Introduction: Creality CR10 - Cheap 30x30x40cm 3D Printer

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About: Hi, my name is Nikodem Bartnik. I'm 19 years old. I am into designing, making, programming and electronics. In the future, I want to start a company and make my own products. As for now, you can find my work o…

3D printing is getting more and more popular, 3D printers are getting cheaper and cheaper. There are plenty of cheap chienesse 3D printers with decent quality. In this instructable I will show you one of them - CREALITY CR10. I will show you how to assemble it and what can you do to make it even better. This printing area (30x30x40cm) is a lot, typical 3D printer like Prusa i3 has 20x20x20cm and a lot of other has even smaller printing area. But do you really need this big 3D printer? It depends but what I can advised you is that on this printer you can print really big objects but smaller as well without any problems. The big plus of it (maybe not for everybody because I like doing things my self) is that it is very easy to assemble, you can do it in 30 minutes. And you can't do this wrong, what I mean is that when I ou are building kit like my previous 3D printer the prusa clone and your axis are not perfectly perpendicular you will get not perfect 3D prints. With this printer you haven't those problems. So I can say that if you want to start your journey with 3D printing I can say that this is really good printer for you and it is cheap $399 for that big printer is really cheap.

If you are using app here is link to video CLICK

Step 1: What You Will Need?

To make the whole printer you will need just one kit. Here is a link to it:

https://amzn.to/3DsSwgP

If you prefer a smaller and really good printer I recommend this one: https://amzn.to/3jqs9Aq

The biggest plus of this kit is that you will get all the tools and components that you need to start with. You don't need to buy an additional SD card or something like that everything is in the kit. You can find here even things that are not useful in assembling but are useful for the conservation of the printer.
The kit comes in a big cardboard box it is well packed and protected. There is no unnecessary foil or tape and it is easy to take out.
This kit includes:
3D printer, all electronics power supply and power plug, SD card, SD card reader, small filament spool, all tools, tape for better adhesion, USB cable, filament holder, some screws, spare parts including additional nozzle.

Step 2: Connect Bottom With Top of the Printer

The first and almost last part of assembling the frame is fixing bottom part to top part. You have to use 4 screws to make it, tighten them from bottom side with an allen key. Make sure that they are tighted strongly and if printer is rigid. In next step we will make it even more rigid.

Step 3: Make It More Rigid

Now we will use 2, T like black elements to make it more rigid. We have to mount it one the sides of the printer. Make sure to mount element with endstop on the extruder side. Screws from the element can be tighten with Allen key.

Step 4: Connection

We can start with connecting 2 round connectors to control box. Upper socket is for head of the printer an lower one is for bed. You can't connect it wrongly there is no way.

Then we can connect cables to X, Y, Z axis motors and end stops and to extruder motor. All cables are labeled so it is pretty easy just remember that X axis is the one with a head, Y axis is the one that moves the bed, Z axis moves the X axis up and down. You can check out photos of connection above and video in the first step.

Step 5: Filament Holder

Just connect metal element with plastic element and fix it to control box with screws. It works really good but beacause I have so little space in my room I fixed this holder to my shelf. It works really good.

Step 6: VOLTAGE SWITCH!

That's very important step don't forget to check it befor plugging in. On the side of controll box you can find yellow sticker and switch, here you have to set it to the voltage in your country 110V or 220V. If you would do this and plug it to power you can destroy it so check this twice before turning on.

Step 7: Calibration

There are a lot of great tutorials about calibrating a 3D printer that are better then my exploration but anyway I will try to explain it to you.
Firstly let's home all axis. Now we have to heat up bed and nozzle because as you may know when metal gets hot it changes its dimensions. Then using a move axis option from menu you have to move head to all four corners of bed and adjust bed height using screws on the bottom. It is very useful to use for it a piece of paper to make gap between nozzle and bed in the height of paper thickness. It should be possible to put paper bellow nozzle and bed bud there shouldn't be to big clearance.

Step 8: Loading a Filament

Now you can connect plastic tube to extruder, that's filament guide it will guide filament from extruder to head because this is not a direct extruder, it's Bowden. To load filament you have to press yellow plastic on the extruder and push filament to it. Then using a move axis from menu you can extrude some filament

Step 9: Printing

My first print on this printer was benchy, just the small boat and it is like a benchmark for 3D printers. It went really good the only problem is those things of filament, that's because of too small retraction. You can easily change it in slicer settings right now I am using 4mm retraction and it seems to work well.
Second thing that I have printed is pen holder, it looks very good. I print it on 200% speed because I wanted to make it as fast as possible and it still looks good.
I didn't test it with flexible materials but it can be hard (or even impossible) to print with them because of boweden extruder.

Step 10: Fan Improvement

Fan duct in the Creality CR10 is not the best one. So I replaced it with this one:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2221647

It works much better. You just have to print it and replace the old one with new. To do this you have to unscrew the two screws on the head side.

Step 11: Conclusion

If you want to buy a 3D printer with big working area that's definitely a great printer for you. The easines of assembling and the fact that you can do this wrong is also a huge plus if you starting with 3D printing. It's quality is pretty impressive and it is not as loud as other 3D printers that I used.
I hope you like my project, don't forget to like and comment. Also check out my Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/Nikodem-Bartnik-1891157704439330/

Thanks for reading if you have any questions, leave a comment.
Have a nice day!