First calibration steps

sanjibukai

Hello,
I just unboxed my printer!
And right now I'm printing my very first test print..
A 30x30x10mm block in order to measure with the caliper the precision of the printer.

I just did the mesh leveling explained by Dahai..
But I want to know how I can calibrate other things (like extruder etc..)?
In fact if needed, I mean..
Maybe it's not required on that printer?

sanjibukai

Hello,
The cube was quite good..
The Z is great !! 10.00mm.
However for the X and Y I got something about 30.30mm..
How can I calibrate the printer to compensate that extra 1%?
In the meantime I will scale down to 99% in the slicer..

Samuel Pinches

I suggest setting nozzle diameter to 0.6mm in cura and trying again

sanjibukai

Hi Samuel!
Thank you very much for your work!

• Samuel Pinches: I suggest setting nozzle diameter to 0.6mm in cura and trying again

Even if the nozzle is a 0.4mm ?
What would happen to the rest of the print?
Do the printer extrude more according to that size of diameter?

Samuel Pinches

The reason is "die swell". If you look this up, you will learn more on this topic. There are many bugs in cura, some have been fixed in this area recently (3.4.0), so I cannot say for certain what the result will be. Yes -you may have to experiment with extrusion multiplier too. I suggest printing a hollow calibration cube, and measuring the wall thickness, and perhaps doing some tests with different values.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:953162

Try printing this with zero infill, and zero top and bottom height. This should give you a hollow square that you can measure the wall thickness with.

sanjibukai

I'm using cura 3.4.0 (the latest at this moment)..
I will try to print that cube..
Should I measure the thickness not the width of the cube?
If applying no bottom, no top and no infill, which shell thickness should I set and expect to get?

PS: What slicer can I use in replacement of cura? Which one are you using with this printer for example?

Jozko Remen

I would like to know why I'm not able to get current extruder steps from firmware via M503 command. It just shows up 'OK' but nothing happens. I'm using Sam Pinches modified A5 firmware.

Therefor, I'm not able to calibrate extruder steps properly for a PETG filament I'm using. I'm like 30 mm short, so underextruding.

Samuel Pinches

Unfortunately I forgot to enable the M503 feature in the firmware... I've since updated it with that feature. You will need to re-flash the firmware unfortunately - in configuration.h there is a line there that disables the M503 feature, you need to comment out that line, to enable the feature.

change this to:

Jozko Remen

ah, I have older version uploaded, that was a reason I was wondering why it's not working as I was looking into configuration of newly updated version.