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Creality K1 SE – Review

Creality K1 SE
Creality K1 SE

Creality K1 SE

| 3D FDM Printer | CoreXY | 600mm/s |

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Creality K1 SE, the newest CoreXY 3D printer by Creality, released as a more affordable option.

The Creality K1 SE is an unexpectedly new addition to the K series of Creality 3D printers (such as the Creality K2 Plus; specifically, joining the K1 models next to the Creality K1, Creality K1 Max and Creality K1C.

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Creality K1 SE Review

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Creality K1 SE  Scores

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A

ACCESSORIES & PACKAGING
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The Creality K1 SE comes inside a well-protected packaging that includes as bundled accessories:

• 200g HyperPLA
• Spool holder
• Needle
• Diagonal pliers
• Plastic scraper
• 16GB USB disk
• Tools and screws

AS

ASSEMBLY
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The K1 SE sits among the most instantly ready to print out-of-the-box, 3D printers reviewed so far.

As a matter of fact, to make your first print, users need just to take the machine out of the box, remove the soft protections and 3 securing screws for the hotbed, without any true assembly steps.

D

DESIGN
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As the Creality K1 SE is part of the K1 models from the brand, this is also a CoreXY 3D printer; thus the K1 SE makes use of a “less traditional” axis design where the bed moves up and down instead of back and forth and the print head sits in a fixed Z-axis height while moving exclusively from left to right on its X-axis and front and back on the Y-axis.

Being a CoreXY machine, the unit has a more solid external structure that supports the moving mechanical parts, axis and bed; which consequently gives the machine a sort of structural reinforcement that a CoreXZ and standard 3D printer cannot provide.

The bed of the Creality K1 SE has a magnetically detachable Epoxy resin build plate with positioning aided guides to ensure that you re-attach it aligned and in the right position.

Similar to the Creality K1C, the K1 SE has a LED strip light hidden behind the top front frame which provides a handy feature to illuminate the printing bed and control the job either by sight or with Creality’s AI camera (cam not included, needs to be bought separately)

You can clearly see from the photos that the Creality K1 SE has an hybrid nature between an open-printer and an enclosed CoreXY type, as the whole machine is a true CoreXY but it does not come equipped with a top lid, side panels nor front door/panel. Nonetheless, this does not mean that they cannot be added; in fact, the K1 SE is born with modding DIY potential in mind.

Due to this modding capabilities right out from factory, owners of the Creality K1 SE have the possibility to build-up a fully customized 3D printer with DIY sections that can expand from panels, to lids, spool holders and endless more parts with much more ease and less hassle than a typical CoreXY printer.

Based on the K1C, the K1 SE measures nearly the same with a dimension of 355x355x482mm but it is lighter with a net weight of 10.24kg.

DS

DISPLAY SCREEN
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The Creality K1 SE comes with the very nice, large, touch-enabled, color screen that we have seen while reviewing the Creality K1C and also the Creality Ender3-V3.

The display offers intuitive menus, tabs and information; making it easy to operate to any user. In addition to this, the touch screen is as snappy and responsive to touch inputs as any modern smartphone without having to struggle to use it or register touch taps.

This display provides all the information about the status of the printer (thermals, print process, print parameters, etc.) and also offers all-access to settings (network, firmware updates, files navigation, etc) and manual calibration.

While printing, the screen will show a preview of the file, time remaining/elapsed time, progress in percentage, fans and light control and override of parameters and/or pause/stopping the print job.

The quality and usability of the screen is miles better and much more responsive than the touch screen that we have tested while reviewing other printers and laser machines such as the AtomStack A40Pro, IKIER K1 Pro Max, LaserPecker LP4, ELEGOO Jupiter SE, ELEGOO Saturn 4 ULTRA, ELEGOO Mars 5 ULTRA and Kingroon KLP1.

OC

OPERATION & CONTROL
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As with all modern up-tier and flagship 3D FDM printers from other and from Creality, the Creality K1 SE has multiple ways of fully operating the machine and send files for printing.

Owners of the K1 SE can either use the printer wirelessly or as a standalone device by connecting an USB drive with gcode files that have been sliced with any compatible software.

If you are using the machine as a standalone printer, the touch screen of the K1 SE becomes your way of navigating, previewing and sending to print the sliced files.

Instead, when used wirelessly, the K1 SE can receive files to be printed and be ordered to print the sliced files that get sent through Creality Print PC software or the mobile app (Creality Cloud)

On top of that, through both software, users can remotely control the printer, its current job task and modify in real-time most parameters.

CB

CONSTRUCTION & BUILD
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From the inside out, the Creality K1 SE has inherited the same exceptional and rugged construction quality of the more expensive K1C sibling.

This means that externally, the printed has a full-metal structure (die casting aluminum alloy) with a solid and wobble-free body and supporting structure to withstand the aggressive, blazing acceleration and printing speeds.

When looking at the internals, the machine, still, conserves the tank-alike metal use for all moving parts, rods, axis and, even, the same dual-gear direct drive extruder kit of the flagship models – also the same filament runout sensor and power loss recovery system.

Moreover, the Creality K1 SE comes with a tri-metal nozzle that has a quick-swappable design and is powered by the same Creality OS (based on Klipper) supported by 8GB of internal memory.

A detail that you might notice, is that the as the machine does not include external panels, the brand has reinforced the external structure with metal-connecting pieces to stengthen the frame of the machine.

The construction of the K1 SE feels rugged as a tank and even more if you compare with other products such as the ELEGOO Mercury 3.0 Plus, ELEGOO Mars 4 ULTRA, ORTUR LaserMaster 3 or Kingroon printer.

 

CON

CONNECTIVITY
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The printer has 2 connectivity systems, either using the USB-A port on the front panel of the device for pre-sliced designs or by using the internal Wi-Fi module.

Thanks to this WiFi module, users gain full wireless access via Creality Print software or through a mobile phone/tablet using the Creality Cloud app (or Creality Cloud Lite)

V

VERSATILITY
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The high quality components and temperature handling ranges of the machine allow it to support most typically used filaments from PLA to PETG and even TPU.

Size-wise, the Creality K1 SE sits among the compact-mid category with a printing volume as large as 220x220x250mm which fulfills the printing size used by most users 90% of the times.

Said so, this could potentially be the only feature holding back the K1 SE from being a solid alternative to any user as could not cover the needs of hardcore 3D printer enthusiast that look forward to do immense, single piece prints on a single printing job.

P

PERFORMANCE

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If you are wondering which are the main features left out on the Creality K1 SE vs Creality K1C, here you have a brief list:

• Enclosure panels and top lid
• AI camera
• Carbon filter and fan
• Internal heating and in-chamber thermals control

For most of the rest, on paper, both machines share the same core and essential features and specs; even sharing the blazing fast max. acceleration of 20000mm/s2 and max. print speed of 600mm/s.

The Creality K1 SE proved to be a smart CoreXY alternative, reaching the precision and print quality of the Creality K1C but on a fairly more affordable package that can adapt to users that do not need the carbon printing capabilities of the K1C or the fully enclosed design from factory.

In fact, we were surprised to find that the Creality K1 SE, still also, offers a full automated calibration that will take complete care of the optimal setting of the machine without any need of manual intervention of the user (like manual calibration with calibration cards, etc.). Among the advanced auto-calibration, users will obtain auto z-offset, leveling, input shaping and the optional choice to apply a calibration before each printing task.

You will see a printed message on the bed that says to apply glue before printing but the Creality K1 SE was remarkably good at providing strong adhesion on any printing task without any need of glue being applied – even on the biggest print tests that we realized during the review of the unit.

At the same time, as the bed sheet is bendable without inflicting damage to it, removing all prints was a breeze and rarely required fiddling too much with a scrapper.

On top of that, the bed sheet of the K1 SE includes a silicone brush that cleans the nozzle of any filament leftover and is part of the automated pre-printing process programmed in the machine.

In general, the Creality K1 SE tended to leave a stringy trace when traveling from the pre-print line on the left edge of the bed to the start area of the main print; yet this string is micro thinner than a hair and does not interfere with the final print.

PC

PRINT QUALITY
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Benchy took 16 minutes to finish printing; making the Creality K1 SE sit among the fastest Benchy test prints of all 3D printers reviewed so far.

The print came flawlessly using Creality Hyper-PLA filament to support the fast printing speeds.

Full sized vase: the vase printed using the full height of the K1 SE (250mm) took 2:50 hours to be completed while the same print with the same Creality Print version and out of the box parameters took 2:10 hours on the K1C – the difference is not night and day, so some manual fiddling with the parameters would probably get them closer.

Cute figure: The print was done with Creality Silk filament to have a nicer and more special finish and material aesthetic for this print. The print has a height size of 100mm and was completed in 1:31 hours with some optimized infill settings and using tree supports.


In-place print of a slim phone holder in a credit card format and thickness: This kind of prints need flawless first layers as the print itself does not have too many layers and because of the mechanical movement that the print has with an in-place, one-piece print design.

As seen on every other print test, the Creality K1 SE was impeccable and pain-free automatically leveling and calibrating the machine for zero issues on the first layer and the final result of the print.

Fast print of DIY tool accessory: We proceeded to print a design meant to measure nuts, bits and screws; this time we pushed the parameters of the K1 SE (matched with an Hyper PLA filament from Creality), the print was finished in 30 minutes and with flawless, error-free results.

SW

SOFTWARE
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Both Creality Print and Creality Cloud have been available for long time and are constantly updated with new features. To date, both software pieces are powerful and rich-featured to include all and more than you will ever need to prepare, set and slice your designs to be printed – even offering more features than slicing software from some competitors.

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Specifications

Creality K1 SE  Technical Specifications

Printing Technology: Fused deposition modeling
Build Volume: 220*220*250mm
Product Dimensions: 355*355*482mm
Package Dimensions: 441*441*578mm
Net Weight: 10.24kg
Gross Weight: 14.84Kg
Printing Speed: ≤600mm/s
Acceleration: ≤20000mm/s²
Printing Accuracy: 100±0.1mm
Layer Height: 0.1-0.35mm
Extruder: Dual-gear direct drive extruder
Filament Diameter: 1.75mm
Nozzle Diameter: 0.4mm
Nozzle Temperature: ≤300℃
Heatbed Temperature: ≤100℃
Build Surface: Epoxy flexible build plate
Leveling Mode: Hands-free auto leveling
File Transfer: USB drive, WiFi
Display Screen: Color touch screen
AI Camera: Optional
Power Loss Recovery: Yes
Filament Runout Sensor: Yes
Input Shaping: Yes
Lighting Kit: Yes
Sleep Mode: Yes
Rated Voltage: 100-120V~, 200-240V~, 50/60Hz
Rated Power: 350W
Supported Filaments: Hyper PLA/PLA/PETG/TPU
Printable File Format: G-Code
Slicing Software: Creality Print 5.0, Cura, PrusaSlicer
File Formats for Slicing: STL, OBJ, AMF
UI Languages: English, Spanish, German, French, Russian, Portuguese, Italian, Turkish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese

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Creality K1 SE

Creality K1 SE
9.5

SCORE

 9.5/10
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