It seems that the new Flashforge Creator 5 Pro has a potential safety issue.
The Creator 5 Pro is a new device from Flashforge. It’s an enclosed CoreXY system that is based on the previous Creator 5 system. These 3D printers are filament swappers, with four spool capability.
As anyone who’s operated a filament swapper will know, they generate quite a bit of waste material. That happens when a filament change occurs, requiring a short purge to clean out the nozzle. This can happen repeatedly during a print job, but certainly once, even during single-material jobs.
The original Creator 5 3D printer had an unusual approach for purges: it simply moved the toolhead to the right-hand side of the machine and purged. There is no basket, chute, or catch area. It simply moves off the side of the build plate and purges directly down. The debris lands at the bottom of the machine. This makes a mess, which is not great.
Enter the Creator 5 Pro. This is essentially the same machine, except with an enclosure. That allows heat to be captured and therefore reduces the thermal gradient during print jobs. That’s ideal for printing engineering materials that tend to warp in larger thermal gradients.
To further reduce the thermal gradient, Flashforge included a heater inside the build chamber. Air from inside the chamber is sucked into a heating element, which then blows hotter air back into the chamber. This is the optimum setup for printing engineering materials.
But then there’s a major issue with the Creator 5 Pro in this configuration.
The Creator 5 Pro dumps purge waste in exactly the same manner as the Creator 5: directly down, inside the machine.
The problem is that the “fall path” goes directly past the input to the chamber heater.
YouTuber Elevated MakerSpace discovered this issue and published a detailed video showing the effect of this machine design:
In the video, strands of purged material are easily and frequently sucked into the heater, where they audibly crash into the fan blades.
This is definitely not good, as it is entirely possible that filament strands could be blown into the heater, where they could melt, accumulate, and potentially cause damage.
Host CJ, who had intended on reviewing the Creator 5 Pro, stopped work immediately. He believes it would not be safe to continue, and in addition, every job would require constant supervision to remove material from the fan input. Even worse, the Creator 5 Pro’s proprietary firmware does not permit a change to the purge process or location.
I tend to agree with CJ, as the purge process seems to be something every other modern 3D printer manufacturer has figured out. Bambu Lab’s A series shoots bits out to the left side, while Elegoo’s Centauri series dumps it out the back. You may need a basket to catch these purges on those machines, but you don’t need to monitor the machine for safety reasons.
Flashforge should redesign their purge approach on the Creator 5 Pro.
Via Flashforge
