Ender 3 V3 SE Bed Leveling

by Amit_Jain in Workshop > 3D Printing

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Ender 3 V3 SE Bed Leveling

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Hi All,

In this instructable, I will be talking about the auto bed leveling issues with Ender3 v3 SE and my attempt to fix it.

There are no tutorials online to help fix it.

Supplies

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  • Glass bed
  • Spring and bolts that are Ender 3 compatible
  • Spirit level

Back Story

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I bought an Ender 3 V3 SE, 2 months back, at first I found it an amazing 3D printer for beginners.

It started with an adhesion issue. I would typically clean the bed with alcohol, and adjust Z offset.

It worked, Then as part of troubleshooting. I adjusted the X-axis gantry and made sure everything was tight

But as I printed more, I noticed that the auto bed leveling was not working


Based on a series of experiments, I came to the following issues

  • The Printer does not consider leveling mesh data
  • Gcode pre-scripts also do not use mesh data
  • Adhesion to bed is not good
  • Firmware 1.06 promises to fix this. but I am unable to update the same (Many others have reported to Creality)


Conclusion: I must fix this myself

Glass Bed

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  • I got a tinted glass(4mm thick) cut from a local glass store (235x235 mm)
  • Yes, it works, you do not have to buy expensive branded glass beds
  • I removed the build plate and 2 screws as shown
  • I did not remove the magnetic bed, just placed the glass bed on it
  • Secure it with some paper tape
  • Clean with alcohol
  • Auto level and test print, If the first layer test fails like mine. go to the next step
  • As a reference, the first pic is data for the original bed and the last one is for the glass bed

Leveling Springs

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  • I bought a manual bed leveling kit that was compatible with any Ender 3
  • We need to replace the existing screws and spacers with the longer m4 screws and springs
  • Spacers on the left side of the bed were smaller (2mm or so)
  • From the pic, you can see, that the bed level was bad, I thought I made a mistake
  • Initially, I used a spirit level, tighten the screws that were +ve and loosen where -ve
  • Post that I used the mesh data to adjust. and then running auto-leveling
  • With at least 6 iterations, I got it to a good number (variation 0.1 mm)

Next Steps

  • I managed to get the bed manually leveled
  • Now able to print with a little adjustment of z-offset
  • I will also wait for better firmware that can handle mesh data properly

Please feel free to share your suggestions or if have another method to get better results