Gap size

[erniehatt]

OK, I see so often the mention of using a oiece of paper to set the gap between bed and nozzle, does anyone know the measurement in real time.

[jeevesme@hotmail.com]

Not sure what you mean when you say "real time", but a typical piece of 8.5x11 printer paper measures 1mm.

[erniehatt]

What I meant was an actual measurement.
I think you made a mistake when you say it's 1mm, I would say it would be more like 0.1mm or less.

[billyd]

Depends on your printer design. Lower to the bed will help it stick better, but too low will clog the nozzle. I find .2mm is good for my printers.

Honestly though whenever I level the bed I usually have to do a test print (after getting it close) and make adjustments on the fly until I am happy across the whole surface. Since we are dealing with such a small gap, even minor surface variations on the print bed can cause problems. I typically have to find a good average by trial and error and just doing a hard measurement during leveling is usually not good enough on my stuff. But I am using cheap glass so that is the price I pay for that.

[erniehatt]

Thanks for that, before all my troubles started I discovered that it was impossible to get the gap correct in the center of the bed, and discovered that the cause was due to the weight of the motor,extruder etc it was actually twisting the rods when the X axis reach the center of the rods, this of cause lowered the nozzle slightly.

[jeevesme@hotmail.com]

What I meant was an actual measurement.
I think you made a mistake when you say it's 1mm, I would say it would be more like 0.1mm or less.

My bad, I meant .1mm.

[jeevesme@hotmail.com]

I pretty much do what billyd does above. If I am printing a resolution of .1mm and above, I level the bed cold using a .2mm gap. If i am printing resolutions under .1mm, I level the bed AND nozzle hot with my .08mm feeler gauge. When doing the print, i use 3 skirt outlines at 4mm offset and set the speed slow so i can fine tune the level as it prints the skirt.