A while ago I got my hands on the Sovol SV05 Printer, which obviously was short lived or at the end of its product life, when I received it ( at least it is not listed anymore on the manufacturers website: https://www.sovol3d.com/collections/3d-printer).
However, there is a comparison of the Sovol SV05 versus the Ender 5 Pro on the Sovol Website. An erchived version of that page (print to PDF, as such article tend to vanish over time) is here: Sovol SV05 Cubic Direct Drive VS Creality Ender-5 Pro Cubic Bowden Buy
My printer is used as a stock 3d printer with only very minor improvements (cable guard to the heated bed, back cover for the screen & control board and a different build plate attached to the factory magnetic surface), that’s it.
This printer is – so far – the best performing 3D printer I ever had (in terms of reliability and maintenance). I had a few machines:
- a Tevo Tornado (formerly by Tevo, now TevoUp, which is in pieces awaiting a second life)
- a Monoprice Select Mini v2 (out of production – linked: Manual – a sturdy little machine that just works with a one-size-fits-all profile, not PETG or ABS capable)
- an Anycubic Photon (out of production – classic model, which is fiddly, messy and not nice to work with but gives respectable results)
The Sovol SV05 however is on another level. The only thing I actually had to do on this printer was tightening the belts and replacing the filament. No adjustments, no repairs, not even after weeks of neglect. Just perfect for my use-case.
The printer has some minor quality problems (visible layers being the most obvious), but it also has some outstanding qualities (like printing .1 mm sections with a .4 mm Nozzle, just magic, provided the object stays within the center 60% of the build plate). Its quality diminishes somewhat toward the extreme edges of the build plate, but never in a way, where I would be left with a failed print.