3DPrinting
3DPrinting is a place where makers of all skill levels and walks of life can learn about and discuss 3D printing and development of 3D printed parts and devices.
The r/functionalprint community is now located at: [email protected] or [email protected]
There are CAD communities available at: [email protected] or [email protected]
Rules
-
No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. Code of Conduct.
-
Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.
-
No porn (NSFW prints are acceptable but must be marked NSFW)
-
No Ads / Spamming / Guerrilla Marketing
-
Do not create links to reddit
-
If you see an issue please flag it
-
No guns
-
No injury gore posts
If you need an easy way to host pictures, https://catbox.moe may be an option. Be ethical about what you post and donate if you are able or use this a lot. It is just an individual hosting content, not a company. The image embedding syntax for Lemmy is ![](URL)
Moderation policy: Light, mostly invisible
view the rest of the comments
The paper method only ensures that you get the nozzle-to-bed distance reasonably consistent in all the places your printer checks it, to ensure that the bed is trammed, i.e. straight relative to the X and Y axes of the printer, or "level." It doesn't guarantee that your Z offset is actually correct to produce a good first layer, and depending on how your particular printer runs its bed leveling/Z offset program it may in fact guarantee that it is incorrect every time.
If you're going to use some manner of gauge material (paper, one of those plastic cards, a feeler gauge), step 1 is to determine what, exactly, your printer does to set its Z offset and whether or not that's taken into account when you're sliding your piece of paper or whatever under the nozzle. Some printer firmwares further compound things by calling their Z offset adjustment program "bed leveling" when that's not what it is. (My old Qidi was guilty of this. "Fast leveling" was actually just Z offset adjustment in the center of the build plate, and "Full leveling" was actually a four-points bed level check operation.)