Sovol SV05 3D Printer Review

Hey everyone, back today with a quick review of what might be the Ender-5 killer, and that is the Sovol SV-05. One of my favorite printers is still to this day, the standard Ender-5. I actually use a modified, original 8-bit Ender-5, though I did have to replace the power supply at one point. It has always confused me that Creality has not come out with a V2 or an Ender-5S1. Well, luckily Sovol has come out with their SV-05, which seems to be just that, an upgraded Ender-5 clone, all for around $100 less than the Ender-5 Pro. I'll go over the specs while you watch me unbox and set it all up. It looks just like an Ender-5, and has the same build volume of 220mm by 220mm by 300mm. It has a 32-bit silent board, and the same very thin flexible PC magnetic build plate. What makes it upgraded from a standard Ender-5 is as follows. It has a CR-Touch bed leveler, which is Creality's version of a BL-Touch. It has an X-belt tensioner, a separate glass build plate in case you don't want to use the magnetic PC sheet, an anti-backlash nut for the Z-lead screw, and little other upgrades such as these Z-stabilizers, which is a nice addition to make sure your build plate is sturdy. Most importantly, it has Sovol's upgraded direct-geared extruder. This is a big upgrade over the Ender-5, and one of the best things that would come if Creality ever came out with an Ender-5 S1. Unfortunately, it still uses the old user interface, which has been out of date compared to the new colored touchscreens. But, at the end of the day, these screens don't affect print quality and allow you to do most things you need, but it's definitely worth noting. Now, as you can tell, this printer came with a lot of building. This isn't a 10 minute build. It took me a little over 1 hour to build it, and might take you longer if you haven't built dozens of printers. That said, this printer coming in at $299 really is a steal. But, let's make sure everything works as it should. First thing we do is get the proper Z height and level the bit. After that, it's ready to get started with printing. The first print is just the included XYZ calibration cube in blue Polyterra PLA. Nothing to write home about, and looks like it could have some minor improvements. I go ahead and make sure all of the rollers and belts are tight on the machine after this print, and then get to slicing my own parts. I do my first print using the Sovol slicer, but that isn't even updated yet to include this SV-05. Hopefully it will be added soon, but we just go off of the SV-01 and do a couple of edits, then get to slicing a Benchy. I use the standard settings for this Benchy, and it looks like there are some artifacts as well as some holes on the sides of the print. Rather than continuing to use Sovol's version of Cura, I go ahead with the normal Cura and set up a printer. For this, I just use the Ender-5 as my base printer, and then copy and paste the start and end g-codes. I then switch up the filaments to some PLA Pro by Polymaker and re-slice this Benchy on Cura, and get this result. Not perfect, but it does seem better than the first Benchy that had a bunch of holes. It does have some layer inconsistencies though, which had me at my first guess that it had to do with this thin build sheet. I have a full video on this called Pid-Tune Your Build Plate, showing how 1 to 2 degree fluctuations on thin build plates can cause this. You can flash your firmware and pid-tune your plate to prevent it, or you can swap and use a glass build plate. Luckily Sovol includes a glass plate, so all I do is put it on and reprint the exact same g-code. And, unfortunately, I really can't see any improvements. Definitely not enough to say my prediction was correct. I did one more test with this ringing test print, which you're supposed to test out different accelerations, but my print I just kept everything the same. I went back to using blue Polyterra PLA as well. Once again, this print had a lot of these bulges that looked like Z-banding, and it seems the glass build plate didn't make any improvements. Ignore the fact that I stopped the print early, I just didn't want to wait for it to finish when I knew the glass build plate wasn't helping. So, I'm not exactly sure, but I'll have to assume that this printer is having some minor Z-banding. Before I move on to TPU tests, I print one more part in PLA Pro on the PC sheet, and it looks good, but when I analyze it, it does have that Z-banding issue as well. One major benefit of an extruder such as this is the ability to print flexible filaments, so I get going with loading up some Polyflex TPU 95A and slicing some recoil pads. I will have two different TPU videos out this week, one on this channel hopefully by Friday, and one that's on the 3D Pew General that just came out today, so I'll be sure to link to that down below. I did have a couple of issues on my first couple of tests, and it ends up I was trying to print too fast. I thought this extruder could handle 50mm per second, but it looks like it can't with this 95A. So, I'm forced to slow it down to about 35mm per second, and then this TPU printed pretty much flawlessly. I would say that these two recoil pads came out great, and I'm happy with them. I'm not sure if it's not really showing the Z-banding because I'm printing with black, but it does look good. Okay, let's get into the pros and cons starting with the pros. It has a lot of upgrades over the standard Ender-5, best of which is this direct extruder with a gear ratio, allowing you to print flexible filaments. Another major upgrade is having a bed leveler built in, which is the best upgrade for people new to 3D printing. Other minor upgrades over the Ender-5 include bed stabilizing parts, an anti-backlash nut, and an extra glass build plate so you can print nylons and other unique materials. It has a 32-bit silent board, making this much quieter than my original 8-bit Ender-5. And finally, the price. It comes in at about $75 to $100 cheaper than the Ender-5 Pro, and has all of these additional upgrades. And now for the cons. It's not a ready-to-go printer, requiring a decent amount of building, which will likely take you over an hour to set it up. I'm not a fan of these thin magnetic sheets. Parts can stick too well on polycarbonate, but having it be really thin does help to remove those parts. Luckily, it also comes with that glass build plate so you have an option. I had Z-banding issues. It seems that the issue didn't really show itself when printing in TPU, but that could just be because the TPU is black. I may have to analyze how that Z-lead screw falls into this stepper motor coupler if I want to make this a workhorse printer. It doesn't come with an all-metal hotend, meaning you're limited to 250 degrees Celsius. That said, Sovol let me know they now have a bi-metal heat break for these printers at a reasonable $13 for a pack of three. I will link to that in the video description, and they should start shipping around October 8th. That would make this printer much more desirable, though I haven't played around with it, nor do I know how difficult it would be to upgrade the firmware to increase the max temp. It's just worth noting. And finally, it has the old user interface for the screen, which is definitely less appealing than the modern colored touchscreens. Alright, now time for my final thoughts. Sovol continues to impress me with very inexpensive printers that are hitting marks where Creality is starting to lack. If it weren't for the large community that comes with buying a Creality printer, or that z-banding issue, I would say that without a doubt you should buy this printer over the Ender-5. I still personally say this is a much better investment than a Creality Ender-5, particularly because it is cheaper and has those very important upgrades. Just know that there aren't as many online communities you can use as a resource, since Sovol is not as popular of a manufacturer. I will be recommending both this and their SV-01 Pro that I recently reviewed to people new to 3D printing that need a budget machine over Creality from now on. If you grab that bi-metal heat break, and it's easy to increase your max temp for your hotend, then this will hit just about everything you need to start cranking out a wide variety of materials. Thank you all for watching. I'll be back soon with more tutorials, reviews, and fun prints. Before you leave, I wanted to show off the brand new version of my book, 3D Printing Failures 2022 Edition. It has been two years since I updated this book, and this time not only have I made sure all of the chapters are relevant to today's market, I also made sure the paperback version has full color photos. This should really help since the photo quality was the number one complaint from my past editions. I made it so that the first 120 pages or so are meant to be read in order, so that you can get a full grasp of 3D printing, especially if you're new to the hobby, and then I have a diagnosing failure section. The goal is for you to compare my photos to the issues you're having, and then direct you to the chapter that will help you fix your issue. Best of all, Amazon for some strange reason, has decided to mark off the price of my book by $11. I cannot promise this will last forever, since Amazon couldn't tell me why they're doing it, but this longer full color book forced me to charge $35, so Amazon listing it at only $24 is a great deal. Grab it now while you can, all links will be in the description down below.