For those questioning nozzle expansion, my latest video shows nozzle expansion is minimal and leveling unheated reduces the error the paper offset creates. ruclips.net/video/MNVCDNW0RoU/видео.html
For all the people asking you to test if the hotend has an effect, I've got an idea. (And any of us can do it on our machines.) Level the bed cold. Run a bed level print (like one with 5 squares). Let it cool down completely. Re-level while hot. Print the same bed level print. Does it look the same?
Great Video. But there is another factor to consider. When a print is finished, some material drips out of the nozzel and becomes solid there. That affects the bed levelling with paper if the nozzel is not heated up. So I always do a preheat (both bed and nozzle) before levelling.
Good video but you definitely need to test the nozzle expansion, trust me it expands noticeably with a piece of paper. Level the printer with the paper while cold then heat up both bed and nozzle *which is more realistic cuz you print with both hot, and see how tight the paper is going to be held *because the nozzle expanded, I’ve tried it myself.
The problem in leveling cold is not with the bed, but with the hot end. Heating the hot end from 30C to 200C makes the hole assembly longer and interfere with the fist layer thickness. That is why you have to correct your leveling after the print starts. I used to use your leveling pattern and level it on the fly but now I level mine with the hot end at printing temperature and have no need for corrections.
Many many people have told me bed crap soon can cause all kinds of issues throughout the print and is needed for leveling so that’s why I did this. Also I don’t have to adjust on the fly when using my electronic leveling tool. It’s consistent and positions it at a true zero where paper actually introduces a 0.1mm offset error in the nozzle position and thus needs live adjust. I will be testing heated nozzle expansion as well but initial tests show expansion is really minor.
Thanks Chep. Further testing required to make conclusion, but good start. Of course there is two sides to the gap. Only one tested here is the bed side. Nozzle side needs to be considered to be definitive on whether heating to operating temps for bed leveling is necessary. Brass, most hot ends, have a high thermal expansion coefficient. Aluminum is the one making the move in this test. The direction will depend on the cool temp. warp direction, concave or convex. As the aluminum expands between the 4 mounted points the center is where all four points forces meet. So the material goes in the direction of least resistance or it's buckle mode. Similar if you take sheet metal and press towards center it buckles and chooses a direction.
Voron 2.4 350mm here. Cold vs Hot makes enough of a difference to mean a failed print or successful one becuase of the first layer Z distance. Some pirinters you may see no difference between cold or hot, but absolutely do not assume it won't matter. Because it might.
The new opening G-Code that I use on my original Ender3 (heavily modified) heats the bed before doing the mesh leveling with the BLTouch. I haven't adjusted a bed in well over a year and get rock solid base layers consistently. I don't mess with success. It's continually the best performing printer I own.
this didn't debunk anything. For a PEI plate heated at 90 degrees, trust me there is a huge difference. glass is extremely flat. there is no problem. for most who are printing PLA this isnt an issue but i recommend you do this with PEI and heat the bed to 90 degrees and trust me it will warp like hell
Chuck, this is an EXCELLENT video! Anybody who studied physics knows temperature changes dimensions… the point is always: how much? Is it negligible? And this time, yeah, it is. Measuring is key! Thanks man!
Hmm, this does not correlate with the things i see in daily use. I suspect it is different for every machine. The Ender Style printers have a very thin aluminium bed, this may be a reason why basically nothing happens when heating it up. When you have a thicker heat bed there is more material to expand and this is what i clearly see on my qidi x-plus. The bed moves up quite a bit when heating up. When i level cold the nozzle scratches the surface after beeing heated up to 60 degrees C. What could also play a role is the Leveling Springs or silicone bed mounts. They will deform or lose/gain tension when heated up. So I think it is not correct to say "it does not matter if you heat up or not". It depends on the machine and the setup.
Try it again but let it sit with heat on for 30 mins or longer then measure. The heat eventually transfers into the springs and changes. And when you lose at the corners is because you are gaining in the center. Use two dial indicators at the same time, on at the corner and one in the center. And also try putting a dial indicator on the left front and one on the right rear. Then adjust the left front and see what happens to the right rear.
Years ago at school, I learned never to use a dail indicator at the 0 position because that is where it is most unreliable. That said, I don't believe it will differ a lot. Great test. Thanks.
3D PrintCreator - I’m not sure I understand your “zero position”. The dial indicator is not bottomed out it’s a random position that has up and down travel space and then I hit the zero display button. So how is that any more unreliable?
@@FilamentFriday lol, as said, I learned this more than 35 years ago and I am not sure if I am mixing up two different instruments, or if the dail indicators back then were another type (mechanical for sure), that you didn't zero. I have to search for it, but I think I still have my dail indicator I had back then somewhere. Then again, as you explain it here, I am almost sure you are correct.
Great video Chuck, as always!😊🙏. I always had heated my bed and hotend then trammed with paper because well, like almost everyone, that's what we were taught to do. However about 4 months ago I decided to try a method I watched on another 3d printing channel; that is by tramming using a 0.20mm(0.080") feeler gauge and not heating the bed or the hotend. I could not believe the difference that made! Not only did I save time and energy by not heating either, the result was amazing! I must note that I do have the Creality 4.2.7 silent boards with TH3D's Unified 2 firmware installed that I'm able to run 2 bed leveling steps. First step is to start with tramming the 4 corners roughly above the adjusting wheels, using the 0.20mm feeler gauge, which is corner leveling in the firmware on the LCD screen. Next step is the full 9-spot tramming of the bed. Using the setting on the LCD screen called bed leveling (huh imagine that!), this will first home the bed/hotend then select start to begin. At each of the 9 points, still using the feeler gauge, adjust the z-axis either up or down, as needed, except the z-axis is moved this time by turning the knob on the LCD screen. Once it's completed save it to your EEPROM. This is what is known as mesh leveling so that during printing the firmware/printer will compensate for the differences in the minor adjustments made around the bed from those 9 points. I hope this helps anyone on their path to deciding whether to heat or not to heat, thanks to Chuck's awesome video! Well printing and keep printing well! 😊😊🙏🙏
Bed does not expand too much, but nozzle does. Just put cold nozzle about 0.1mm above bed, set temp to 200-260 and start observing. You won't miss it :)
When I got a Raspberry Pi(OctoPrint) and a BLTouch for my CR-10v3 I actually ran through the bed levelling with the Bed Visualiser plugin and found that I was getting a different pattern of warp when cold compared with hot, however like your video it was only minor changes.
Interesting! I just tried a similar setup on a 300x300x6 mm aluminum bed which is mounted rigidly (no springs) at the corners. Going from 20 to 80 C, it moved upwards .1 mm at the center and not at all at the corners (as measured with a .01 mm dial indicator). So I guess I will keep mesh bed leveling that one in its warmed up state.
Great video! I use a glass bed and I swear that thing changes. Good to know it’s just the gremlins in my head. 🤣😂 But who cares as long as it makes good prints.
0.07mm rise in the center could take a 0.25 initial nozzle (layer) height to 0.18mm initial nozzle (layer) height. Could cause issues with bigger prints in the center. Best advice I'd imagine is do a mesh when the bed is hot. Manual mesh takes less than 5 minutes to do with a 3x3 grid. Saves any headache so why not.
Major issue here is this also heavily depends on how flat your bed is, and not everyone has even a stock bed on any form of ender. You shouldn't see much if any deflection near the adjust knobs. You also completely forget the concept of heating and slowly cooling w/ the glass bed in place many times would likely hold the shape of the glass it was pinned to for that time. A lot left to be desired in your methodology and if the center is moving then it's throwing off ABL sensors.
I think it is still a good idea to level it when all is heated up. Nozzle is not being taken into account here it is heated much more than just 30deg so it must be some expansion there.
Can't change the laws of thermal expansion. Always heat the nozzle when leveling, but don't forget to not keep it heated for too long or else it will cook the filament and clog your nozzle!
I’ve seen .2mm of a difference @ 100c across my print bed, 220x160mm, and more at the extremities. Distortion at lower temps is minimal, it’s above 80c you start seeing bigger deflection.
Awesome video. Only thing to add is the nozzle needs heated up just in case there is plastic in the way that needs melted. Im going to try cold bed leveling now thanks!
This is why mesh bed leveling exists. I have an ender 5 plus and I know for a fact there is enough warping at temperature to matter. Thankfully pretty much every ABS part I've printed was either small or about 1/3rd the build plate so it didn't matter much. But if I print anything that covers more I'll have to use my glass bed or have a high chance of a failed print.
Great points I hadn't considered. Probably the most thermal movement over the adjustment system would come with the time factor of the print and the materials of the adjustment screws. Aluminum screws would grow more than mild steel. Otherwise the design of the heater element and the bed material would affect the center delta T distance and plus or minus. Thanks!
Thermal expansion caused by uniform heating is pretty tiny. Warping, caused by temperature gradients, creates much larger deformations. If a bed is heated perfectly evenly, you can bet that warping will be reduced. Cold edges causes an effect similar to squeezing the sides of a playing card together. It kind of bows out in the middle. Great video, always nice to have some experiments to reference in the endless debates in forums and the RUclips comments section. We are all armchair scientists you know.
I’m running 7 different printers and I don’t heat the bed or nozzle to level my beds and I don’t have problems I simply don’t I’ve always leveled them cold, so thank you for doing this test though I do think a lot of people no matter what test is done they will simply go by what they’ve been told from day one
I would think that you would get more movement around 80c and up. Since a lot of popular filaments use hotter beds give that a shot Chuck! Should be interesting.
I have a 3mm mirror on top of heated bed on my CR10S Pro, and I can assure that making a print on a cold bed and on a hot bed requires to make a new leveling before if last one was different. Or you can rise/lower the head manually when printing the skirt, but height is definitely not the same.
Mirror glass is not borosilicate high temp glass most printers come with so I’m not surprised. But CR10SPro is known to have level issues between prints due to the way they drive the dual Z steppers.
The trick is, you can't have any solidified boogers on the nozzle, or you won't get the z height correct. With the hotend warned up, you might ruin a piece of scrap paper, but you'll get the height correct.
Interesting results, I think around the 50-60 range you won't see much of a difference. Where leveling with a heated bed matters is high temperature filaments. The temps needed for even PETG, ABS, and Nylon will have noticeable thermal expansion and it'll be enough to cause print issues. I have noticed this in my experience and barring material differences like how PETG doesn't like as much squish as PLA for example, at high bed temps it makes all the difference to level when it's fully heated. It's critical enough to be the difference between a completed print and a print failure.
Interesting conclusion. I can see and reason the minor deflection of the small beds like on the enders. But what about larger beds? The CR-10 only attaches at four points while the CR-6 has multiple screws holding the bedplate.
when i first started i leveled with the bed and hot end hot but the hot end always oozed a little. so i ended up just doing it cold and didn't see any difference so from then on i just leveled cold as it was easier. so for these printers really just use what works for you.
great video as always 👍 great points I prefer to print PETg, so there should be a slight change in bed levering. Thanks for sharing your experience with all of us 👍🙂
I really like the test approach here! But one point I was thinking about is that the measuring point right above the adjustment screw would actually never move right? It's the pivot point. If you look at it from the front, the left and right adjustment screw basically are the two pivot points and the further you move away from them the more the deflection should appear right? Which was also confirmed by measuring in the center.
I have developed a habit of printing in the lower left of the build plate every time, I find I get the most consistency there. Now I know why. Also my prusa MK2 did not heat the nozzle before leveling, and since the pinda sits in the output stream of the heat break cooling fan, I never got prints to stick to the bed.. the distance would be different after the nozzle warmed up. Took me weeks to figure out I needed to modify the default startup g code to FIRST heat the nozzle, and then do the bed leveling. Finally got it to work after that and I loved 3D printing ever since. (Prusa fixed this by just including a PINDA that has temperature compensation!)
Guess ur missing the point here, the nozzle expansion is the bigger problem with bed leveling and more fiddly when printing multiple filament types tat require different temp range.
I leveled my bed unheated (with a feeler gauge) and the nozzle cut deep scratches into it on the first print I tried This is with the anycubic ultrabase So YMMV
I have actually found on my Ender 5 (220x220mm) with the stock flexible plate, temperature between room temp (25 Celsius) and 60 degrees made a bigger difference than with glass. I think it is the aluminium build plate changing size rather than the surface. I think Glass holds its form better and doesn't flex as much with the bed. 0.07 is a pretty big difference when it comes to first layer to be honest. It can be the difference between sticking and not sticking, and that is from my personal experience and experiments moving z axis. I appreciate it is less than a layer height and some people may not find any issues, but in my experience it does affect that first layer a fair bit, even with 0.03 difference.
For me heating the bed makes *a noticeable difference, but not immediately* when the bed reaches temperature, only after ~20 or 30 minutes at 60°, when the heat propagates to some of the metal support under the bed (I guess). After that amount of time the bed moves down enough that's very obvious even with the paper method. This is with an Aquila X2, a printer very similar to an Ender 3, with a glass bed.
Lots of variables not considered here. Lets not forget you are checking at 0.0 bed height. As a print rises in height, any imperfections are magnified. Nice video, sorta proves to me, heating the bed to print temp can only help.
My experience clearly differs; the gap definitely increases when the bed is heated. I'm not sure what justification there is for the clamp since it doesn't replicate the operating condition.
A brass nozzle that is about 20 mm long would expand by about 0.08 mm from 20 °C to 240 °C. That's a one-off error in the z-location of the first layer. There would be the hassle of making sure that there was no plastic oozing from the nozzle, but you could make the measurement with a clean nozzle. You'd probably want to recalibrate as the nozzle wears down (well, up, but you know what I mean).
Incredible video, Chuck! It's about time someone had the wherewithal to test these things out! Personally I've always been suspicious of the paper method for several reasons. I believe the size of the paper in relation to the distance you're holding it at matters, as well as the angle of your hand to the plate when testing. No one has ever commented on my theories, but I'm nearly 100% certain those things matter. Lastly, I've never been able to determine the "right" amount of friction against the paper - I've seen & heard everything from "slight resistance " to "just under the point where the paper bends", so it's inexact at best in my book.
You can easily muster the wherewithal yourself. Simply get a feeler gauge and learn how to use it. A feeler gauge is a standard and inexpensive machinist's and mechanic's tool, which is used to measure small gaps... by feel. You can then compare that to the various paper-measuring scenarios that you have suspicions about.
I was just wondering this and messing around and saw you did a video. Thanks, you have some great content appreciate it! Using cold bed with your electronic leveler and so far great!!
I'd be really curious to correlate the probe gauge measurements with an infrared view of the bed itself. Specifically, does the bed actually heat perfectly evenly, if not could a center "hotspot" account for the variation is depths. Follow-up: if there is an _initial_ hotspot after the target temp is reached, does additional time allow the heat to spread more evenly and either causing a more even expansion?
Thank you for sharing. The movement of the bed is small indeed, but what about the range of temperature of your measuring device ? This one will be heat up when measuring on top of a hot surface for a while. I'm printing ABS with bed temperature of 100°C, so there I not going to use your method. Maybe with a higher Z with elongating rod ... Thanks again for your time and sharing.
I literally have a dial indicator that I 3m tape to my extruder. Level, and print. I do this anytime my first layers start to bubble I do it again, or I just use a raft. If you want to spend the money on ABL, go right ahead, no judgement. I always assumed we get way more deflection in the frame than the margin of error using a dial indicator with our lightweight extrusion frames. Chep, would love to see you measure deflection on the frame vs print speed and acceleration someday!
I use dial indicators all the time in my metal fabrication business. But the $40 I spent on my CR touch more then paid for itself when I coupled it with Jyers and I haven't watched a first layer in months. Time is money for me. I'm a very busy person. Nor do I like hunching over my printer having to adjust things when a simple little piece of tech can solve all those problems. ABL is for convenience.
Very interesting, thanks! I wonder if it flexes in the centre because the expansion has nowhere to go, because of the way the plate is attached to the rest of the machine? Maybe if the bed wasn't attached as tightly it would have room to expand in the x and y directions. Maybe even raising the bed and resetting the zero position to loosen the springs a bit. Generally expansion is proportional to the size in a particular dimension, so I'm thinking it would expand a lot more in the x and y directions, but not in the z direction because the plate isn't very thick compared to the width and length. I mean 1% of 5mm is a lot less than 1% of 250mm. I also usually bring my nozzle up to temp as well when I level the bed, because there's often a bit of hard filament on the end of the nozzle, and I'm usually too lazy to remove the filament before levelling.
While the adjustment points don't move much when heating, the flex at the center is probably a good enough reason to heat before running something like a BLTouch.
I noticed a lot of difference with the nozzle heated. I use the classic piece of paper and every time I level with the cold nozzle prints are too close to the bed, but if I heat it up when leveling the first layer is just perfect. To prevent oozing I just retract a bit
A dial guage positioned at the center ( or anywhere else for that matter ) of my 235x235 heated bed shows a variance of .04 mm when the bed heats from 20c to 60c. This is wildly different from the calculated thermal expansion of aluminium 0.002664 so there is expansion due to heat but it just doesn't seem to be the aluminium bed that is doing much of the expanding.
note... It might well be that my dial guage itself is undergoing some thermal expansion... so i'll redo my test after I attempt to thermally isolate it from the bed. ;)
Imo you spent a bit too low showing the temp changes where the bed didn't change. You didn't need to spend 60+ seconds showing a temp increase in the corner if the bed didn't move.
Interesting video. Is there going to be a similar one looking at nozzle heating? I found for my levelling that I needed a small z offset (up) with a semi-heated (actually heated to 100), but none when levelled at my usual print temp of 200. I assume the nozzle is more susceptible to size change (hence the hot tightening).
You didn't take into account the thermal expansion of the hotend and nozzle. Those are going to make the biggest difference and why most people recommend leveling with both the bed AND nozzle at printing temperature. Brass particularly has a high thermal expansion rate.
Like anything, things expand and contract with temperature. Personally, you want anything to run at operating temperature. So I always set my table at desired temperature.
The gauge itself is affected by the heat, I would not care too much about the specific values but the conclusion is still accurate I guess (at least for the bed heating), but I would still heat all to minimise any variable.
Should try it at higher temps and with bigger bed. Lot of people print PETG or ABS/ASA and there (especially on bigger beds like 300x300 mm and more) at temps of 80-100 °C an offset might be (and definitely WILL be) a lot larger. I would assume say, 0.1 - 0.15 mm and that is almost a layer height.
I print on a roughly 350x350 bed at 105... It's definitely noticeable (pei flex plate). I haven't had much issue since most of my prints are roughly 1/3rd or smaller of build plate but for anything of size I use the glass plate I have.
@@jackshett well for a reason I print only from ABS/ASA and CF Nylon (functional parts, not toys) I simply ignore PEI sheet. Have one, never tried it as magnetism doesn't work well above 80 °C. Soap, hot water on a glass, let it dry naturally by bed preheating (no kitchen towels) and everything sticks to it like hell. PLA, PETG (that is dangerously sticky), ABS, CF nylon. Had not tried PC though.
@@ZhuJo99 Everything I've printed on Wham Bam's PEX stuck quite well. I'm thinking you've used magnetic sheets that weren't made for that high of temperature. I've printed at 110 experimenting otherwise often at 60, 80, or 100 depending on material. Edit: Wham Bam's magnetic base is resistant up to 150 according to their website.
I do a 70-75c pre heat on the Creality aluminum bed before leveling. Then I manually level. I find my level lasts much much longer, especially on my machines using silicone springs. I level very tight with a very low z end stop switch. Horses for courses.
I have the upgraded springs only on my E3v2. Cr touch and Jyers. I pop the SD card in, hit print and walk away. Haven't touched those knobs in months. I set the bed manually both with and without heating and didn't notice a difference personally.
Hi I really like your channel. You have really helped me out alot with my printer, thank you so much. Do you happen to have a dial indicator holder for an ender 3 max?
the first poin you are mesuring is above supporting screw it is unlikely to have big change there, but center there is no pivot thus aluminium can warp when expanding.
The point of this video is to determine, what the differences are when leveling the bed/plate at room temperature compared to leveling it at print temperatures using a low cost printer. I'm supersized the difference is that small. It's less than sheet to sheet paper size differences when using paper as a gauge. (I have not tested that claim. Maybe Chep could?) There is a sizeable percentage of Ender users and others, that use the paper level method and most have good results in bed leveling. This video shows me, cold or hot, when making the level,,, Bed temp doesn't affect the result much. I'm seeing a lot of videos on bed leveling. But not what I want to know. How to get the right gap between a 0.4 nozzle and the bed plate? Or any nozzle size. The first layers have to work. Any error and just stop it. Make a change and start again.
Well I don't know if there is something wrong in this measuring way but I have problems when not leveling with heat bed. What I see here and wonder does spring lie to your measure (they absorb some preassure maybe) and when you measure in center combine spring preassure is more than gauge you use?
A 1 meter aluminium rod expands by 0.000222 m for every 10c the temp rises by. This means tha thermal expansion on its own can never be an issue what is the issue is that beds can vary and some will warp when heated, not expand warp. This means your testing isn't relevant to anyone as their bed will behave differently from yours.
For those questioning nozzle expansion, my latest video shows nozzle expansion is minimal and leveling unheated reduces the error the paper offset creates.
ruclips.net/video/MNVCDNW0RoU/видео.html
For all the people asking you to test if the hotend has an effect, I've got an idea. (And any of us can do it on our machines.) Level the bed cold. Run a bed level print (like one with 5 squares). Let it cool down completely. Re-level while hot. Print the same bed level print. Does it look the same?
Great Video. But there is another factor to consider. When a print is finished, some material drips out of the nozzel and becomes solid there. That affects the bed levelling with paper if the nozzel is not heated up. So I always do a preheat (both bed and nozzle) before levelling.
What you don’t clean the nozzle like a wipe after every print. Also if you are printing straight after I never re-level unless something went wrong
Good video but you definitely need to test the nozzle expansion, trust me it expands noticeably with a piece of paper.
Level the printer with the paper while cold then heat up both bed and nozzle *which is more realistic cuz you print with both hot, and see how tight the paper is going to be held *because the nozzle expanded, I’ve tried it myself.
The problem in leveling cold is not with the bed, but with the hot end. Heating the hot end from 30C to 200C makes the hole assembly longer and interfere with the fist layer thickness. That is why you have to correct your leveling after the print starts. I used to use your leveling pattern and level it on the fly but now I level mine with the hot end at printing temperature and have no need for corrections.
Many many people have told me bed crap soon can cause all kinds of issues throughout the print and is needed for leveling so that’s why I did this.
Also I don’t have to adjust on the fly when using my electronic leveling tool. It’s consistent and positions it at a true zero where paper actually introduces a 0.1mm offset error in the nozzle position and thus needs live adjust.
I will be testing heated nozzle expansion as well but initial tests show expansion is really minor.
Thanks Chep.
Further testing required to make conclusion, but good start. Of course there is two sides to the gap. Only one tested here is the bed side. Nozzle side needs to be considered to be definitive on whether heating to operating temps for bed leveling is necessary. Brass, most hot ends, have a high thermal expansion coefficient.
Aluminum is the one making the move in this test. The direction will depend on the cool temp. warp direction, concave or convex. As the aluminum expands between the 4 mounted points the center is where all four points forces meet. So the material goes in the direction of least resistance or it's buckle mode. Similar if you take sheet metal and press towards center it buckles and chooses a direction.
Voron 2.4 350mm here. Cold vs Hot makes enough of a difference to mean a failed print or successful one becuase of the first layer Z distance. Some pirinters you may see no difference between cold or hot, but absolutely do not assume it won't matter. Because it might.
The new opening G-Code that I use on my original Ender3 (heavily modified) heats the bed before doing the mesh leveling with the BLTouch. I haven't adjusted a bed in well over a year and get rock solid base layers consistently. I don't mess with success. It's continually the best performing printer I own.
What about thermal expansion of the nozzle and hot end? You should measure the gap between the bed and nozzle and see if it's getting narrower.
Nice!!! suggestions for next video: can you repeat heating bed and nozzle? and also using bltouch (to make sure the gauge are not heated) 😊
Thanks for taking the time to test this Chuck.
How long did you soak it for? Thermal expansion takes time.
this didn't debunk anything.
For a PEI plate heated at 90 degrees, trust me there is a huge difference. glass is extremely flat. there is no problem.
for most who are printing PLA this isnt an issue but i recommend you do this with PEI and heat the bed to 90 degrees and trust me it will warp like hell
Chuck, this is an EXCELLENT video! Anybody who studied physics knows temperature changes dimensions… the point is always: how much? Is it negligible? And this time, yeah, it is. Measuring is key! Thanks man!
Really, really interesting results, Chuck!
Thanks a lot for testing it! 😃
Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊
Hmm, this does not correlate with the things i see in daily use. I suspect it is different for every machine. The Ender Style printers have a very thin aluminium bed, this may be a reason why basically nothing happens when heating it up. When you have a thicker heat bed there is more material to expand and this is what i clearly see on my qidi x-plus. The bed moves up quite a bit when heating up. When i level cold the nozzle scratches the surface after beeing heated up to 60 degrees C. What could also play a role is the Leveling Springs or silicone bed mounts. They will deform or lose/gain tension when heated up.
So I think it is not correct to say "it does not matter if you heat up or not". It depends on the machine and the setup.
Also the expansion difference in the hot end between heating for e.g. PLA and ABS is not negligible, in case anyone was wondering.
Try it again but let it sit with heat on for 30 mins or longer then measure. The heat eventually transfers into the springs and changes. And when you lose at the corners is because you are gaining in the center. Use two dial indicators at the same time, on at the corner and one in the center. And also try putting a dial indicator on the left front and one on the right rear. Then adjust the left front and see what happens to the right rear.
Years ago at school, I learned never to use a dail indicator at the 0 position because that is where it is most unreliable.
That said, I don't believe it will differ a lot.
Great test. Thanks.
good luck positioning it at 0; you'd set it up under tension a bit and then zero it.
3D PrintCreator - I’m not sure I understand your “zero position”. The dial indicator is not bottomed out it’s a random position that has up and down travel space and then I hit the zero display button. So how is that any more unreliable?
@@FilamentFriday lol, as said, I learned this more than 35 years ago and I am not sure if I am mixing up two different instruments, or if the dail indicators back then were another type (mechanical for sure), that you didn't zero. I have to search for it, but I think I still have my dail indicator I had back then somewhere.
Then again, as you explain it here, I am almost sure you are correct.
Great video Chuck, as always!😊🙏. I always had heated my bed and hotend then trammed with paper because well, like almost everyone, that's what we were taught to do. However about 4 months ago I decided to try a method I watched on another 3d printing channel; that is by tramming using a 0.20mm(0.080") feeler gauge and not heating the bed or the hotend. I could not believe the difference that made! Not only did I save time and energy by not heating either, the result was amazing! I must note that I do have the Creality 4.2.7 silent boards with TH3D's Unified 2 firmware installed that I'm able to run 2 bed leveling steps. First step is to start with tramming the 4 corners roughly above the adjusting wheels, using the 0.20mm feeler gauge, which is corner leveling in the firmware on the LCD screen. Next step is the full 9-spot tramming of the bed. Using the setting on the LCD screen called bed leveling (huh imagine that!), this will first home the bed/hotend then select start to begin. At each of the 9 points, still using the feeler gauge, adjust the z-axis either up or down, as needed, except the z-axis is moved this time by turning the knob on the LCD screen. Once it's completed save it to your EEPROM. This is what is known as mesh leveling so that during printing the firmware/printer will compensate for the differences in the minor adjustments made around the bed from those 9 points. I hope this helps anyone on their path to deciding whether to heat or not to heat, thanks to Chuck's awesome video! Well printing and keep printing well! 😊😊🙏🙏
Bed does not expand too much, but nozzle does. Just put cold nozzle about 0.1mm above bed, set temp to 200-260 and start observing. You won't miss it :)
When I got a Raspberry Pi(OctoPrint) and a BLTouch for my CR-10v3 I actually ran through the bed levelling with the Bed Visualiser plugin and found that I was getting a different pattern of warp when cold compared with hot, however like your video it was only minor changes.
Interesting! I just tried a similar setup on a 300x300x6 mm aluminum bed which is mounted rigidly (no springs) at the corners. Going from 20 to 80 C, it moved upwards .1 mm at the center and not at all at the corners (as measured with a .01 mm dial indicator). So I guess I will keep mesh bed leveling that one in its warmed up state.
Great video! I use a glass bed and I swear that thing changes. Good to know it’s just the gremlins in my head. 🤣😂 But who cares as long as it makes good prints.
It’s Friday. Didn’t see any filament. 🤭
Wonderful video. Learned a lot. Thank you!
0.07mm rise in the center could take a 0.25 initial nozzle (layer) height to 0.18mm initial nozzle (layer) height. Could cause issues with bigger prints in the center.
Best advice I'd imagine is do a mesh when the bed is hot. Manual mesh takes less than 5 minutes to do with a 3x3 grid. Saves any headache so why not.
Great video but what about PETG (80-90 degrees C) temperatures?
Major issue here is this also heavily depends on how flat your bed is, and not everyone has even a stock bed on any form of ender. You shouldn't see much if any deflection near the adjust knobs. You also completely forget the concept of heating and slowly cooling w/ the glass bed in place many times would likely hold the shape of the glass it was pinned to for that time. A lot left to be desired in your methodology and if the center is moving then it's throwing off ABL sensors.
Thank you 😉
Today I bought yellow springs to my ender.
Now I could do leveling faster
I think it is still a good idea to level it when all is heated up. Nozzle is not being taken into account here it is heated much more than just 30deg so it must be some expansion there.
I always heat up the bed and nozzle. The nozzle and hot end will also expand as it’s heated. I found a difference 🤷♂️
Yes its ,welcome thermodinamics
As my latest video shows nozzle expansion is minimal and just reduces the error the paper offset creates.
ruclips.net/video/MNVCDNW0RoU/видео.html
@@FilamentFriday it was a fantastic video! Thanks for all the help I have two ender 3 v2s and your videos have helped me out so much 🍻
CHEP I believe we need consider a sum of hot-end too. So in hot mode bad and hot-end will be closer
Does the print nozzle expand when heated? Could that change things?
Can't change the laws of thermal expansion. Always heat the nozzle when leveling, but don't forget to not keep it heated for too long or else it will cook the filament and clog your nozzle!
I’ve seen .2mm of a difference @ 100c across my print bed, 220x160mm, and more at the extremities. Distortion at lower temps is minimal, it’s above 80c you start seeing bigger deflection.
Very interesting vid indeed. I have always trammed my bed cold then made adjustments to my cold tram if needed using a feeler gauge.
Awesome video. Only thing to add is the nozzle needs heated up just in case there is plastic in the way that needs melted.
Im going to try cold bed leveling now thanks!
This is why mesh bed leveling exists. I have an ender 5 plus and I know for a fact there is enough warping at temperature to matter. Thankfully pretty much every ABS part I've printed was either small or about 1/3rd the build plate so it didn't matter much. But if I print anything that covers more I'll have to use my glass bed or have a high chance of a failed print.
Great points I hadn't considered. Probably the most thermal movement over the adjustment system would come with the time factor of the print and the materials of the adjustment screws. Aluminum screws would grow more than mild steel. Otherwise the design of the heater element and the bed material would affect the center delta T distance and plus or minus. Thanks!
Love this channel. Just the facts, no screaming "THIS WILL CHANGE YOUR PRINTS FOREVER" on the thumbnail.
Thank you Chuck and have a great 2022!
Thermal expansion caused by uniform heating is pretty tiny.
Warping, caused by temperature gradients, creates much larger deformations.
If a bed is heated perfectly evenly, you can bet that warping will be reduced. Cold edges causes an effect similar to squeezing the sides of a playing card together. It kind of bows out in the middle.
Great video, always nice to have some experiments to reference in the endless debates in forums and the RUclips comments section. We are all armchair scientists you know.
I’m running 7 different printers and I don’t heat the bed or nozzle to level my beds and I don’t have problems I simply don’t I’ve always leveled them cold, so thank you for doing this test though I do think a lot of people no matter what test is done they will simply go by what they’ve been told from day one
I see you don't use periods either.
thanks a lot for the time and effort you put into this. I was thinking about this the other day.
I would think that you would get more movement around 80c and up. Since a lot of popular filaments use hotter beds give that a shot Chuck! Should be interesting.
That was a really interesting idea. I would’ve expected more movement also. So switch to a glass bed and eliminate any question of a flat surface.👍
I have a 3mm mirror on top of heated bed on my CR10S Pro, and I can assure that making a print on a cold bed and on a hot bed requires to make a new leveling before if last one was different.
Or you can rise/lower the head manually when printing the skirt, but height is definitely not the same.
Mirror glass is not borosilicate high temp glass most printers come with so I’m not surprised. But CR10SPro is known to have level issues between prints due to the way they drive the dual Z steppers.
The trick is, you can't have any solidified boogers on the nozzle, or you won't get the z height correct. With the hotend warned up, you might ruin a piece of scrap paper, but you'll get the height correct.
This is excellent. Makes sense the center would flex a little and not the outer ends .
Interesting results, I think around the 50-60 range you won't see much of a difference. Where leveling with a heated bed matters is high temperature filaments. The temps needed for even PETG, ABS, and Nylon will have noticeable thermal expansion and it'll be enough to cause print issues. I have noticed this in my experience and barring material differences like how PETG doesn't like as much squish as PLA for example, at high bed temps it makes all the difference to level when it's fully heated. It's critical enough to be the difference between a completed print and a print failure.
Interesting conclusion. I can see and reason the minor deflection of the small beds like on the enders. But what about larger beds? The CR-10 only attaches at four points while the CR-6 has multiple screws holding the bedplate.
when i first started i leveled with the bed and hot end hot but the hot end always oozed a little. so i ended up just doing it cold and didn't see any difference so from then on i just leveled cold as it was easier. so for these printers really just use what works for you.
Yep. Oozing can affect things.
please retract filament and clean nozzle before start leveling ;)
great video as always 👍
great points
I prefer to print PETg, so there should be a slight change in bed levering.
Thanks for sharing your experience with all of us 👍🙂
I really like the test approach here! But one point I was thinking about is that the measuring point right above the adjustment screw would actually never move right? It's the pivot point. If you look at it from the front, the left and right adjustment screw basically are the two pivot points and the further you move away from them the more the deflection should appear right? Which was also confirmed by measuring in the center.
I have developed a habit of printing in the lower left of the build plate every time, I find I get the most consistency there. Now I know why. Also my prusa MK2 did not heat the nozzle before leveling, and since the pinda sits in the output stream of the heat break cooling fan, I never got prints to stick to the bed.. the distance would be different after the nozzle warmed up. Took me weeks to figure out I needed to modify the default startup g code to FIRST heat the nozzle, and then do the bed leveling. Finally got it to work after that and I loved 3D printing ever since. (Prusa fixed this by just including a PINDA that has temperature compensation!)
i always come to this channel for answers and always get them.
Guess ur missing the point here, the nozzle expansion is the bigger problem with bed leveling and more fiddly when printing multiple filament types tat require different temp range.
Cool. Thx Chep. Will read some of the comments to see other people's thinking/experience...
I leveled my bed unheated (with a feeler gauge) and the nozzle cut deep scratches into it on the first print I tried
This is with the anycubic ultrabase
So YMMV
I have actually found on my Ender 5 (220x220mm) with the stock flexible plate, temperature between room temp (25 Celsius) and 60 degrees made a bigger difference than with glass. I think it is the aluminium build plate changing size rather than the surface. I think Glass holds its form better and doesn't flex as much with the bed. 0.07 is a pretty big difference when it comes to first layer to be honest. It can be the difference between sticking and not sticking, and that is from my personal experience and experiments moving z axis.
I appreciate it is less than a layer height and some people may not find any issues, but in my experience it does affect that first layer a fair bit, even with 0.03 difference.
Yay I don't have to worry about burning my fingers when I'm leveling my bed anymore. Thanks Chuck!
For me heating the bed makes *a noticeable difference, but not immediately* when the bed reaches temperature, only after ~20 or 30 minutes at 60°, when the heat propagates to some of the metal support under the bed (I guess).
After that amount of time the bed moves down enough that's very obvious even with the paper method.
This is with an Aquila X2, a printer very similar to an Ender 3, with a glass bed.
I didn’t see that in my bed video and I left it heated for a while. ruclips.net/video/NlUO-5EtB44/видео.html
Same here. My bed has at least .1 change
Have you tried heating the nozzle to see if it expands?
BAM! Hit me with some cold hard facts. Great content as always Chuck!
Lots of variables not considered here. Lets not forget you are checking at 0.0 bed height. As a print rises in height, any imperfections are magnified. Nice video, sorta proves to me, heating the bed to print temp can only help.
My experience clearly differs; the gap definitely increases when the bed is heated. I'm not sure what justification there is for the clamp since it doesn't replicate the operating condition.
The clamp insures that any movement is purely from the temperature increase and not deflection of the frame.
@@CaliMeatWagon
Yes, that's my point.
Nozzle expansion is not being taken into account here which must expand at the temperatures it operates at.
A brass nozzle that is about 20 mm long would expand by about 0.08 mm from 20 °C to 240 °C. That's a one-off error in the z-location of the first layer. There would be the hassle of making sure that there was no plastic oozing from the nozzle, but you could make the measurement with a clean nozzle. You'd probably want to recalibrate as the nozzle wears down (well, up, but you know what I mean).
Incredible video, Chuck! It's about time someone had the wherewithal to test these things out! Personally I've always been suspicious of the paper method for several reasons. I believe the size of the paper in relation to the distance you're holding it at matters, as well as the angle of your hand to the plate when testing. No one has ever commented on my theories, but I'm nearly 100% certain those things matter. Lastly, I've never been able to determine the "right" amount of friction against the paper - I've seen & heard everything from "slight resistance " to "just under the point where the paper bends", so it's inexact at best in my book.
You can easily muster the wherewithal yourself. Simply get a feeler gauge and learn how to use it. A feeler gauge is a standard and inexpensive machinist's and mechanic's tool, which is used to measure small gaps... by feel. You can then compare that to the various paper-measuring scenarios that you have suspicions about.
@@Graham_Wideman by far the feeler gauge is best for tramming!
I was just wondering this and messing around and saw you did a video. Thanks, you have some great content appreciate it! Using cold bed with your electronic leveler and so far great!!
I do the same. Agree it works great.
Great video, as usual. I might go ahead and try this on my build platform since I like the g10 sheets best. I think that stuff will show a difference.
Does heating the nozzle AND the bed effect the distance between the two?
Excellent ! what a do noticed is 0.Xmm order differences in Z offset between preheated nozzle and bed against room temps.
I'd be really curious to correlate the probe gauge measurements with an infrared view of the bed itself. Specifically, does the bed actually heat perfectly evenly, if not could a center "hotspot" account for the variation is depths. Follow-up: if there is an _initial_ hotspot after the target temp is reached, does additional time allow the heat to spread more evenly and either causing a more even expansion?
Thanks, interesting. I wonder what the results would be on a CR-10 MAX or S4 or S5.
Thank you for sharing. The movement of the bed is small indeed, but what about the range of temperature of your measuring device ? This one will be heat up when measuring on top of a hot surface for a while. I'm printing ABS with bed temperature of 100°C, so there I not going to use your method. Maybe with a higher Z with elongating rod ... Thanks again for your time and sharing.
I literally have a dial indicator that I 3m tape to my extruder. Level, and print. I do this anytime my first layers start to bubble I do it again, or I just use a raft. If you want to spend the money on ABL, go right ahead, no judgement. I always assumed we get way more deflection in the frame than the margin of error using a dial indicator with our lightweight extrusion frames.
Chep, would love to see you measure deflection on the frame vs print speed and acceleration someday!
I use dial indicators all the time in my metal fabrication business. But the $40 I spent on my CR touch more then paid for itself when I coupled it with Jyers and I haven't watched a first layer in months. Time is money for me. I'm a very busy person. Nor do I like hunching over my printer having to adjust things when a simple little piece of tech can solve all those problems.
ABL is for convenience.
Great video and information, thanks, Chuck!
Very interesting, thanks!
I wonder if it flexes in the centre because the expansion has nowhere to go, because of the way the plate is attached to the rest of the machine?
Maybe if the bed wasn't attached as tightly it would have room to expand in the x and y directions. Maybe even raising the bed and resetting the zero position to loosen the springs a bit.
Generally expansion is proportional to the size in a particular dimension, so I'm thinking it would expand a lot more in the x and y directions, but not in the z direction because the plate isn't very thick compared to the width and length. I mean 1% of 5mm is a lot less than 1% of 250mm.
I also usually bring my nozzle up to temp as well when I level the bed, because there's often a bit of hard filament on the end of the nozzle, and I'm usually too lazy to remove the filament before levelling.
Great video. Thanks for investigating and sharing with us.
Wouldn't the gauge's probe expand as well, throwing the reading off?
While the adjustment points don't move much when heating, the flex at the center is probably a good enough reason to heat before running something like a BLTouch.
I noticed a lot of difference with the nozzle heated. I use the classic piece of paper and every time I level with the cold nozzle prints are too close to the bed, but if I heat it up when leveling the first layer is just perfect. To prevent oozing I just retract a bit
This. Setting nozzle offset with ABL and meshing definitely shows differences cold and heating both nozzle and bed
A dial guage positioned at the center ( or anywhere else for that matter ) of my 235x235 heated bed shows a variance of .04 mm when the bed heats from 20c to 60c. This is wildly different from the calculated thermal expansion of aluminium 0.002664 so there is expansion due to heat but it just doesn't seem to be the aluminium bed that is doing much of the expanding.
note... It might well be that my dial guage itself is undergoing some thermal expansion... so i'll redo my test after I attempt to thermally isolate it from the bed. ;)
Very interesting CHEP, good video !
Wow, debunking myths... thanks Chep!
Imo you spent a bit too low showing the temp changes where the bed didn't change. You didn't need to spend 60+ seconds showing a temp increase in the corner if the bed didn't move.
Love your channel mate great info 🇦🇺🍻
an open door or windows draft can change the whole print if not enclosed or isolated from the inconsistencies same applies here!!
Interesting video. Is there going to be a similar one looking at nozzle heating? I found for my levelling that I needed a small z offset (up) with a semi-heated (actually heated to 100), but none when levelled at my usual print temp of 200. I assume the nozzle is more susceptible to size change (hence the hot tightening).
I agree. If you can do the same test but with the nozzle it would be great. By the way, nice video as always. Best regards.
This is the same thought I had watching this video. Anyway useful video 😉
You didn't take into account the thermal expansion of the hotend and nozzle. Those are going to make the biggest difference and why most people recommend leveling with both the bed AND nozzle at printing temperature. Brass particularly has a high thermal expansion rate.
why couldn't you just take that into account and change the cold height you're leveling to?
Like anything, things expand and contract with temperature. Personally, you want anything to run at operating temperature.
So I always set my table at desired temperature.
The gauge itself is affected by the heat, I would not care too much about the specific values but the conclusion is still accurate I guess (at least for the bed heating), but I would still heat all to minimise any variable.
Should try it at higher temps and with bigger bed. Lot of people print PETG or ABS/ASA and there (especially on bigger beds like 300x300 mm and more) at temps of 80-100 °C an offset might be (and definitely WILL be) a lot larger. I would assume say, 0.1 - 0.15 mm and that is almost a layer height.
I print on a roughly 350x350 bed at 105... It's definitely noticeable (pei flex plate). I haven't had much issue since most of my prints are roughly 1/3rd or smaller of build plate but for anything of size I use the glass plate I have.
@@jackshett well for a reason I print only from ABS/ASA and CF Nylon (functional parts, not toys) I simply ignore PEI sheet. Have one, never tried it as magnetism doesn't work well above 80 °C. Soap, hot water on a glass, let it dry naturally by bed preheating (no kitchen towels) and everything sticks to it like hell. PLA, PETG (that is dangerously sticky), ABS, CF nylon. Had not tried PC though.
@@ZhuJo99 Everything I've printed on Wham Bam's PEX stuck quite well. I'm thinking you've used magnetic sheets that weren't made for that high of temperature. I've printed at 110 experimenting otherwise often at 60, 80, or 100 depending on material.
Edit: Wham Bam's magnetic base is resistant up to 150 according to their website.
I do a 70-75c pre heat on the Creality aluminum bed before leveling. Then I manually level. I find my level lasts much much longer, especially on my machines using silicone springs. I level very tight with a very low z end stop switch. Horses for courses.
I have the upgraded springs only on my E3v2. Cr touch and Jyers. I pop the SD card in, hit print and walk away. Haven't touched those knobs in months. I set the bed manually both with and without heating and didn't notice a difference personally.
Hi I really like your channel. You have really helped me out alot with my printer, thank you so much. Do you happen to have a dial indicator holder for an ender 3 max?
the first poin you are mesuring is above supporting screw it is unlikely to have big change there, but center there is no pivot thus aluminium can warp when expanding.
The point of this video is to determine, what the differences are when leveling the bed/plate at room temperature compared to leveling it at print temperatures using a low cost printer. I'm supersized the difference is that small. It's less than sheet to sheet paper size differences when using paper as a gauge. (I have not tested that claim. Maybe Chep could?)
There is a sizeable percentage of Ender users and others, that use the paper level method and most have good results in bed leveling. This video shows me, cold or hot, when making the level,,, Bed temp doesn't affect the result much.
I'm seeing a lot of videos on bed leveling. But not what I want to know. How to get the right gap between a 0.4 nozzle and the bed plate? Or any nozzle size. The first layers have to work. Any error and just stop it. Make a change and start again.
Here you go: ruclips.net/video/715Xop79Sus/видео.html
Nice video Cant argue with stats
Great video, I wounder if the hotend deflects when it is heated. Is that some thing you could test???
IMO the heat affects the original springs but it needs more time to heat the them good - may be at least 30 minutes.
What about the distance between the nozzle and the bed when the hot end is hot? Does the nozzle distance change?
Well I don't know if there is something wrong in this measuring way but I have problems when not leveling with heat bed. What I see here and wonder does spring lie to your measure (they absorb some preassure maybe) and when you measure in center combine spring preassure is more than gauge you use?
Have you ever used a dial indicator?
There is close to zero spring pressure resistance.
A 1 meter aluminium rod expands by 0.000222 m for every 10c the temp rises by. This means tha thermal expansion on its own can never be an issue what is the issue is that beds can vary and some will warp when heated, not expand warp. This means your testing isn't relevant to anyone as their bed will behave differently from yours.
As a metal fabricator and welder, I concur.