Creality 3D CR-20 Pro 3D Printer Review

First, a correction — because an older version of this page helped spread the mistake. The Creality CR-20 Pro does not have a 300 × 300 × 300 mm build volume. Its real build volume is 220 × 220 × 250 mm, the same as an Ender 3. The “CR-20” name sounds like it should sit near the big CR-10 family, but this is a compact machine, and everything below is written around its actual, verified specifications.

The CR-20 Pro is Creality’s all-in-one-frame printer from 2019, now discontinued. Where the Ender 3 arrived as a bag of extrusions and parts to assemble yourself, the CR-20 Pro came as two largely pre-assembled modules — a base unit containing the electronics and power supply, and the gantry — bolted together with a handful of screws. It was positioned a step above the Ender 3 at launch: same print size, but a stiffer boxed frame, a touchscreen, automatic bed levelling and a better power supply, aimed at people who wanted Ender-class printing without the Ender-class build evening.

Creality CR-20 Pro specifications

These are the machine’s verified specifications — the ones confirmed across Creality’s own listings and independent spec databases:

Specification	Creality CR-20 Pro
Technology	FDM (filament)
Build volume	220 × 220 × 250 mm
Extruder	Bowden, MK10-style, single 0.4 mm nozzle
Bowden tube	Capricorn PTFE tube fitted as standard
Heated bed	Yes
Bed levelling	BLTouch auto levelling sensor (9-point probing), plus manual bed adjustment
Display	Colour touchscreen
Build surface	Removable magnetic build surface
Power supply	Mean Well, 24 V
Power-loss resume	Yes
Filament runout sensor	Yes
Firmware	Marlin-based
Filament diameter	1.75 mm

Two entries deserve a plain explanation. The BLTouch sensor is a real, physical probe mounted beside the hotend: before a print it touches nine points across the bed and the firmware compensates for small tilts and unevenness in software. It does not remove the need to have the bed roughly level — it fine-tunes, it does not rescue a badly set-up machine. And the Mean Well power supply matters more than it sounds: on the budget machines of this era the PSU was a common weak point, and a branded 24 V unit was a genuine quality step, shared with the Ender 3 Pro.

The design: why the boxed frame mattered

Most budget printers of the period — the Ender 3 included — are open frames: aluminium extrusions bolted together, with the power supply and board in separate cases screwed to the sides. The CR-20 Pro instead puts its base, power supply and electronics into one enclosed base unit, with the gantry rising from it. The result is a machine that looks and feels more like a finished appliance than a kit.

That design bought three practical things. Rigidity: a boxed base and pre-aligned gantry leave less room for the frame to be assembled slightly out of square, which is a quiet cause of print defects on kit machines. Assembly time: with the printer arriving as two modules, setup is a short job rather than an evening project — the gantry bolts onto the base, cables connect, and the machine is ready to level and print. Tidiness: no separate PSU brick or control box to find desk space for, which is one reason these machines were popular in classrooms and small workshops.

The trade-off is access. On an open-frame Ender, every board, wire and fan is right there to tinker with. On the CR-20 Pro the electronics live inside the base, so board swaps and wiring work mean opening the unit up — entirely doable, just less casual.

CR-20 Pro vs Ender 3 Pro: what the “Pro” actually added

Because the two machines share a build volume and a Bowden hotend layout, they are often described as the same printer in different clothes. They are not — but the differences are specific:

What the CR-20 Pro added:

• The all-in-one boxed frame — stiffer, pre-aligned, and far quicker to assemble than the Ender 3 Pro’s kit build.
• BLTouch auto levelling fitted as standard — the Ender 3 Pro levelled manually unless you bought and fitted a probe yourself.
• A colour touchscreen in place of the Ender’s click-wheel LCD.
• A filament runout sensor — pauses the print when the spool runs out or the filament breaks.
• Capricorn PTFE tubing as standard, a part Ender owners commonly bought as an upgrade.

What it did not change:

• Print size — identical 220 × 220 × 250 mm volume.
• The hotend arrangement — a single Bowden-fed, PTFE-lined hotend on both, with the same practical material range and the same limits with flexible filament.
• The motion system — a single Z leadscrew and V-wheel motion, of the same generation.
• The electronics generation — both are 8-bit-era, Marlin-based machines, not the later 32-bit generation.

Both machines also shared the Mean Well PSU and a removable magnetic build surface, so those were not CR-20 Pro exclusives — they were Creality standardising its better parts across the range. The honest summary: the CR-20 Pro charged for convenience, rigidity and the levelling sensor, not for a bigger or fundamentally more capable printer.

Owning a CR-20 Pro today

The CR-20 Pro is discontinued, and Creality’s attention moved on to the Ender-3 V3 and K series. That shapes what owning one now is like:

Firmware and board. The machine runs Marlin-based firmware on an 8-bit Creality mainboard of its period — Creality never made much of the board’s identity, and exact board revisions are best confirmed by reading what is printed on the board itself before any firmware work. Community Marlin builds for the CR-20 family exist, and owners have documented swapping in modern third-party boards (the Ender-3-class silent boards are the usual route) for quieter drivers and more features. Treat any firmware file with suspicion unless it is written for this exact machine and board.

Parts. This is the good news: the CR-20 Pro shares its wear parts with the wider Ender/CR ecosystem. Nozzles, PTFE tube, V-wheels, belts, fans, thermistors and heater cartridges are standard, cheap to source and widely stocked. The BLTouch is a standard unit. The parts that are machine-specific — the touchscreen unit, frame and base components — are the ones to check carefully on a used example, because replacements are scarcer.

Who should still consider one. A CR-20 Pro in good order still makes sense as a cheap second machine, a school or workshop printer that needs to be moved and set up quickly, or a first printer bought used at a fair price by someone happy to tinker a little. Check the touchscreen works, that the probe deploys and retracts cleanly, and that the magnetic surface is not gouged. If you are buying new instead, current Creality machines add the speed, auto-calibration and support this one no longer gets — our Best Creality 3D Printers guide covers the present range.

Frequently asked questions

What is the CR-20 Pro’s real build volume?

220 × 220 × 250 mm — the same as the Ender 3 family. Claims of a 300 × 300 × 300 mm volume (which an earlier version of this page repeated) are wrong; that size belongs to the larger CR-10-class machines, not to the CR-20 Pro.

Does the CR-20 Pro have automatic bed levelling?

Yes. It shipped with a BLTouch sensor that probes nine points on the bed and compensates in firmware. You still set the Z-offset and keep the bed roughly trammed by hand — the sensor handles small variations, not a badly adjusted bed.

Is the CR-20 Pro better than the Ender 3 Pro?

It is more convenient, not more capable. The CR-20 Pro adds the boxed pre-assembled frame, BLTouch levelling, a touchscreen and a runout sensor. But build volume, hotend and print-size limits are identical, so a well-kept Ender 3 Pro and a CR-20 Pro produce comparable prints.

Can the CR-20 Pro print PETG and TPU?

PETG, yes — the heated bed and hotend handle it as they would on any Ender-class machine. TPU only with care: the Bowden feed path makes flexible filament harder to push, so firm TPU printed slowly is realistic, soft TPU is a struggle. PLA is what it does best.

Is the CR-20 Pro still worth buying?

As a new purchase, it is discontinued, so the question is really about used examples. A working one at a sensible used price is still a capable, rigid little printer with strong parts commonality. Just verify the touchscreen and the BLTouch work before paying, and expect community — not Creality — support.