CR10S Pro V2 Bed Levelling

If you started with a smaller building volume (like an ender 3) and then moved up to the larger size, you might find it difficult to adapt to a new bed levelling procedure. I won’t lie, I had major issues trying to get my CR10 to level. But thanks to the amazing community of other 3D printing enthusiasts I managed to find how to level the bed (with less releveling afterwards).

I will say this method is not my own. It is from a member of a Reddit community when I originally wanted to level the bed. So all credit goes to u/Alzee76 for helping me out here.

u/Alzee76 Original Reddit Post Here:

I’ve added some of my own sprinkley bits to the procedure. So I’m hoping this will help you to level your CR10.

So here we go.

Note: I use a glass bed on all of my printers. I haven’t tried this bed levelling procedure on any other bed, so please proceed with caution.

Creality CR10S Pro V2 Bed Leveling Procedure

The “Youtube” method for levelling a cr10s bed is very different from this method below. It involves the same steps of setting the correct sensor height, calibrating the z-home, and then levelling the bed, but it doesn’t use all of the CR10s features, which overcomplicates the bed levelling process. According to u/Alzee76, It’s 100% reliable for any type of surface, now as I stated earlier, I haven’t tested this on anything other than a glass bed, but so far I’ve had 100% success with this method. One other notable omission from this is that this method doesn’t use the levelling menu at all. It’s best to just ignore the auto bed levelling feature for this procedure. I haven’t used it in weeks, and I haven’t had any issues.

Method

Step 0

First, in your settings menu, make sure you have any z-offsets set to 0. Having any offsets set will mess up the process later on.

Make sure auto-levelling is disabled.

Step 1 – Setting the sensor height.

Disable your Z-motors and bring the gantry (gently!) down to the bed until the nozzle is just barely touching/resting on your build plate. Loosen the two set screws on the side of the capacitive sensor and adjust the sensor until it’s about 1mm above the build plate. You can do this with a 1mm feeler, or by stacking up papers, business cards, whatever until they are 1mm thick. Use your calliper to measure the thickness.

If you don’t have a calliper, stop everything and don’t touch your printer again until you’ve bought one.

Ethan: I actually set mine to 0.2mm above, using the feeler gauge that comes with the printer. I haven’t had any problems yet but use the 1mm specified.

Step 2 – Gantry dual-Z axis adjustment

Engage the Z motors again and adjust Z-couplers to ensure that the gantry itself is the same level as the printer on both sides. Don’t measure from the gantry to the bed, because your bed isn’t level. Measure from the gantry down to the top of the printer body, using the plunge measurement on your calliper. It doesn’t matter what the measurement is, just that it’s the same on both sides.

Ethan: Equally, you can print two blocks the are the same length to measure both sides of the gantry to the printer body. I use the blocks every time I switch the printer on. The gantry will skew again when the motors are disabled.

Step 3 – Calibrate Z-home

You’ll use the move menu for this, and nothing else. Give your adjustment screw on the sensor a full turn or two clockwise, then follow the following procedure. Before you start this step bring your bed up to print temperature. The included sensor is dramatically affected by humidity, which is a function of air temperature.

Hit the home button.

If the nozzle crashes into the bed, turn the sensitivity screw another full turn clockwise and go to step 1.

Press the “0.1” on the top of the screen to set it to 0.1mm steps.

Enter “0.5” into the Z height box and wait for the hot end to move.

Start sliding your 0.2mm feeler side to side under the nozzle.

Tap the Z- button. Repeat these steps 5-6 from 0.5mm down to 0.1mm or until the feeler doesn’t fit.

If the feeler doesn’t slide easily between the bed and nozzle from 0.5mm to 0.2mm, turn the adjuster a half or quarter turn clockwise and go to step 1.

If the feeler continues sliding between the bed and nozzle at 0.1mm, turn the adjuster a quarter turn counter-clockwise and go to step 1.

The feeler should move easily (it can touch, but only barely) between the nozzle and bed when it’s at 0.2. You need to test it when moving from 0.3 to 0.2, and from 0.1 to 0.2. The gantry usually doesn’t move up quite as far as it moves down, so if you find you can easily slide it through at 0.2 when coming from 0.3, but it drags more when you move from 0.1 to 0.2, adjust the sensitivity slightly by turning the knob to the right about a quarter turn and… go back to step 1.

Done!

The z-home calibration is just intended to adjust the sensor so that the printer knows how high it is off the bed at the home location. When your bed is level, it will know how high it is off the bed in every location. During this process, note that you don’t touch the bed levelling knobs at any point, and you completely ignore the red light on the sensor.

Step 4

Level the bed. At this point, you know that the sensor is properly calibrated, so you can level the bed using your feeler and travelling at a known height over the bed. Exactly how you do this is up to you, but the general procedure is to move the head down to about 0.5, then move it along the X/Y axis by about 100mm. Then go back to using the feeler and moving the Z up and down 0.1mm at a time. If you come to a spot on the bed that is too high (the feeler doesn’t fit even at 0.3 or 0.4), use the bed adjustment knobs to lower that end of the bed until it fits then hit home again before doing anything else.

Important: Adjusting any corner of the bed is going to affect the centre by a little bit. The centre is where the z-home takes place, so it’s very important that you always hit the ‘home’ button and check everything again after making any adjustments to the bed levelling knobs.

Notice again that in this final step, we continue to ignore the red light, and we don’t touch the sensitivity adjustment again. The sensitivity is already set via step 3, here, we’re just trying to get the bed level with respect to the gantry. We do that by moving the head to different parts of the bed (I use 30,30; 30,270; 270,270; and 270;30) and ensuring that at each point, the height we tell the head to move to is the height we are actually at.

I know this is different from how you’ve been told to level this printer. Virtually all the youtube videos and other instructions indicate that you should slip a piece of paper through and fiddle with the knob while paying attention to the red light, and the resistance you feel. My method works better. It’s more accurate, and faster as well.

Important

Because the sensor included with the printer is a capacitive type, you need to redo the z-calibration step if you switch build plates, like from the included one to glass or PEI. You do not have to re-level the bed — it’s already level. If your new build plate isn’t warped, it will stay level. All you need to do is calibrate the sensor so that it knows how high above the bed it is. If you skip this step, you will crash the nozzle into the print surface.

Also, make sure you let the bed cool down after use so the print can be easily and safely removed. Don’t try to pull the print off, which could upset your bed level.

Final Words

As stated at the start of the post, this method is not my own. It is from a member of a Reddit community that I asked when I originally wanted to find out how to level the bed. So all credit goes to u/Alzee76 for helping me out.

I hope this method helps with your bed levelling.

if you have any further problems, please contact me, and I will try to help you out.

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