The Creality Ender-3 V2 ($319.99), an upgrade to the popular Ender-3, is an inexpensive open-frame 3D printer that comes as a kit. You’ll want to be DIY-minded to take on this build, as it takes several hours to put together. The unit we reviewed had its share of setup and operational issues, but it was worth the trouble: Most of our test prints were slightly above-par in quality. If you are new to 3D printing and want to get down to printing ASAP, you should look elsewhere. But constructing and setting up the V2 should be a fun challenge for 3D-printing newbies willing to put their time and attention into the process.
A Classic Open-Frame 3D Printer
The Ender-3 V2 measures 24.4 by 18.7 by 18.5 inches (HWD) and weighs 17 pounds. Its build area of 9.8 by 8.7 by 8.7 inches is a tad wider and deeper than the 9.8-by-8.3-by-8.3-inch build area of the Original Prusa i3 MK3S+, a much pricier open-frame model popular with 3D printing enthusiasts.
The Ender-3 V2 is very similar in design to the Prusa i3 series and is said to have been loosely modeled on it. The AnyCubic Vyper, which has a build area of 10.2 by 9.6 by 9.6 inches, also bears a similar design. The printer’s base holds the power supply and supports the carriage on which the build platform can move in and out. The base has a slot for a microSD card, as well as a micro-USB port.
The front of the base also has a built-in tool drawer to hold the wrenches, cleaning needle, and Allen keys that come with the printer. (The Vyper has a similar tool drawer, but I couldn’t get it to close all the way.) On the back of the base, along with the on/off switch, is a voltage switch that you need to set for either 115 or 230 volts, depending on where in the world you are.
To either side of the build platform stands a semi-hollow vertical beam known as an extrusion (not to be confused with the extruder, or printing nozzle). The pair is bridged at the top by a crossbar. Another horizontal beam, which can move up and down between the extrusions by means of a vertical screw and small rubber wheels, holds the extruder, which also slides side to side. The spool holder for your filament is attached to the top crossbar, and an LCD is bolted onto the base, to the right of the build platform.
The spool-holder dowel is held in place on the spool holder with a plastic nut, about an inch in diameter. The nut comes attached to the dowel and should unscrew from it in a manner similar to opening a child-proof cap to a pill bottle. Try as I might, though, I couldn’t get the nut to budge by hand. I ultimately had to remove it using a wrench that could open wide enough to securely grasp it. Creality’s Ender-5 Pro, which I tested concurrently with the V2, uses the same dowel-and-nut combo, but I was able to separate them on the first try, no wrench needed.
Setting Up the Ender-3 V2: Assembly Required
An important thing to realize about the Ender-3 V2 is that it comes as a kit. Creality doesn’t sell a pre-assembled version. During setup, you bolt together or otherwise connect the parts mentioned above. Building the V2 is more involved than constructing the Original Prusa Mini—for which you bolt the Y-axis assembly to the base, attach the LCD screen and spool holder, and connect some cables, and then you’re good to go. Assembling the V2 was akin to the build process for the AnyCubic Vyper, taking several hours for the basic construction and a few more in troubleshooting.
The V2 comes with all the tools you should need for assembly—although, as mentioned, I also needed to use one of my own wrenches to resolve an issue. This is not the model to get if you are looking to simply plug and print. Many closed-frame printers, as well as the pre-assembled Prusa i3 MK3S+, fit that profile, though the latter costs about three times as much as the V2.
The Ender-3 V2 includes a user manual, which is mostly a setup guide. Text is duplicated in English and Chinese throughout. It starts with front and rear diagrams of the printer, with the parts numbered. Also included are a spec sheet and a comprehensive parts list (erroneously titled “Spare Parts”), with illustrations and names for each part.
After that are the assembly instructions, replete with small diagrams, some of them a little too small for comfortable viewing. (I used a magnifier when needed.) I was baffled by one diagram that showed a correct and a wrong way of connecting a nut and bolt; only when I magnified the diagram did I see its proper orientation. Instructions in the guide are cursory; I supplemented them by watching several third-party Ender-3 V2 assembly videos.
At the back of the user manual is a diagram in the form of a flow chart. It shows the different steps in getting the printer up and running, from the cryptic “Play by memory card Seal” (which discusses different memory-card issues, such as the inability to identify files or display error codes) on through the completion of printing. The type here, too, is small and hard to read at times (though most of the steps are more comprehensible than the example I give above), and the descriptions of problems and solutions are curt. A simple list of potential problems followed by solutions would have been preferable.
A Look at the LCD Panel
An LCD set in portrait orientation is fastened to the printer’s base. You control its non-touch screen with a knob below the screen.
Turning it lets you cycle through the panel’s four main functions—Print, Prepare, Control, and Info—and pressing it takes you to a submenu, from which you can enter a command. From the Prepare menu, you can preheat filament (there are menu items for heating PLA and ABS) and disable the stepper motors, which allows you to manually move the extruder and build platform.
You can also “home” the extruder—bring it back to its default position—and more. From Print, you can select a file and launch a print by clicking on it.
One problem is that the filenames displayed are so truncated that it can be hard to figure them out. It is especially an issue because the names of GCODE files created in Creality’s Slicer software already have a substantial prefix, leaving fewer visible characters for the names.
Adventures in Bed Leveling
One important step with this Creality model is leveling the print bed. In many of today’s 3D printers, this process is automated, but it’s common for budget 3D printers to stick to manual bed leveling. Sometimes this can be problematic, and that was the case when I tested the XYZprinting da Vinci 1.0 Pro. Even the Editors’ Choice-winning Original Prusa Mini’s bed leveling proved wonky at first. With the Ender-3 V2 it’s a straightforward enough process, but it still can prove tricky.
Under each corner of the build plate is a knob that raises or lowers the corner depending on which way you turn it. Your goal is to see that the extruder nozzle is set at the same distance from the build plate no matter which corner you move it to. The nozzle needs to be close enough to the bed that you can slide a sheet of paper between nozzle and plate and experience a slight friction. Once you’re done with one corner you move to the next, use the knob to adjust the distance as needed, and continue with the other corners. Then you repeat the process several times until the bed is leveled—that is, when no more adjustments are needed after all four corners have been checked in a row.
The real test, though, is in the printing. If the object you’re trying to print pulls off the bed, or if it adheres better on one side of the platform than the other, it’s still out of alignment, and so you’ll have to tweak it again. Also, even when it is set properly, the bed can lose alignment over time and have to be readjusted.
The Ender-3 V2’s Filament Scheme
The Ender-3 V2 base version comes with a small starter coil of PLA filament, though it is frequently sold bundled with one or more filament spools. The printer supports PLA, ABS, PETG, and TPU. Creality sells black, white, and gray PLA filament in 2-kilogram spools for $49.99 list price; at this writing, they were discounted to $41.99, and color PLA filament was about the same price.
For the first print, I attempted one of the test prints included on the memory card. I used a third-party PLA filament; the print came out brittle and poorly cohesive. I tried again, this time using Ender filament, but try as I could, I couldn’t get it to extrude. I expected that the extruder might be clogged, so I preheated the extruder to PLA melting temperature and took the long, very thin needle that Creality includes with the printer and poked it into the nozzle a few times. This cleared out the problem, and from then on the V2 extruded normally. In retrospect, I suspect the problem wasn’t with the filament, but that the nozzle was set a little too close to the print bed, touching it in places so that filament wouldn’t come out and causing the clog.
The Ender-3 V2 Software: A Choice of Slicers
Creality includes its own 3D printing software, Creality Slicer, on an SD card that is included with the printer. It is very similar to the Cura open-source software that is widely used in 3D printing. I used both Creality Slicer and Cura in preparing files for printing on the Ender-3 V2, and I found both easy to use. The Ender-3 V2 is not included in Cura’s pull-down menu of supported printers, but it worked fine when I chose a different Creality model, the Ender-3 Pro.
The process for each is basically the same: You load a 3D file in a format such as STL, OBJ, or 3MF. An image of the object you wish to print shows up in a visualization of the print bed. Once you click on the image, you can move, scale, rotate, and otherwise manipulate it. You can tweak settings like resolution and infill. When you press the Slice button, it maps out the layers to be printed based on your resolution (quality) and other settings, and gives you an estimated print time. You can then save the file in GCODE format to a removable drive or your hard drive.
Solid Print Quality, With Some Bumps
In testing, I printed 10 sample objects, all at the standard 200-micron resolution. Overall print quality was slightly above average. For the most part, the Ender-3 V2 did well in rendering detail, though it had some problems on the bottom side of overhangs. There were a few misprints; except in one case, they occurred at the very beginning of prints, with the first layers not adhering well and the object soon pulling off the print bed. This was corrected by re-leveling the print bed.
At the end of my testing, I had intended to print one final, large test object. I would start the print before I left work; when the print was completed, the extruder would cool down. To ensure the best quality, I re-leveled the print bed. But when I launched the print, it did not stick to the build plate.
I made several additional attempts to re-level the build plate, checking to be sure that the extruder was the proper distance from the build plate at each corner, and inserted the needle tool into the nozzle to ensure that no clog was partially obstructing the flow of molten filament, but was not able to get the first layers to properly adhere to the plate for this object despite multiple tries.
A Fun (But Perhaps Frustrating) Challenge for 3D Printing Newbies
Creality describes its Ender-3 V2 as easy to assemble and operate. On both accounts, it should be well within the capabilities of even a motivated newcomer. The V2, which should take you maybe two or three hours to build, will teach you a lot about the design and mechanics of 3D printers, and working through any problems that may arise is all part of the learning process. Provided that the print bed is properly leveled, it is easy to launch prints—created in Creality Slicer or Cura and saved to microSD card—from the printer’s LCD panel, and the results were quite pleasing, by and large.
That said, if you’re most interested in getting up and printing quickly with a minimum of hassle, take a pass on the Ender-3 V2 and select a pre-built model like the Monoprice Mini Delta V2, a budget 3D printer that requires a minimum of setup and churned out consistently decent-quality prints in our testing. Another option is a simpler kit, namely the Original Prusa Mini. Initial Z-axis calibration on that model—making sure the extruder nozzle is the right distance from the build plate, but at just a single point—was a bit tricky. Once it was set, though, there was no need for further adjustment, and the Mini reliably produced high-quality output.
The Creality Ender-3 V2 sells at a competitive price, has a reasonably large build area, and its overall print quality proved a little above par. Because it’s a kit, just know that if you encounter any construction or setup problems, they can increase your build time considerably. But when you get the V2 running smoothly, you can use it with the pride that comes from knowing that you built it yourself. For some folks, that’s half the fun.
