Creality Ender 5S1 Review: Premium features and more speed
Creality’s Ender 5 S1 is the latest rendition of its sturdy cube printer. There have been significant improvements to the design such as an all-metal hotend and direct drive, as well as an improved reinforced frame.
Retailing starting at $559 and ready for competition with the The best 3D printers The Ender 5 S1 is comparable in print volume to the less expensive model. Ender 3 S1 It is also 10mm taller and more stable on the Z axis. This is because the print bed moves upwards and downwards, instead of backwards and forwards. It’s not a Core XY machine, where the X and Y axis are driven together by belts, but it IS a lot smoother.
Creality claims that the Ender 5 S1 can run at a stunning 250 mm/s. But the profile included with Creality Slicer runs at a more manageable 120 mm/s. The prints were only slightly faster after I changed the setting from 250 mm/s to 250. This is largely due to limits in acceleration – no printer can instantaneously hit maximum speeds then maintain them while going around corners.
The machine is still Marlin-compatible and runs quite fast despite this limitation. Its acceleration firmware limit is 3000 mm/s – whereas an Ender 3 S1 Pro is held to 500 mm/s. We can’t wait to see how much speed it gains when it is hooked to a Creality Sonic Pad (opens in a new tab) Klipper was allowed to run in a future review.
The Ender 5 S1 has a lightweight direct drive and an all-metal hotend. This is something I love to see on new printers. The Spider high temperature hotend melt zone was used to create the flow rate, but it does require a longernozzle. This could confuse buyers who accidentally buy the traditional MK8 nozzle used in every other Creality machine and find it doesn’t work with the Ender 5 S1.
Specifications: Creality Ender 5, S1
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| Build Volume | 220 x 220 x 280 mm (8.7 x 8.7 x 11 in) |
| Material | PLA/PETG/ABS (upto 300 degrees) |
| Type Extruder | Direct Drive |
| Nozzle | .4mm Spider |
| Build Platform | Heated PC Spring Steel |
| Bed Leveling | CR Touch Auto Leveling |
| Filament Runout Sensor | Yes |
| Connectivity | SD card, USB Type – C |
| Interface | Touchscreen in 4.3 inch color |
| Machine Footprint | 425x 460 x 570 mm (16.7 x 18.1 x 22.4 in) |
| Machine Weight | 12.1 kg (26.6 pounds) |
Creality Ender 5 S1 is included in the box
The Creality Ender 5 S1 contains everything you need for getting started. It includes tools to build and maintain your printer, side cutters, side cutters and an SD card with USB adapter. You also get a spare tip and a sample of white PLA weighing 200 grams.
There’s a paper copy of the quick start guide to help you get set up. The SD card includes three test models, a PDF version of the manual, and a video that will help you assemble it.
The paper quick start guide that I received did not contain correct leveling instructions. For guidance, please refer to the PDF.
Assembling Creality Ender 5 S1
The Ender 5 S1 kit is DIY and requires a lot of assembly. It took me about an hour to build, but if you are a first kit printer, you might need to allow for more time. Although the parts were clearly labeled and the build guide was easy to follow, I found it difficult to place some things backwards. This caused some frustration and delay.
The included build video is very helpful. I recommend pulling it out of its box and watching it first.
Leveling the Creality Ender5 S1
The Ender 5 S1 Pro includes a CR Touch, which makes leveling easier and more accurate. The bed must be adjusted manually using the adjustment screws. The CR Touch then probes the surface to find any deformities and compensates.
The quick start guide gives incorrect directions for leveling the machine. These directions were followed and the knobs almost fell off.
The PDF manual contains the correct instructions.
Select Leveling Method in the settings menu. Next, click the home icon (a house icon), to bring the bed up. Continue clicking the up arrows until your bed is almost touching the nozzle.
Slide a piece paper under the nozzle and click one corner (labeled 2-5). Then manually adjust the bed to ensure that the nozzle scrapes paper. Do this for each corner.
After manually leveling, click AUTO LVL →Start and the printer will immediately go into its leveling routine. It will tap 16 points on your bed using a metal probe, and create a mesh to smoothen out any high spots or low spots.
You’re not done yet – after the Auto Level you need to check the final Z Offset. You can click the Home button again to slide a piece paper under the nozzle. If you can’t get paper under the nozzle, tap the down button until you can. Adjust this until the paper touches the nozzle.
Although it is difficult to get the Z-height right using the paper method, you can easily adjust the print on the fly. Watch the first layer go down. If the nozzle needs more or less, tap the Z button on your screen to adjust.
Loading Filament into the Creality Ender 5S1
The Ender 5 S1 is equipped with a direct drive and a reverse Bowden tube that guides filament up from a side-mounted, spool holder. To load filament you need to first trim the end of the plastic at a 45-degree angle – a pointy end feeds through the gears better.
The filament is pushed through a run out sensor at the top corner of frame, then through the Bowden tub and into the direct drive. You can remove the tube from the extruder by pulling it off. It’s easier to push the tension lever back and push the filament into the drive.
The hotend can be preheated by pressing Prepare on your main menu, then selecting PLA or ABS present. You can also set your own temperature. Once the hotend is at the correct temperature, switch over to the In/out menu located at the bottom. Enter a number of millimeters in order to advance filament. 50 mm is a good number to start – you may need to run more if you’re switching from a bold to light color.
Design of the Creality Ender5 S1
The Ender 5 S1 3D printer is an open frame model with a compact footprint and a clean design. The bed moves up and down rather than back and forth, yielding a smoother print that doesn’t suffer from Z wobble at taller heights.
Cable management is excellent on this updated version – I’ve seen older Ender 5 machines where bare wiring is allowed to run amok carelessly. The printer comes with a few custom clips, as well as black zipties to securely attach the bundled wire.
The printer’s case and touch screen are combined into one smooth unit at the base of the machine and the spool holder is mounted sideways to the frame. This keeps the footprint relatively small and square.
Another improvement in design is the addition of bracing – a pair of brackets steady the frame and two more are underneath the build plate.
Creality created hollow silicone bed mountings that fit over the leveling springs. Solid silicone mounts are preferred to springs. The theory is solid silicone mounts are more stable than springs and won’t vibrate loose over time. After printing for a few days, however, the unit I tested fell off the level. The leveling knobs don’t have a tight grip on the screw, which could be allowing them to slowly loosen after many hours of printing. Lock nuts can be added or removed. Light threadlock (opens in a new tab) The leveling screws could be helpful.
According to my review, the Sprite is the direct drive installed on this printer. Ender 3 S1 Pro. However, this particular tool head has a custom cooling system and a hotend with aspects similar to Creality’s new high temperature Spider hotend (opens in a new tab).
This is one of those mixed-up good and bad news stories. The good news is that the cooling system has a larger 5015 fan, with wrap-around air ducts that channel air to both left and right. More good news is the Spider-like hotend has a titanium alloy heat break and a larger heater block – this allows filament to flow hotter and print faster. All metal hotends also jam less frequently since there’s no PTFE tube touching the metal where it can start to burn and degrade with time.
The bad news? A longer Spider nozzle is required to reach the larger Spider melt zones. Creality does not state that the nozzle is nonstandard in either manual.
The Spider nozzle lands somewhere between E3D’s Volcano and Creality’s normal MK8 nozzle. It’s been out long enough – this nozzle was first used in the Ender 7 – that third party manufacturers like Microswiss started making Upgraded replacement nozzles (opens in a new tab), so you’ll have choices when shopping for replacements. But you need to know what you’re looking for.
I’m concerned that calling this new tool head a Sprite and not a Spider will lead to someone attempting to stick an ordinary MK8 into their Ender 5 S1 extruder. It will fit – the diameter remains the same, but the shorter length will leave a gap and cause filament to puddle within and form a nasty clog.
The removable buildplate is made of flexible coated steel. This is an amazing feature. The soft PC coating makes it easy to damage the surface. My plate already had some scratches, including a deep gouge from the typo I mentioned in the leveling directions. The surface does a good job of holding onto prints, but if your Z height is a bit too close you’ll end up embedding plastic into the surface. This is not fun.
The plate can be easily replaced and the bed is of standard Ender dimensions. I’d recommend swapping it with this Double-sided PEI plates (opens in a new tab) Comgrow has both smooth and texture surfaces.
If you’re interested in printing a lot of ABS, you should consider adding an enclosure to this machine to protect it from drafts and keep the build area toasty. A simple enclosure can be added to your ABS printer. tent style enclosure (opens in a new tab) For less than $100
Preparing Files/Software
Creality Slicer 4.8.2 is included with the Creality Ender 5 S1. This custom Cura version includes profiles for every Creality printer. You could use Cura or PrusaSlicer if you like, but as there’s no default profiles available for 3rd party slicers you’ll have to modify the profile for the older Ender 5 Pro.
The default profile was set to 120 mm/s. This is much lower than Creality claims the printer can print at 250 mm/s. The machine’s Max speed is 3000 mm/s. Acceleration is also set at 500 mm/s. Thankfully, Cura cannot override the machine’s settings unless “Enable Acceleration” is checked – if you leave it unselected, Cura only uses that data for estimating print time.
This means Cura’s stock estimates are wildly inaccurate. Cura was wrong to believe that my 250 mm/s Benchy would print 24 minutes faster than it did. You can find the machine’s actual limits on the control panel (under WHAT). I was able to plug these numbers into Cura (3000 acceleration, 15 jerk) and they became closer to reality. However, it wasn’t perfect.
The speed difference between 120 and 250mm/s may not be significant because it is so small. The difference between 120 and 250 mm/s is only 3 minutes on a Benchy. This is because the machine must accelerate to the top speed and then slow down before it turns a corner. Just like your car, it can’t reach top speeds instantaneously. Even if a full-length print is on the bed, it will rarely reach its maximum speed.
Printing on Creality Ender 5 S1
The Ender 5 S1 comes with a generous sample spool of PLA, but you’ll need more before you know it. Our guide to the Ender 5 S1 includes a generous sample spool of PLA. Best filaments to 3D Print for examples of our favorite materials when you’re ready to add to your supply.
The first print I ran with the Ender 5 S1 consisted of a pre-sliced rabbit, which came preloaded on the SD card. It printed perfectly cleanly using the white PLA sample spool.
Next came several Benchy’s to test the Ender 5 S1’s quality at speed. The Benchy seen on the left was printed at Creality’s suggested speed of 120 mm/s, which printed in 1 hour and 11 minutes. The one on the right is printed at 250 mm/s, the top speed listed on Creality’s website. It was printed in 52 minutes. That’s an HOUR faster than an Ender 3 S1 printing at with standard settings and a recommended speed of 50mm/s.
The difference between the 120 and 250 Benchys are negligible – the faster boat on the right has a little rough spot along the door and some stringing at the stern. Print in Prusament Silver. (opens in a new tab)
One of the best reasons to buy a printer with a bed that doesn’t fling back and forth is the ability to make smooth lithophanes. Lithophanes These thin 3D printed photos reveal an image when light is placed behind them. The smoother your print, the cleaner it will be. This print took 4 hours, 42 minutes to complete with the sample PLA at a.16mm layer height at 120mm/s. By comparison, my Ender 3 Pro had to be slowed to 40 mm/s to achieve a decent lithophane and took over 10 hours to print the same image – and it’s not this smooth.
PETG was extremely impressive and the Ender 5 S1 printed both print-in-place flexible alligators with minimal stringing. Both were printed with 3 walls to increase strength and 15% lightning fill for speed. The left one was printed at 120mm/s in 1h 17 minutes. The right one was printed at 250mm/s and took just a few more minutes to print at 1 hour 13 minutes. This is another case where the printer simply can’t achieve it’s highest speeds due to the complexity of the print. The alligators can be printed in Inland Green PETG (opens in a new tab).
The Ender 5 S1 features an all-metal hotend that allows it to run at higher temperatures without causing clogs. Although the open frame is not ideal for ABS, this printer is in a draft-free room so I tried it anyway. I was rewarded with a beautiful print that didn’t warp or string. This print was printed at 120mm/s with a.2mm layer height. It took me 25 minutes to print. Print in Inland Blue ABS (opens in a new tab).
We also have a TPU Cute Oposus, which I was capable of printing at normal speed without slowing it down. This is one of the best TPU prints I’ve seen in a long time and required no clean up at all. It was printed at 120 mm/s and had a.2mm layer. It took 1 hour and 35 mins to print. An Ender 3 S1 This would take at the most 4 hours to print. Print in Matterhackers Build Series Purple TPU. (opens in a new tab)
Bottom Line
The Ender 5 has seen significant improvements between the Pro edition and the S1 editions. It’s now faster, easier to level, less likely to jam and more sturdy to prevent vibrations from marring prints. It would be nice to have the Ender 5 S1 come with a more durable, longer-lasting bed surface. However, this part can be easily upgraded as needed.
The Ender 5 S1 3D printer is priced at $559 and is ideal for makers who need a small machine that can move a lot faster than traditional Cartesian printers. This printer is one of our favorites, featuring an all-metal hotend with CR Touch. The best 3D printers available right now
Creality seems to be capitalizing on the 3D print community’s obsession with speed, and may be overselling the Ender 5 S1’s capabilities a bit. It’s not as fast as the AnkerMake M5Ours is a true 250 mm/s. favorite fastest printer. However, this machine can consistently hit 150 mm/s and can definitely run circles around an Ender 3 S1. It’s definitely
My only real issue with the Ender 5 S1 is how Creality did not draw attention to the longer high temperature nozzle they’ve slid into the customized Sprite extruder. They should update the manual and website so that people are aware of what replacement is required.
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