Do you level before every print?
Coming from a world of Ender 3 machines, I'm use to using wheel locks, ABL and mesh leveling where once I dial it in, I don't touch it again until something goes wrong. With the ECC I thought the same would apply but the few prints I did where I didn't do the auto level first, the nozzle was too close and scrapped along the bed. Wondering if people have had a similar experience? I was only using the textured side of the bed and didn't make any changes in the slicer. Side not, if you want to use the other side (B-smooth) you have to change the elegoo slicer setting to bed type, cool smooth plate. Took me way to long to figure that out.
6 replies
My a1 mini I have only ever had do it's auto leveling and have had no issues. My qidi Q1 pro I have noticed that it has more issues. I have to manually set the z offset on every print or it scrapes and or embeds the first layer into bed I practically have to destroy the plate to get it off. (ISO and a scraper and much patience is the key). But other than the manual offset,I rarely level the thing because it makes me furious and won't stay where I tram it no matter what I do. But I think I'm just chatting fractions of a mm and the print quality doesn't seem to change so....
so the a1 the leveling was one and done? I kind of figured that's how it should be on the ECC as well but after that grind I was nervous to try again. now that I have more beds and a spare nozzle maybe I'll give it a go without the leveling and see what happens
You should always allow the automatic bed leveling before every print. This allows for the machine to compensate for the variations from print to print. This is why machines like the Ender 3 always had so much trouble with the first layer. And even with ABL added to it, turning it off and waiting until something goes wrong is like playing Russian Roulette. At some you know are going to die.
So, if your ABL is turned off, then turn it back on and stop playing Russian Roulette. Know before you go!
Is there any support for probing just the area of the print. The Prussia mk4 I borrowed recently did that, but my original ender3 (with ABL, marlin updates, and some printed minor mods) I only level once a year or less because once you get a good level, it’s more consistent I’ve found.
I have one ABL print I run after swapping nozzles, probes the whole bed, then prints a test pattern, then I have to manually store the settings incase the results were worse than the previous probing.
Yes, modern printers running Marlin do support just probing the print area. My trusty old Prusa Mk3s probes the whole bed regardless, but the Bambu A1 mini next to it will do zone probing for small sized prints. I don't know about Klipper, but I'm sure if you understand the config files, you should be able to do it there too.
If you noticed when the Mk4 auto leveled, it waited until the bed was hot and at temperature. The reason for this is that when you heat the bed, it changes shape. And what was once level is no longer level or at least a different level. And most Ender 3 users always leveled cold and only at the corners. Then they often had issues printing in various interior spots on the bed.
You do use an ABL on occasions, and it works for you. So I ain't going to tell you to stop. But that's why every modern printer I know of does auto leveling before printing. It tries to ensure the user will always have the best chance at success.
Yeah I always preheat the bed for an extra 5 minutes or so before probing, but it waits for the bed heating in my prefix gcode anyway, bed warping is real.
I’m going to look into a newer marlin and zone probing. Really, I’d like to look into the carbon clonescand jump to the newer technologies, but I literally just found this community and might use it to get restarted.