Creality’s waded into the present “my printer is greater than your printer” argument with its personal huge 3D printer. The CR-M4 is so over-engineered that Creality is asking it “quasi-industrial” and, in adverts, daring you to not solely print full sized armor items, however full sized dragons.
The Creality CR-M4 is constructed to final with linear rails on the Y axis, an outsized Y stepper motor, and a bigger than regular 800W energy provide. The corporate has adopted a Volcano model all steel hotend, however stumbled a bit by delivery the huge printer with a dinky .4 mm nozzle.
Exact auto leveling, a Sprite direct drive and a versatile mattress floor make it simple to make use of. Nevertheless, the CR-M4’s gigantic 450x450x470 mm construct quantity has a fair greater footprint – virtually a full sq. meter. You positively need to measure your desk tops earlier than bringing this one house.
When you’re eager to make very giant issues – like cosplay armor – with out slicing them into chew sized items first, this is likely to be the greatest 3D printer for you. At $1,099, it feels costly for the house printer market, however somebody with a workshop who requires sturdiness will really feel that the printer’s sturdy construct is well worth the value.
Specs: Creality CR-M4
| Construct Quantity | 450 x 450 x 470 mm (17.7 x17.7 x 18.5 inches) |
| Materials | PLA/PETG/TPU/ABS (up to300 levels) |
| Extruder Kind | Direct Drive |
| Nozzle | 0.4mm (proprietary) |
| Construct Platform | PC coated spring metal sheet, heated |
| Mattress Leveling | Automated, CR Contact |
| Filament Runout Sensor | Sure |
| Connectivity | USB Drive, USB Kind C, , LAN |
| Interface | 4.3 inch Shade contact display screen, detachable |
| Machine Footprint | 655 x 700 x 865mm (25.7 x 27.5 x 34 in) |
| Machin Weight | 22.48kg (49.5 lbs) |
Creality CR-M4: Included within the Field
The Creality CR-M4 comes with every little thing you must get your printer arrange. You get instruments to construct and preserve the printer, aspect cutters, a steel scraper, 1 spare hotend with .4 nozzle preinstalled, and a USB stick for transferring recordsdata. There’s additionally a 500g pattern of white PLA to get you began.
The USB stick has a really useful quick video on assembling the printer. You additionally get a PDF copy of the handbook, a duplicate of Creality Print and two pattern fashions in each pre-sliced .gcode and .stl format.
Design of the Creality CR-M4
The Creality CR-M4 is a really giant printer within the model of the favored CR-10 and has the identical construct quantity of 2019’s Cr-10 Max. Engineers have drastically improved upon the design, including clean rolling metal linear rails and a bigger, 800 watt energy provide. Mixed with a 42-60 Y Axis stepper motor, the CR-M4 can deal with a whopping 30kg print on its construct plate.
It has a twin Z axis as anticipated, with a belt to maintain them in sync and tie rods to maintain them regular. Heavy-duty cable chains defend the Z and X axis wiring, although not the Y, which continues to be wrapped in a mesh sleeve. Seeing because the Y axis strikes as a lot because the X axis, I ponder if the cable chains are extra window dressing than necessity.
The all-metal, Sprite direct drive is almost the identical as discovered on the premium Ender 3 S1 Professional. However there’s a twist. This one is constructed for an extended Volcano sort nozzle, which heats up extra materials and permits for quicker printing. Sadly, Creality is utilizing a customized nozzle solely discovered right here and at its sibling firm, Sovol.
The included inventory nozzle is a rinky-dink 0.4mm dimension, which is normal concern for many 3D printers, however woefully insufficient for the huge builds you’ll need to deal with with this type of machine. Creality has reassured us that bigger nozzles will develop into obtainable quickly.
Creality’s customized excessive circulate nozzle is, just like the nozzle on the Ender 5 S1, going to confuse a number of individuals. It appears to be like like a Volcano and even has the identical thread size. I went so far as putting a 0.6mm Volcano nozzle within the CR-M4, hoping to shave a number of days off my check prints, once I realized it was too quick to clear the fan shroud.
It’s not all unhealthy. The larger fan shroud is housing a 4020 fan with twin ducts pointed proper on the nozzle’s tip for superior cooling.
The CR-M4 is the primary Creality machine I’ve examined with a detachable management display screen. This got here in fairly useful whereas the printer was operating in my studio. The printer is so giant I needed to run it sideways on my IKEA countertop, however the detachable display screen meant I didn’t need to pressure my neck to fireplace up a print.
The spool holder is mounted on prime, identical to an Ender, which cuts down the printer’s width. I did discover one flaw with the fabric rack, which is constructed for normal 1kg spools. I had hoped to make use of an additional giant spool for a 4 day, 2000+ gram print.
Figuring out that the spool holder would break beneath the pressure of a 5 pound roll, I used a table-top spool holder which I borrowed from a smaller printer. I then ran the fabric up the printer, via a cable tie, into the highest mounted filament runout sensor and again right down to the direct drive. The pressure of making an attempt to drag materials from an enormous spool at a bizarre angle brought on friction, embarrassing layer traces and even some beneath extrusion. If you wish to use this printer with additional giant spools, you’ll must discover a approach to mount them to the ceiling or the wall above the printer.
The printer has a 32-bit board and silent stepper motors, however it’s not that stealthy. The CR-M4 requires a number of cooling, and the followers are noticeable. Additionally they keep on whereas the machine is idling, which may be aggravating.
There are a number of methods to connect with the CR-M4: USB drive, USB-C cable, RJ45 cable, Wi-Fi and LAN. I’m very completely satisfied to ditch the tiny micro SD playing cards, and particularly completely satisfied to have the ability to ship recordsdata proper from the slicer utilizing Wi-Fi or LAN.
A notice on Wi-Fi, which is accessed via a wise gadget and the Creality Cloud web site. Creality Cloud is for gamified file sharing, purchasing, socializing, slicing and sending prints to your machines. You should purchase premium fashions with cash which might be earned through the use of the web site or with actual cash (99 cents will purchase 100 credit). On the one hand, it’s fairly cool that you’ll find a print, slice and ship it proper out of your telephone. However, Creality hasn’t been in a position to forestall customers from importing (and promoting) copyrighted fashions.
Creality CR-M4 VS Anycubic Kobra Max and Elegoo Neptune Max
We’ve reviewed three jumbo printers from three massive corporations previously 12 months. Anycubic’s Kobra Max and Elegoo’s Neptune Max are each related designs with print volumes of at the least 400mm cubed. So how do they stack up?
| Header Cell – Column 0 | Anycubic Kobra Max | Creality CR-M4 | Elegoo Neptune Max |
|---|---|---|---|
| Value | $569 | $1,099 | $470 |
| Quantity | 400x400x450mm | 450x450x470mm | 420x420x500mm |
| Direct Drive | No | Sure | Sure |
| Linear Rails | No | Sure | No |
| Excessive Circulation Nozzle | Sure | Sure | No |
| All Steel Hotend | No | Sure | No |
| Construct Plate | Glass | Flex PC | Flex PEI |
| Auto Stage | Sure | Sure | Sure |
| Handbook | No | Sure | No |
| Process Gentle | No | No | Sure |
All three machines produced high quality prints on generously sized construct plates. The CR-M4 and Neptune have simpler to make use of flex plates, and the Kobra Max and CR-M4 have excessive circulate nozzles to hurry up their prints. The Neptune have to be manually leveled first, whereas the Kobra Max and CR-M4 are full auto leveling.
The Neptune Max is a winner on your pockets, however has been notoriously onerous to search out in inventory.
Whereas costlier, the CR-M4 beats the competitors with extra significant upgrades– linear rails on the Y axis helps transfer the heavy mattress and an all steel hotend ought to maintain it clog free. It’s additionally the one printer with WiFi capabilities.
After all, we are able to’t neglect the opposite monster printer we’ve reviewed, the Snapmaker Artisan. Retailing at $2999, the Artisan is in a barely completely different class. It’s a 400x400x400mm twin extruder with all steel hotends. It has a glass mattress, an enclosure…plus a laser and a CNC machine. It’s principally an entire workshop in a single unit.
Assembling the Creality CR-M4
Assembling this beast is simpler with a helper as among the connection factors are beneath. Like most trendy printers, it comes semi assembled, and solely wants 4 bolts to attach the gantry to the bottom. After that, you must clip within the drag chain and screw on the helps. Two extra screws quick the show display screen to the aspect of the machine.
The wiring could be very easy and properly labeled, and there’s no trying to find a voltage swap because the CR-M4 is manufacturing unit set to the suitable voltage.
Leveling the Creality CR-M4
The CR-M4 has a hard-mounted mattress with out handbook changes and depends on auto leveling to get an ideal first layer. It makes use of a Creality CR-Contact to probe the floor at 25 factors.
The primary time you degree the CR-M4 is a bit of awkward as a result of setting the Z top isn’t included within the leveling program. When you’re not following the handbook carefully it will be simple to miss this important step.
To degree the mattress, first click on Put together → Auto Leveling, then Begin. It would probe 25 factors on the mattress. Subsequent, click on Transfer and manually return the printer to 0 on the Z axis. The primary time via, 0 needs to be properly above the construct plate.
Click on Transfer to return to the earlier display screen.Now click on Z Offset and decrease the nozzle till it simply scrapes a chunk of paper.
You’ll be able to fine-tune the Z top from the print menu whereas operating a print. Nevertheless I didn’t discover this essential.
Loading Filament on the Creality CR-M4
The Creality CR-M4 has an easy-to-use Sprite direct drive, Creality’s light-weight extruder. There isn’t any preset program for loading filament, however the path is so quick you could usually load and unload by hand.
First preheat the hotend by tapping Put together. Choose a Preheat button to match your filament. Presets for PLA and ABS are situated on the primary menu, and settings for PETG, TPU, Nylon, PA and “self outlined” are situated on a secondary menu. These can all be tuned to your liking within the Advance part of the menu.
As soon as the nozzle temperature hits the goal, mount a spool on the rack, thread your filament via the filament runout detector and push it into the highest gap. Launch pressure on the lever and push the filament via – it solely wants a number of centimeters earlier than reaching the nozzle.
You too can advance the filament mechanically through the use of the Feed/Return button on the Put together menu. To unload or change colours, merely reverse the method.
Getting ready Information / Software program for Creality CR-M4
The CR-M4 comes with a duplicate of Creality Print, a slicer of its personal design. The slicer is straightforward to make use of with numerous presets for filaments. It’s organized a bit of in a different way than Cura or PrusaSlicer, however all the identical capabilities are there.
Creality Print additionally provides you entry to your printer remotely through LAN or Creality Cloud.
There are not any built-in profiles for Cura or PrusaSlicer right now – it’s nonetheless early because the machine is simply obtainable for pre-order – however you possibly can simply run the CR-M4 utilizing a CR-Max profile.
The Creality CR-M4 comes with a 500 gram pattern of PLA, which can get you began. You’re going to wish a lot extra filament, so try our information to the greatest filaments for 3D printing for solutions.
We began out with the pattern PLA and printed the pre-sliced check print, a rabbit that’s include Creality printers earlier than. I’ve seen this bunny check print on different printers, and it is normally a bit tough with stringing between the ears. The CR-M4 printed the bunny very easily with clear ears, which gave me excessive hopes.
Subsequent up, we needed to go massive. I printed this 12 inch tall Clockspring hourglass in Overture Silk PLA Copper (opens in new tab). Since I solely had one roll, I needed to restrict the scale of the hour glass to 183% and 988 grams of filament. I might have squeezed out a bigger print if I had caught to an ordinary 0.2 mm layer top and 0.4 layer width. Nevertheless, I used to be in a position to save two days of print time through the use of a “pretend six” profile, which used a 0.28 mm layer top and 0.64 layer width.
We didn’t lose any particulars as a result of the mannequin was practically twice its supposed dimension. The partitions have been tremendous clean, and there was no stringing in any respect within the advanced grid sample. This print took 2 days, 16 hours and 48 minutes at a velocity of 65 mm/s.
Bonus photograph: it’s onerous to point out how massive these prints are with out one thing for scale, so right here’s the Clockspring Hourglass with an 11.5-inch trend doll.
The CR-M4 is large enough to print life-sized balloon animals, and I instantly considered Chelsey Creates Issues and her latest run of cute balloon animals. This PETG unicorn is a full 12 inches tall and is saved translucent through the use of solely 2 partitions and lightning infill.
The print was clean with none trace of z wobble on the horn. The one tough patches on this print are tough patches from the place the assist was touching the stomach and chin. One of many perks of lightning infill is it solely varieties the place it’s completely wanted, like within the unicorn’s again, tail and head. I additionally used Cura’s experimental natural tree assist and a “pretend .6” nozzle setting, which used a .28mm layer top, .64 line width and a velocity of 65 mm/s. The print burned up 378 grams of filament, however completed in solely 24 hours and 38 minutes. This was printed in Translucent Blue ProtoMaker PETG.
The CR-M4 has a Sprite direct drive, which handles comfortable supplies like TPU extremely properly with just some stray wisps which might be simple to trim again. On the time of this evaluate, I wanted to make a banner with the brand of my private weblog. I used Tinkercad to recreate my emblem in 3D and printed it throughout your complete mattress. As a result of the CR-M4 doesn’t perceive the filament swap command, I needed to print it in two halves, the underside in Inland White TPU (opens in new tab), then the prime in Zyltech Blue TPU.
The CR-M4 laid down completely clean layers for this very skinny print. There’s a little bit of wisping on the “splash” portion of my emblem, that are just some dashes. This may very well be improved with extra Z hop, however actually, it’s not unhealthy in any respect for stretchy TPU. This print took 7 hours and 55 minutes, with a layer top of .28 and a velocity of fifty mm/s.
Backside Line
The CR-M4 is an enormous machine that prints actually giant issues with glorious high quality. It wants a number of area, however as soon as it’s arrange it’s a breeze to make use of. I’m particularly completely satisfied to ditch the micro SD playing cards and print remotely utilizing a LAN.
A excessive circulate hotend is a superb addition for this printer, although it ought to have shipped with one thing greater than a 0.4mm nozzle. It’s not appropriate with E3D’s Volcano nozzles, so it’s irritating to have to attend till Creality makes them obtainable. I used to be in a position to cheat a bit of and push 0.6mm nozzle volumes via the 0.4mm nozzle, which saved me days of print time.
The $1099 price ticket is a bit a lot for house use, however the sturdy construct is likely to be simply what some critical makers are on the lookout for. The Elegoo Neptune 3 Max produced equally clear prints, however feels a bit low cost as compared and is notoriously onerous to search out on retailer cabinets. It’s positively extra reasonably priced at $470, particularly in case your curiosity is simply in making giant costume items for your self. When you like a glass plate – and don’t thoughts the difficulties in eradicating gadgets from it– then Anycubic Kobra Max, priced at $529, can also be a worthwhile tremendous sized machine with good high quality.
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