Snapmaker 2.0 Initial Calibration Settings / Experiences

Snapmaker 2.0
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Hello all,

I thought I’d type up my setup and calibration procedures for future reference since I haven’t seen too much of this information in a single place before. Hopefully this is useful.

There are other introductory posts worth reading such as:

The first thing I did was update to the latest firmware, change the auto bed levelling to 5x5 grid, and do an auto level. I’m impressed with this process, it works pretty smoothly. Looking ahead, I’ve found out of the box auto levelling is great for medium and fast prints, but my bed varies in height too much to print high quality (<.1mm layer height) prints, as it will result in layer shift 90% of the time. More on that later.

The first print I did was Benchy with Luban as the slicer with medium default settings. It printed fairly well, but there were some bridging issues, some stringing, and some infill-to-perimeter issues, overextrusion at the edge, underexstrusion in the middle (K-factor issues)

I like this printer calibration set of tools: https://teachingtechyt.github.io/calibration.html. As always: be careful running presliced gcode, and when in doubt download the STL files and slice yourself. I’ll be going through my results from each step of this procedure:

  1. PID Autotune: Skip this, I learned that the PID Autotune command will essentially lock up the controller and not complete, and forum posts confirm that’s the case (such as PID autocalibration fails in SnapMaker 2.0 (A-350))

  2. First Layer: I didn’t have any major issues with the auto bed levelling, so I skipped this

  3. Baseline Print: I saw some weird over/under extrusion issues that ended up being dealt with later in the Linear Advance section. Otherwise, dimensionally, the print was fairly accurate, not too bad.

  4. Extruder E-Steps Calibration: Like many people in the forums, my extruder was underextruding (90mm instead of 100mm).
    a. My final E-steps turned out to be 242.3

  5. Flow calibration: This step is important, but I somewhat disagree with the Teaching Tech steps here. While it’s important to calibrate the slicer flow rate there’s a couple places you can do that:
    a. You can change the Extrusion Multiplier / Flow in the slicer
    b. You can change the filament diameter
    c. During a print you can use the M221 S<percent> command to override the flow percentage (for more see here: https://marlinfw.org/docs/gcode/M221.html)

    I adjusted, in order:

    1. Filament diameter, by measuring with calipers. My filament was 1.72mm (which will extrude 3.4% too little filament vs the standard 1.75mm!). Make sure and measure in many places and at several rotations along the filament and average them. My filament was slightly oval shaped.
    2. At this point my test cube printed acceptable, the walls were about 0.02mm off the slicer’s wall thickness, perfect! If yours doesn’t print well, then I would consider adjusting the extrusion multiplier / flow in the slicer.
    3. If during a print you notice serious under / over extrusion and don’t want to stop the print, consider using M221 to on the fly change the amount extruded. Just remember to set this back to default when done using M221 S100 (or power cycle the printer!)

  6. Stepper Motor Drive Current: Skip this

  7. Retraction Tuning: The Snapmaker 2.0 default retraction settings are 5mm @ 60mm/s, no Z hop. My first retraction tower I varied retraction distance from 0mm to 3mm, in 0.5mm steps. The next tower I varied Z hop from 0mm to 3mm in 0.5mm increments. My prints were best at:
    a. Retraction: 1mm @ 60mm/s
    b. Z hop of 0.5mm

  8. Temperature Tuning: The factory default temperature was 205C. I varied my tower from 190C to 210C in 5C increments, first layer 200C.
    a. Initial results were not brilliant: I was unable to get any bridges to form like they should. That turned out to be a combination of a massive under-cooling issue as well as a linear advance issue. I put a 7" desk fan next to the build plate which helped with the cooling, and I had to pause and skip to linear advance to get close on that before returning to finish temperature calibration!
    b. After fixing the cooling and linear advance, my best results were at 205C (considering both surface shininess and layer adhesion).

  9. Acceleration Tuning: The Snapmaker 2.0 default acceleration is 1000mm/s^2 and the default junction deviation is 0.02mm. My best results were:
    a. Acceleration: 750mm/s^s
    b. Junction Deviation: 0.02mm. Increasing didn’t seem to hurt much, but I did see some artifacting around 0.05, so I left it at the default value.

  10. Linear Advance: Many online guides, including Teaching Tech, list 0.2 as a good starting K value for direct drive. In fact, the Marlin default value (and also the Snapmaker’s default value) is K=0.22. However, I found this to be way too high. My best results were at:
    a. K factor of K=0.07

I also measured the axis backlash and found all 3 of my axes could benefit from a small compensation. More detail here: Is there a better way to calibrate?

I use Simplify3D, and took the Snapmaker provided FFF files, and modified them to do the following:

  • Manually enable backlash compensation before the machine homes (YOU WOULD DEFINITELY NEED TO EDIT THIS IN THE STARTING GCODE SECTION)
  • Incorporate the calibration data I measured for my machine
  • Modify the default heating behavior to begin heating both the bed and extruder simultaneously, then waiting for both to reach temperature. By default S3D will wait for the bed to heat first, then begin heating the extruder; a waste of time!
  • Incorporate a small amount of extruder priming into the pre-print, and add retraction after print completion
  • Combine the Fast, Medium, and High quality profiles into a single profile, utilizing Simplify3D’s Auto-Configure Quality drop down.

I have attached my current FFF profile, feel free to use as a basis, but please save a copy and modify your bed size and verify all other parameters!

A final word on bed levelling: I measured my bed with a dial incidator using a custom fixture for my Grizzly dial indicator. I think some carefully placed shims could greatly improve the flatness of the bed. As it stands, I cannot print layers as thin as the default High quality print settings suggest the machine is capable of.

I also printed more things to improve the printing experience:

Good luck, and others who have had similar or wildly different setup results, please share what you learned!

__
Brent

Brent’s A350.fff (12.1 KB)

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Thank you for sharing your experiences and solutions in such a detailed manner!

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@brent113 WOW! This is so detailed - thanks so much for all your efforts. Definitely going to use your profile and adjust per your suggestions (most of this is new to me, I never spent time dialing in my older QidiTech I 3D printer). I also have the A350 so your profile post is very much appreciated. I like that you’ve incorporated the Simplify3D quality setting rather than needing 3 different profiles.

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Have not yet received my 350 (supposed to arrive this month) but meanwhile I’m learning a lot from folks like you. I print posts like this one and save them in a binder. Hoping they will flatten my learning curve! Thanks much!

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Hey man, love reading your posts.

I am really struggling to get functional parts out of my printer.

I have been trying to print spool holders and finally have one that might work, but i need the bearing.

Trying to print the exact bearing you specified, but its not coming out super great.

My big problem is that i can’t seem to print round, everything is out of round.

(this applies to like everything, but especially detremental in something like this or threaded).

Could you be so kind as to share a save file of the settings you used to print this bearing so I can A.) print one and B.) Learn something about why my prints suck so bad?

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Try printing a calibration cube and checking to see if it is dimensionally accurate… if not it means you probably have a defective rail, but there might be something we can do until support gets thing settled :slight_smile:

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It could be a detective rail, but I’ve noticed (especially on FB) quite a few people with problems with stuff being out of round have assembled their SM incorrectly. Bed frame upside down, rails not properly seated or aligned correctly, or loose and not properly fastened, wrong screws, etc.
Check your assembly carefully. Post pictures and we can see if something you’ve missed.

-S

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I am just starting with S3D and found this topic. Thanks for your work so far.
A colleague told me to give it a try and so here I am. I think the luban results are not so bad and now I am trying to do some comparison.
One question about your workspace. Why did you set the workspace to 320,330,320 and not 320,350,330 as I expected it for an A350?

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Haven’t needed that much space, just roughed the dimensions

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Blockquote Temperature Tuning: The factory default temperature was 205C. I varied my tower from 190C to 210C in 5C increments, first layer 200C.
a. Initial results were not brilliant: I was unable to get any bridges to form like they should. That turned out to be a combination of a massive under-cooling issue as well as a linear advance issue. I put a 7" desk fan next to the build plate which helped with the cooling, and I had to pause and skip to linear advance to get close on that before returning to finish temperature calibration!
b. After fixing the cooling and linear advance, my best results were at 205C (considering both surface shininess and layer adhesion).

Hi @brent113
I also have an A-350, and I followed your same site to optimize the prints.
I have the enclosure and I always turn on the printer at least 30 minutes before with the printing plate at 60 degrees to create a warm environment with as little humidity as possible, so as to have the most uniform conditions possible.

I’m currently using the snapmaker’s PLA (190-210 ° C suggested)

PID Autotune: I also jumped for the same reasons as you.
First Layer: I lost some time to optimize it, especially in the upper right part which was a bit high, compared to the optimal position.
Baseline Print: Same as your problems, correct dimensions, but a slight under-extrusion on the top layer
Extruder E-Steps Calibration: corrected the value from 212.21 to 238.44
Flow calibration: corrected the value from 100% to 93.02% (thickness measurement with the gauge changed from 0.43mm to 0.40mm, perfect!)
Retraction Tuning: tried the values ​​from 0.5 to 1.4 of Retraction distance always at 40mm / sec of speed, but on no case I had traces of stringing.

Now the problems:
Temperature Tuning: I did 3 different series:
from 185 to 205
from 210 to 230
from 230 to 250
all with embedded fan at 100%
as in the figures below:

temp frontale_cut
temp frontale_cut3606×1223 1.13 MB
temp laterale_cut
temp laterale_cut2109×1575 994 KB

in the first example everything has failed completely, and there is a high tendency of the material to rise at the tips.
in the second the improvements begin, but in any case beyond the normal melting temperatures and the tips still tend to rise.
I also made a third attempt completely over temperature and as I climb the lift on the tips decreases and the bridge improves.

I read that you have made improvements with the additional fan, but if so, shouldn’t I have the opposite problem working at 250 °?

at this point I think I will also do the retraction test at higher temperatures, since starting from 215 ° C I begin to have stringing effects

I also want to do some tests with the fan lower than 100%, and at the standard temperature of 205 ° to see if I get better results.
in the light of my test it seems that more heat (or less cooling) improves the situation.

what idea have you got?

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What autolevel selection did you select on the Teaching Tech calibration site?

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no ABL setting is what you want

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hi @ArrMiHardies, after the first layer is tuned and it is ok, i always use M420 S1, to recover the auto leveling function of Z axis

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What feedrate did you use on the acceleration test, and did you adjust it or your slicer based on the feedrate test earlier on that page?

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In my understanding the acceleration limit is independent of velocity, and as long as you’re testing fast enough that the machine is acceleration limited during the test you’ll get identical results.

I used 50mm/s, I think. Maybe 40. I did not adjust it based on prior tests.

Many tests have overlap, like you’re alluding to. Linear advance overlaps with flow multiplier sometimes, or e steps and flow multiplier. I think acceleration and jerk each are pretty independent to the rest of the tests - it’s a motion control parameter rather than extrusion related and there’s not many other settings like it.

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Quick Question… How did you get these to print? Im downloading the .gcode from the site and the printer will read it but it just does nothing what am I doing wrong?

Turns out I was just impatient and it heats the bed first then the nozzle…

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Thanks for the excellent info. You’ve been a big help in getting my A350 set up better.

To make it easier to measure 100mm of filament for the E-Steps calibration, I made a guide that the filament snaps into (and slides down when feeding). Snap the filament in, slide the guide down to rest on the print head inlet, mark (or cut) the filament at the marker (and higher if you think that you’re over-extruding - the slots at the top are 1mm apart), then feed the filament and measure the result.
The distance from the bottom of the guide to the top of the marker (that I’ve marked in black pen) is 100mm.
Extruder Calibration Guide.stl (22.9 KB)

Filament Guide
Filament Guide1065×1667 266 KB

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I’ll take the opportunity of this post for some help on some of my calibration issue.

I have followed all the steps and I’m almost pleased with the results. Only the k-factor has been difficult, due to the fact that I am having issues with the machine recognition via USB (it says can not open the port when clicking connect) and due to the fact that the SM will not read the M900 command.

Below is the cura screenshot of where the print failed. It is a GoPro selfie stick repair.
I am seeing cornes lifting up, and it gets worse the smaller the print is, lifting up like a skate board. I am thinking of a k-factor issue, set at the moment to 0.05.

Below are some shots of the bits printed on the far left of the print, corners again lifting up. I had noticed it on my xyz cube test but it was very small so I didn’t bother. But as this print is bigger the part has time to dry much more in-between layers and the uplifting has got so bad that when the head kicked the little parts of the print, hitting the side of the bits that have uplifted, hope that makes sense.

below some photos. Hope I was clear enough. Hope you can help. I will try to redo the k factor test and create a design that could easily replicate my issue, before going back to a larger print.

Thanks for this useful post by the way

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Lifting edges is kind of normal because of too much heat when printing small surfaces, you have to print slower, if possible, maybe even print cooler, if possible.

Have a look at this thread, the kind of issue is the same:

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Thanks for taking the time.
I am printing PLA at 185, which happened to be the best results out of my temperature tower test.
I have though increased my print speeds and used the standard Cura Normal profile speeds, shown below. They might be slightly fast for the snapmaker maybe? They are slower in the Luban profiles for sure, maybe this is due to the fact that the SM only uses heavy linear modules?

Should I reduce my speeds? I have not seen an option in Cura where it identifies small areas and reduces the speed, the way it does for the first couples of layers. Thanks!

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