I’ve been tuning my Creality K1 ever since getting it (at a steal of $237.15!) about 3 months ago, and I finally got to a point where I’m getting really good, consistent quality results.
Upgrades include:
- MicroSwiss CHT FlowTech hotend / brass nozzle
- Triangle-Lab all-metal extruder gears
Strangely enough, the calibration I did that seemed to make the most difference is the one I kept reading was the least necessary to do. I performed an E-step calibration, and ended up changing the rotation_distance from the default 6.9 to 6.86964. Seems nearly identical, but the next print after making that change was the cleanest I’ve seen yet on my printer.
By the way, the print above was run at 600mm/s, with Overture Turbo PLA!
edit: actually no, volumetric speed limited to 25, so not 600mm/s (still fast though!)
I’m now going through and fine-tuning temp, flow, and pressure advance for each of my filaments, and this is just such a different experience than that of my franken-Ender 3; however, I’m still incredibly grateful for all the knowledge and experience I got from constantly tuning that printer for about 3 years straight.
Perfect first layers, every time
Yeah, checking your e-steps is important for many printer brands and models as you found out. But if you want the best in calibration for your printer, use. If you follow the steps correctly and in order, you will get as close to perfect as you can get. And the reading in each step tells you the why.
That’s the exact guide I’m currently working my way through 👍
Is that hotend and nozzle actually able to keep up with the 48mm³/s flow rate needed to print at 600mm/s with 0.2mm layers?
I’ve been thinking about upgrading mine. The stock hotend can only do about 20-25mm³/s at reasonable temperatures.
Agreed. Not to burst OPs bubble, but I highly doubt they’re hitting a flow rate that high.
If I had to guess, Orca is capping their extrusion move speeds at whatever speed the
filament_max_volumetric_speedof their filament profile is set to. In other words, if the profile is set to12(default for Creality Generic PLA) the actual speed is probably something like150mm/s(flow / (nozzle diameter * layer height), so 12 / (0.4 * 0.2)), regardless of what the speed value is set to.Yep, you’re exactly right! I forgot that I have the volumetric speed capped at 25 for the Turbo PLA (based that off of random reported values other people used, but didn’t think to try and benchmark it yet). So I’m gonna do that right now! The Overture Matte PLA also prints incredibly cleanly at 300mm/s, so I’m going to benchmark it and the Turbo PLA to see how high this hotend can go. I’ll report back when finished.
I was able to get >35 (tested using Orca’s calibration) with CHCB-OT, but I doubt you can go much higher than that even with better extruder gears.
Yeah, I unfortunately noticed that I didn’t get the CHT high flow nozzle, just the regular brass one. With my tests and high temps, I was only able to get right around 30mm/s3, so I need to order the high flow nozzle, which they advertise being able to get up to 50mm/s3.
The MicroSwiss FlowTech with a CHT nozzle can theoretically hit 40-45mm³/s, but in real-world testing most users report consistent 30-35mm³/s before quality drops off (depnding on filament and temps).
Insane stuff! I can only dream of printing this good.
I suffered 3 long years endlessly upgrading, tweaking, and maintaining an Ender 3, so I definitely know your pain! 😂
Looks like over extrusion to me did you also calculate your flow rate?
I just realized that I have that capped, and I’m now running some flow rate tests on my different filaments. I’ll make another post with the highest flowrate I achieve 👍
Can you point me at more info on how to do it on K1, and how does it help? From my end I’d like to recommend the glass bed mod for K1 (put in between the stock bed and magnetic sheet). The bed level is really great. ~0.1mm difference across the bed, no weird bends, no need to preheat (heat soaking?) in advance before leveling
Heh - I currently have everything set up for the glass bed mod, except I just read that it doesn’t work with the CR touch sensor, so I’ll need to get a BT Eddy sensor or sonar something. I’ll also need to print a new gantry, and I’ve already tried one that didn’t work as well as the stock one, so just waiting to do more research on that, and then I’ll have my glass bed all set up!
Edit: oh yeah! So the way I calibrated it was:
- I removed the extruder from the gantry (3 screws)
- I fed in some filament (cold, obv) until I could see it on the bottom of the extruder
- Flush cut the filament
- Issue some commands to extrude 100mm
- Flush cut that segment off again (try to cut exactly the same as before)
- Use digital calipers to measure that piece
- then just calculate your new value and run the test again to see if it extrudes exactly 100mm
- enjoy amazing prints
I have it working with a BTT Microprobe (which is very similar to CR-touch). It does not work with the PRTouch which comes with the printer (and is inferior anyway). Eddy is probably much better than either of those. I have the gantry mode printed and pre-assembled but decided not to go with it. Maybe someday if something breaks and I’ll have to tear printer apart anyway. When you’re saying extruder you mean the hotend?
