looking like they’ve been attacked by a swarm of hungry spiders.
The Creality Slicer is a bit stripped back, and wouldn’t be our first choice of slicers, but does do all the basic jobs of a slicer. If you’d rather use Cura, pay particular attention to the combing, wiping, and coasting settings too, if you’re having problems with stringing.
OPTIONAL UPGRADES
While this printer does work well out of the box, there are a few upgrades that you might want to consider. This printer has a huge print volume, but actually utilising a significant proportion of it would take days (literally).
The main reason for this is the 0.4 mm nozzle – this is pretty much the standard nozzle size on 3D printers and while that makes sense for smaller printers, for one this size a larger nozzle will be able to actually use the full print volume in a sensible amount of time. This is a quick and cheap upgrade – new nozzles are only a couple of pounds and not too much effort to swap.
Titan direct-drive print heads are an optional extra (by default, the CR-10 V2 comes with the same Bowden print system as other Creality printers) and if you’re sick and tired of bed-levelling, you can add a BLTouch system for auto-levelling.
For a printer this large, the CR-10 V2 is impressively sturdy. During our tests, we found it reliable and capable of producing decent-quality prints. If you’re looking for a large-format 3D printer right now, it’s hard to argue against this.
Verdict: 8 out of 10
A good-value large-format 3D printer, but you might want to consider some of the upgrades
Price: around £380 from creality.com
