Printer Tweaking

3D printers are, for the most part, a tinkerer’s dream. There are so many addons and mods that can be installed to increase reliability and features that it would be impossible to add them all. One of which, that I find to be a huge upgrade, is a print bed leveling mod. For those not technically inclined, leveling the print bed makes for a better first print layer. The better the first layer, the better the overall reliability and quality of a print. My first attempt for my Prusa printers was to use compression springs to give a level of adjustment to each mounting point on the bed. Overall it worked, but I lost some print volume due to the length of the springs. The next was a widely used method known as the nylock mod. For this method, a nylon lock nut is used underneath the bed where the mounting screw goes in to the Y axis frame. I had some success with this mod and used it for a while, until I found my go to: The high heat silicon tubing mod. Using this tubing as a sort of ‘spring’ allows greater control over the distance between the print bed and where it mounts to the Y axis frame. Since the tubing will compress under pressure, while still maintaining its integrity, it acts almost like a small compression spring. Combining this with an application that can interpolate the raw measurements in to a grid makes a great way to level the bed down to fractions of a milimetre. Both my Prusa MK3S+ printers and now my Prusa Mini+ have this mod and the difference can be very easily seen.