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So I've had my CR-10 Mini for some months now, and I've been continually having strange problems with bed leveling. Basically, after leveling the bed and printing a part, the bed is no longer leveled for printing again.

Just now, I auto-homed, leveled the bed to where there was a pretty good amount of friction between the nozzle and a piece of paper, and started a print. The first layer didn't look like it was getting squished just that little bit that it should be, so I stopped the print, auto-homed again and checked the leveling with the paper. Low and behold, there was no friction at all between the nozzle and the paper. I re-leveled again and restarted the print, and then the first layer went down OK.

So what I'd like to know is why the heck am I having so many leveling problems?!? I've checked to make sure all my set screws are tight, my belts properly tensioned, and the rollers on the bed adjusted to slide smoothly but still have a good amount of grab. Help?

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  • $\begingroup$ i've noticed bed temp can affect leveling on my non-mini CR10; try to preheat the bed before leveling. $\endgroup$
    – dandavis
    Commented Jan 18, 2019 at 20:16

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The Creality CR-10 Mini is a portal printer using a single Z lead screw at one side of the portal to move the whole X axis gantry. This implies that the X gantry needs to be very stiff when raised and lowered from one side and also have a minimum of play on the rollers (especially on the lead screw driven side).

I have seen many complaints from experience of people complaining that the gantry is not stiff enough, or that there is too much play on the rollers on either side of the gantry to result in a skew gantry. Consistent leveling is very hard on such machines. A colleague of me added an extra stepper (and split the original stepper connector) to have it raised and lowered from both sides. Do understand that this is also not optimal, missed steps on one of either sides can also cause the X gantry to become skew. A better solution is to create a belt driven extra lead screw that is powered by one stepper, you will not experience a skew gantry as the gantry is integrally moved.

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  • $\begingroup$ Hmm..... good to know, I'll pay attention to the gantry next time I level for a print and see if I can confirm that's the issue. $\endgroup$
    – You'reAGitForNotUsingGit
    Commented Jan 15, 2019 at 22:38
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I know this is a bit late, but I just saw it. I have had my Mini for about 2 months now. I noticed a similar problem and found that when I level the bed, I need to hit all 5 spots (4 corners and center) about 4 or 5 times. Just the slightest adjustment on one corner can throw another corner off. It's tedious, but worth it once the bed is level.

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  • $\begingroup$ good advice - and it is for all printers like that. $\endgroup$
    – Trish
    Commented Mar 31, 2019 at 18:08

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