First shown at the IFA Berlin consumer technology show last year, Creality’s latest 3D printer in its flagship K2 series pushes the price lower, ditching the walls and door and offering multicolor out of the box.
Ever the masters of overlapping yet distinct printers that, between them, tick all the boxes, Creality has finally gotten around to releasing the K2 SE, a printer we first saw last year at the IFA Berlin tech show.
At first glance you could be forgiven for thinking the Creality K2 SE is just a smaller, doorless K2 but it’s not quite that simple. Available now for $499, the printer comes bundled with the CFS filament switcher as the K2 SE Combo.
The linear rail of the K2’s X-axis is gone, replaced here with parallel steel rods like you see on the K1-series machines, with the printhead shroud also taking cues from the K1, too. The K2 SE is the smallest of the K2 series, with a build volume of 220 x 215 x 245 mm.
K2 Series Build Volumes:
- K2 SE: 220 x 215 x 245 mm
- K2: 260 x 260 x 260 mm
- K2 Pro: 300 x 300 x 300 mm
- K2 Plus: 350 x 350 x 350 mm
Core printing specs remain close – up to 500mm/s print speed (take with a grain of salt – as always, what and how you print affect this). 20,000 mm/s² acceleration keeps thing snappy, though it’s interesting to see that the top print speed dips from the 600mm/s listed for the other K2 series machines and the K1-lineup, too. This isn’t a dramatic change, as you’ll rarely, if ever, see a print approaching these speeds.
You don’t get a camera in the K2 SE, meaning none of the smart “AI” camera based monitoring for spaghetti and failed prints that’s common across the the other K2 models. Likewise you don’t get any form of air filtration, for the obvious reason that the printer is wide open. Flow and vibration compensation algorithms remain to tackle print precision at speed.
As with the other K2-series printers, the K2 SE can use up to four CFS filament switchers for up to 16-filament printing. It’s a single-nozzle printer, though, so purge waste is generated, ejecting out of a purge chute at the back of the print chamber.
Seems like a rounded package, particularly if you’re not one for camera monitoring of your prints and the tighter build volume fits your needs. Bambu Lab recently discontinued its open-frame printer, the P1P, with its core features largely satisfied by the P1S. And now here comes Creality with an open-frame machine to fill the void.
Take into account the K1-series, still available as the K1, K1C, and K1 Max, recently had a new multicolor route open up to them in the form of the CFS-C, a $319 variant of the CFS. Even at it’s newer discounted price the K1C (arguably the better of that series; $339) in combination with the CFS-C costs more than the K2 SE Combo, which sets the new price floor for Creality’s CoreXY multicolor hardware.
The Creality K2 SE Combo is available now from the Creality webstore.