 The Ender 5 versus the Ender 5 Plus. What's the big difference? We're gonna find out today. My name's Jim and this is The Edge of Tech. So one of the biggest questions I get on my channel through comments and email and chat is what the difference is between the Ender 5 and the Ender 5 Plus. Both of these machines have been out for quite a while but a lot of people still don't quite understand what the differences are or are doing their research and they would like to see it in person. So I thought I'd make a quick video and show you the differences first hand on the Ender 5 and the Ender 5 Plus. So the first thing we're gonna talk about is size. It is very apparent that the Ender 5 looks much smaller than the Ender 5 Plus. In fact, if we take a tape measure and we measure how much space you'll need on a table side to side, you'll actually need roughly about 26 inches to be safe. And you'll want that because you want the spool to clear and everything from the side. Remember, this is gonna be wider because the spool holder is actually on the side. If you look at the Ender 5 Plus, the spool holder sits inside the frame back here and that makes it actually a little tighter of a footprint. So like I said, we'll need like 26 inches wide on the Ender 5. But if you look at the Ender 5 Plus, we're gonna need 24 inches to clear everything. So this is about two feet cubed on the table. That's what you're gonna need. And if we go tall here, you're probably gonna need roughly about the same to clear that. We'll call it 26 inches just to be safe. You have a little clearance in there in case you have a shelf or something. So we got 26 wide, 26 tall. And remember, this can come down a little bit so you could probably get away with 25 or 24 and a half. You wanna make sure you have enough clearance up there. So if we look at the Ender 5 Plus, you're probably gonna need around 30 inches to give that Bowdoin tube some good clearance there. If you're gonna put it on a shelf or something. So it's definitely taller, it's a bigger machine. Now if you wanna talk about how deep it is, you're roughly gonna need about 20 inches deep on the Ender 5 here. And that's just to clear the stepper motor that's in the back and your polis that are up front here. Now on the Ender 5 Plus, remember the spool sits inside of the frame. So you're probably only gonna need say 26 inches deep on this one. And that kind of gives you an idea of the frame sizes. So this one, while it is smaller, it takes up a good size footprint because of that side mounted spool. And it definitely needs some clearance for your Bowdoin tubes up top, just like you wheel up here as well. Now the next thing I wanna talk about is the actual build area. The amount of volume you get to build a print on both these machines. The Ender 5 is 220 by 220 by 300. The Ender 5 Plus is 350 by 350 by 400. So you get 100 more millimeters tall here and you get 130 more millimeters wide. To show you what that looks like, this is the difference in the build plates. So this is the Ender 5 build plate. This is the Ender 5 Plus build plate. These are not the build surfaces that came with these machines because I've upgraded them in the past with my videos and everything. But they are the same sizes. So as you can see, the Ender 5 Plus gives you a lot more space in the Ender 5 on the build surface itself. And being 400 tall, this really is a big build surface to use. That being said, if you don't have space for a giant printer like this, this is a really good print size. So these can actually be pushed to 235 millimeters on the bed size. All of my Ender 3 and Ender 5 machines, I use 235, not the factory 220. There's actually enough room to do that on these. And the factory underestimates a little bit on the size of their bed. I know you guys are gonna ask, so this right here is a TH3D flex plate with a TH3D easy mat on it. I love this combination. And this right here is the TH3D Easy Flex 2 system for the Ender 5 Plus. Both of those links will be in the description below. Something else to look at is the screens on these two machines. This one is the stock screen. It's just like the Ender 3. It is a push button here and you scroll with the wheel. And that's the screen that comes on the Ender 5. So normally on the Ender 5 Plus, there's a touchscreen that comes with it. I actually swapped that screen out for a different one. You can see the video here, if you wanna check that out. But normally the Ender 5 Plus does come with a touchscreen from the factory. And it's pretty decent. It just, it kinda limits what you can actually do. The both hot ends on these machines are identical. They're both the same hot end, the same stock cooling, and the same Bowden setup. Both of these actually come with plastic extruders from the factory. The Ender 5 Pro, which is another model of your Ender 5, comes with a metal extruder and a Capricorn tubing and a silent board if you're looking for that. So something else that's different is the boards between the two. So the Ender 5 usually comes with either a 114 or a 115 Creality Board. And that's the one you see right here. The Ender 5 Plus actually came with this one right here. And this is a Creality Version 2.2 Board. So if you look at these, they're definitely different. That's the Ender 5. And this is the Ender 5 Plus Board. So they're definitely different boards. But you can get them both in the silent version, which is really cool. Matter of fact, the Ender 5 Pro, which is another version of the Ender 5, comes with a silent board. Creality sells the silent board for both printers if you're looking to keep it silent. And that's something else you can do. One thing to note on the Ender 5 Plus, it does come with factory filament run-out detection. So if your filament gets cut or stops coming through, you'll be able to fix the filament or change your filament if you ran out and then continue the print. That's a really cool feature. I love filament run-out for those long prints, especially on a big machine like this. Another thing to note is the Ender 5 has a single Z. It is a cantilever bed here. So your Z-Rod runs up the back here, your bed connects and it kind of floats. The Ender 5 Plus actually comes with dual Z1 on each side. So it has drive motors on each side that help push that really big bed up and down. So that's something else that a lot of people really like is the dual Z on the Ender 5 Plus. But that being said, I've never had any issues with my Ender 5 with that single Z either. As far as storage goes, they both use a micro SD card. The Ender 5 slots in right here and the SD card goes in upside down and it sits right in this slot here. The Ender 5 Plus also uses a micro SD card and it goes right in the side slot on the side right there. So both of them can use the same micro SD cards. So if you had two, you could go back and forth if you needed to. The Ender 5 Plus actually comes with a BL touch from the factory. So you can do auto bed leveling right from the factory. It has a very good guide on how to set that up. They've updated their firmware a couple times and it's getting better. It's not perfect, but it's getting better. As far as the Ender 5 goes, there is no auto bed leveling from the factory, but you can always add BL touch or an easy ABL. All of my other Ender 5s have easy ABLs on them because they're very simple to add to the Ender 5 here. They both use the wheels underneath here for bed leveling. I would always tram the bed before you do any auto bed leveling anyway, just to be safe. Both of these printers can be used with octoprint. I use these both with octoprint and I love it. Both of these can take a mean well power supply if you want to put the mean well power supply in them and they use a lot of the same parts. The biggest difference is obviously the size of the Ender 5 plus visually, but even bigger is the build plate size. If you're looking for a large build plate, 350 by 350 by 400, the Ender 5 plus is an excellent choice. If you don't need such a big build plate, if you're only looking for like 235 by 235 by 300, the Ender 5 is a great choice as well. Both print awesome. All you have to do is dial them in just like any other printer and they both print very good. Both of these, when you put them together, they're a box. They go together almost perfectly from the factory. When you put them together, they're super simple to put together. I really haven't had any issues with the Ender 5 at all as far as build quality or anything like that. The Ender 5 plus, same thing. It went together very easy right from the box. It was very quick to put together. I think the biggest downfall for the Ender 5 plus is actually the firmware that comes on it. Like I said, they've upgraded it a couple of times, but the firmware that comes on it does need a little bit of help and I'm hoping the newer ones are better. Mine, not so much. I had to flash it right away. Actually now it has a THRD firmware and it got rid of that touchscreen and you can see that video right here if you haven't seen that video yet. Both of mine actually came with Thermal Runaway enabled on it, which I was very surprised about. I can't say that for every single one out there, but I can tell you the ones I got both had Thermal Runaway enabled on it so that was awesome. If it was me and you were getting your very first 3D printer and you had the budget, myself, I would go for an Ender 5. In my opinion, it's the best starting 3D printer. It prints great right out of the box. It's super simple to put together and there's a very big community around it. This would also be a great second printer as well, just because it is such a great machine. I have a couple Ender 3s and I love them, but the Ender 5s are my go-to now. Now the Ender 5 plus, if you have a little more budget and you're looking for a bigger build surface, you saw the difference earlier in the video, the Ender 5 plus, another great choice. Just be prepared to tinker a little bit and maybe dial in that firmware and the bed leveling with the Ender 5 plus, but once you get it dialed in, it is awesome. It prints great. I would highly suggest both. If you got the budget and you're looking for a smaller printer, Ender 5, if you have the budget and you're looking for a bigger build surface, I would definitely go for the Ender 5 plus. I absolutely love it. Both of these have a ton of upgrades out there because they've been out for a while, printable and viable upgrades that you can do pretty much everything on, from linear rails to different hot ends to a whole bunch of printable parts like I've done videos on in the past. And that's gonna be awesome on both printers because right out of the gate, you can do whatever you want to these things. So we've talked about the size and the build volume and what kind of sets them apart and how they're similar and the different boards that are in them. And I think we got a pretty good comparison of what the difference is between the Ender 5 and the Ender 5 plus. If you have one of these, let me know in the comments below. If you're looking to get one, tell me which one you're looking at and why because I'd love to hear it. I hope you guys learned something and as always, keep printing. Hey everybody, if you liked the video, give me that thumbs up, hit that subscribe button right down here if you haven't done that already and hit that little bell over here if you want to get notified next time we go live on Monday nights at 6 p.m. central for hot makes or when we put a video out like this. Thank you so much for visiting the channel. If you haven't seen the Ender 5 plus playlist, check it out right up here. That'll actually go through everything we've done with the Ender 5 plus this far.