Did you know that your 3d printer has a magic number and if you use that magic
number you can get better print quality I'll explain it all on today's Filament
Friday. This episode of filament friday is brought to you by these patreon
supporters. I know many people got new printers for Christmas or they're just
getting started with 3d printing and they want to do a lot of modifications
it's the fun part, I get it. But before you do any of that just learn how to use
your 3d printer and how it works with your slicer and with that you want to
know your magic number and use it in your slicer settings. So what is the
magic number? Well to understand it completely we first have to understand
how a stepper motor works so let me explain that and then I'll get deeper
into how you calculate the magic number. This is a diagram of a very basic
stepper motor. It's got four coils or four poles and when the center is
grounded and one of the coils is energized it's going to align the magnet
up inside with the coil and that's going to be one step. So if we then stop power
here and put power here it's gonna line up there so that's the next step so
if I do this where I energize each coil separately I can get four steps out of
this guy per revolution that's how a basic stepper motor works and on our
printers we typically have one point eight degree movement so these coils, there are
multiple coils to give us every one point eight degrees of alignment. So at
one point eight degrees that gives us 200 steps per revolution
and that's the number we're going to use to calculate the magic number because we
want to line up with these natural steps. Now where the stepper drivers come in is
they vary the voltage here and here between two coils and by the difference
of those two voltages you can get multiple steps and that's how you micro
step a stepper motor but we're not going to worry about this for the magic number.
We want to use these natural steps or the 200 steps per revolution.
So now that we generally understand that there's 200 natural steps in a stepper
motor how does that relate to the magic number? Well it all comes down to this
threaded rod. The threaded rod will lift the X carriage based on its pitch so on
the Creality machines or even this GEEETECH machine it lifts 8 millimeters per
one revolution so now that we know we want to stick to the natural steps or
200 steps per rotation, divide that 200 into the 8 millimeters we get zero point
zero four millimeters per natural step. That's the magic number! And we want to
stay on that magic number because then we're at the same position relative to
each step. Even if we're micro stepping we are
going to the same micro step every time so we're consistent in how we're moving
up and that gives you consistent results and much better print quality especially
on smaller prints where you're printing really fine detail. So now that we know
our magic number is zero point zero four we can do variations off of that for the
Z height so 0.08, 0.12, 0.16, 0.2, 0.24
0.28 and 0.32. You typically don't want to go more than 80 percent of your
nozzle so at a 0.4 nozzle, 0.32 is like the roughest you want to go,
that's pretty rough. So now let's compare our magic numbers or our magic layer
heights to what Cura offers in its stock
settings. From the drop-down menu they show 0.06 , 0.1, 0.15,
0.2, 0.3 and a couple of course settings I don't
recommend. 0.2 is the only one that fits within our magic number.
The 0.1 or fine setting should really be 0.12 to match our magic
number. Normal 0.16 extra-fine 0.08 and the extra fast 0.3 should
be like 0.28. So I made my own profile using a 0.12
that way I'm within my magic numbers and that's what I use for most
of my prints. But let's compare this. I'm gonna slice this Marvin keychain
at a 0.1, the stock setting and it says 42 minutes to print with a 20% fill. Now
I'm just gonna change the layer height to 0.12 because now I'm in my magic
number and it says 35 minutes to print. I saved 7 minutes on this print but what
about quality, are they the same? And here they are next to each other and frankly
I can't tell them apart. I do have some retraction settings to improve but I
can't tell them apart I had to mark them on the bottom. They
look identical to me yet the 0.12 printed 7 minutes faster than the 0.1 so
then I tried my calibration cube and again I couldn't tell a difference
between the two. They look identical until I put them under a microscope. Look
at the 0.1 layer height. You can see larger layers and then smaller layers
scattered throughout the print and it's slightly off. My eye couldn't pick this up
but it's obviously there because when I compare it to the 0.12 with the magic
number look at how smooth and even the layers are so this clearly gives you a
better print. So the magic numbers do work! So the magic numbers seem to work
although it's minor but you save time while getting the same print quality and
under the microscope it definitely showed a difference. And that magic
number 0.04 works for all the Creality machines that I have CR10, CR 10
mini, Ender 3 all the same and the GEEETECH a10, a20 they all have the same 0.04 so
just try that out tell me what you think see if you see a difference in your
prints. If you like what I'm doing here maybe check out some of the videos that
are popping up if you want to help support the channel patreon is one way
or just use the affiliate links in the description below to buy filament, parts,
whatever, it helps a lot and if nothing else just click on that CHEP logo and
subscribe I'll see you next time right here at Filment Friday