Initial Bed Tramming

How to get your print bed trammed and parallel with print nozzle. This is a more detailed and updated variation on the paper method which can also be used to pre-align the print bed before using a bed leveling sensor to generate a bed leveling mesh.

This guide is intended mostly for owners of Creality Ender 3, Ender 5 and any other printers that utilize bed adjustment screws

• A reasonably accurate set of calipers
• A 0.100mm (or as close to) feeler gauge

This guide specifically calls out using a feeler gauge in place of using paper as a way to provide constency in the process

The exact thickness of the guage used is not critically important, it will be accounted for in fixing the the first layer squish after the completion of this guide.

1. Move the print nozzle to a safe position away from the print bed so that you can adjust the leveling screws without any interferance
2. Take your calipers and set the jaws open a reasonable distance (~20mm) that you can use other end of the calipers as a depth gauge
3. Adjust all of the leveling screws such that all 4 corners of the bed are the same distance from the plate that holds the bed and leveling adjusters
4. Home the Z axis (and if needed X and Y)

When pre-adjusting the corners of the bed, do your best to pick a reference point that is the same for all 4 corners.

Pre-adjusting the corners of the bed at this stage is to allow you adjust the bed up and down within a reasonable range during the rest of the guide

1. Move the print nozzle to be at Z0 over one of the bed leveling screws (for consistency of this guide, we will start on the front left corner). You may need to adjust the bed leveling screw down to allow the nozzle to reach Z0

If you do not have enough downward adjustment to drive the nozzle to exactly Z0 you can pick a Z height above 0 to use for the process. What is important is that you use the same Z height for each corner.

2. Using your feeler gauge, adjust the corner of the bed until you can just barely fit the gauge between the nozzle and the bed. If you are using a set of go-no-go gauges, you can use the lip of the No side of the gauge as a stopper to help you in making this adjustment in a consistent way.

3. Move the nozzle a few milimeters above the bed and position the nozzle over the front right corner, and repeat the procedure described in Step 2

4. Continue conter-clockwise around the bed until all 4 corners have been adjusted

After the initial adjustments that have been performed above, you will need to fine-tune the adjustments such that you can position the nozzle over each corner at the same Z height and the gap is exactly your feeler gauge’s height no matter which corner chosen. The fine tuning process will require that you keep moving the nozzle to different corners and repeatedly check and adjust the leveling screw as described Step 2 of the Initial Bed Adjustment section.

The fine tuning process will take you a siginificant amount of time, but the more effort you put in the better results you will get back out. Don’t get discouraged if it seems like every time you fix one corner it throws two more out of adjustment.

After fine-tuning one corner adjust the opposite corner in a criss-cross pattern

After getting all the corner adjustments as perfect as you desire, you will want to re-home the Z axis in preparation for either fixing your first layer squish or running a initial bed leveling mesh.