One of the simple things that you can do to make sure you have better prints is to calibrate the extruder on your printer. It only takes a minute but can make a huge difference in the quality of your prints.


1. You will need to hook your printer up to a computer with MatterControl software installed. 


2. Look up the current stepper value by going to "Settings & Controls">"Options">"Show Terminal" typing in "M92" and pressing enter. This should bring up a list of all your stepper motor configurations but the one we are most interested in is the value listed by E. Write down this value because we will use it later.



3. Remove the Bowden tube by first removing the Bowden clip from the Hot end by sliding it sideways. Then remove the Bowden Tube from the hot end by pressing down with your finger on the black ring surrounding the Bowden tube and pulling up firmly. If you have filament in the extruder you might have to heat up the hot end to get it out. 




4. Use a razor blade or pair of scissors to cut off the filament so it is perfectly flush with the end of the Bowden tube. The closer you can get to perfectly flush with the end of the Bowden tube the more accurate the calibration will be. 





5. Open the controls menu in MatterControl, select the 100 mm option for your extruder and hit "Extrude." Measure how much filament was actually extruded. You can do this a few times and take the average to get more accurate. 




6. Now we need to do a little bit of math. Its a simple formula:  take the value for the stepper motor that we found earlier and multiply it by 100 divided by the distance you just measured. 


New Steps/mm = (Old/Current steps/mm) x [100 / (measured distance filament traveled)]

For example: My current steps are 181.024 and the distance I measured was 97 mm so I will take 181.024*(100/97)= 186.62 and that is the number that I need.


7. Now we just need to enter the new value back into the printer. Open up the terminal again if you closed it("Settings & Controls">"Options">"Show Terminal") and enter in the following

M92 E(value you just calculated)


Ex: M92 E 186.62



8. Type M500 into the command line to save the changes to the printer.

9. Repeat the process a few times until you get it dialed in where you want it and you should be ready to go.