Today is Creality’s 10-year anniversary, in case you were wondering. And did you think to get the consumer 3D printing behemoth anything for the occasion? No? Well, it got you something – a new multi-filament system compatible with a simultaneously announced K2 3D printer series.
The “Creality Filament System” (CFS) looks a lot like the well-received Bambu Lab AMS, but with temperature and humidity readouts to compliment the “sealed design” that should be extremely welcome in humid areas. Otherwise, its features sound pretty parallel to Bambu’s earlier model: the CFS uses RFID technology to identify filament (presumably just Creality’s own), and each CFS unit holds four spools of filament, but up to four units can be combined for a total of 16 materials.
The new K2 Plus 3D printer boasts a 350 mm cubed build volume, linear rails, a die-cast frame, active chamber heating, strain gauge auto-leveling, 30,000 mm/s2 acceleration, and FOC closed-loop motors. It will come with Creality’s newly announced Apus direct extruder (not to be confused Phaetus’ Apus direct extruder), which Creality says is capable of heating up to 350 ºC, a 66% higher flowrate than the “previous design” (presumably referring to the Sprite extruder), and has hardened steel gears with a DLC coating intended to be durable while printing with carbon-fiber filaments. It also includes a filament cutter, which should be handy for reliable filament changes.
The printers will run on Creality OS (which is set to get an open-source implementation with the Ender 3 V3). They will apparently use “Edge AI technology”, which Creality attributed to an error-detecting camera and “AI model blending”. Maybe Nexa3D’s recent AI April Fools joke was actually onto something. Interestingly, Creality says those AI services don’t require internet connectivity. Processing on the K2 Plus will be handled locally on the system’s dual-core CPU and 32 GB eMMC. That’s sure to be welcome news to critics of Bambu Lab’s connectivity requirements.
The standalone K2 Plus and CFS combos will go on sale globally on July 31, 2024. But, if you’re interested in the CFS for an earlier printer in Creality’s K series or the recent Ender 3 V3 3D printer, you’re in luck. Creality announced these systems will receive upgrade kits for CFS compatibility during its anniversary livestream.
Just last week, we reported on Anycubic’s thinly veiled teaser of a “multi-color 3D printing breakthrough” and how it was good to see increased competition in a popular piece of hardware that seems to have been dominated Bambu Lab – especially after AnkerMake’s multi-material bid fell flat earlier this year.
More news on that side of this simultaneous invention also dropped today, including a confirmation of the upcoming Anycubic Kobra 3 – so be sure to check that out while you’re here.
Update April 10, 2024: More information was revealed during Creality's anniversary livestream, some of which ran contrary to early speculation in this article. We've updated the text accordingly. Correction April 19, 2024: A previous version of this article incorrectly implied Bambu Lab's AMS is not sealed.
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License: The text of "Creality Announces Multi-Filament System & K2 Plus 3D Printer" by All3DP is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.