<p>The point of &quot;leveling&quot; (tramming) the bed is to make it:</p>
<ol>
<li>square with the coordinate system of the printer so that it lies in a plane perpendicular to the direction of Z travel, and</li>
<li>a known distance from the nozzle tip at one point (and thus, due to (1), all points) in the plane at any given Z value.</li>
</ol>
<p>In theory, if the machine were all preassembled and sufficiently/perfectly rigid, this could be done once at the factory and never need leveling again. However, even if that were possible, there's at least one factor that will throw you off: you're going to want to swap/replace nozzles, and they will not all be exactly the same length - especially if you use different nozzle diameters, styles, materials, from different manufacturers, etc. This is why, even with an ABL system, unless it performs probing using the nozzle tip itself, you always have to calibrate out the offset between the probe and the nozzle tip.</p>
<p>In practice, many machines (especially affordable ones) require final assembly by the consumer, which necessitates calibration. They also have parts which can warp or wear and require adjustment - especially POM V-roller wheels - which will then throw off the squareness of the bed with the rest of the frame.</p>
<p>If you find you're having to re-level often, something is wrong with your printer. You may have play in the Z-axis/gantry - on Ender 3 style printers with only one side driven, the undriven side tends to wander up/down unless you get everything tensioned perfectly, and this manifests as apparent loss of leveling. You may have <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amc62eX9ok8" rel="nofollow noreferrer">adjustment wheels working themselves loose</a> (watch the end to see final findings) that mess up your leveling (I've had good luck mitigating that with <a href="https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/115938-ender-3-bed-leveling-wheel-clips" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this add-on</a>). You may have an unreliable endstop switch (mine was acting up recently after years of use, and replacing it fixed the problem entirely).</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-03-10T00:34:37.720Z
Also platform thicknesses vary a bit, especially if you have different platforms or sometimes use tape and sometimes not.
user10489
CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-03-09T21:56:56.387Z
2022-03-09T21:56:56.387Z
R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE
<p>Why? To provide a 2D  <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plane_(geometry)" rel="nofollow noreferrer">plane</a> of the build surface that is parallel to the nozzle at the whole print area (usually the X-Y plane). If not, this leads to problems in getting the first layer to adhere to the build surface (see the many questions on &quot;leveling&quot; on this and other sites).</p>
<p>Please note that for good quality printers the tramming is performed very seldomly. My CoreXY home built and my Ultimaker 3E are trammed once every few hundred prints! Usually as a result of misuse like in pulling of the print when it is still sticking too much to the plate. It is the quality of the printer and the handling of the user that determines how often this should be done, but it has to be done at least one time to establish that 2D plane.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-03-10T06:50:18.480Z
2022-03-10T06:50:18.480Z
0scar
<p>In addition to the answers above, you can have perfect levelling for one filament that doesn't work with another.</p>
<p>So for instance my normal PLA works perfectly at one bed level, yet if I change to the generic silk I have it won't adhere unless I change the bed height fractionally. The differences are tiny but are make or break changes.</p>
<p>Copper PLA filament is slightly different to both in terms of getting a nice first layer.</p>
<p>ABS also requires slightly tighter bed levelling on my printer.</p>
<p>So while I rarely change bed levelling, I do if I'm changing filament. But quite often I don't bother with the whole levelling thing, I just adjust the knobs while the skirt is printing.</p>
<p>This is from my experience, your mileage may differ.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-03-13T06:00:03.280Z
2022-03-13T06:00:03.280Z
Kilisi
<p>In every 3D print that I have seen, the bed should be leveled (manually or with some sensor-based system) on multiple points, pretty annoying because often when you reach the perfect distance on a point another point should be adjusted again repeating the procedure multiple time to have perfect leveling on all points.</p>
<p>I'm wondering why height isn't just fixed with the optimal leveling.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2022-03-11T12:15:58.457Z
There are printers leveled in the factory: https://www.silhouetteamerica.com/featured-product/alta-plus they level the bed (well, the print head in fact) for you once and you likely won't need to do it again.
FarO
<bed-leveling>
Why should the bed be leveled and isn't just fixed optimally?
AndreaF
# Why should the bed be leveled and isn't just fixed optimally?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2022-03-09)

In every 3D print that I have seen, the bed should be leveled (manually or with some sensor-based system) on multiple points, pretty annoying because often when you reach the perfect distance on a point another point should be adjusted again repeating the procedure multiple time to have perfect leveling on all points.

I'm wondering why height isn't just fixed with the optimal leveling.

**Tags:** bed-leveling
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: There are printers leveled in the factory: https://www.silhouetteamerica.com/featured-product/alta-plus they level the bed (well, the print head in fact) for you once and you likely won't need to do it again.  

---

## 3 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2022-03-09. Score: 3 | Accepted answer

The point of "leveling" (tramming) the bed is to make it:

1. square with the coordinate system of the printer so that it lies in a plane perpendicular to the direction of Z travel, and
2. a known distance from the nozzle tip at one point (and thus, due to (1), all points) in the plane at any given Z value.

In theory, if the machine were all preassembled and sufficiently/perfectly rigid, this could be done once at the factory and never need leveling again. However, even if that were possible, there's at least one factor that will throw you off: you're going to want to swap/replace nozzles, and they will not all be exactly the same length - especially if you use different nozzle diameters, styles, materials, from different manufacturers, etc. This is why, even with an ABL system, unless it performs probing using the nozzle tip itself, you always have to calibrate out the offset between the probe and the nozzle tip.

In practice, many machines (especially affordable ones) require final assembly by the consumer, which necessitates calibration. They also have parts which can warp or wear and require adjustment - especially POM V-roller wheels - which will then throw off the squareness of the bed with the rest of the frame.

If you find you're having to re-level often, something is wrong with your printer. You may have play in the Z-axis/gantry - on Ender 3 style printers with only one side driven, the undriven side tends to wander up/down unless you get everything tensioned perfectly, and this manifests as apparent loss of leveling. You may have [adjustment wheels working themselves loose](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Amc62eX9ok8) (watch the end to see final findings) that mess up your leveling (I've had good luck mitigating that with [this add-on](https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/115938-ender-3-bed-leveling-wheel-clips)). You may have an unreliable endstop switch (mine was acting up recently after years of use, and replacing it fixed the problem entirely).

> **Comments:**
> **username_3**: Also platform thicknesses vary a bit, especially if you have different platforms or sometimes use tape and sometimes not.  

---

### Answer by username_4 on 2022-03-10. Score: 2

Why? To provide a 2D [plane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plane_(geometry)) of the build surface that is parallel to the nozzle at the whole print area (usually the X-Y plane). If not, this leads to problems in getting the first layer to adhere to the build surface (see the many questions on "leveling" on this and other sites).

Please note that for good quality printers the tramming is performed very seldomly. My CoreXY home built and my Ultimaker 3E are trammed once every few hundred prints! Usually as a result of misuse like in pulling of the print when it is still sticking too much to the plate. It is the quality of the printer and the handling of the user that determines how often this should be done, but it has to be done at least one time to establish that 2D plane.


---

### Answer by username_5 on 2022-03-13. Score: 0

In addition to the answers above, you can have perfect levelling for one filament that doesn't work with another.

So for instance my normal PLA works perfectly at one bed level, yet if I change to the generic silk I have it won't adhere unless I change the bed height fractionally. The differences are tiny but are make or break changes.

Copper PLA filament is slightly different to both in terms of getting a nice first layer.

ABS also requires slightly tighter bed levelling on my printer.

So while I rarely change bed levelling, I do if I'm changing filament. But quite often I don't bother with the whole levelling thing, I just adjust the knobs while the skirt is printing.

This is from my experience, your mileage may differ.


---

