Cura settings for the Ender 3 Pro and S1 Pro

Which printer do you have?

Before adjusting anything in Cura, it helps to understand what separates these two machines. The Ender 3 Pro uses a Bowden extruder — the drive motor sits away from the hotend and pushes filament through a long PTFE tube. The S1 Pro uses Creality's Sprite direct-drive extruder, which mounts the motor directly above the hotend.

That single difference has a significant knock-on effect for retraction settings, flexible filament compatibility, and stringing behaviour. For most other settings — layer height, speed, temperature for PLA — the two machines are broadly similar.

Setting up the printer profile in Cura

Cura includes a built-in profile for the Ender 3 Pro. The S1 Pro was added to the printer list in Cura 5.x; if it does not appear, add it as a custom FFF printer with a 220 × 220 × 270 mm build volume and set the origin to the front-left corner.

For both machines, make sure the start and end G-code is correct. The start G-code should home all axes, preheat the bed and nozzle, and prime the nozzle before the print begins. If you are not sure what to use, Creality's own documentation or the community profiles on their GitHub page are reliable sources.

Layer height

Both machines ship with a 0.4 mm nozzle as standard. The practical layer height range on a 0.4 mm nozzle is 0.12 mm to 0.28 mm.

• 0.12 mm — fine surface detail, slow. Good for decorative prints or models with small text.
• 0.20 mm — the reliable default. A sensible balance of speed and quality for most prints.
• 0.28 mm — faster, acceptable for structural parts where surface appearance matters less.

Avoiding going above 0.28 mm on a stock 0.4 mm nozzle. Once the layer height exceeds 75% of the nozzle diameter, adhesion between layers begins to suffer.

Print speed

Neither the Ender 3 Pro nor the S1 Pro is designed for speed printing. Sensible defaults:

• Print speed: 40–60 mm/s
• Travel speed: 120–150 mm/s
• First layer speed: 20–25 mm/s
• Outer wall speed: 30–40 mm/s

Slowing the outer walls independently of the infill is one of the most effective ways to improve surface quality without adding significant print time. If you are seeing ringing or ghosting in sharp corners, reduce print speed or, if your firmware supports it, reduce acceleration.

Temperatures by filament

These are starting points. Filament from different manufacturers can require 5–10 °C of adjustment even within the same material type.

PLA

• Nozzle: 190–210 °C
• Bed: 50–60 °C

PETG

• Nozzle: 230–245 °C
• Bed: 70–85 °C
• PETG bonds aggressively to bare borosilicate glass and can lift the surface when you remove the print. Use a thin layer of glue stick or switch to the PEI spring-steel sheet the S1 Pro ships with.

ABS

• Nozzle: 230–240 °C
• Bed: 100–110 °C
• ABS warps badly in an open environment. Neither machine has an enclosure, so reliable ABS printing usually requires either building one or keeping the machine in a draught-free space. For occasional small ABS parts, a brim and a higher bed temperature can get you through, but warp will be a recurring battle on larger prints.

TPU and flexible filaments

• Nozzle: 220–235 °C
• Bed: 40–60 °C
• The Ender 3 Pro's Bowden extruder makes TPU difficult. The gap between the extruder gear and the PTFE tube allows flexible filament to buckle, leading to jams and grinding. The S1 Pro's Sprite direct-drive handles TPU significantly better. Slow down to 20–25 mm/s and keep retraction minimal.

Retraction settings

This is the most important difference between the two machines and the most common source of confusion when switching profiles between them.

Ender 3 Pro (Bowden)

• Retraction distance: 5–7 mm
• Retraction speed: 45–60 mm/s

The long PTFE tube requires a larger retraction distance to draw molten plastic away from the nozzle tip during travel moves. Too little and stringing appears on every travel; too much and you risk grinding the filament or causing a cold-pull clog on rapid short retractions.

Ender 3 S1 Pro (direct drive)

• Retraction distance: 0.8–2 mm
• Retraction speed: 30–45 mm/s

With the motor directly above the melt zone, far less retraction is needed. Applying Bowden-scale retraction to a direct-drive machine will pull molten material too far back, introduce air pockets mid-print, and often cause a blockage in the heat break. If you have loaded an Ender 3 Pro profile onto an S1 Pro, this is the first setting to correct.

Cooling

Both machines use a single-blower part-cooling fan.

• PLA: 100% cooling from layer 2 onwards. Effective cooling is essential for clean bridging and overhangs.
• PETG: 30–60%. Too much airflow promotes layer delamination. Some PETG prints well with cooling turned off entirely — experiment for your specific brand.
• ABS: 0%, or as close to it as possible. Rapid cooling causes warping and layer cracking.
• TPU: 50–80%, depending on the compound.

Set minimum layer time to 8–12 seconds. This gives each layer time to cool and solidify before the next is deposited, which matters most on tall thin features.

First layer calibration

No Cura setting compensates for a poorly levelled bed. Before adjusting software, confirm your first-layer gap is correct — roughly the resistance you feel passing a standard piece of paper between nozzle and bed at each corner.

The S1 Pro's CR Touch probe automates tramming, but it only measures the bed at the probe points. You still need to set the z-offset correctly for the first layer to adhere well.

In Cura, set initial layer height to 0.3 mm and initial layer line width to 120%. This gives a little extra squish without requiring a perfect z-offset.

If corners lift on PLA, raise bed temperature by 5 °C, slow the first layer further, or add a 3–5 mm brim.

Common issues and adjustments

Stringing: Lower nozzle temperature by 5 °C. Increase travel speed. Check retraction distance against the values above for your extruder type.

Under-extrusion: Inspect the extruder gear for accumulated filament dust and clear it. Increase nozzle temperature by 5 °C, or reduce print speed. If the problem persists, the nozzle may be partially blocked and needs cleaning or replacing.

Layer shifting: Reduce speed. Check that the eccentric nuts on the gantry wheels are snug but not overtightened. Verify that the X and Y belts have even tension.

Warping: Add a brim. Raise bed temperature. Use Cura's initial-layers cooling override to hold fan speed low for the first five or so layers. Eliminate any draughts near the printer.

Z-banding (horizontal ribbing on the surface): The Ender 3 Pro is particularly prone to this if the coupler between the Z motor and lead screw has worked loose or sits off-centre. Reseat it and tighten the grub screws.

When to mail it in

If your Ender 3 Pro or S1 Pro has a hardware fault sitting behind the print quality problems — a failed heater cartridge, a damaged thermistor, a cracked extruder body, a burnt trace on the mainboard, or a stripped lead-screw coupler — no slicer setting will resolve it. At that point the fault is in the machine, not the profile.

We repair Creality printers at Hark Tech via mail-in service across the UK. Send the affected component or the whole machine; we will diagnose, quote, and carry out the repair. Most jobs are turned around within a few working days. Get in touch via the contact page with a description of the symptoms and we will advise on the best course of action.