I can't stand my K1C anymore

[Artenidas]

Basic Information:

Printer Model: K1C
MCU / Printerboard:
Host / SBC
klippy.log

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Describe your issue:

Honestly, I’m starting to feel like giving up in my struggle with the K1C. From the beginning, I’ve had issues with achieving an even and stable first layer. Sometimes it prints well, but other times the quality is completely unsatisfactory. I’ve tried almost everything.

I’ve practically rebuilt the printer from scratch—I replaced the hotend with a 50mm³/s flow model suitable for PLA, and also swapped the entire bed mounting system for an adjustable version. Bed leveling measurements show that at 100°C, I get a level difference of around 0.26 mm, and at 65°C, it’s 0.16 mm. Yet, one print comes out fine, and the next one is a disaster. The nozzle is sometimes too high or too low.

I checked the tension on the X/Y belts, which are set correctly, and also adjusted the Z-axis belt. I’ve tried various slicers and firmware versions (Orca 2.1.0, 2.2.0, PrusaSlicer, Cura, Creality), but none of them have made a significant difference.

For comparison, I also have a second K1C, which, despite never being adjusted, holds a leveling accuracy of 0.7 mm, and its first layers print perfectly.

Additionally, I ran the PTFE tube through the top of the printer to prevent any jams or tension. I disassembled and cleaned the extruder and slightly loosened the gears.

Another issue I noticed is that when printing, for example, a 50x50 mm square, the first 5–8 mm isn’t printed, even though the nozzle is clean and there are no clogs.

In summary, the problem is the instability of the first layer, despite numerous modifications and maintenance efforts, making it impossible to achieve consistent results.

I’ll add that support keeps sending me useless YouTube videos that are supposed to help, but they don’t understand that I’ve done all of this a million times already. I have a perfectly leveled bed, and the z-offset adjustment works for one print, but not for the other.

I also tried in the PROBE_ACCURACY clipper and unfortunately my results do not come out maximum 0.0125 but 0.08 or 0.09

Maybe here someone struggled with such problems with his equipment.

…

[EddyMI3D]

Hello @Artenidas !

I can understand your suffering.
The hardware may be quite decent - it’s the firmware (Klipper) that Creatity mangled and crushed so much, that no one knowns what is going on.

[Automobilie]

If you run PROBE_ACCURACY with all heaters off and the machine completely cool does it return better consistency?

I ran into a similar issue with probing being all over the place and it turns out my BLTouchs and other probes were prone to heat-drift!

Like, a lot:

I have a macro that literally turns on the heaters and runs PROBE_ACCURACY with 1 sample every minute. Then I copy the numbers into Visual Studio, clean out anything that isn’t a time or measurement, and export that into Excel to make a graph.

As a result, I find I have to let my machine heatsoak for about 12-minutes before the drift has settled enough to go.

*The machine is a CoreXY, three-z belted bed (Needs z_tilt_adjust to level every print) and is heated to 60C Chamber, 270C Hotend, and 110C Bed.

[gcode_macro Probe_Acc_Long_Hot] # Runs PROBE_ACCURACY over 20 minutes after heating to check probe for heat-drift. Use a spreadsheet/graph to determine how long to heatsoak before probing operations.
gcode:
    M118 Homing all axis
    G28
    M118 Adjusting Z Steppers
    Z_TILT_ADJUST
    M118 Rehoming Z axis
    G28 Z
    M118 Turning on Extruder...
    SET_HEATER_TEMPERATURE HEATER=chamber Target=60 # 50C is where mine reaches easily enough
    M118 Turning on Bed...
    SET_HEATER_TEMPERATURE HEATER=heater_bed Target=110 # I use 110C for ABS plastic
    M118 Turning on Chamber...
    SET_HEATER_TEMPERATURE HEATER=extruder Target=250 # I use 260C for ABS plastic
    M118 Waiting for Extruder to warm up...
    M109 S250 ; wait for extruder temp NB this heating occurs while leveling
    M118 Waiting for Bed to warm up...
    M190 S110 # wait for bed temp
    M118 Waiting for Chamber to warm up...
    M191 S60 #Wait for chamber to warm up to 60C
    M118 Beginning Probe Test...
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    M118 1-Minute
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    M118 5-Minutes
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    M118 10-Minutes
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    M118 15-Minutes
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    G4 P30000
    M118 20-Minutes
    PROBE_ACCURACY PROBE_SPEED=5 SAMPLES=1 SAMPLE_RETRACT_DIST=5
    M118 Turning off heaters
    TURN_OFF_HEATERS               # Turn off heaters