E-Step Calibration What, When, and Why

Owned by Imagine That
Jun 29, 2021
2 min read

E-Step Calibration is a method that allows you to adjust the amount of rotations per MM of material that the printer puts out to correct errors in the expected amount of material. Some times when a printer thinks it’s putting out a line of 100MM of filament it will put out a line of 80MM or sometimes it will put out more, the resulting issue from this will cause your prints to either look spongy, thin walls that don't connect or it can make your prints just turn into blobs. Most times it’s not so far off that it will destroy your print but it will result in prints that aren’t exactly what you want. Examples

The Method that this is done goes something like this.

  • First you Measure out a set amount of filament that’s loaded into your extruder. Usually a Mark at 100MM then another at 120MM *this is so if you extrude beyond or right on the mark you can still find the amount.

  • Then you heat up your nozzle once heated you tell your machine to extrude 100MM of material no more no less.

  • After it’s stopped you take a measurement of the amount remaining to the 100MM or 120MM mark, this will give you a number that can be plugged into a formula. To find all the values you’ll need to go into your firmware via either your LCD or computer. The LCD method is something like this.

Control (Or Settings) > Motion > Steps/MM > Estep Value * note this value as it will be used in the formula.

New Steps/mm = (Current steps/mm) x [100 / (measured distance filament traveled)] - Filament Traveled is 100 - Remaining amount or 120 - remaining amount if it exceeds the 100 mark.

On an Ender 3 for example the default is 93 steps/mm x 100 divided by the distance extruded. So if your Printer was told to produce 100MM and only put out 80 you would go 93*100/80 = 116.25 to change this you would go into Control (Or Settings) > Motion > Steps/MM > Estep Value adjust the value then go up to the main control menu and scroll down to Store Settings (or Store to EPROM) the printer will make a tone letting you know it has saved now you can safely turn your printer off without losing the settings.