Ender 3 V2 Review

Pros and Cons of the Ender 3 V2

Ender 3 V2 Features

Quiet printing

This feature is not to be underrated.

Printing with the original Ender 3 printer could be quite noisy. I could easily hear mine from a room away with the door shut. Some people can block out that sound after a while, but a nice quiet print is so much better.

This feature alone might be worth the upgrade.

Resume printing function

Not a new feature but handy regardless.

We all deal with power outages from one cause or another. Storms, weird electric grid issues, sometimes construction even causes blips. The Ender 3 V2 can easily pick back up where it left off when the power went out.

Big time saver for those occasions.

Belt tension wheels

These come in handy as the printer gets more use.

The X and Y axis belts that move the print head will lose some tension over time as they get worn and stretched. Without these tension wheels to easily adjust the belts, you would have to adjust in an awkward manner that was better done with 4 hands. Now, easy to correct in less time.

Another great quality of life improvement.

Assembly

Assembly will take some time.

Set aside at least 2 hours or put it together over several sessions. For best results, pair following the instructions that were sent with a detailed YouTube tutorial such as this:

Before Printing With Your Ender 3 V2

Learn the basic controls

The control interface is a small LCD screen with a knob that you rotate to cycle thru the various menu options.

There are four main menus – Print, Prepare, Control, and Info – that each have a submenu. The highest frequency controls I use are:

• Homing the extruder
• Preheating the filament and bed
• Starting a print by choosing a file from the SD card

Level the print bed

For the best print result, you will need to level the print bed before each print.

WARNING: Make sure the print bed and nozzle have cooled down before doing this.

Start by homing the extruder from the control interface. Then you will either need to turn the power off, or disable the stepper motors from the interface. You do this because moving the print nozzle by hand can generate electricity and damage the motors.

The most common method of manually leveling for the Ender 3 is to get a standard piece of paper and slide it between the nozzle tip and the bed. You then adjust the tension wheels underneath the bed until the paper can not slide without a slight (barely a hint of) friction. Do this above each adjustment wheel. You may have to go around 2-3 times as adjusting one will affect the level at the other 3 spots.

I have personally gotten the best results with a slight adjustment to zero friction after finding the slight friction spot.

Get familiar with the slicing software

Whether you make your own models or download them from the internet, you will need slicing software to tell your printer how to print them.

Some things a good slicing software will help with:

• Estimating how long the print will take
• Scaling the model to the correct size
• Showing how the support structures will build around your model
• Warning about sections of the model that don’t have support underneath
• Setting how much plastic is used inside your model (fully solid or semi hollow)

There are several good choices. Creality has its own “Creality Slicer” software which you can find on their download page (its at the bottom). I have personally found Cura Ultimaker to be an excellent choice. Intuitive and free. There are a couple hidden controls that are useful such as their experimental support structures.

Spend a little while getting familiar with whichever slicing software you choose to use.

Upgrade Potential for the Ender 3 V2

Auto Bed Leveling

The priority upgrade to make your life easier is auto bed leveling.

As a beginner, some of your prints might get slightly ruined because you haven’t leveled the bed correctly. And as a creator, you would rather spend the time making cool models and printing them than making sure the printers bed is leveled correctly by hand.

It saves time, it makes the process easier, it’s a no brainer upgrade.

Different Print Bed Surface

I was using the default print bed that came with the Ender 3 for a while.

I ended up resorting to several tricks to get my prints off the bed. Many of my smaller prints had to be redone because I broke them trying to get them unstuck. After a while, the bed began to look a little rough. Then one of my good friends mentioned he had started using a glass print bed. The prints were much easier to remove and still adhered well.

After getting the auto level upgrade, the next biggest quality of life improvement is a glass print bed.

Should You Buy

The real reason you read reviews. You want to know if this printer is worth your hard earned dollar (or euro, yen, etc).

In a short answer, I can recommend buying the Ender 3 V2. It provides good value and competitive features at its price point. The print quality is very good for a printer in this range. The fact that you can upgrade for some quality of life features at a later time means it can grow with you as you go on your printing journey. Even if you decide to get a nicer printer at a later date, it can still be a good backup or second printer.

You can buy yours today at any of these reputable retailers:

• Creality Store
• Amazon