First Print of "God of Wealth" on Ender 7

[irvshapiro]

I just started a review of the Creality Ender 7 which is promoted as a very fast printer, supporting 250m/sec. This is a video of my first print from the SD card. It is moving quite fast. The printer is very quiet when moving in the X and Y directions and a bit noisier in the Z direction. Most of the noise is from the fans and from the nozzle running over the existing printed surface.

This video is real time.

[Ender5r]

Interesting. Any idea of the retail cost? I'm wondering how it will compare to the Prusa XL.

[irvshapiro]

Here is another video. You will note if you watch to the end the sound of the liner rails when it is moving bigger distances fast. I may try adding some more white grease which I can already see on the rails.

[Ender5r]

Irv Shapiro are you referring to that sort grunting noise at the end? It does sound odd.

BTW, that's some pretty dense infill you're using on that print. Oh, it's not an official Ender 7 until you cut off the top front cross rail, is it? 🤣

[Alan]

Looking forward to your review! I was intrigued by the use of a CoreXY design, but the single z-axis lead screw and non-geared extruder turned me off for the price point ($729 on Amazon). I was also disappointed with the lack of ABL.

Cheers

[irvshapiro]

Alan The bed is an impressive piece of engineering with angular support from the front to a significant bracket on the back. In my review, I will put some pictures. Because of this, I do not think the bed will have a significant movement out at the edge. This is different from a standard Ender 5 when the bed is cantilevered from the back.

While the new extruder is a significant improvement over the stock Creality extruder, it is all metal and has teeth on gears on both sides of the filament it is not "geared".

The control board has a plug for ABL it is just not on these units. However because of its size, and since the zero Y position is at the top, it is very easy to fine-tune your bed leveling with the four dials on the corners. This will not help with a defective bed, but the bed is glass and at least mine is quite flat.

As I completed more prints I will be in a better position to comment further. Here is a photo of the first print. Yes, Creality set the infill to quite dense, not sure why maybe to highlight the speed.



This was printed using the filament that came in the box from Creality. White Generic PLA. I noticed it was sliced to print at 220c which is what Creality recommends when printing at 250m/sec. I am testing my first prints using the Creality Slicer defaults now.

[Ender5r]

What, no comment about cutting off the front top bar??? Have you not seen this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVc-dm22Aro?

[roon4660]

I wish Creality would do an IDEX printer.

[irvshapiro]

@roon4660 I have worked with two IDEX printers, and while the concept is excellent at the end of the day, I am not sure they are worth the effort except in one case. If you need to create a lot of prints with supports, dissolvable supports make this process much more manageable. One of the challenges with all multiple nozzle prints is nozzle alignment. This is a bit less critical with supports than with multiple color prints.

The second application that may be worthwhile is printing two-color signs where the colors switch at a layer. Again, you can do this with a one-color printer, but an IDEX printer makes this much easier and faster.

The quality is not good enough for genuinely multi-color prints with too much color bleed. My first reaction was WOW, but after spending months with two models, I think other techniques for multiple colors, like paint, make more sense.

I know both my reviews indicated good things about the Flashforge and JG Maker printers, and I think they are good at what they do. My dilemma is just overall with the value of IDEX printers for most home users.

P.S. They are fun to play with but after a few weeks of fun I think most users will use them mostly in single color mode. Maybe I should make a video about this?

[Ender5r]

I would add the ability to do duplex printing, or mirroring. Turning out prints twice as fast can be useful.

[roon4660]

I was expecting some jaw dropping new ability with these machines. No one seems to have done anything very incredible yet.