Creality launched orders for their new Sparkx i8 3D printer.
The i8 follows the recently released i7, which we are currently testing. So far, the i7 looks to be quite a good machine, and therefore the i7 should be even better.
Creality has a habit of releasing multiple machines per year, and it’s not surprising to see the i8 appear. But what is a bit different is that Creality chose to launch the system on Indiegogo, rather than simply selling from their web store.
To me, that suggests that Creality believes the i8 is special. But is it? Let’s take a look.
The i8 is a bedslinger, following in the tradition of the company’s very popular Ender series, which, amazingly, are still for sale.
The i8 is a filament switcher, with the ability to print in up to four colours in a single print job. Of course, this implies there will be purge poop when changing materials in mid-job, and delays when the switches occur.
But wait — those delays are decreased in the i8. They’re using a new technology they call “QuarTeks”, which should drastically speed up filament swaps.
QuarTeks is incredibly simple, and I don’t know why anyone else didn’t do this a long time ago: shorten the filament path.
Normally, filament swappers will pull the filament out of the hot end — and much farther back, sometimes up to a metre away. Then, the replacement filament will travel — up to a metre — to get to the hot end. This takes considerable time, especially if you have a lot of filament swaps in a job.
QuarTeks has what Creality describes as an “ultra-short shared filament path”. You can see how it works in this image. Basically, a retraction of a filament takes only a few millimetres, which can be done almost instantly. This tech eliminates all the pushing and pulling of filaments that happens on other filament swapping systems.
Even better, because that shared path is so small, there is far less material to purge. There must be a purge, but it would be small enough to be handled with a purge tower, rather than poops. Creality calls it “0g waste”, and “No external purge waste”. There is still some waste in the purge tower, but far less.
The poop problem was solved by other manufacturers using complex hot end swappers and tool changers, but here Creality has a way that’s very close and costs next to nothing to implement.
This capability must be so good that Creality felt it worthwhile to launch the i8 on Indiegogo.
Aside from the very interesting colour swapping feature, the i8 has some decent specs:
- Build volume of 260 x 260 x 255 mm
- Print speed up to 500 mm/s
- Hot end maximum temperature of 300C
- 100C print plate
- Small 2.85” colour touchscreen
- Automated calibration
- Filament run-out sensor
- RGB status light
- Smart AI vision system monitoring
In other words, this is a fairly standard desktop FFF bed-slinger, but with an advanced colour swapping capability.
The most interesting feature might be the price: only US$309 at launch. Later, the price will drift up to US$399, still quite an affordable price for a high-speed colour 3D printer.
That seems to be an attractive proposition, as the campaign has been only open for a few days and they’ve already collected almost 6,000 orders.
I’d say the i8 is a success, at least so far.
