I’ve been struggling with my K1 since Christmas. I bought it on sale for Black Friday and no matter who I contact at Creality, no one can tell me what replacement parts to order. K1 parts don’t fit my printer. They want pictures to see what ‘buckle’ I have, because my serial number isn’t enough information, but who wants to tear down a printer just to take pictures? Now my thermistor is broken (a leg weld just fell right off while I was fixing a clog), and I can’t order a new one because what do I order? This printer doesn’t take K1 parts. Every time I order something, it has to get shipped back. I’m annoyed and venting, but also trying to help anyone else considering a Creality printer. Don’t do it. Their support is a joke and they take zero accountability.
I’ve added an image for help explaining the problem. These two JST connections are completely different, but both are supposed to be for the K1. And both of these listings are Creality Official:
I’ve had a K1 for a couple of years now, and I’ve never had issues getting parts for it. I recently replaced the hot end and hot end breakout board because of my own personal stupidity, and I was able to just buy the parts. And they fit.
Is something different about your or my K1?
Evidently? Everything I order for it is for the original K1, and Creality quietly made changes midway through production so nothing labeled K1 will fit. The connections for a new hotend, for example, would not fit my board. The nozzles labeled K1 are short, like nozzles my Ender took, but then I found out my K1 takes unicorns. I literally can’t buy parts.
Something that I’ve learned over the years is that a lot of times what separates cheaper or more expensive brands or higher prestige brands from lower prestige brands is quality control.
In the world of guitars, for example, you can get some amazing deals if you’re willing to deal with buying a guitar that might need a lot of work to be set up properly after you bring it home. Or maybe you’ll be lucky and the one you get will be totally fine and require zero setup.
Nowadays for most products I just assume if I’m spending half the money I’m probably not getting half the value. Instead the lower price means I’m accepting the risk of a 70% chance of proper QC’d unit rather than 95% for the more expensive one.
The problem is it’s basically impossible to know the real rates for these things unless you’re a dealer who sees a high volume and can analyze return rates and stuff so it’s kind of a crapshoot. If I’m buying something I feel confident I can fix or upgrade myself (guitar) I’ll happily save a bunch of money and deal with the risk. A lot of people have that level of experience with 3d printers, and it sounds like you do.
A lot of other people in this thread are clearly expecting an out of the box experience that is perfect. Which is totally fine, not everyone who prints needs to be an expert. But buying a creality machine as someone who isn’t prepared to do some of their own work fixing issues out of the box is probably a bad idea
My printer before this was an Ender 3 v2, I’m not useless. But when I can’t even find parts that fit, that’s a problem.
Yeah honestly I went back and read your OP and it sounds like maybe you straight up got a counterfeit unit or something? That’s wild. If genuine replacement parts don’t fit that’s super whack
It’s not counterfeit. Creality literally admitted the problem. It’s super whack, I agree.
Yea, none of what he says makes sense.
I have a K1 that doesn’t take early K1 parts. I think they changed things mid-production to use the unicorn nozzles that they evidently designed for another printer. During that time, the hotend was changed twice as well. This means if I order a hotend kit, I have a very low chance of actually getting the part I need. I’m not sure how to shop, because everything just says K1.