The Importance of Leveling Your Printer: A Step-by-Step Guide

As any 3D printing enthusiast knows, leveling your printer is an essential step in ensuring that your prints turn out accurate and precise. In this article, we will take a closer look at how to level your print head using the paper method.

So, what is the paper method? It's a technique used by many 3D printing enthusiasts to level their printers, particularly those with a self-leveling bed like the Anet ET4. The method involves adjusting the print head to ensure that it is properly aligned and level, which is crucial for achieving accurate prints.

To start, we need to access the printhead manual, which can be found on the printer itself. This manual provides instructions on how to adjust the print head to achieve optimal alignment and leveling. In this case, our manual was located in a folder that might be in the way, but fortunately, it was easily accessible.

Once we had located the manual, we began by going through the different steps required to level the printer. The first step was to identify the correct buttons on the printer that would allow us to adjust the print head. These buttons were labeled "minus" and "plus," which seemed straightforward enough but proved to be crucial for accurate leveling.

As we continued through the manual, it became clear that the process of leveling required attention to detail and a bit of patience. We needed to ensure that each corner of the print bed was properly aligned and adjusted using a combination of clockwise and counterclockwise movements on the screws at the bottom of the printer.

For each corner, we would identify the correct number (1, 2, 3, or 4) and adjust the print head accordingly. This process required careful observation to ensure that we were making adjustments in the right direction. For example, if we needed to tighten a screw to achieve proper leveling, we would turn it clockwise, but if we needed to loosen it, we would turn it counterclockwise.

As we worked through each corner, it became apparent that some corners required more attention than others. Corner 1, for instance, was relatively easy to adjust, while Corner 4 proved to be a bit more challenging due to its loose nature.

One of the most important things to keep in mind when leveling your printer is not to touch any of the up and down movements, as these can disrupt the alignment of the print head. Instead, we relied on the manual's instructions, which emphasized using the knobs for manual adjustments while leaving the digital part of the print head to centering.

Overall, the process of leveling our printer required a combination of technical knowledge, patience, and attention to detail. By following the steps outlined in the manual and taking the time to ensure that each corner was properly aligned, we were able to achieve accurate prints with minimal issues.

In conclusion, leveling your 3D printer is an essential step in ensuring the accuracy and precision of your prints. While it may seem intimidating at first, by following a structured approach like the paper method, even beginners can master this critical skill.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enokay guys welcome back to the channel it is i the last game hunter and we are going to be looking at the anet et4 again uh we did a build video a while back and people been asking how to do a leveling and setup so i am not a pro but i do know what i need to do to set up my printer so this is what we're going to do here today and if you're here thanks for tuning in and don't forget guys the best way to help this channel is to hit that like and subscribe button and of course if you want to share it go ahead so of course we're going to turn it on because we need to do that and we're going to boot up the inet 3d printer so to do a setup so first things first you'll notice uh my bed here is a little bit different because i have the ender uh magnetic piece added to this because i bought the ender magnet stick on which is an absolute bonus but the ender uh i guess the the layer on this it doesn't stick really well and yeah i need to buy a new metal you'll see this one's metal and that is really important because that's what sticks to the magnet and i it's you can see where my printer has come down and hit and and done all kinds of crazy stuff to my thing during trying to get used to it and set up so it doesn't really happen anymore but it is something because these are like 50 dollars uh at least this one here was 40 48 or something like that canadian so it really gets costly so what i do is i actually just lay this on top of this because the metal plates actually have a much better adhesive capability so this is definitely the surface that you want to be using now what i do to clean this up is i just basically get a rubbing alcohol okay and basically this is 99 so as good as it gets i use this for doing electronic cleaning and i will wipe the bed down now you don't need to do that all the time but that is what i do when i need to make sure this is clean and ready to adhere so anyway what we're going to do now is we're going to actually set this up so i'm going to change camera angle because it's needed so you guys see what is done during this time okay so as you'll see here i wanted to go with a bed level look here and the reason for that is for this video i want you to be able to see somewhat the screen i mean i'll just go through it and we'll talk about it uh but the main thing here is this bed and seeing what it actually does to uh do the leveling okay so for this you're going to need a sheet of paper yeah a sheet of paper because a sheet of paper is going to be our layer of levelness or thickness that we're going to use to do the whole entire leveling so basically a sheet of paper will determine your height of your head from the surface okay after you have your home setting as you can see here this is hitting the red light is on if you can see it reflecting off my fingers there and we have a total issue because this can't move nothing can move here this is jamming right down on the plate now this is a glass plate there's always chances of cracking it i removed the glass plate and i recommend that to everybody okay so as you can see here after i hit the plus sign to do a center thing here this is actually hitting so it's hitting the bed the light is lit up you can't move the paper and you need to elevate that now in my case i had to go quite a bit there so that was pretty interesting so now if i pull the paper it moves now what you want to do is you want to go back one still moves now here's where the paper gets important back again still moves i'm going to go back to i'm still moving as you can see i'm going to do another two and now my light came on but it's still moving which is not what i need i need it to be and i'll show you getting there when you push your paper should fold like this you're not trying to push it hard because then you're going to have it too low on the bed but if you try to push it in you'll see that the papal paper is going to fold and that tells me that is done so now i'm going to hit okay now that's how you do the center head let's see if it all stays in the same spot and i could probably go down one more okay so what i'm going to do here again i'm going to hit ok all right so now we're getting the uh print head leveled now the printhead manual was done by these buttons right here that might be in the way here as you can see there's a minus and plus right here hopefully the camera's seeing that proper and that is only for the print head okay for each corner here going on you have one two three uh four and three so one is the back corner i believe at the back corner we'll hit one so we're on one now in order for this to be leveled proper okay you have to adjust these screw things here at the bottom so when i'm turning it clockwise i'm tightening it i'm making it the bed go up when i turn it counterclockwise i'm actually pulling on the spring allowing freedom so what we need to do now is we need to do that exact same thing there we go okay so now we're going to move on to number two thing again now in this case i'm probably going to tighten a little more so counterclockwise and now we're free now we're going to go clockwise a little too tight there we go so there's one and two done now let's do number three now in this you do not touch any of the up and downs because if you do you mess up the head not these you mess up the head so remember the digital part was only the centering the head everything else is manual by the knobs so we have a little too tight no i'm going the right way no now i'm going the wrong way there we go so of course counterclockwise tightens this up oop now we're too too loose too loose now we're going clockwise there we go so now we're going to go to number four okay so now that we're at number four number four seems to be very off so number four is very loose and i was actually having an issue where my print head was riding a little high and i'll show you that in a different thing but here we go let's a little loose this one's a oddball all right so now so i went counter now i'm going clockwise to fix how loose that is there we go you can pull but you can't push that is the key pull but you can't push okay as you can see now i'm not hitting anymore i can pull but i can't push so guys i hope that helps out that is the paper method i've seen a few other people do it it looks pretty much the same as what i've said and it is very important because if you don't level your printer one it's not going to print proper one the adhesion is not going to go down and sit proper you're just going to have issues and i'm telling you right off the hop once the issues start they don't seem to go away so i hope this helps out anybody even with a different brand of printer this is the anet et4 but i'm sure this is the exact same principles on any printer with this exact setup this is a self-leveling bed so i have it set in the program to every time to do an auto leveling and that is done per piece by piece by piece and that is so that every time i print it does hopefully be as accurate as possible anyway guys thanks for watching i hope this did help you out and i know like i said people have asked for it it's been a while i haven't used my printer in a bit but i have to use it now so this is i expected to use it much sooner and i don't know 3d printing is definitely a work project it's not something you get into and think it's going to be the easiest thing in the world it's not it comes with its definite cons and of course it's pros so if there's any other questions or any other videos you want done on the anat et4 comment below and i'll see what i can do to provide that information for you till next time guys thank you for watching game over youokay guys welcome back to the channel it is i the last game hunter and we are going to be looking at the anet et4 again uh we did a build video a while back and people been asking how to do a leveling and setup so i am not a pro but i do know what i need to do to set up my printer so this is what we're going to do here today and if you're here thanks for tuning in and don't forget guys the best way to help this channel is to hit that like and subscribe button and of course if you want to share it go ahead so of course we're going to turn it on because we need to do that and we're going to boot up the inet 3d printer so to do a setup so first things first you'll notice uh my bed here is a little bit different because i have the ender uh magnetic piece added to this because i bought the ender magnet stick on which is an absolute bonus but the ender uh i guess the the layer on this it doesn't stick really well and yeah i need to buy a new metal you'll see this one's metal and that is really important because that's what sticks to the magnet and i it's you can see where my printer has come down and hit and and done all kinds of crazy stuff to my thing during trying to get used to it and set up so it doesn't really happen anymore but it is something because these are like 50 dollars uh at least this one here was 40 48 or something like that canadian so it really gets costly so what i do is i actually just lay this on top of this because the metal plates actually have a much better adhesive capability so this is definitely the surface that you want to be using now what i do to clean this up is i just basically get a rubbing alcohol okay and basically this is 99 so as good as it gets i use this for doing electronic cleaning and i will wipe the bed down now you don't need to do that all the time but that is what i do when i need to make sure this is clean and ready to adhere so anyway what we're going to do now is we're going to actually set this up so i'm going to change camera angle because it's needed so you guys see what is done during this time okay so as you'll see here i wanted to go with a bed level look here and the reason for that is for this video i want you to be able to see somewhat the screen i mean i'll just go through it and we'll talk about it uh but the main thing here is this bed and seeing what it actually does to uh do the leveling okay so for this you're going to need a sheet of paper yeah a sheet of paper because a sheet of paper is going to be our layer of levelness or thickness that we're going to use to do the whole entire leveling so basically a sheet of paper will determine your height of your head from the surface okay after you have your home setting as you can see here this is hitting the red light is on if you can see it reflecting off my fingers there and we have a total issue because this can't move nothing can move here this is jamming right down on the plate now this is a glass plate there's always chances of cracking it i removed the glass plate and i recommend that to everybody okay so as you can see here after i hit the plus sign to do a center thing here this is actually hitting so it's hitting the bed the light is lit up you can't move the paper and you need to elevate that now in my case i had to go quite a bit there so that was pretty interesting so now if i pull the paper it moves now what you want to do is you want to go back one still moves now here's where the paper gets important back again still moves i'm going to go back to i'm still moving as you can see i'm going to do another two and now my light came on but it's still moving which is not what i need i need it to be and i'll show you getting there when you push your paper should fold like this you're not trying to push it hard because then you're going to have it too low on the bed but if you try to push it in you'll see that the papal paper is going to fold and that tells me that is done so now i'm going to hit okay now that's how you do the center head let's see if it all stays in the same spot and i could probably go down one more okay so what i'm going to do here again i'm going to hit ok all right so now we're getting the uh print head leveled now the printhead manual was done by these buttons right here that might be in the way here as you can see there's a minus and plus right here hopefully the camera's seeing that proper and that is only for the print head okay for each corner here going on you have one two three uh four and three so one is the back corner i believe at the back corner we'll hit one so we're on one now in order for this to be leveled proper okay you have to adjust these screw things here at the bottom so when i'm turning it clockwise i'm tightening it i'm making it the bed go up when i turn it counterclockwise i'm actually pulling on the spring allowing freedom so what we need to do now is we need to do that exact same thing there we go okay so now we're going to move on to number two thing again now in this case i'm probably going to tighten a little more so counterclockwise and now we're free now we're going to go clockwise a little too tight there we go so there's one and two done now let's do number three now in this you do not touch any of the up and downs because if you do you mess up the head not these you mess up the head so remember the digital part was only the centering the head everything else is manual by the knobs so we have a little too tight no i'm going the right way no now i'm going the wrong way there we go so of course counterclockwise tightens this up oop now we're too too loose too loose now we're going clockwise there we go so now we're going to go to number four okay so now that we're at number four number four seems to be very off so number four is very loose and i was actually having an issue where my print head was riding a little high and i'll show you that in a different thing but here we go let's a little loose this one's a oddball all right so now so i went counter now i'm going clockwise to fix how loose that is there we go you can pull but you can't push that is the key pull but you can't push okay as you can see now i'm not hitting anymore i can pull but i can't push so guys i hope that helps out that is the paper method i've seen a few other people do it it looks pretty much the same as what i've said and it is very important because if you don't level your printer one it's not going to print proper one the adhesion is not going to go down and sit proper you're just going to have issues and i'm telling you right off the hop once the issues start they don't seem to go away so i hope this helps out anybody even with a different brand of printer this is the anet et4 but i'm sure this is the exact same principles on any printer with this exact setup this is a self-leveling bed so i have it set in the program to every time to do an auto leveling and that is done per piece by piece by piece and that is so that every time i print it does hopefully be as accurate as possible anyway guys thanks for watching i hope this did help you out and i know like i said people have asked for it it's been a while i haven't used my printer in a bit but i have to use it now so this is i expected to use it much sooner and i don't know 3d printing is definitely a work project it's not something you get into and think it's going to be the easiest thing in the world it's not it comes with its definite cons and of course it's pros so if there's any other questions or any other videos you want done on the anat et4 comment below and i'll see what i can do to provide that information for you till next time guys thank you for watching game over you