On achieving a perfect level

I’m just talking first layer.

Yeah me too. That’s why I had switched to a 0.8mm nozzle so I could print a big first layer but of course all detail is lost unless I was just printing a box or cube.

Leveling only with manual 9 points calibration on glass bed with 0.28mm layer height PETG

What is your first level print percentage? I usually do 110%.

I’m on cura and if you talk about my initial layer line width I’m at 120%

Finally I got it. Tweaking the last 0.02mm is hard work. I did this printing calibration sheets with 0.2mm height, 3outlines.

BTW,- if i print branches the first layer speed has to be slow, anyways. now printing with 8-10mm-s instead of 3mm-s at worse bed calibration.

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Frame it! Hang it on the wall right next to your Snapmaker and sign it. It might be worth something someday!! :grin:

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Hi Edwin do you have news about 5*5 leveling method ? you said before end of April

Sorry for the late reply. The new version firmware will be release soon.

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Can you please share your settings for using the A350 with CURA? I am getting desperate trying to get anywhere with LUBAN. Thanks.

Hi I only have A250 but here is the link for cura profile

Thanks Isaac! Much appreciated.

I checked the temperature at different points on my bed using one of those handheld devices and also found variations between different areas of the bed. Not sure if it is supposed to be like that or if other heated beds on other printers have this issue…

Hey @Tone, i wanted to share my dial-indicator results with you (A350, 5x5 grid):

The heatbed itself is uneven itself, it compenates a bit while heating.

Heating for 30min vs start printing right away after heating, difference of the points about 0.01mm to 0.2mm.
Heating for longer than 30min (60min) brings no more essential expansion to my heatbed, ~0.02mm.

heated bed without print sheet:
cold difference MIN/MAX: 0.86mm
hot difference instant printing MIN/MAX: 0.64mm
hot difference 30min heat MIN/MAX: 0.68mm
hot difference 60min heat MIN/MAX: 0.70mm

heated bed with print sheet:
cold difference MIN/MAX: 0.82mm
hot difference MIN/MAX: 0.65mm

Everytime the lowest point of my bed is I1J2.
My highest point is I4J4.

All in all the heat bed is massively warped.
From point to point in a tri or rectangle it seems not so much (except the front left edge), here the values vary about 0.04mm - 0.2mm.

I would love to hear more about the problems from the snapmaker team, like prusa did it in this blog:


It seems this is a problem of every 3d printer company.
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Nice that Prusa give clear visibility to this issue

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I believe they have turned on backlash compensation in the 1.8 firmware and may even be using it during calibration. But I haven’t verified that yet with experiments. M425 command.

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Here is what i get, backslash is inactive:
Send: M425
Recv: Backlash correction is inactive:
Recv: Correction Amount/Fade-out: F0.00 (F1.0 = full, F0.0 = none)
Recv: Backlash Distance (mm): X0.00
Recv: Y0.00
Recv: Z0.00
Recv: ok

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Super! That indicates that it is enabled. Try something like M425 F.2 Z.02
The F turns it on to 20%. An F0 will turn it off. The Z.02 means it will only adjust for the Z direction to the amount of .02mm. I don’t exactly understand how the F works.

Edit: There is also a “S” that is referred to as smoothing. It spreads the compensation out over multiple commands to create less of a jerk, probably more useful for X & Y compensation. You can probably use a F1 to start with.

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Hello all,

I am still waiting for my SM2 to arrive, but I did have a digital dial indicator with serial out. Reading all this I have been playing around with it and managed to avoid buying the expensive cable and reading the data out using an ESP microcontroller connected to it.

My idea was to have the microcontroller also talk to the SM either over wifi or direct serial connection to automate the manual calibration process you are doing. Does anyone know if that would be possible. This would definitely simplify and speed up the process a lot.

If it would be possible to direct the SM to move to the right position from the ESP device, do the measurement and set the correct calibration value.

Another separate idea I had with it was to use it to “scan” surfaces of objects to digitize them using the SM :slight_smile: Could also be used to take into account uneven surfaces when using the cnc module.

I quickly glanced over the github repository but couldn’t really find an API yet (but I didn’t look very thoroughly to be honest). If there is some info available I’d be happy to have a go at it.
(Unfortunately, my SM isn’t arriving until September/November)

Guys, what’s the GCode command to trigger the auto-levelling of all points, without stopping in the last one to use the card? I have a Prusa that has a routine to auto-level before every print, and after the hot bed achieve the right temp.