Quick and Simple Way to Level Your Creality K1 or K1 Max Bed

If your printer bed looks more like a slip-n-slide, this is the video for you!

In this video we first show the recommended way to level the bed, and yes it was better, but not nearly good enough. We have come up with a far better and easier way to do it from the top. If your bed was better than mine, you can use the method I came up with, but if it's worse, you probably want to do the same process as shown in the video.

There is a possible alternate method to get it close called the 'Tooth-skipping' method, but I've never tried it and I think it is a job better suited for two people.

I hope you found this video helpful and interesting!

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NEW MIC (I bought this)

BAMBU PRINTERS

CREALITY PRINTERS

CREALITY HYPER PLA

Download spacers:

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#crealityk1
#klipper

[lcalbero]

I am laughing out loud here. You deserve an oscar. After trying everything, with the most annoying thing to put the machine upside down, etc, I just printed your small pieces, did the calibration in fluidd, made the math (left and right had a minor difference of 0.1, but to the back 1 mm), put the 1mm piece back there with 2 simple screws (no turning upside down, etc)... and MAGIC, my total difference now is less than 0.2 mm. THANK YOU

[jamesfsmithco]

Wow - your spacer solution made a huge difference. To start, my maximum bed deviation was 0.709mm. Left front was the high side. Used a 0.2mm spacer sanded down to about 0.1mm for the right front. Used a 0.7mm spacer sanded down to about 0.65mm for the back. Maximum deviation was reduced to 0.084mm or about 12% of the original deviation. Per your other video, I heated the bed to 55 C for 10 minutes before each bed check. Will be leaving a donation. Please keep up the great work!

[timcox]

Great suggestion! For ultra-fine tuning, I use various widths of thin heat tape directly on the magnetic bed (under the build plate) to fill in low spots. I have found that over time, the bed geometry changes slightly, and I occasionally need to pull the heat tape off and reapply in slightly different locations. I find this method preferable to making permanent changes to the bed. Using this method, I keep my Ender 3 bed at around 0.05 to 0.1 mm variance. The heat tape I use doesn't prevent heat transfer to the build surface, and is rated to withstand extreme temps - more than double the bed's max temp.

[ZachRE]

Stopping in to comment and say thank you. Your shims plus a remix sloped shim from Printables fixed my leveling. I went from a variance of 1.6 to a variance of .16. Great stuff, simple and elegant solution. Easy to implement solutions like this help rookies like me enjoy 3d printing a whole lot more.

[MauricioNunes]

I just wanted to share here that I was able to go from a 1.3 mm difference down to 0.21 mm thanks to this method! It took me 4 different times to unscrew the whole thing, try a combination, measure again, and then keep improving, about 1hr dedicated to this. Thank you!

[Khakzoy]

This worked perfectly! Calibrated, calculated the differences, printed the spacers, calibrated again and easily got it down from 1384mm max to 0.633mm and minimum from 0.351mm to 0.083mm. Range gone from 1.033 to 0.550! I will leave it at that for now! :) Thanks for your excellent video.

[ritcheycretien]

This worked well, thanks. The only change I made was to cut from the flat end of the shim twice to each mounting holes, to make a kind of funnel. Then I did not have to remove the very difficult to remove back support screws (wait 'til you're 72...). So loosen the screws two turns, slide the shim in, tighten 'em. I put a 0.8mm in the front right and a 0.4mm in the rear. It went from a starting point of 0.97mm spread and standard deviation of 0.29, to a spread of 0.33mm and a S.D of 0.08. Delighted. I used PLA though, and I'm not enamoured with the thought of any plastic shim in a warm environment, so they'll be changed for stainless shim stock when time permits.

[wmstram]

Worked great for me. Far more precision than blindly turning shafts and messing with belts. Thanks!

[leickenberg]

I used this and it improved the bed level greatly, thanks! The simplezt fix however was if Creality would perform some basic QC.

[Schermit]

Consider this another endorsement of the tooth skipping method! Managed to get the mesh down to .5 at one point. It feels scary to do, lol, but once you get the hang of it it’s a really quick way to make adjustments. That paired with KAMP improved things a lot.

[pahaha]

This worked great. After doing the Creality method with no change x 2, I cut my difference from 1.3 to 0.4 with just a single 1.0mm. Good enough for now i.e. the gridfinity beds I printed work, as opposed to not working. Thanks for the very practical fix, and thrilled to discover your channel.

[Viper]

Just wanted to say thank you for sharing this. My K1 Max came from the factory with a 1.45 range, it was awful. After putting a shim under the rear bed support, The range is now 0.62. That's a BIG improvement. I've always said it's best to get the bed as close to level as possible before the mesh is applied. Just because the printer CAN adapt to a way out of spec bed, doesn't mean it will print ideally that way.

[TheTychus]

Did not planned buying K1, so came to watch it as an entertainment. As a result - enjoyed your meticulous engineering approach to the problem solving.

[monosero]

Great way!
My Creality k1 Max was quite uneven, actually had to scale one of this pads up to 2mm in order to make the back screw leveling up withing 0, 5mm total

[Oddman]

I just learned something trying to do this that I need to share - if you're having trouble with the nozzle dragging the build plate, before you take the bottom of the machine apart, try to wiggle the nozzle. If the nozzle has any play in it, the hot end is probably loose!! There are two long M2 screws holding the hot end on. Pull the silicone sock off the hot end, being careful of the wires, and make sure the screws are tightened at the top. If the hot end is loose, there's a good chance one or both screws will fall out when you remove the silicone sock.

[nsgr]

Awesome and simple fix! I was able to halve the difference across my K1 Max bed w/your method. Thanks Mike!

[DjNcr]

Oh my god man, just bought a K1C and I have had a few minor issues due to the calibration, and don't get me wrong, the printer is great, even with how it came it prints great, but this small change made a lot of difference, can't thank you enough Mike!

[CostlyFiddle]

Thanks for showing us how you "take some measurements" to find out which spacers to print. 👌

[yitspaerl]

A very useful video!

Coincidentally, I tackled the same problem this morning. Your method works faster.

First up: The official Creality calibration method, with the bed all the way downstairs, didn't work for me either. The printer is manufactured too inaccurately for this. In addition, I don't think anyone has kept the deviating transport screws.

What I did was to lock the belt under the printer in the right place and thus shift two of the three gears relative to the belt.

The result was reasonable. Approximately 0.3mm deviation across the entire bed.

I was working on this for a long time. Adjust, heat 25pts measurement and set it up again. Over and over again.

Your method is faster.

You might get an even better result if you place shims in addition to your method in the right place under the 4 support points. Although I won't bother. The bed itself is also not 100% flat. The 25 point equalization also does a lot.

Thank you very much for your good video.

[Jamesn-jszp]

I leveled my bed months ago when I first received my K1 Max. I used your method, however rather then printing shims I made mine from proper shimming materials