I here you… the aluminum plate my glass mounts too … is a pita… I can get a good print but if I let it rest other night between prints… I have to got through the process of leveling the bed all over again… it’s shite… I’m pissed about now…
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Did you upgrade the 4 springs under the bed? I was told by the rep to get “orange” springs that microcenter had right before I bought my Ender 3 v2. Even the cashier said the stock springs suck. That might resolve your reoccurring bed leveling.
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Looks like you might have a partially blocked nozzle too 
Probably from scraping the bed.
Whenever you get that 'foamy" looking print it is usually a partially blocked nozzle.
I will post a guide later on how to reliably get your bed level and at the correct height so that you don’t need to change it again unless you do something drastic.
I have worked with many, many Enders and never had an issue with the springs, as long as they are not loose.
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I’m about done with this Ender 3 , i think the mounting plate for the table is warped… I have learned 3 different ways to level and all are easy to do… but I keep coming back to the left rear of the table can only be tighten so much… the spring is all the way compressed,… I’m to the point I ready to start cutting coils off… they are the upgraded springs
the hot end keeps clogging… the hot end leaks when it’s plugs up. I think my gantry moves as well… do I upgrade to switch direct extruder? I’ve already had to upgrade the extruder because the plastic tensioner and drive wheel just. Wasn’t putting enough pressure on the Filament… it’s kept slipping…
Really this is a PITA no wonder 3D printers aren’t in everyone’s home…I can see the value and potential of having one… but having to upgrade right out of the box is disappointing… if this is the case with all the printers why not just sell wveryrhing Ala Carte…
Rant done …
I didn’t know what to call “ Foaming “ that what it looks like. I figured that my nozzles clogged… also when I heat the filament up and it comes out squiggly the nozzles clogged…
Yes… that was one of the first upgrades I did as well… I’m thinking I’m going to direct extruder… but the table leveling is still and issue
Ironically the springs being too tight is a good thing. It means you can correct the height entirely with the Z-offset. If the nozzle was above the bed after a home then you would have to move the limit switch down to allow the nozzle to reach the bed.
Bed leveling and Z-height confusion…
This is one of the most mis-understood aspects of 3D printing and even places like All3DP (even as recently as last month) have seriously wrong information and flat out bad advice !!!
There are 2 aspects to the issue.
- Level bed. Even this nomenclature is a bit of a misnomer !!! What we really care about is parallel to the head movement. If your X axis droops then we want the bed to be parallel to the droop (although fixing the droop first would be a good idea, but you get what I mean !!!)
- Correct z- height. This is simply making sure that when we ask the printer to position 0.2mm above the bed then that is where it goes. As mentioned earlier the z-home position is not at exactly 0mm above the bed. (Many “tutorials” want to make this true, but is fundamentally wrong. All3DP even tells you how to move your limit switch to achieve this !!! No… No… Just… NO!!)
The 2 are NOT the same !!!
I have never had an issue with the Ender Pro as long as the springs are tight. Don’t adjust the height with the springs, only use them to get level.
Adjust the height with the Z-offset instead.
The one caveat with that statement is that the Z-homing switch must allow the nozzle to go below the plane of the bed. If the nozzle doesn’t go at least as low as the bed then you either need to move the switch down a little or release the springs a little. If it is a small distane then releasing the springs is OK, but much more than a couple of mm and you get right back at the original loose spring issue.
With the springs not loose there should be no bed movement after you have calibrated it.
In the following guide all Z movements are done with the LCD menu option
- Tighten all 4 springs so that they are almost completely compressed. I would leave about 1mm of ‘slack’ in the height of the bed.
- Using the LCD do a “home” on all axis. Hopefully this will leave the nozzle below the bed height
- With the LCD move the nozzle so it is about 2 mm above the bed
- Manually move the head to one corner of the bed and position it as close as possible to being just over the spring center
- Put a piece of paper under the head and use the menu to lower the head so that the nozzle just grabs the paper.
- Leaving the paper under the nozzle gently move the print head to another corner spring, checking the paper as you go. If the paper tightens up then compress the spring in the corner you are moving to a little. Once in the corner then adjust the bed leveler so the paper feels like the first corner.If you find you need to lower the bed but the springs are already too tight then loosen the original starting spring some and start again.
- Repeat 5 for the other corners. This will get the levelness “close” to level, but not perfect.
- Using the menu raise the nozzle a few mm above the bed.
- Manually move the nozzle to above the first corner spring
- Put the paper under the nozzle again
- Using the menu adjust the Z-height using the smallest step distance until the paper is just grabbed and wrinkles slightly when pushed. (note, the smallest option will likely be off the bottom of the initial step distance options and is something like 0.0125mm. Can’t recall the exact value though)
- Make a note of the Z value displayed on the LCD
- Using the LCD lift the Z- height about 1mm them manually move the nozzle above the next spring.
- With the paper under the nozzle, using the LCD, lower the nozzle to the height value noted in 11)
- Using the corresponding bed leveler adjust the bed corner height until the paper feels the same as the first corner.
- Repeat 12 for the remaining corners. NOTE: The key point here is that the z-height of the nozzle is the exact same height. The actual height displayed does not matter (yet), only that all 4 corners are set with the same z-height.
At this point the bed should be LEVEL, but the z-offset will still be wrong.
Next we need to set the Z-offset.
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Using the LCD perform a home operation.
Again, another mis-conception is that this locates the X, Y and Z zero location. Nope, it just finds a fixed reference point from which to make all future measurements. Typically X and Y use this “home” position as the zero since it doesn’t really matter if the print is not exactly in the center of the bed, but Z is a whole different story.
After homing you will find that the z-axis is probably above or below the bed now. If it is below… great, we can corerct the height purely in the printer’s z-offset. If it is above then you didn’t pay attention at the start caveat !!!
You should also note that after homing that the Z-height displayed on the LCD may or may not say “0.00”. Don’t worry. What this will ultimately display after homing (once we have calibrated it) will be the difference between the “home” position and the “zero” position. (Hopefully you are beginning to see where this is all going now)
OK, so let’s set the z-height now…
- Use the LCD to “move” the z-axis up so it clears the bed, then using the menu move the nozzle to the center of the bed. It is critical that this is done immediately after homing so that the x and y are also tracked correctly by the printer.
- Place a piece of paper under the nozzle
- In the LCD menu adjust the z-height using the smallest step size so that the paper is held gently and wrinkles when you push it.
- Note the Z height displayed.
- Move the nozzle up and remove the paper
- Adjust the z-height until the z-height displayed is what was displayed in 4), then move it a further 0.1mm down. This is the thickness of the paper. At this point the nozzle should be touching the bed, and is the point that we want to call “0”
- Make a note of the z-height displayed as the z-height just in case we need it later since this now represents the ‘error’ in z-height
There are a couple of ways of setting the “0” point now and unfortunately I am not in front of an Ender so can’t recall exactly the procedures.
Hopefully this is correct, but I will check ASAP…
Using the menu lift the z-height so it clears the bed, then move the nozzle x and y back to 0, 0, then move the z-nozzle down to the height we noted in 7). If you recall this was what we want to be 0 height.
Using the menu select “prepare” then “Set home offsets”. This will use the current position as (0, 0, 0)
Next, and again this is critical… save the changes to the printer EEPROM using “Control” “Store settings”
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Note, all of the above should be done with the bed temperature at about 60C to account for thermal expansion.
When printing you can “fine tune” the z-height using “tune”, “Baby step Z”. Once you have tuned with babystepping don’t forget to save the settings to the EEPROM again.
