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Creality Cr-30 review

Creality Cr-30 review

Released in 2020, the Creality CR-30 3D printer is a new mysterious machine with various exciting features. Also known as 3DPrintMill, this conveyor or belt-used machine is developed in collaboration with a popular tech YouTube Naomi Wu. Seeing as the CR-30 operates on a belt, the printer has a build volume of 200 x 170 infinite millimeters. It is primarily aimed at SMEs, designers, and those enthusiasts looking to replace the print farms with an excellent hands-free continuous printing engine. To make things easy for you, let’s take a look at this in-depth Cr30 3d printer.

Cr-30 3D Printer Review

This Creality 3D printer comes packaged in four parts: the base, front, read, and control panel. Considering the Allen keys and tool included, it takes about half an hour to assemble the printer and start printing. The all-metal frame weighs 36.3 lbs and is specially created to dampen any versatile vibrations from the Core-XY motion gantry.

An infinite-Z build volume printer, it not only features a conveyor-belt style print bed but has an angled gantry that the print head travels around. This 3DPrint Mill comes with a specific design that introduces some desirable traits in a 3D printer, such as continuous printing and print unsupported overhangs.

Creality CR30 Review- Naomi Wu's 3d Print Mill Review
  1. The Background

Belt style 3d printers have been around the market for some time. Some bright examples include BlackBelt, PrintrBot, and White Knight, with remarkable reviews from users. The last two are notable examples of an open-source design, which opens the opportunity for them to serve as a jumping-off point for contemporary printers to iterate, develop, and build upon. This Creality 3D printer by Shenzhen-based engineer Wu is a perfect model loaded with fantastic features.

Wu also enlisted Karl Brown of Nak 3D design and maker of the White Knife belt 3D printer to join this project as a consultant. Wu planned to keep the belt printer ball rolling by open sourcing the Cr30. We can also say that the modern printer has a pedigree. In fact, it is distinctive amongst the popular brand present offerings. For a brand like Creality, it is unusual that specializes in driving costs down and creating reliable products at scale to produce a new, arguably niche product from scratch.

  1. Print Volume

Featuring a small print volume than expected, the 3DPrintMill has a 200 x 170 mm build area perfectly paired to the infinite Z offered by the belt. The rumors before its release were that the print volume of Cr30 may be near the Ender 3, but it is much closer to the Original Prusa Mini in reality.

  1. Design

The 3DPrintMill has an unusual design and few distinguishing features that help it to achieve continuous printing. This printer is CoreXY at its, well, core. The prime difference over the common interpretation of its styles is that the XY gantry and motion function is canted. Rather than a flat fixed area bed, which moves perpendicularly away from its print head in the Z-axis, the printer has a rolling Z-axis the draws the print away. This machine can theoretically print consistently on such rolling Z-axis.

Featuring aluminum extrusions and a powder-coated metal frame, the appearance of the printer is typical Creality production. The mainboard, power supply, and user interface are masterly integrated into the base of the printer. There is also a full-size- SD card slot located at the front of the machine.

  1. Factory Leveled

One of the best features of this best 3D printer is that it will be factory leveled.

  1. Continuous Belt

The prime component of every belt printer is the belt on which it prints. Though the belt material was previously mentioned as wear-resistant carbon fiber, it has been changed to wear-resistant Nylon. A You Tuber Joel Telling (3DPrintingNerd) showed close up detail on the belt, such as the stitched design along with the coarse texture.

Another convenient feature of the belt is that it can be easily replaced by the user. As compared to other belt printer designs, the belt of 3DPrintMill is pretty short. However, it can be an effective space-saving masterstroke. If you are looking to take benefit of the ability to print into an infinite-Z-axis, there will also be additional roller attachments to serve as print support to avoid drooping on long prints.

Creality CR30 Review- Naomi Wu's 3d Print Mill Review

Motion

The kinematics of the print head is offered by a CoreXY motion system, which translates to precise and quick movement.

Print Head

This 3DPrintMill has dual-end cooling fans, which makes it a perfect choice for tidy prints, even fine detail. It uses a 0.4mm nozzle as standard.

Ultra-Silent Mainboard

If you are fed up with annoying sounds, then this 3DPrintMill is made for you. It comes with an ultra-silent motherboard combined with a silent chipset. The 3D printer uses one of Creality’s newer 4.2.x32-bitboards. May be it has one with the TMC2208 stepper motor drivers, if the silence feature is true.

Print Modes

Printing long objects is no different from setting up as a typical print in the slicer. Creality has developed a special slicing solution for the CR30 known as CrealityBelt. The ability of the 3DPrintMill to batch print is something that could only be set in the slicer. Depending on the computer hardware and the complication of the parts to be printed, it would be quite prohibitive in practice. Wu says the best solution would be to slice only one model and then choose the volume of prints directly on the machine.

Hardware

The printer comes separated into four parts for shipping that includes the base, front, read, and control panel. You need only half an hour to attach all these parts with accompanying Allen keys.

The CrealityBelt Slicer

As mentioned above, Creality is offering new slicing software specially designed for the Cr-30. The best thing about CrealityBelt is that it can be used to slice a model of any length. However, it can also slice multiple models for a series build. It has a set of ready-made slicing profiles in the program developed by the slicer professional Tom Jackson who is popular in the open-source community.

Creality also enlisted Scott Lahteine to complement the slicer, which is the maintainer of the Open Source Marlin project. In real open-source fashion, its firmware is compliant with the GPL and is also accessible to any user that wants to tinker around with it.  

CR-30 Price

The retail price of the Cr30 is $999, which is quite reasonable for such quality printing and features.

Creality CR30 Review- Naomi Wu's 3d Print Mill Review

Who is CR-30 for?

It is an ideal 3D printer for a person that loves 3D printing but hates the bed leveling process and detaching prints. It typically prints out of the box and has great bed adhesion with TPU, PLA, and PETG. If you want to make any adjustments according to your needs, it’s effortless.

People looking for plastic components below the minimum for cost-effective injection molding or the one who has sensitive PI and don’t want any risk to use their molds without their permission.

A person who would use a typical 3D printer farm but doesn’t want the associated labor expenses of constantly changing trays of parts, detaching parts, and starting the print process again.

Prop makers, restorers, and set design looking to print strong, durable crown molding and other architectural functions of any profile up to 200 x 170 or of nearly any length, this Creality CR-30 is an ideal solution for their needs. Depending on the chosen print resolution and application, such 3D prints can be immediately primed and painted.

Schools that want to offer access to a 3D printer and looking to avoid the risk of students handing the printer directly and cutting themselves on a broken bed, any sharp tool to remove prints or burned on a heated nozzle, this Creality CR-30 (3DPrintMill) is the safest option as you need to lade the filament once in a week and then it can be used without touching. It means you can easily encase the printer in a plastic box or also put it behind the window using a 3D printed chute.

The Verdict

According to several people that we’ve spoken to and reviews we’ve watched, it’s an amazing product that delivers on the promise. Creality has long been known for it’s amazing 3d printing products such as the Ender 3, Ender 5, CR10, CR10S4, and other machines. The only problem it has is that the build bed, if you can really call it that, has a tough time being levelled. Both Uncle Jessy and Joel had issues with it in the beginning. Angus, from Makers Muse, also gives it a good recommendation as he printed his sword right on the belt. Joel calls this 3d printer a cosplayer's dream. You can 3d print full length swords such as Sephiroth's sword or Thanos' sword all at full length. Joel 3d printed a Nikko Industries Thundercats Sword of Omens and it turned out beautifully. He initially had problems with the print, but they were very minor. 

Creality CR30 Review- Naomi Wu's 3d Print Mill Review
Creality CR30 Review- Naomi Wu's 3d Print Mill Review

You can watch Joel's full review here:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/fESyPRpbJVc

Here's Angus' full review:


https://www.youtube.com/embed/VvSbcUowlNU

The best part about this machine? The need for less supports. This machine can print at full 90 degree angles without any support needed. Joel printed a cube on the machine that had 90 degree overhangs which on a normal FDM printer would need supports all underneath it. But this one didn’t. Because of the angle of the nozzle, the print didn’t need supports. This saves time and money for everyone, which makes the price tag that much more palpable.

Creality CR30 Review- Naomi Wu's 3d Print Mill Review

As I’ve said, the biggest issue with this machine is the fact that the bed is a little difficult to level, but another issue is the roller bed. It doesn’t quite do what it’s intended to do. Joel had to put a box right on the roller bed to help the machine.

So should you buy this machine? According to Joel Telling, the 3d Printing Nerd, it’s a good purchase. The first couple of batches may be a bit buggy while they sort things out, but the product looks very promising. It looks like it’s a great machine that will DEFINITELY change the 3d printing industry and how machines will work.

As of right now, the 3d printer is only available via Kickstarter.

Creality 3D CR30 Printer Specifications

GENERAL SPECIFICATIONS

Manufacturer: Creality

Production Year: 2020

Mechanical arrangement: Cartesian Core-XY, infinite-Z

Technology: FDM

Assembly: Semi-assembled

MATERIALS USED

Compatible materials: N/A

3rd party filaments: Yes

Filament diameter: 1.75 mm

Creality CR30 Review- Naomi Wu's 3d Print Mill Review

3D PRINTING PROPERTIES

Feeder system: Bowden

File transfer         USB/SD

Nozzle size: 0.4 mm

Layer height: 0.1 mm+

Extruder type: Single nozzle

Max. Print speed: N/A

Max. Build volume: 200 x 170 x ∞ mm

Bed leveling: Factory leveled

A layer thickness of 0.1 – 0.4 mm

Max. Heated bed temperature: 100 ℃

Max. Extruder temperature: 240 ℃

UI: LCD, rotary encoder

Closed print chamber: No

Built-in camera: No

Print bed: Carbon fiber

Connectivity: SD, USB

Filament sensor: Yes

Resume Print: Yes

SOFTWARE

Operating system: N/A

Recommended slicer: CrealityBelt

File types: N/A

Printer DIMENSIONS AND WEIGHT

Weight: 16.5 kg

Frame dimensions: 535 x 656 x 410 mm

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