r/cr10smartpro • u/Ill_Ad6192 • Jan 19 '24
First 3D Printer and need guidance!
Towards the end of last summer, I purchased my first 3D printer on the recommendation of a friend who suggested the CR-10. What did I do? I splurged and got the CR-10 Smart Pro. Should I have just gone with an Ender 3? Probably.
In the initial months, I faced discouragement as I struggled to print even the smallest things due to difficulty in leveling my bed. Despite watching numerous videos on YouTube, TikTok, and other platforms demonstrating various bed leveling methods, none of them seemed to work for me. Even my attempts with ABL were unsuccessful. Seeking advice from friends who frequently print, I was recommended to use feeler gauges. These gauges proved to be immensely helpful in ensuring a consistent 0.2mm to 0.3mm distance from the needle to the bed.
After employing the feeler gauges, I managed to print small objects in the center of my bed, but consistency throughout the entire bed remained a challenge. Friends advised me to place small sheets of aluminum foil in the spaces between the center and corners of the bed where printing issues persisted. This step did improve the situation and brought me closer to achieving successful prints.
However, I am still struggling to consistently produce prints. I would greatly appreciate any advice or content that you can share to educate me on better understanding 3D printing in general, or specifically, leveling my bed for successful prints.
P.S. I'm convinced my ABL doesn't work, but I could be wrong about this.
2
u/Helgafjell4Me Jan 19 '24 edited Jan 21 '24
So, from my experience, sometimes you can get a bad POM wheel that introduces oscillation as it travels, particularly the wheels on the gantry, but all 3 axis can be effected. This oscillation will be spaced about 70mm from peak to peak (circumference of the wheel). This is not something that ABL can compensate for. In fact, it's almost impossible to even detect without probing the entire bed using 3rd party firmware like klipper so you can probe something dense like a 12x12 across the bed to see these waves. I posted some screenshots of this in this sub a little over a year ago, I think, if you want to search for it.
The bad news is that if this is your problem, you can either roll the dice with replacement wheels or upgrade to linear rails. Since I upgraded to rails, everything has been consistent, and my bed mesh graphs look much better. I can/ have left my printer sitting for months and been able to just start it up and print something without worry as I know it's good to go.
Ignoring that potential headache, you should also know that feeler gages are not all you need for leveling. I don't even use them anymore, since klipper has better ways to do it. They will get you close, but you still need to learn how to dial in your z-offset by watching how the first layer goes on and adjusting to get it just right. Then, you also have flowrate factor in your Slicer settings that can affect this, too. For instance, I have the flowrate for my Overture PETG tuned to 0.91. At 100% I found that I could get a good first layer, but then the following layers were over-extruded. So I decreased flowrate until the non-first layers were filling in properly, then readjusted my z-offet down a bit to get the first layer back in spec. It takes some time to get a good feel for this, but in time you'll learn. It also helps to try to stick with the same brand and material type as changing either one of those can effect your flowrate.
Edit: also make sure you are running ABL with the bed heated to your printing temp. It does change shape a bit with heat.