allen.ruby•1d agoMost Upvoted

Heard a guy at Micro Center telling his friend to just "level the bed once and forget about it"

I was in the filament aisle last Saturday picking up a new roll of PLA and overheard this older guy telling his buddy that you only need to level the bed once and then you're set for life. I almost laughed out loud but kept my mouth shut because I've been there. My first week with my Ender 3 I thought the same thing and ended up with a clogged nozzle and a print that looked like a hairy blob. I bet that guy's friend is gonna be back in a week with a brick of melted plastic asking for help. Bed leveling is like brushing your teeth, you gotta do it before every print if you want things to stick. Has anyone else heard advice like this from folks who clearly haven't printed in years?

2 comments

2 Comments

shane_perry291d ago

Wait, has anyone actually printed with a non-spring steel bed and thought that was a good idea long term? That advice works for maybe a month if you never change nozzles or filament types, but even then your bed shifts a little every time you manhandle it. I've had prints fail just because the room temperature dropped overnight and the bed expanded slightly different. The real trick is to get a BLTouch or something similar and let the printer do the leveling for you, then you just check it every couple weeks. That way you can focus on getting the Z offset right (which is actually the more important thing for first layer adhesion) and stop wasting time with the paper method.

morgan_lewis1821h ago

Totally agree man, that room temperature thing gets me every time.