Making sure that your first layer is impeccable is vital to getting the best results from your 3D printer, regardless of whether you’re using it to prototype your business’s latest product,
print a Catan board, or even just make miniatures for tabletop gaming.
One of the most important steps to improving the quality of your prints is to level your print bed.
This is a skill that will be useful when you take on more challenging 3D printing projects.
How would you tell if the bed of a 3D printer is level?
How should a 3D printer be levelled?
Is this process easy to automate?
Well, let’s walk through the various step-by-step processes in this article.
Additive manufacturing or 3D printing
A few years ago,
3d printing would have been considered fantastical and something of the future, but as of late,
the technology has gained more mainstream acceptance.
Hobbyists and product designers prefer it because it is a much quicker and less expensive process than creating plastic molds and using injection molding techniques.
The final step in this process involves sequentially layering the material and joining those layers of plastic with heat.
Because the printer builds up an object through successive layers (or slices)
until the object is fully created, it is vital to ensure that your printer bed is level.
Why is levelling important?
Working with a printer that isn’t levelled properly can result in serious printing errors that will ruin your finished product.
The distance between the printer nozzle and the build plate will vary across the plate if the bed is not level.
You may need to adjust your behaviour if your workspace is a shed and unlevel workbenches and unfinished coffee cups are lying around.
With an uneven bed, the nozzle will occasionally be closer to the build plate and occasionally farther away. This results in a poor final result and wastes resources and time.
Most models won’t be able to detect this disparity because 3D printers are made to work with perfectly level print beds. This will result in an uneven and inconsistent first layer of the print.
A faulty first layer it will most certainly ruin the print. Because of this, levelling your printer before printing is crucial.
How to level your 3dprinter
Any 3D printing project must be properly levelled, but what does a level bed mean in practice?
A 3Dprinter has a “build plate,” which is the plate on which your object is created. The printing nozzle does all of the printing and layering on this flat plate, which serves as the 3D printer’s “base.”
A machine simply finishes the task at hand and handles the layering process that occurs during a 3D process. The printer proceeds with building your object under the presumption that everything is correct. This may be a problem if the bed isn’t level.
A few tools will need to be gathered. These consist of the following:
- To clean the bed of your 3D printer, use isopropyl alcohol and a piece of cloth.
- To ensure your prints are correctly aligned, use an edge finder to locate the edges of your build plate.
- A set of screws: This helps secure the build plate to the frame of your 3D printer so that it won’t move around during printing and result in prints that aren’t aligned. The screws for most 3D printers are included, but it’s vital to have extra pairs in case some are misplaced.
You can tighten the screws holding the build plate in place with an Allen wrench or a screwdriver. - A set of callipers: Particularly when printing the test model in the final stages of the levelling process, you could use callipers to measure the thickness of your build plate to determine how thick your first layer should be.
Step 1: Switch Off and Disconnect Your 3DPrinter
Before starting to level the bed,
it’s essential to turn off your 3Dprinter and unplug it from the power source. It would be ideal to carry out this operation at the start of each print job. Many issues, including overheating and electrical surges, can arise if you leave it plugged in while trying to adjust.
It’s also vital to turn off and unplug your 3Dprinter before making any adjustments to avoid incidents like electrocution, especially if liquid comes into contact with power.
Clean your 3dprinter bed
Because a clean 3D printer bed provides a smooth surface for your filament to adhere to, your prints will be of higher quality and accuracy.
Moreover,
before printing, any stray material is taken out of the bed,
trying to minimize flaws and other problems along the edges of your finished designs.
Use a piece of paper
Set a piece of paper on the bed and gradually lower the nozzle until the paper is barely touched or the nozzle feels snug between the bed and the paper.
Find the location where the piece of paper encounters the least amount of resistance by snugging it back and forth in each of the four corners of your bed.
Typically, this location is where the bed is level. After you have located a level location, tighten all of the screws on your bed to ensure that it won’t move while you are printing.
Tighten the screws
To tighten the screws, a screwdriver or Allen wrench is a quick and effective tool. Finding the tiny bolts holding the bed in place is the first step. After that, place the wrench or screwdriver over one of the screws and turn it counterclockwise until you encounter resistance.
Repeat the process with a second screw after setting the Allen wrench down and aligning it with it. Just be careful not to overtighten them, as this could damage the floor of your 3dprinter or strip off the bolt head.
After making sure that every screw in the bed is firmly tightened, double-check to make sure they are still secure, and you are prepared to begin using your 3D printer as usual.
Next, do a print test
The next step is to run a test print to check for alignment problems and make the necessary fixes after levelling the bed.
Automatic bed levelling
3D printers can automatically level their beds by using sensors and inductive probes at each of the four corners of the printing surface. These probes can measure changes in distance precisely because they transmit and receive electromagnetic pulses.
The controller software processes the location data and makes any changes necessary once it is aware of it.
Many bed leveling systems also include active heating and cooling components,
which aid in maintaining a constant temperature for the printed object throughout the printing process.
In conclusion
Although 3D printer bed levelling may seem difficult and confusing, it’s crucial for getting the most out of your machine.
Making sure that your bed is level without having to spend a lot of time on it is possible with a printer that has automatic bed leveling.
