Might as well vent a bit

My K2 Plus (really Minus if you ask me) has been nothing but a nightmare from the day I got it. Out of the box it flagged System Errors CM2798 & XS2001 and would not complete the startup menus. Luckily I found a YouTube video that explained the issue was loose cabling in the component cabinet. To resolve this issue I had to open the printer and reseat the cables (Not exactly what I’d call a pleasant first time user experience). It would have taken Creality 2 days to get a resolution to me, I guess that’s what you sign up for when you buy a printer form China, should have realized that if the printer was not reliable I would become a Creality Tech Support Technician. Constantly having to report issues to them and then having to expedite the repair/rework solutions they provide is a full time job that puts a serious crimp in my workflow and ability to produce parts.

Suffice to say I was underwhelmed from the start, but remained hopeful that I could get beyond these issues and learn to master the machine. I was expecting that these newer generation of printers would no longer require constant tinkering and baby sitting, I was obviously wrong about that.

In the 2.5 months I’ve had the K2 Plus, I’ve replaced 3 nozzles 3 extruder shells, and have had to disassemble the extruder close to 30 times to resolve multiple errors relating to extruder jams. Just this morning I had to take apart the extruder 5 times, and just installed my 3rd extruder shell, some of the jams where so extensive because the molten PETG bonded to inner extruder filament path destroying the tensioner, and the extruder shell itself.
I currently use all Creality Hyper Filaments.

This is not a machine I would recommend to anyone needing to produce dimensionally accurate parts, Its a nightmare owning operating and maintaining this machine, without stellar support your screwed.

I recently acquired an Sovol SV08 which also has its issues, but after replacing the motherboard and purchasing a MicoSwiss hotend it prints reliably but the Auto Bed Leveling is poor so you need to baby sit the first layer. The problem with that machine is it does not do multi material printing, as a result you spend a lot of time removing support material often leaving scaring on the part making it dimensionally inaccurate.

This is not my first run with 3D Printers, got my first machine in 2015 the Folgertech FT5, learned a lot from building that machine, but it too fell short of expectation and so my dream of building and designing is now fading, I don’t have the time or the energy any more to deal with this.

Perhaps I’m being called to a new path, I really feel the need for an American based company to emerge that can produce consumer/engineering grade 3D printing products.

After spending all day working on this machine its now producing Filament sensor detector errors, I did take the extruder apart once again, I checked the filament path, and cleaned the sensor, still getting the same error after putting it back together again, I’m thinking the 3pin JST connector has been fatigued from being removed so many times its ruined, and again I don’t have the time or the energy to work with this POG any more. anyone need a K2 paperweight?

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Wow!, that is indeed a sorry tale indeed.
My experience has been pretty much the opposite. So far I can explain all the problems I’ve experienced but do realize sooner or later I will hit ones I wont be able explain.

I got one at work and its been pretty hassle free in comparison to your experience, but i had a few issues.
part of the jamming is due to the extruder design and how it feeds into the hot end. creality is very good at designing bad tool heads. I had PETG filament wrap around one of the extruder gears due to how awful the design is. the filament either broke or was cut and the following end slid off and eloped with the gear.

Today the 3 pin JST connector you may have mentioned got caught in the extruder gear and broke the connection and now its a paper weight until its replaced. it wont read extruder temps.
i suspect my half wit co worker took it apart to fix a jam and shoved the cable next to the gear like the two were going to get along.

Unfortunately, my experience, though not nearly as bad as yours, is also very disappointing. I thought I was buying a “modern” machine in line with BBL or Prusa, as it’s a similar price and a modern design. However the design of hardware (extruder and bed) and software (firmware, GCode and inferior Orca port) seem to fall a long way short of those two industry leaders. After spending all my hard-earned on the K2Plus, and finding it wasn’t the “send and forget” printer I was promised by the marketing, I bought a BBL A1mini (for less than £200!!) which is absolutely reliable - completely “send and forget”. because it’s an open bed-slinger, it can’t do the ABS prints I need, so I use the K2plus just for those now, and send all PLA prints (almost all will fit) to the A1Mini. This just goes to reinforce how poor the Creality development is, given that a sub-£200 printer can be so much better in usability and reliability - it really shows Creality up!

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