Gav's World : 3D Printing : Creality K1 CFS Upgrade

Creality K1 CFS Upgrade

What could be a better upgrade for an OG K1, but the CFS (Creality Filament System)?!

However, the key point here is that I have an OG version, which isn't out-of-the box compatible!

Unicorn Hotend

The new extruder in the CFS upgrade kit isn't compatible with the original hotend and nozzles, so I had to replace it with K1 Ceramic Heating Block Kit, following these instructions (note that the instructions are for the K1 Max, but the only real difference is the LIDAR, which the K1 doesn't have).

Upgrading the K1

Upgrading the K1 was pretty straight forward. There are full step-by-step instructions on the USB stick with the kit, plus numerous videos by others online.

First Power-On

After the kit was installed, and I powered up with the USB stick in, the K1 upgraded it's embedded software (no, it's not firmware!) and then performed all of the self tests... however it failed to perform "cutter calibration" as it insisted that there was filament in the extruder, which there wasn't!

Then I tried to load some filament, but it constantly kept stopping about 8cm short of the extruder - and various errors were reported.

Important Gotcha

An Important gotcha that I discovered... if you have to power cycle when the head is inside the purge location, make sure to move it out before powering back up and doing anything, since the "homing" routine isn't aware of this, so you end up with some nasty noises and need to shut the power off quickly!

Contacting Creality

I contacted Crality, and to be fair to them, they were very quick in responding and sending out what they thought would fix the problem: a new buffer and cut-off detection module. However, replacing them made no difference at all.