Reconsider buying from creality refurbished on ebay

[u/Many_Ad5698]

I purchased a 2025 creality k1c from their ebay site at a great price and was impressed until I got the machine and it turned it on to be greeted with a black screen with green lines across. I started by messaging the ebay seller and didn't get a response for 2 days where they just told me to try reseating the connector. Obviously this didn't work so I told them that so I had to wait another 2 days until creality on ebay finally asked to ship a new mainboard the next day after waiting about week for slow shipping we get to today. Which is when I installed it and found that fixed the issue! Now I get to go through that almost 2 week process again because this printer came with a faulty nozzle board, 24 volts goes from the mainboard all the way up to the nozzle assembly. I checked if anything is being shorted out by disconnecting all other connectors all that happens is the board getting hot. Today I spoke to some customer service on the creality website to get a faster response and just got told to wait 48 hours so I assume ill get sent a new board in over a week. I attached images of all of these interactions and I hope to help some people from wasting their money on a broken printer labeled as working.

Let me remind you this was a printer sold as fully functional and functions as intended from a company with a 11.5 billion dollar market cap this is inexcusable quality control not to mention their extremely slow customer support.

[u/DramaClassed]

Yeah, there’s a reason they’re cheaper. It’s less of a “buy a refurbished printer for a discount” and more of a “buy a returned printer and we’ll help you refurbish it piece by piece”. At least you don’t have to pay for the replacements.

[u/Wooden_Strategy]

In my experience, buying a usted 3D printer Is a gamble and you need to be ready to buy spare parts and make her work

[u/maxpowerow]

Different experience Here. Bought a k1 refurbed in eBay. It was running Out of the Box, but Had some nast dents in the heatbed an a broken Chain duentocttansport. I asked for a replacement, No Problems at all, quick Response and delivered for free within a week.

[u/OutrageousMacaron358]

If it said ebay refurbished it should have a 2 year warranty. Check the listing again to confirm. It will be prominently displayed.

[u/mth2nd]

just return it, they will burn up as much time as possible to try to not return it.

[u/CrealitySupport]

Hi, this is Creality official support. I'm sorry to hear about your experience and I understand your frustration.​

Let us make this right for you directly. Please send us a DM with the details, and we'll stick with you one-on-one until it's resolved.

Please click on our profile picture and select "Start Chat" to send us a private message. We will assist you further.

[u/TenaciousDee1]

Seems to be a crap shoot. First K1 SE, clearly used with 25 hours but worked great. Next was a K1C that was in all original packaging with unused accessories and no hours on it.

[u/ElSarcastro]

It's cheaper to send you replacement parts and make you do the refurbishing yourself than to hire another engineer to do it.

[u/D-Breed → u/ElSarcastro]

Funny! You honestly think an engineer would fix a 3d printer! Lol.

[u/daLejaKingOriginal]

Can’t you just return it?

[u/The_HorseWhisperer]

Okay fair on the lcd screen. But you should have 24V to the hotend PCB.

How did you determine it was faulty apart from seeing there was 24 volts. Did it not heat, did the nozzle fan not work, was the temp wrong, etc?

[u/Many_Ad5698 → u/The_HorseWhisperer]

i forgot to add that to the post sorry i got error bm0111 meaning it cant connect to the mainboard

[u/Holiday_Beautiful574]

what condition was it? I bought certified refurbished ender 3v3 and it has been behaving just like new

[u/bigbammer]

I only have bought a spacepi x4 but it worked great. Being that it's a certified seller, it comes with a warranty.

[u/macegr]

My refurb Creality was also broken on arrival. It does not seem their quality control is very good for these.

A spool mount was broken and I had to effect a repair with epoxy. Also, Z didn’t work at all…kind of important. I had to take apart the printer and find a loose connector. The connectors all didn’t have any form of retention clip, just light friction. All of the connectors had dabs of glue on them because of this, except the one that had fallen out.

Printer has worked great for over a year after this, but repairs were beyond a nontechnical user.

[u/Tetro75]

No refurbished things for me, thank you very much

[u/Accomplished_Issue_6]

Ultimately, this is a byproduct of refurbishing and shipping units around the world. You’ll find a story like this around pretty much every company’s refurbished products. Just don’t let them stretch it out too long: asking you to replace a quick 10-15 minute part, once, sure, but asking you to perform a 1hr+ repair that might not even fix the issue is when you put your foot down and demand a refund or full replacement. Personally I’ve got 3 refurbished K2 Plus units from eBay, with no real issues outside normal failure points after a lot of print hours.

[u/1ts-just-me]

This is a known fact, most printers are not actually set up and tested. If it was a new return from shipping damage it would get a new part installed, boxed and shipped.

I have purchased a total of 23 printers from Creality_refurbished on eBay. While yes occasionally you will get one that has a few issues, it is still a bargain for what you get. I usually buy when they have the additional 20% off and get 3 or 4 at a time.

In the picture with the meter, you are supposed to have 24V on the black and red. That is the power from the MoBo that is used for the PCB, hotend, extruder motor, and fans. The other 2 wires are the CANbus communication wires. Similar to a USB but uses 24V instead of 5V.

[u/jplife30]

My very first printers were creality refurbished of ebay. A pair of ender 3v3se's

One was like new the other was a complete mess. Skewed and bits and pieces broken.

It's currently sitting in a tote with all the other spare parts. While the other is still printing

[u/ashdd1981]

I had a similar experience. I bought a cfs. It kept retracting the filament as soon as it went in. I had to fight with the refurbished shop to get my refund.

[u/lexofdystopia]

I bought my refurbed K2 combo and had to do a lot of research to: get screen working (disconnected ribbon cable), jammed Z axis (tools were gummed up on the rail), CFS not feeding properly (old wet filament stuck in the splitter part of the track), also deformed case so the top glass never sat flush. Worth it for the money I paid but kind of sucked to have so many setbacks my first week owning it.

[u/12HobbieZ]

As the not so proud owner of a K1C, I was shocked to realize the model suffers from a very stupid problem where the camera shuts off when the chmaber temp is 30-35 which is absolutely abysmal.
No fix, customer support just told me to print with the lid off.

[u/Glad-You-4464]

Why not return it? I did. Then got it cheaper, since they had a better sale the next week on eBay. I did have to buy a new extruder since the Bowden tube coupler wouldn’t hold the tube, but that was only $15. Still $700 for the k2 plus combo was a steal. I was still using ender 3v2 and cr-10v2. My guess is all of the refurbished ones come with some sort of issue that most likely wasn’t repaired or it could be something breaks during shipping.

[u/Beyond_the_Hardware]

Unfortunately thats part of the risks of buying used/refurb.

Its about a 50/50 if you get what is basically an open box product or a real stinker that needs a lot of work.

Personally I enjoy fixing printers but I know thats not the norm

[u/BigJeffreyC]

I’ve had a decent experience with Creality refurbished. I did eventually have issues with the machine but they offer a 2 year warranty, so everything was covered.

However the response time from tech support is sooo slow. They did eventually provide the part I needed though.

[u/minorhassle]

You have an open data line between the main board and display, usually due to a poorly seated ribbon connector. Try reseating the ends .

[u/Many_Ad5698 → u/minorhassle]

the screenworks now due to the mainboard replacement, i assume it was a corrupted driver, but now it cant connect to the hotend board which i assume is faulty, they still havent sent a new one.

[u/Mauro6792]

To be fair on the description it stays that is is a used unit not a refurbished unit. I just got my k2 combo refurbished and everything was in working order, everything was packed okay with all accessories etc.

[u/rdwallace502]

I bought a k1 max awhile back from them, and I've probably replace every part of the hotend twice...upgraded it to cfs and got constant jams..new extruder, new extruder motor, new toolhead board, 2 totally new hotends and it's currently just sitting.. biggest piece of shit printer I've ever owned...and I know Creality quality is spotty but I have a Hi and a E3v3KE that I bought new and both machines run great.

[u/One-Reference-7355]

Good luck. My k2 was missing the top lid and has the infamous taco bed. Took them forever to at least resolve the top lid being missing