There's no doubt the Creality Ender-5 S1 is a big step up from the Ender-5. This is a completely overhauled machine with so many additions that help dramatically boost the printer's performance. Creality earned its fame by having fully open-source hardware and firmware, even making their full specs available to anyone who wants them. Both official and non-official upgrades and modifications are all over the internet for both models.

To achieve print success using ABS, an enclosure is a must have to ensure the table thermal conditions the filament needs. As we know, neither the Ender 3 and Ender 5 have an enclosure as standard, though it’s possible to build or buy one, at which point both machines perform admirably printing ABS. There will be no more loose wires and cables to worry about either, as they are all embedded within a nylon wire harness sleeve for safety and tidiness. User-friendly Features Sunon MF40202V2-1000U-A99 – 40 x 20 mm, powerful airflow, and reasonably low sound output for the performance. During my testing, the air-duct performed very well, managing to provide adequate cooling in most situations, so I’m happy with the change made by Creality in this regard.

The Ender-5 S1 on the other hand keeps the bed fixed in the X and Y direction and just moves down for each layer in the Z direction with the extruder moving in the X and Y direction. The extruder is much lighter than the heated bed so we can increase the speed and still get good prints. So far I have run it at 120mm/sec and the prints are excellent and take almost half the time. According to Creality, it will print at 250mm/sec. I will try faster speeds in the future. The hotend features a titanium alloy heatbreak with low thermal conductivity, designed to prevent the onset of heat creep. The corrugated heat sink provides a larger surface area in a smaller volume for the silent axial flow fan to do its work, ensuring that the filament is cooled before reaching the hot zone. Corrugated fins. (Image credit: Creality) Creality seems to be capitalizing on the 3D print community’s obsession with speed, and may be overselling the Ender 5 S1’s capabilities a bit. It’s not as fast as the AnkerMake M5, which truly runs at 250 mm/s as is our favorite fastest printer. But this machine can reliably hit 150 mm/s and can certainly run circles around an Ender 3 S1. It’s definitely E3D Hemera Direct Drive Kit– a frictionless Ender 3 direct drive upgrade from the competent folks over at the E3D, the Hemera kit includes everything you’ll need to set the Ender 3 to print flexible filaments. As a user-centric company, Creality strives to bring affordable 3d printers combining market-leading technologies and stable and high-level performance to 3d printing beginners and professionals around the world,” said Ao Danjun, CEO of Creality.

The Ender 3 likely still offers plenty of room for the overwhelming majority of amateur projects, especially if you’re just starting out with 3D printing. Chances are you won’t ever make full use of the entire build volume.

Coming at you hot and fast.

As for TPU, it’s possible to print this flexible filament on both machines, but the Bowden extruder setup of both machines can cause all manner of headaches – jams, clogs, slips, and extremely temperamental retraction performance. Unless you’re willing to make some targeted upgrades to adapt the printers, TPU is best left alone.