Like a lot of the extrusion-type printers today, the Ender-3 V2 Neo’s default filament is PLA. But it’s also compatible with PETG and ABS.

The Ender-3 V2 Neo’s full-metal Bowden extruder offers greater durability, extrusion force, and smooth feeding and retracting of filaments. This is one of the features that pay off in the long run.

The V2 comes with all the tools you should need for assembly—although, as mentioned, I also needed to use one of my own wrenches to resolve an issue. This is not the model to get if you are looking to simply plug and print. Many closed-frame printers, as well as the pre-assembled Prusa i3 MK3S+, fit that profile, though the latter costs about three times as much as the V2.

One of the biggest problems is that ABS shrinks when it cools, which can cause objects to warp. To prevent this, it is important to keep the ambient temperature even and high. If you’ve used Cura before, you’ll notice that the Creality slicer software has a striking resemblance to Cura, and it’s basically exactly the same to use. Wrong retraction settings can cause a lot of printing errors. The first print error caused by a suboptimal retraction is stringing. Therefore, most retraction calibration objects are designed to favor stringing.

What are the upgrades for the Ender-3V2 Neo?

Not only does this eliminate the hassle of manual leveling, but it also produces a cleaner, more accurate first layer, which is vital for the overall quality and bed adhesion of the 3D print. This is also a great feature if you are new to 3D printing, since leveling the bed takes a bit of practice, but even as experienced users we appreciate this feature. Redesigned Hot End The machine settings should be defined as shown in the screenshot above. This way, Cura knows how big the printer and its print head is. Put the firmware file "Ender-3 V2 Neo-Marlin2.0.8.3-HW-V4.2.2-SW-V1.1.8C-CR-Touch-20230324.bin" into the root directory of TF card.

Unfortunately, PETG is extremely prone to stringing, which is why it is more difficult to print than PLA, for example. So calibrating the settings is a must. However, the values given above should provide a good starting point. For some PETG filaments, the settings might already be ideal. To work the display, you have to rotate the knob, which takes you through the different options. To select an option, you push on the knob, which makes a rather loud popping sound. More specifically, we needed to know if there is a noticeable change in the print’s quality as the print speed increases beyond what it’s comfortable with. Both printers use a standard hot end that is not a full metal design, meaning that the nozzle temperature is limited to 260 °C like previous printers in the Ender 3 series. The build platform can heat up to 100 °C. These are sufficient temperatures for printing most standard materials, including PLA, PETG, and ABS. These temperatures also allow for TPU, but the Bowden extruder setup makes printing with flexible materials more difficult, and we recommend choosing a printer with direct drive like the Ender 3 S1 if you are looking to print flexible materials. If you still want to try printing with TPU, you need to calibrate the retraction well. Flexible filaments are sensitive to incorrect retraction settings. Stringing is difficult to control with a Bowden extruder for flexible filaments.Creality includes its own 3D printing software, Creality Slicer, on an SD card that is included with the printer. It is very similar to the Cura open-source software that is widely used in 3D printing. I used both Creality Slicer and Cura in preparing files for printing on the Ender-3 V2, and I found both easy to use. The Ender-3 V2 is not included in Cura's pull-down menu of supported printers, but it worked fine when I chose a different Creality model, the Ender-3 Pro. Silent Stepper Drivers - Older 3D printers such as the Creality CR-10 produce a song-like sound when printing due to the frequencies of the motors moving. Newer electronics prevent this issue, making the printer substantially quieter. The only sound you will hear are the fans, which is much easier to ignore. The Ender Neo UI has been updated and improved! With a preview function, you can now preview the shape of your 3D models before they are printed!