To calibrate your 3d printer’s extruder
We need to know the printers current e-step value, and a physical steps/mm value (what the printer is actually spitting out). This calibration is especially important if you’re changing the extruder from one that uses gears like the Titan Extruder found on Anycubic printers to a spindle drive.
Determining your current steps/mm value for your 3D printer
Connect PC to USB port on printer.
Download and run “Pronterface”.
Set Baud Rate to 250,000 and select your COM port. Make sure you have closed any other slicers such as Cura as they make try and take control of the COM port thus making it impossible to connect in pronterface.
Once connected, In the Command Window enter M503 (report settings)
Look for a line starting with M92 and at the end you’ll see your current e-step (steps/mm) value
example. echo: M92 X80.00 Y100.00 Z400.00 E405.00
Determining the physical steps/mm value for your 3D printer
Heat the extruder on your printer.
Using calipers (or ruler) and a sharpie, place a mark on your filament at 120mm from the entry hole to your extruder.
In pronterface, Send: G1 E100 F100
This tells the printer to slowly extrude 100mm of filament
Determining the correct steps/mm value for calibrating your 3D printer’s extruder
Measuring the distance from the extruder to the mark on the filament, then subtracting that value from 120:
- 120 – [length you just measured from extruder to your mark] = actual length extruded
Next, we need to know how many steps the extruder took to extrude that much filament. We can determine this value by multiplying the current steps/mm value (found earlier by issuing an M503) by the length we should have extruded, in this case 100 mm:
- [steps/mm value] x 100 = steps taken
Using this, we can obtain the physical, correct steps/mm value by dividing by the length extruded:
- [steps taken] / [actual length extruded] = [accurate steps/mm value]
Now, all we have to do is set this as the printer’s steps/mm value, and we should be good to go!
Full all3dp article here
Saving the correct e-steps/mm value for your 3D printer
M92 E <new step value> (sets the new step value)
M500 (to save)
M501 (use new values)
Pro Tip: If your printer stops responding in pronterface.. try a disconnect / reconnect then issue the command again.
