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Creality CR-10 S5 Review

You are here: Home / Reviews and Buying Guides / Creality CR-10 S5 Review
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Author: Chris Garrett

Creality CR-10 reviews are almost always about the regular sized 300mm x 300mm bed 3d printer (see my CR-10 review here) and reviews rarely talk about the big brother, the Creality CR-10 S5. I have had my big guy for a couple of months now so this review is way over due, but as I will outline below, I felt it important to really put this 3d printer through its paces for a thorough, impartial review.

Creality CR-10 S5 - Banana for scale
Creality CR-10 S5 – Banana for scale

Creality CR-10 reviews are almost always about the regular sized 300mm x 300mm bed 3d printer (see my CR-10 review here) and reviews rarely talk about the big brother, the Creality CR-10 S5.

I have had my big guy for a couple of months now so this review is way over due, but as I will outline below, I felt it important to really put this 3d printer through its paces for a thorough, impartial review.

First, specs ..

Creality CR-10 S5 – 500mm x 500mm x 500mm 3d printer – a 3d printing beast

Creality CR-10 specs:

  • Build area – 500mm x 500mm with heated bed and borosilicate glass, 500mm Z height
  • Control – Encased PSU, LCD, SD, USB, Melzi running Marlin – the heated bed power runs via an external mosfet, already installed.
  • Construction – Aluminium extrusion
  • Extruder – Mk10 bowden extruder
  • Hot end – Mk8 hot end
  • Price – Approximately $1,200 USD (though price varies, more on that next)

Yes, Creality have built an absolute beast of a 3d printer at 500mm cubed build area … it has to be seen to be believed.

Creality CR-10 lucky cat

Assembling, Leveling and First Print on the Creality CR-10 S5 (video)

For some reason at the time of writing my CR-10 S5 video has 8 down votes and no comments why, but for completeness I will share it anyway!

As you can see, it comes mostly assembled – just separated enough that it can be shipped flat. There are two vertical columns to attach under the printer and the T brace on one side and the Z stop. All cables are plug and play, just match the labels.

Levelling CR-10 S5 bed
Levelling CR-10 S5 bed

Leveling a bed that is 500mm x 500mm does take a tiny bit more sensitive touch than the smaller one for two reasons:

  1. Small turns can make a big difference over such a big area
  2. My bed came with a dip in the middle
  3. I had a thumb wheel missing

Obviously #2 is a problem, and I didn’t realize until after using it for a while (hence not coming straight out with a review even though I bought the machine in July). Problem #3 was easily resolved by printing one and pressure-fitting a nut.

CR-10 S5 Problems and solutions

The only problems I have had with either the original CR-10 and my newer CR-10 S5 was those, which is pretty darned impressive for the price!

As mentioned in my original CR-10 review, I could have bought from  Gearbest for less money but instead I wanted to support the local resellers, plus they help with customer service, so I purchased my first from Tinymachines3d, and the S5 I bought from MacEwan3d.

Ryan sent me out a replacement thumb wheel (and maybe because of my open source rants, also sent a new main board that is flashed with his firmware, something I need to try out along with some other goodies … that’s for a future post!).

Benchy on Creality CR-10 S5
So close – Ran out of filament!

The dip in the bed I fixed by shimming with blue tape 🙂

Rather than stick with plain glass I immediately added Buildtak, which I need to replace because I didn’t have a 500mm square sheet so used multiple sheets instead.

Positives About the CR-10 S5

This is the original Creality CR-10 but with a bigger bed, so most of the positives apply, though unlike my original CR-10 it has two lead screws. Apparently they all do now. I didn’t see one lead screw as a problem with my original but at 500mm wide it might have been tricky to go with one on this guy.

https://makerhacks.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/2017-07-22-14.38.57.mp4

That 500mm square bed is amazing, but funnily enough after using it for a while, I think I prefer the 300mm one!

While being able to print huge is a definite benefit, and something I have employed in my quadcopter, prop and robot prints (future posts!), 80% of the time the 300mm one was more than sufficient. Heck, my Wanhao Di3 and Prusa Mk2 get a lot of use and they are not even 300mm.

MacGuyvering an on the fly solution

Something to consider, do you need 500×500? Especially given the price differential.

Print quality, like the smaller CR-10 printer (seems weird to call 300mm squared small), is outstanding once you have a good slicer profile. Shifting around such a big bed doesn’t seem to have caused any problems, which is something I was worried about.

Creality CR-10 S5 Review Concluding Thoughts

So, would I recommend it?

Heck yeah! But only if you need 500mm cubed build area. That is the real decision.

I thought I was going to need it a lot more than I ended up using the full size. Once you have printed the one or two things you need that scale for, you end up just using a smaller area, but still waiting for that massive bed to heat up.

You might find a regular CR-10 (or two!) a better fit.

The Creality CR-10 S5 is a wonderful printer, though, and it is pure luxury having such a big build area with the confidence that it will print. Priceless 🙂

Gearbest usually have the best prices. Obviously if you are going to purchase from Gearbest I would prefer you use my affiliate link! THAT SAID If you are in north america, are going to purchase and can afford to wait, consider buying from macewen3d.com – I don’t get anything for recommending Ryan, he is just a good bloke with a small business and offers great customer service. He also stocks the in-betweener S4 🙂

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Category: Reviews and Buying GuidesTag: 3d printer, 3d printers, cr-10, creality, reviews, s5
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About Chris Garrett

Marketing Director by day, maker, retro gaming, tabletop war/roleplaying nerd by night. Co-author of the Problogger Book with Darren Rowse. Husband, Dad, 🇨🇦 Canadian.

Check out Retro Game Coders for retro gaming/computing.

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