Could someone help, I have a brand new flashforge creator pro and I started to level bed and it told me I had to move the extruder manually and in the videos I have seen on YouTube it moves mechanically??, the next problem I have is how do you get the bed to move down to the bottom again?
When doing bed leveling, it will initially move “mechanically” on its own to get the extruder positioned at the top of the Z-axis and it does so in such a way as to minimize the possibility of “crashing” the extruder into the bed – though if your bed it too far out-of-whack it could still crash the extruder.
After it finishes moving the extruder into position, it will lock the Z-axis so that it doesn’t shift, but will unlock the X and Y axis. You then need to manually move the extruder around in the X/Y plane and adjust the three leveling thumbscrews on the bottom to properly level it.
You need a feeler gauge of some sort for the leveling, as there has to be a layer of print gap between the nozzle and the bed. The printer comes with a paper card to use as a feeler gauge, but I prefer the type of gauge you can find at an auto-parts store. For the standard 0.4 nozzle, I use the 0.005" or 0.127mm feeler gauge. The gauge should slide smoothly between the nozzle and the bed at all X/Y locations of the extruder with just a slight amount of friction.
After you are done leveling, press the center button on the keypad until you get back to the menu. Then select “jog mode” on the menu. Select the Z-axis, and use the down arrow to move the bed back down to the desired height.
cobnut
January 2, 2019, 9:56am
3
Hi @john_d12 not sure what might have changed in recent models (my FF Pro is a couple of years old now), but I have a gcode file for levelling the bed that does all the movements automatically (with on-screen prompts). It’s in the Utils subdirectory of the SD card called “PlateLeveling”. Please check your own SD card thoroughly and look on the Flashforge website for a version specific to your machine.
I’m pretty sure there must be an automatic solution, especially given that earlier models had it…
Jon
