Creality K1 Max Review

At a glance

Expert’s Rating

Pros

• Fast, reliable printing
• Large build volume
• Fully automated bed levelling

Cons

• Rear-mounted spool holder is awkward
• Some features exclusive to Creality’s slicer
• No multi-colour capabilities

Our Verdict

The K1 Max is a seriously impressive 3D printer that delivers good print quality at high speed. It’s easy to use thanks to many automatic systems and has useful features such as a camera to monitor printing remotely. The only thing it doesn’t do is print with multiple colours.

Best Prices Today: Creality K1 Max

Although it isn’t a brand new technology, CoreXY is something of a buzzword in 3D printing this year. The K1 and K1 Max are the first models from Creality to adopt this method of printing and boast of print speeds up to 600mm per second.

To put that in context, the majority of consumer 3D printers print at around 50-80mm per second as standard, so this is a big deal as it means prints are completed in hours instead of days.

Here, I’m reviewing the K1 Max which has a bigger 300x300x300 build volume than the K1’s 220x220x250. Both are fully enclosed which means they keep the ambient temperature warmer and more stable than “open” printers. And that’s handy if you want to print using filaments such as ABS, ASA and nylon which need those conditions.

But even if you’ll stick mostly to standard PLA, there’s a lot to like about the K1 Max. Let’s dive in.

Design and build

• CoreXY
• Dual-gear direct extruder with reverse Bowden tube
• Smooth PEI build plate

First things first, yes, the K1 series is Creality’s answer to competition from Bambu Lab, Voron and others. With the Bambu P1P being such a popular choice, it’s worth pointing out that the K1 Max has a larger build volume (300mm cubed versus 256mm cubed. Bambu’s more expensive enclosed X1 Carbon has the same build volume as the P1P so the K1 Max will appeal to those wanting the option to print larger models.

This means the K1 Max is a big printer. That isn’t a criticism: it’s simply a fact. If you want a large build volume, you have to accept the printer will be big. Its 435 x 462mm footprint doesn’t include the reel of filament which hangs on a post that sticks out of the rear, so you’ll need a desk at least 600mm deep.

It’s 526mm tall, but you’ll want a space taller than that to remove the glass top each time you swap filament, because that’s the only way to access the release lever on top of the extruder.

The front door (and top) are made from tempered glass, but the sides are plastic and not removable. The whole unit weighs 18kg.

Jim Martin / Foundry

There’s a 4.3 inch colour touchscreen for controlling the printer directly, but you can also send prints to it remotely: there are both Wi-Fi and Ethernet connections. The screen is one of the only components you’ll need to install yourself when setting up the K1 Max: it arrives virtually ready to go.

The box even includes a full 1kg spool of Creality’s latest HyperPLA which has a slightly different composition to allow for faster flow rates required for high-speed printing.

The K1 and K1 Max are CoreXY printers. This isn’t the place to go into details about how it differs from traditional ‘bed slinger’, but it is important to appreciate that the main difference is that the bed in a CoreXY printer moves up and down, not forwards and backwards.

Jim Martin / Foundry

This means the K1 Max needs a lot less space depth-wise than it would if it were a bed slinger. Also, the printhead moves in both X and Y directions and is controlled by two motors. That’s one of the main reasons the K1 Max (and any CoreXY printer) can print so much faster.

The printhead is lightweight and uses a proprietary Creality hotend (the part that heats the filament and includes the nozzle out of which it’s extruded) instead of an off-the-shelf component such as Volcano. However, Creality includes a complete spare in the box along with a silicone sock and screws.

Jim Martin / Foundry

You can view this as generous, or slightly worrying if you wonder why the pre-fitted one isn’t enough.

The huge aluminium alloy bed is AC-powered (as opposed to DC) which allows it to heat up quickly: from room temperature to 60°C in around 90 seconds. It’ll reach 100°C in three minutes, but will go right up to 120°C – 20°C hotter than the K1’s bed.

Embedded strain sensors allow the K1 Max to build a ‘levelling mesh’ that compensates for any slight unevenness in the bed and helps to ensure the first layer is printed well. This all happens automatically: you don’t need to do anything – not even set a z-offset. It’s fantastic.

On top of the bed is a magnetic PEI build plate with a smooth surface. You remove and flex it after printing – a much easier way to detach models than using a scraper on a fixed bed surface. Creality includes a stick of glue for adhesion: you’ll want to use it because small parts will come adrift otherwise. The plate has two notches on the rear which make it easy to align it when you put it back onto the bed.

Jim Martin / Foundry

If there’s a criticism, it’s that it’s very awkward to reach behind the printer to check and change filament. For a start, you can’t see how much is left on the reel and second, it’s difficult to hang a new spool on an unsighted post, then feed the end into the long reverse Bowden tube.

Jim Martin / Foundry

A solution is to buy Creality’s Dry Box for around £50 / $50 and put that at the side of the printer. Or, because the company is clearly aware of the issue, print the spool holder that’s provided in the K1 Max’s 8GB of storage which does a similar job.

The tube is bent at quite a sharp angle as it enters the enclosure, then goes through a runout sensor and finally round to the extruder. It means swapping filaments takes a few minutes, not least because the Extrude / Retract functions take a while to do their job, so it pays to press the button before you get your new filament ready.

Features & apps

• LiDAR
• Camera
• Creality Print and Creality Cloud

Printing at high speeds is great, but there are some drawbacks. One is that the print head causes the printer to vibrate a lot more as it shoots around, and that’s exacerbated when you have a bigger area to print.

So Creality has put in automatic motion advance which does its best to combat these vibrations so your models’ straight lines don’t become wavy. As long as you enable it in the settings, the K1 Max will print a zigzag pattern before each print and use the LiDAR bolted to the side of the print head to scan it for imperfections. It then uses this data to compensate when it’s printing.

Jim Martin / Foundry

Another handy addition over the K1 is a built-in camera. This lets you check how printing is going remotely (as long as your printer is connected to the internet) and also uses “AI” to watch out for problems such as objects accidentally left on the build plate or even if a bunch of spaghetti is forming because of a failed print.

Jim Martin / Foundry

As a bonus, the camera will also record time-lapse footage of each print. The results are certainly shareable, if not the best quality. The only way I could find to offload these time-lapses was to export them to a USB drive, and in the firmware version I was using this would fail almost every time leaving a .tmp file on the drive. Fortunately, it could be renamed to .mp4 and played, but only the portion of the video that successfully exported.

The touchscreen itself is mostly great to use. It’s large enough, and the interface is intuitive. It could do with some polishing, as it isn’t always obvious if you can scroll down and see more or not. It appears to be based on Klipper, but it’s officially called Creality OS.

Although you can use your choice of slicer to turn 3D models into the gcode that the K1 Max can understand, Creality has developed its own: Creality Print. It’s actually pretty good, with all the options you’d expect to find and a fairly clean-looking interface.

Jim Martin / Foundry

It’s designed to handle the entire process of preparing a model, including adding supports – manually if you want to – slicing and then sending the file to a printer on your local network.

There’s an alternative: Creality Cloud. You can access this via the web portal or mobile app and both let you choose a model, slice it and print it. The app has the look and feel of AliExpress, as the home screen shows models you can download (many of which cost money) and you’re bombarded with pop-ups, ads and nags to upgrade from the free to Premium version for $79.99 / £79.99 per year.

Jim Martin / Foundry

It’s important to understand that most people do not need to do this. You can still monitor print progress and adjust settings as a free member.

My preference was to slice models in Creality Print and export the gcode to a USB drive and print from that. You’ll have to make sure the build plate is clean and apply the glue stick before each print anyway.

Performance

A few test prints are pre-loaded onto the K1 so you can check print quality without needing to install any apps. One is a ‘speed Benchy’ which claims it will print in just under 17 minutes. This little boat is a benchmark file widely used to test 3D printers and typically takes an hour or more to print.

Creality claims on its website that the K1 Max can print a Benchy in 13 minutes, but even using the included HyperPLA it was slightly over its own estimate at about 20 minutes in total.

That doesn’t include the four-odd minutes the K1 Max spends probing, wiping and doing all its other pre-flight checks before each print, but I’d argue it’s worth leaving them all enabled to ensure a successful, good quality print, especially for prints that will take many hours.

Jim Martin / Foundry

It’s incredible to watch the K1 Max print at even 300mm per second: you can see small models such as the Benchy growing quickly – an effect you simply don’t get at 60mm per second.

Quality is surprisingly good too, with no zits or other undesirable things on the main hull and nice, clean edges. In fact, the K1 Max’s print quality at high speeds is noticeably better than many bed slingers printing five times slower, including Creality’s own Ender 3 S1 Pro. There was a little stringing as you can see in the photo above, along with a few dangling blobs at the top of the arched door but these are all quite minor complaints.

Creality claims “up to 600mm/s” but 400mm/s is the realistic top speed without compromising on quality. Even that is more than acceptable, and the K1 Max’s speed is a game-changer if you’re upgrading from an bed slinger.

I found that there was no need to add any brims, rafts or other bed adhesion in the slicer, but you do need to use glue on the smooth PEI surface for smaller parts to ensure they don’t come adrift after the first layer or two. You can see where a piece hasn’t stuck where no glue was used:

Jim Martin / Foundry

One of my favourite things to print is the cute octopus: a print-in-place articulated model whose eight legs have multiple joints. At the standard size, these joints are extremely small and they typically need a raft on most printers, even those with textured PEI beds.

Jim Martin / Foundry

Not the K1 Max. With the large bed, it was able to print two – one behind the other – with no issues whatsoever. The glue almost works too well, and I had to resort to using the included scraper to remove most models after printing.

There’s not a huge difference in quality between Creality’s new HyperPLA and its regular range when printing at high speed (using the profiles included in Creality Print). The new filament is formulated for higher flow and faster cooling, and does lead to cleaner prints. I printed a second Benchy using Creality’s rainbow PLA and the only area that didn’t print as well was the rear where some of the strands hadn’t cooled quickly enough and were sagging. If anything, there was less stringing using the standard stuff.

I also printed a few models using ABS and the K1 Max’s enclosure meant warping was much less of an issue than open printers. I didn’t have any ASA, so couldn’t test this, but the fact the K1 Max’s bed heats to 120C makes it very versatile in terms of what you can print with.

One of the big advantages of high-speed printing is that it makes big projects possible. I’d been waiting for a chance to review a CoreXY printer to print a guitar (the Prusacaster) and the K1 Max allowed me to print the six pieces in just a couple of days instead of a week.

Jim Martin / Foundry

The great print accuracy meant the sections fitted together well. The only disappointment was warping on one piece, which meant it didn’t align as well, but this could have been down to not putting enough glue on the bed: other pieces were virtually perfect with no ‘elephant’s foot’. That’s where the lower few layers are wider than those above.

Most impressive of all, there wasn’t a single failure among the dozens of prints I tried on the K1 Max, barring the one where I didn’t apply glue across the whole area to be printed. That meant I didn’t get a chance to see the camera’s AI in action. Twice, it paused before even starting to print, displaying an error on the screen saying “A print quality problem has been detected and printing has been paused”. However, at the bottom of the screen a separate message says “Foreign object detected” so Creality needs to update the error. The foreign object was almost certainly my hand or camera, too.

In terms of noise, the K1 Max produces quite a lot of it. The enclosure helps a lot, but with so many cooling fans and the fast-moving print head, it’s not something you’ll want in your living space at home.

Price and availability

The Creality K1 Max costs £859 / US$899 direct from Creality’s website . That’s quite a lot more than the £579 / $599 K1 , but you get more than simply a larger build volume.

Creality offers discounts fairly regularly, so it’s worth keeping an eye out for those: there was £60 / $60 off the K1 at the time of writing, but no deal on the newer K1 Max.

If this is too rich for you, do read our roundup of the best 3D printers for cheaper options.

Should I buy the Creality K1 Max?

I had high hopes for the K1 Max and certainly wasn’t disappointed. In fact, it exceeded my expectations and churned out print after print without drama.

If Creality’s proprietary tech puts you off, one bonus is that says it will open-source the code for the K1 and K1 Max in September. This means the community should be able to modify and add features, and is undoubtedly a good thing.

Creality

One other thing to consider if you can live with a 256x256x256mm build volume is that Bambu Lab’s P1S Combo costs £869 / $949 and supports automatic multi-colour printing, a feature the K1 Max does not possess.

Overall, though, the K1 Max is a great choice if you’re after a CoreXY printer with a large build volume, are happy with single-colour printing and don’t fancy building a Voron kit (or have no idea what that is).

Best Prices Today: Creality K1 Max

Author: Jim Martin, Executive Editor, Tech Advisor

Jim has been testing and reviewing products for over 20 years. His main beats include VPN services and antivirus. He also covers smart home tech, mesh Wi-Fi and electric bikes.

Recent stories by Jim Martin:

• The best 3D printers 2024
• Creality K1C review
• Bambu A1 review

Just a few years ago, 3D printing was a hobby for geeks and nerds. It was difficult, frustrating and slow.

Fast forward to 2024, and that has all changed completely. Now, you can buy – for a very reasonable sum – a printer that works out of the box, doesn’t require hours of tweaking and adjusting and prints large models in hours – not days. Small models can take mere minutes.

Since you’re reading this, you’ve probably made it past the point of wondering what on earth you’d use a 3D printer for, but if not, there are many useful tools and gadgets as well as fun things to print, all of which are available to download free from sites such as Thingiverse and Printables .

Here we’ll explain what to look for in a 3D printer and recommend what you should buy.

First, a brief word on colour: consumer 3D printers are single-nozzle devices which print one colour at a time. If you want to multicolour prints, then Bambu’s P1S Combo and A1 Combo can hold four spools of filament and change colour automatically. Multicolour prints can take a long time, though, and waste filament.

One other thing: until you’ve spent time getting to grips with a 3D modelling app such as Fusion 360 or Tinkercad , you’ll be limited to printing objects that other people have designed. There are lots of them, but if you want something bespoke, you’ll have to create it yourself.

Don’t be put off buying a 3D printer, though. Choose wisely and you’ll be rewarded with a device that can print intricate, articulated models from the off.

We’re focusing mainly on FDM (fused deposition modelling) printers here because these are the most popular type. The other type is a resin 3D printer, such as the Creality Halot One Plus, which works very differently, and are designed for printing small, intricate, solid models.

Best 3D printers 2024

1. Bambu P1S – Best 3D printer for most people

Pros

• Excellent print quality
• Automatic colour changing
• Fast CoreXY motion system

Cons

• Basic non-touchscreen control panel
• Filament wastage can be high in multicolour printing
• No failed print detection

With so many tech products you get what you pay for. This inevitably means the “best” will also be the most expensive. It’s certainly the case here, but just because the P1S is expensive doesn’t mean it isn’t good value.

If you buy the P1S Combo, it will come with an AMS, a unit that sits on top of the printer. It holds four spools of filament and can load and unload them automatically and print in multiple colours without any assistance from you.

With only one nozzle, multicolour prints aren’t exactly fast. But the AMS also takes the pain out of changing filament when you want to print something in a different colour to the previous print.

If you don’t care about multicolour, you can buy the non-Combo version of the P1S for quite a bit less.

Overall, the P1S is a remarkably good printer. It’s really fast thanks to the use of a coreXY system, and as it’s fully enclosed it’s reliable even when printing with ASA, nylon, polycarbonate and other filament types because of the stable internal temperatures. More importantly, print quality is absolutely superb.

If there’s a downside, it’s the rubbish dot-matrix screen which seems very out of place on a printer this expensive. But, there are other ways to control the P1S, such as printing from a PC or phone via Wi-Fi. The Creality K1C is a good alternative if you must have a touchscreen, and it also has a few other features such as failed print detection.

If you just want to print with PLA, PETG and other filament types that don’t require an enclosure, take a look at Bambu’s A1 which is a lot cheaper.

Read our full Bambu P1S Combo review

2. Bambu A1 – Best budget 3D printer

Pros

• Fast, reliable printing
• Fully automatic levelling
• Excellent value

Cons

• Doesn’t support more exotic filament
• AMS Lite adds significantly to the price

In our full review, we call the A1 “the 3D printer you’ve been waiting for”, and with good reason. It’s as close to ‘one click’ printing as you’ll get right now: it adjusts itself automatically for reliable printing and has all the features most people want, at a surprisingly affordable price. Bambu’s desktop and mobile apps are really good, too.

Like Bambu’s more expensive P1S, it can print models up to 256mm³ and you can buy the optional AMS Lite (shown to the right of the A1) for automatic multicolour printing.

The only drawback is that the A1 can’t really print nylon, ABS, ASA and other ‘exotic’ filaments because they require an enclosure. Without one, they tend to warp. The A1 can print carbon-fibre filaments if you buy Bambu’s hardened nozzle, which is very easy to fit.

Print quality, when using supported filament types, is sensational.

Read our full Bambu A1 review

3. Creality K1 Max – Best large 3D printer

Pros

• Fast, reliable printing
• Large build volume
• Fully automatic bed levelling

Cons

• Some features exclusive to Creality’s slicer
• No multi-colour capabilities

Some may say the K1 is just a poor copy of the Bambu P1S, but that does it a disservice when so many 3D printers are basically copies of each other. There are two models, the smaller K1 which is cheaper than the larger K1 Max.

The Max offers a 300x300x300 build volume, something not currently available from Bambu and it has an easy-to-use touchscreen. Bed levelling is fully automatic and it even has a LiDAR system that helps ensure prints are successful and good quality.

There’s built-in Wi-Fi and an ‘AI’ camera that can detect when prints are failing, as well as when you might have accidentally left a model or some tools on the build plate.

As both K1 and K1 Max use coreXY systems, they’re just as fast as the Bambu and although quality isn’t quite up to the P1S’s level, it’s still very good.

Read our full Creality K1 Max review

4. Elegoo Neptune 4 – Best cheap 3D printer

Pros

• Fast printing
• Automatic bed levelling
• Intuitive touchscreen controller

Cons

• No Wi-Fi
• More expensive in UK than US
• Elegoo’s slicer isn’t the best

The Neptune 4 offers everything most people are looking for in a first 3D printer. It’s easy to set up, has auto bed levelling, a colour touchscreen and is pretty fast to boot.

That’s already a lot for the low price, so it’s not too surprising it doesn’t have Wi-Fi. Unlike some of the budget models here, it competes with the coreXY printers for speed thanks to an upgraded print head with much improved cooling over the Neptune 3.

It’s a shame that like the Ender 3 S1 Pro levelling isn’t completely automatic, but once you’ve adjusted the knobs, subsequent levelling is automatic.

Print quality is very good at the default 300mm speed, but it’s a good idea to use an alternative to Elegoo’s slicer which caused us quite a few headaches when prints failed.

Read our full Elegoo Neptune 4 review

5. Creality K1C – Best for exotic filaments

Pros

• Can print carbon fibre filaments out of the box
• Can print ASA, nylon, ABS as well as PLA and PETG
• Built in camera

Cons

• Single colour printing only
• Can be very noisy
• Frustrating to change filament

The K1C can print models up to 220x220x250mm, and comes almost fully assembled. It’s fully automatic, which means there’s no need to make any manual adjustments: it prints reliably from the word go.

Effectively, it’s an upgrade of Creality’s K1 and has a hardened steel nozzle that can print abrasive filaments like carbon-fibre infused PLA and PETG. Unlike the K1 it also has a camera for monitoring print progress remotely, and it’ll detect and notify you of problems like foreign objects left on the build plate and failed prints.

The touchscreen makes it easy to use, and Creality’s desktop and mobile apps aren’t bad, although they lack the polish and ease of use of Bambu’s.

The only real limitation is that the K1C can’t print in multiple colours, but if you don’t need to do that, it’s a great choice.

6. Anycubic Kobra 2 Plus – Best for printing huge models

Pros

• Massive build volume
• Fast

Cons

• Takes up a lot of space
• Not suitable for filaments which require an enclosure

With a build volume of 320 x 320 x 400mm (WDH), the Kobra 2 Plus can print very large models. If that’s not enough, there’s also the Kobra 2 Max with an even larger 420 x 420 x 500mm volume.

It’s a bed slinger, which means the build plate moves backwards and forwards. In turn, this means you need quite a lot of desk space for the Kobra 2 Plus. It’s fast and capable of good print quality, and is pretty easy to use thanks to automatic bed levelling, vibration compensation and a colour touchscreen.

Read our full Anycubic Kobra 2 Plus review

7. Creality 3D Ender 3 S1 Pro

Pros

• Great print quality
• Almost all the features you’d want

Cons

• Auto-levelling requires manual input
• Slow by today’s standards

The S1 Pro is really a budget 3D printer but it’s more expensive than the cheapest because it has had all the bells and whistles thrown at it.

There’s the Sprite direct drive print head with dual metal gears for reliable extrusion. It’s capable of heating to 300C, so you can print with a wide range of filaments. The bed goes up to 110C, too, which helps prints adhere when working with more awkward types of filament.

It isn’t enclosed, though, and is a bed-slinger, so needs room in front and behind it to accommodate its range of travel. There’s a useful LED strip which is really bright, and a colour touchscreen. Its interface could be improved a bit, but it’s not bad.

Print quality is very good, but it isn’t fast. To improve it you can buy Creality’s Sonic Pad – a Klipper-based touchscreen – but this adds a lot of cost and hassle. If speed is important, choose a printer that offers 300mm/sec out of the box like the Bambu A1.

Read our full Creality 3D Ender 3 S1 Pro review

8. Creality Halot One Plus

Pros

• Easy to use & reliable
• Works with various slicers
• Great print quality

Cons

• Fan runs constantly during printing
• Requires post-printing cleanup + curing (like all resin printers)
• More expensive than some rivals

The Halot One Plus is an easy-to-use resin 3D printer that has a good-sized build volume, prints reliably and at high quality. It’s quite expensive compared to rivals, especially in the UK.

The Halot One Plus is a resin printer, so is very different to the others here. Instead of using filament on a reel, it prints using liquid resin which is cured, layer by layer, using UV light.

Build volume is smaller than the FDM printers here, but it’s still relatively large for a resin printer, and the screen’s high resolution means models have lots of fine detail.

The Halot One Plus printed ultra-reliably in our tests, but if you are keen on a resin printer, bear in mind that you have to clean up prints afterwards, which usually means buying a separate washing and curing device that looks a lot like a resin printer and takes up the same amount of desk space.

Read our full Creality Halot One Plus review

Buyer’s guide

Here are the key things you should look out for when choosing a 3D printer.

Automatic levelling

Unless the surface on which objects are printed is perfectly level, prints won’t stick to it and will fail sooner or later.

Manual levelling is a chore you could do without, so go for a printer with auto levelling. Be careful: some printers claim to have auto levelling, but rely on you to do a lot of the work. Which is why it pays to read reviews as well as knowing what to look for.

Heated bed

Almost all 3D printers have them, but it’s a must have. A heated bed will help prints to stick: don’t buy a printer without one.

PEI sheet

Models can be difficult to remove from the build plate. A PEI (polyetherimide) sheet helps immensely. It’s a flexible metal sheet with a textured coating is used, and held in place with magnets. When the model finishes printing, you simply lift the sheet off, flex it and the model pops off.

Touchscreen

Some printers still use a monochrome screen with a rotary dial or buttons. This isn’t nearly as easy to use as a touchscreen. Bambu P1S (and P1P) would be much better with a touchscreen, but it’s not the end of the world with those as you can print from your PC or phone using Bambu’s apps. When a printer doesn’t have Wi-Fi (or any networking) you are stuck using the screen it comes with.

Build volume

A printer’s build volume tells you how big an object it can print. It’s wise to assume that the actual maximum volume is a bit smaller than the specifications suggest, and go for one with a slightly larger volume than the biggest object you will need to print.

It can be hard to know this, and remember that a bigger volume means a bigger printer, which you’ll need space for.

Really large models can be printed in sections and superglued (or otherwise fixed) together, so you don’t necessarily need a huge printer.

Nozzle and bed temperatures

Most people print using PLA, the most common type of filament. It’s easy to work with, strong and durable.

All 3D printers have nozzles that go up to the 220°C or so that PLA requires. But if you want to print with ABS, PETG or another type that needs high temperatures, be sure to opt for a printer that can go up to around 300°C. But see Enclosure below, too.

Similarly, watch out for heated bed temperatures. Some won’t go beyond 80°C, but you’ll need 100°C or more for successful ABS prints.

Enclosure

Some materials such as ABS, ASA, polycarbonate and nylon need carefully controlled ambient temperature to prevent them from warping while printing. If you need to use these – perhaps because you want to print models that can survive exposure to sunlight, then look for an enclosed printer – essentially a self-contained box.

Run-out sensor

With large models taking many hours to print and the fact that you can’t always know if there’s enough filament left on the reel to complete it, a run-out sensor can be a life saver. It does it what it says: detects when the filament runs out and halts printing automatically, allowing you to load a new reel and carry on printing.

Without one, the filament could run out and the printer will carry on printing thin air, and you’d be none the wiser.

What’s the best 3D printer for beginners

The Bambu A1 is an excellent choice for beginners. It’s relatively affordable and is very easy to use because it handles so many things automatically. It’s also fast and offers top notch print quality.

How much does a beginner 3D printer cost?

Printers start from as little as $130 / £130, but you may want to spend more to get a better model with more features, faster speeds and better print quality. There are a lot of great printers under $500 / £500.

What type of 3D printer is best?

The most common type is FDM (printers that use filament on a spool), but the absolute best quality is from SLA printers, which use resin and are capable of printing much finer detail. There are lots of pros and cons of each type, but put simply, resin printers are best for small, intricate figurines, while filament printers are best for printing things that are useful around the home as well as models that hinge or articulate.

Is it cheap to use a 3D printer?

Spools of filament typically weigh 1kg and cost from $15 / £15 to $30 / £30. It’s therefore the weight of the model that matters most, not the size. So-called slicing software turns a 3D model into instructions a 3D printer can understand, and you can adjust the settings to save weight by minimising the amount of infill. Sometimes it’s cheaper to print your own parts, but sometimes you might find it’s cheaper to buy pre-made plastic things than to 3D print them.

Are 3D printers good for beginners?

3D printing is much easier than it used to be thanks to modern printers that automate a lot of the fiddly things like bed levelling. They can also compensate for vibrations, resume printing after a power cut or when the filament runs out. The difficult part is designing your own models to print, but there are thousands of pre-made models available online to download free.

Author: Jim Martin, Executive Editor, Tech Advisor

Jim has been testing and reviewing products for over 20 years. His main beats include VPN services and antivirus. He also covers smart home tech, mesh Wi-Fi and electric bikes.

Recent stories by Jim Martin:

• Creality K1C review
• Bambu A1 review
• Bambu A1: a full-size bed slinger 3D printer