So I have an Ender 3 V3 SE and an original Ender 3. I’ve noticed that prints are slightly larger when printed on the SE. I used the same STL file. The only difference besides the printers themselves is the slicer. I use Cura for the Ender 3 and Creality for the SE. Anyone else notice this? What may be the cause?
I’ll try that. Creality slicer works great for the SE and Cura works great with the 3. I’ll use creality for both and see what happens. The one on the right was sliced with Cura.
Creality slice is basically old cura. Iirc.
Almost all company slicers are old copies of cura.
Even though Prusaslicer and Orca are waaaaay better IMO. More widely used too
Yep and based on Slic3r not cura
AnyCubic’s slicer is also based off of Slic3r I believe, not Cura.
bc they are smart enough to realize its better :)
I've definitely accidentally placed parts of my objects beneath the build plate in cura without noticing, lol. Not saying that for sure it happened here but it's definitely possible.
I’ve done that as well🤣 Unfortunately this wasn’t the case😩
Rip :(
It's probably unlikely since the V3 has lead screws for the Z axis, but I wonder if the axis is skipping steps. I'd try doing a few manual moves between min/max Z (both directions) and checking if you hear any clicking sounds while the print head is moving.
EDIT: Also kind of a long shot, but if you run OctoPrint I've noticed some plugins seem to have synchronization issues while running the start/end G-code specifically. As if some commands just aren't sent to the printer or something.
It’s the Ender 3 that’s coming up short. The SE is working like a champ! Love that printer!
Ive done this on purpose a few times when a model i was printing didnt have much of a flat base to print on. Lol usually only a couple mm tho luckily.
New creality slicer is an orca clone
so that's why when i tried Cura in my SE it gave me so many troubles
Cura never worked well for me with my SE.
Interesting you say that. I have the cr 6 se and been using cura. Some of my prints arnt matching up. Like not fitting together amd wavy like the one on the right.
I've had models sometimes position slightly into the bed and loose a mm or two. I didn't even notice until I sliced it in another program and the print was taller.
I've had models sometimes position slightly into the bed and loose a mm or two. I didn't even notice until I sliced it in another program and the print was taller.
I honestly cannot recommend this system enough — https://vector3d.shop/products/calilantern-calibration?variant=47779625730386
I bought it, diligently ran through all the steps, and found that every single one of my printers was off in some way, sometimes egregiously so and I just never caught it. Some of the best money I've spent on this hobby hands down.
or calilantern on printables
They only have the Califlower on printables currently
my bad I meant to say that, but my brain said something else
I haven't seen this before. I made some of my own calibration prints and this is interesting that it accounts for skew. I found that the 20x20x20 wasn't really large enough to calibrate against so I made a 10x100x100 and 10x150x150 and then printed them at both a 90 and 45 degree angle to the print bed.
And for OP - You do these to calibrate your machine. Every machine will be very slightly off. You can configure your e-steps for your stepper motors.
Each motor has a number of steps to do a 360 degree revolution. Then depending on how your bed moves (size of wheels/belt, ect) and your z axis rod is pitched, there is some math for calculating steps into movement. Depending on the firmware the input may just be a e-steps per mm.
The really fantastic thing about the Calilantern is that it also includes the math and fixes for correcting for skew in the printer frame, since you can't tune that out with steps. It's great!
There's the Calibration Bro as well that looks like a nice free alternative.
yes, but what OP needs includes Z calibration, which that explicitly doesn't do
Wow that looks nice, anyone got a free stl?
No. You're paying for both the STL and the workbook that goes with it, and the workbook is the important part. It's absolutely worth the money.
Are they larger in every axis? Or are they slanted, one end is taller than the other?
I think it’s just the z axis.
Get your calipers and find out
Print ze koob.
Messure koob.
Calc.
Adjoost.
And now ve vill poot zis tree dee preenter een dee hyydroolic maaheen!!
You need to calibrate your steps per mm. Print a calibration cube and check its measurements with a set of calipers. That will tell you how much you're off by and how much you need to adjust it.
Just did a test cube and the z height is off by 2.5mm
Could they have different slicing tolerances?
It's something you can toggle in the advanced settings for cura, at least.
Maximum -> "The print is at most, this big"
So if the layer height is 0.2mm, but the model height is 1.9mm, the print will be 1.8mm high.
Minimum -> "The print is at least this big"
0.2mm layer height, model height 1.9mm, print is 2.0mm high.
Changing the layer height could also give a similar issue.
E.g. 0.1mm will reach 1.9mm exactly, but 0.2mm will reach either 1.8mm or 2.0mm
I've long wondered why the slicer doesn't just make the last layer thinner. Like 0.2 layer height gets you to 1.8, why doesn't it add 1 more "half layer" at 0.1, and finish it exactly to spec?
Because slicers are "dumb"
They basically do exactly as they're told.
You can enable that though.
"Variable layer height"
It prints bigger layers when quality isn't required and vice versa
Get yourself some calipers and measure the height of the prints. Then check the measurement of the STL file. Compare the two and then you will have the answer you seek
Print a x y z calibration cubr
Your e looks out of calibaration.
-_-
Hehe calibaration... looks like mine is adding "a" string.
Why do i think that this is funny..
Because I spelled calibration wrong
See PART 1 Chapter : Basic Calibration, links to teaching tech callibration page and some printables that may help. Hope it helps.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ender3v2/comments/uo9erh/ender3v2_hardware_build_guide_for_the_newbies/
It's not e-steps. That's your extruder, e, extruder. You don't have extrusion issues. You have consistency issues.
Calibrate your axis motors, use calipers.
Which part of the print was on the bed? Is it possible that you had print adhesion issues and a corner lifted off while printing?
No adhesion issue at all. Several prints have come out like this.
Calibrate your printers my dude.
Calibration each printer has other tollerances print same models on Same printer or models which should fit together too on one Machine even if you calibrate it perfectly it will be a different printer even in the same printer companys and same models are different
These are too cheap machines to have good tollerances then you have to spend tousends of euros
I was thinking along these lines as well. I’m definitely going to check each one with a test cube to verify and see where I need to adjust accordingly. And I also agree with I’m getting what I paid for😁
Assuming your start gcode is exactly the same for each slicer you use , Heat both the nozzle and bed to working temperatures, remove the filament, clean up any filament residue that might be at the tip of the nozzle, get a gcode file that only contains your start gcode and make your machine run it, command your printer to move the nozzle to z = your slicer´s first layer height and an xy coordinate of your preference, using a feeler gauge that has a thickness = your slicer´s first layer height verify that it can slide in the xy plane with a little resistance between the nozzle and the bed. Verify that the z travel speed, z acceleration (jerk if the option exists), in slicer z offset, z hop speed (if you use it), retraction speed , unretract ion speed and z scaling (if it's possible to specify) are the same on each slicer you use.
One on the right looks like it was warping a bit maybe it's just that end that appears smaller. Is it smaller in ever dimension ?
It didn’t warp. The bottom is completely flat and level. I think it’s just in the Z axis.
They both look slanted
They aren’t. Probably the surface I took the pic on.
First step for trouble shooting I would take, is to have a look at the gcode. Open in notepad, and scroll down the bottom to where the final layer is printing. What is the z value?
If they are the same between the gcodes, it is a printer issue. (Likely z steps per mm)
If they are different, it is a slicer issue.
Z offset seems way off on the left side. Set Z axis to zero manually and check if there is more space between the nozzle and the bed than it needs to just put a piece of paper in between
Just did a calibration cube and the printer used for the right print is about 3mm short of what it should be. I have to calibrate my z setting on the Ender 3.
Do you have a bed probe on one/both of these? If you have "fade" enabled and the mesh height is not at approx zero, then the first 10mm will be stretched or compressed to fit. This was a major headache for me on marlin firmware.
Question were you using 2 different rolls of filament? I've noticed varying brands will have varying widths causing varying sizes in my prints. Some plastic just prints thicker some just prints thinner... I asked this because the left looks a slightly different color than the right. It reminds me of when I buy two different brand rolls of the same color thickness and quality will wane and vary amongst the different companies.
Nope. Same exact filament.
Dang then only other thing I could think of is you may have sliced it with scaling at less than 100 percent causing it to be smaller!?! Good luck man printing ain't easy man
Think I solved it! I changed the Z steps. I had about a 3mm discrepancy with a 20mm height. Factory set Z-steps are 400. I changed it to 409 and seems to have fixed it!
Your z steps are probably off
They absolutely were! The factory preset of 400 just wasn’t correct. I’m printing test cubes now and it looks like my printer should be right around 408.
the one on the right looks like its bowed slightly.
You could have some z binding on one printer, your steps could also be off slightly. Unlikely to be a slicer problem. Possible, but unlikely.
It’s the steps. I checked for binding and even made sure the eccentric nut wasn’t too tight. Once I adjusted the steps from 400 to 408ish (still tuning it) it fixed the problem.
So after numerous test cubes, I’ve come to the conclusion that the eccentric nut must have been too tight. This has been extremely frustrating and I’m still not 💯 sure this is or was the problem but I’m back at 400mm for Z axis steps and now it’s printing as it should. Only other variable I did was adjust the eccentric nut on the Z axis.
Removed that comment because that has absolutely nothing to do with e-steps
Not at all. Dimensional accuracy has nothing to do with that. Everything you calibrate on the motor is how far it moves a perfectly round 1.75mm tube, it doesnt even involve the hotend or something and should not be calibrated with anything but the extruder and filament being moved. Its even optimal to not even have the filament move through the hotend but only the extruder assembly to not influence the result with melting resistance.
Either way, dimensional accuracy has absolutely nothing to do with how your extruder moves the filament, and changing your extruder behaviour because some print doesnt turn out dimensionally accurate is adding one problem ontop of the other.
Thats also why I had to remove your comment. I dont know how you got to that information, but it could be from some other Reddit comment so I have to stop the chain of misinformation somewhere.
I’ll definitely do that! Didn’t realize e-steps could make a change in size like that.
It doesn't. Not every answer you get here is coming from a place of knowledge. E-steps are about over and under extrusion and does absolutely nothing to dimensional accuracy, apart from swell: that the outer most layer swells up and change the dimension by a constant amount. Meaning, you print 10mm and get 10.1mm, or print 100mm and get 100.1mm.
E-steps are extruder steps. Nothing to do with XYZ dimensions. There are x-steps, y-steps and z-steps but in about every printer on the market those are hard limits that are dictated by the diameter of the wheel pulley, and thus.. are set in the factory to be EXACTLY what they need to be. DO NOT TOUCH THEM!! E-steps is variable and sometimes need to be tuned. In the ender3 days it was off by a few percent at most, if i remember right the default was 100 and my e-steps came out around 96 when calibrated properly.
When to calibrate? Well, at least check e-steps when you have bought a printer. If you stick with same hardware then e-steps do not need to calibrated again. It is better to use flow% to compensate between filaments, allthough they are also so consistent these days that there is rarely a need to do anything with flow rates. But it is good knowledge to have, what are e-steps and what kind of problems it can cause.
Pretty much spot on, although XYZ steps can be fine tuned to the specific dimensions of your personal hardware, but thats something that not only should be done after every other dimensional error is accounted for, but also pretty much pointless at that point since that increase in accuracy is rarely going to be noticable,
so TLDR still dont touch em.
Don't listen to the "e-step" church people. Extruder axis steps per mm will not cause you to have a part 1-3 mm shorter or taller! Maybe up to 0.5 mm taller and you will see obvious under or over extrusion before you start getting "taller prints".
What you need to check is: 1. your Z axis motion components are clean, lubed and moving without issues 2. your z-steps per mm (might as well do XYZ) - if you tell your printer to move 100mm, it should move 100mm.
The different slicer may also be the culprit.
The only time you need to do e-step calibration is: 1. you changed your hardware (drive gear type or size, gearing ratio, motor etc.) 2. you are getting same relative amounts of under/over-extrusion on all filaments. 3. you really know that this is the culprit behind your issues. There are people that will tell you to calibrate your e-steps by extruding some amount of filament, but the issue here is that that value will be set for that specific filament - softer, high-flow, composite etc. or even different brands may all give different values. And do you want to be messing with the firmware values before each print or is it easier to set the flow ratio in the slicer profile?
And you validate each ruler with other cos they show different
Print some small test cubes on each and measure them. Nozzle offset, extrusion flow/multiplier, extruder e-steps, bed leveling, retraction and restart distance, Z Axis micro switch sensitivity, and I'm sure quite a few other settings could be the cause. I'd start with Z height nozzle spacing and calibrating the extruder e-steps. But I'd do that after printing a couple test cubes and figuring out which one is more out of tolerance.
You could also swap slicers for the printers and see if the problem also swaps.
The one on the right looks somewhat "unfinished" which is quite odd. It really looks like some part of the model didnt get sliced. maybe try slicing with the same slicer