Linear advance guide - Free and easy print quality improvement

Linear advance is a firmware feature that controls the timing of the extruder separate to the other axes, with a focus on managing pressure inside the nozzle. The result should be more consistent extrusion, especially around corners and other changes of direction. You should also be able to print faster without the quality dropping off so much.

This great feature was introduced into Marlin by Sebastianv650, and once enabled in the firmware, is tuned visually by inspecting a calibration pattern to find the best K value. This guide uses linear advance V1.5.

Please note the K value will differ for various filaments, and each one you want to use should be tuned. You can temporarily turn off linear advance by setting K to zero.

Take a look around and if you like what you see, please subscribe.

[davidlockwood]

Absolutely spot on. I have been hoping you would address this subject. Linear advance sounds like such a obtuse subject you made it manageable, as usual. Thanks again for the most useful site on YouTube or, indeed, the web.

[tonyb]

I know your vid is 4yrs old but THANKYOU from a newb learning this as a "johnny come lately" to 3d printing! YOU SIR ARE THE GOAT!!!

[MirrorOnTheWall]

The go to channel for 3D printer advice and training. Well done as always and thank you for putting in the time and effort on great quality tutorials.

[DrDeepspace]

Still coming back for knowledge after all these years. Thanks for keeping it going!

[novazipstream]

Thanks for the video! I wanted to add in some with reguarding the TMC2208s. It is possible to use Linear Advance on TMC2208s so as long as you disable StealthChop and enable Square Wave Stepping.


Edit:: I can confirm that Linear Advance works on TMC2208 drivers on the extruder! You have to ensure that Stealthchop is disabled on the extruder and have square wave stepping enabled

[madmax]

You asked for feedback at the end of your video. Hmm, just only feedback isn‘t enough. Your videos are teaching me to understand my printer and to make it better printing parts. You are not afraid to explain complex technical issues and how to fix problems. Realizing that a defect is a problem and not simply taking it for granted is the true quality of your videos. I‘m looking forward to your next video and to the next thing I can learn to make my printer and work more enjoyable. Thank you for your time and love to create this videos.

[knobbymcfeck]

I just gotta say that you're my favourite 3D printer tinkering channel.
Straight to the point, well explained, and you bring up topics I didn't even know existed.
Thank you so much for your time and effort!

[MakerFarmNL]

Your videos are by far the most educational on the subject of 3D printing / 3D printers on the web! You take a lot of effort to really dig deep into every subject, then create a lot of content for each video, making every video a truly well illustrated lesson. You are a Teacher with capital T. My utmost respect for that and many compliments!

[ianide]

I did this on my printer. I didn't read any warnings about using a 2208 in stand alone with lin adv enabled. I'm glad I didn't hear about these warnings because I have 2208's in stand alone with lin adv and it works great. I haven't not tinkered a whole bunch but I followed the same instruction link that you showed from marlin, I got my K value zeroed in and have nothing but good things to say about lin adv. I say don't be afraid to try it regardless of your setup, the worse thing that will happen is re-commenting a single line to turn it off again.

[AnArmAndAGreg]

Although, as a noob going through your calibration site for the first time ever, the section on linear advance is the hardest to figure out. While all of the other sections up to this point were spoon-fed, the linear advance section (which seems to me to be extremely imporant for good prints) isn't nearly as robust. I know the video is supposed to walk you through the process, but unlike other calibration steps, this one is missing the baby steps I've been spoiled with so far. May have to skip this calibration step until I have more understanding. Thanks again for all of your hard work on this.

[achristofides]

Thanks, another really great guide, after recently fitting a microswiss direct drive and hot end to my ender 5 pro, and first doing an e-step calibration, was tearing my hair out with prints not coming out right - things like corners missing, after also doing this nailed it! The new K value for me was around 0.12 with stock at 0.63, on latest Marlin 2.0.9.1 (at time of writing). Had to disable s curve acceleration which I had turned on in the firmware recently for linear advance to function.

[dphillo]

Have been using Linear Advance for some time now after watching this video. Just changed to the 2.85mm filament and had to watch this video again. Great tut. Keep them coming.

[PaulojnPereira]

I have spent so much time to remove these annoying bumps and now the answer is here, thank you for your amazing work, and time you placed into this to share it with us.

[TheEdgeofTech]

Nice work! I'm definitely gonna try this!! Thanks for being on the show yesterday, It was great to meet you and it was a blast!

[lugiber]

Thanks so much for making this video! It helped me immensely, and it made a huge difference even though I use a TMC 2208 driver.
If anyone wants to know i use an EZBoard lite, a Bondtech Extruder (I'm from Sweden after all) and a E3D v6 hotend. I'm just about to start my first serious print with the new settings, wish me good luck!

[JohnOCFII]

Another well crafted tutorial! Thanks for taking the time to create such well documented content. I’ve found linear advance to be a great aid for better quality at higher speeds. As you say - a low cost investment in time creates better prints!

[daphoosa]

Good overview and tutorial. Very minor nit pick is that linear advance doesn't technically "look ahead" (per 2:48), it biases the filament position based on the current speed of the head. Keep up the good work.

[eshneto]

Most underrated YouTube channel with 3D printing content.

[AndreasBrekken]

I started recompiling marlin while watching this, and now im printing out a before testcube. Looking forward te see the results! Thank you for this video!

[SpaceWeevil]

Thumbs up just for the Mighty Car Mods shirt :)