Getting Started With the Ender-5-Pro - an Guide

Hopefully your Ender 5 is fully assembled and maybe even ready to print. But, we'll just go with assembled here. This is the full guide to learn how to print properly.

Thanks to JLCPCB for helping me out with my PCB´s all the time!

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1. Ender-5-Pro
2. Filament (In my case the Ultrafuse 1,75mm Filament from BASF)

Z-Axis

Having a good first layer is crucial to having a good final print. If your nozzle is too close to the bed, your first layer will be squished and possibly destroyed, meaning you’ll have to cancel your print. Meanwhile, if your nozzle is too far away from the bed, your print will lack adhesion and likely fail.

You can improve your first layer by tuning the Z offset. This is a value that essentially tells your printer how far to move the Z-axis from the Z endstops – in other words, from the bed.

The goal, in a nutshell, is for your first layer to stick perfectly to the bed. If you see that your first layer is squished or that the nozzle digs into it, you should increase the Z offset. On the other hand, if your first layer is peeling up from the bed, then you want to lower the Z offset.

Steppers

3D printers use stepper motors, which rotate by small steps in order to move axes or the extruder a certain distance. For example, if one rotation is 100 steps, then the motor must rotate 50 steps in order to turn half of a rotation. This allows for very precise rotation control.

For a 3D printer, calibrating your stepper motors involves determining the relationships between steps and distance. In order to calibrate the extruder, you’ll need to make sure that your 3D printer is extruding the right amount. To do this, you will have to send a few G-code commands to your printer.

After calibrating the extruder, it’s also important to calibrate the axes of the printer. Calibrating the axes is similar to calibrating the extruder, but requires that you actually print something.

Please keep in mind that calibrating the extruder should always be done before the axes because the former can affect the size of printed objects. As the axes calibration involves measuring prints, you want to make sure the extruder is adjusted beforehand.

For the axes calibration, you can print a small cube, for example. Either design one yourself in the CAD software of your choice, such as OpenSCAD, or check out the models in The Best 3D Printer Calibration Cubes of 2022.

After the cube has finished printing, measure each dimension. For each axis, repeat the computation you did for the extruder, D = 10*A / (B – C), but replace the variables as follows:

• (B – C) with your measurement
• the number 10 with the target value of that measurement
• A with the M92 value for that axis (i.e. the values you noted in Step 1 after sending the command M503)

Then, send the appropriate M92 commands to the printer, again replacing E by the letter corresponding to the axis you need to set.

Suppose our cube is supposed to be 20 mm on each side but we measure 20.30 mm in the X-direction. If our M92 value for X was set to 100.00, then we would update this value by sending our printer the command M92 X98.52 because 20*100 / 20.30 = 98.52.

As with the extruder, it helps to make multiple measurements and take their average. In this case, however, you don’t need to print multiple objects. You can simply measure the cube at different positions (along the same axis).

Cura now contains standard profiles for many 3D printers from various manufacturers. These profiles are a very good starting point for most printers.

Settings > Printer > Add Printer...

A window then opens in which networked or offline printers can be connected. Under the option “Add a non-networked printer” you will find the different profiles.

At the time of this writing, you can find default profiles for the Ender 5 and Ender 5 Plus. However, the Ender 5 Pro hardly differs from the Ender 5 in its Cura settings. All its dimensions are the same, it only has a few upgrades. Due to the other extruder, the settings for the feed or retraction could be different. More on that later.

But since every 3D printer and filament is different, you should calibrate your printer-filament combination anyway. To get the perfect temperature, speed, and retraction settings, there are many test objects on platforms like Thingiverse.

The perfect Ender 5 (Plus/Pro) Cura profile for PLA:

Layer thickness: 0.12 mm

Filling / Infill: 20%

Printing temperature: 200°C

Print bed temperature: 60 °C

Print Speed: 60mm/s

Indentation: 6 mm at 40 mm/s

First Layer Speed: 30mm/s

Initial fan speed: 0%

The layer thickness determines how detailed the surface of your 3D print will be. The smaller the layer thickness, the higher the print resolution.

However, since the pressure takes longer the smaller the layer thickness is set, you have to decide for yourself where you find the right balance. Fast and coarse, or slow and fine?

The best layer thicknesses for the Ender 5 (Plus/Pro):

• 0.12mm (fine detail, slow)
• 0.16mm
• 0.20mm
• 0.28 mm (low details, fast)

As you may have noticed, these values ​​are all multiples of 0.04. This is because the built-in Z-axis stepper motor changes the height by 0.04mm for each step. So if you create your own profile, the layer thickness should be a multiple of this in order to achieve the best results.

The maximum layer thickness with a standard 0.4 mm nozzle is 0.3 mm according to the 25%-75% rule. The minimum layer thickness is therefore 0.1 mm.

The profiles given above are therefore already very well distributed over this area. If you want to test the limits of your Ender 5, you can try the 0.08 mm layer thickness.

filling / infill

The filling density, or the infill, determines how much material is inside the 3D print. This allows you to adjust the stability to your purposes. These settings do not depend on the 3D printer you use, only on your components.

If you are printing objects that are primarily for decorative purposes, you can print with an infill of 5-10%.

For standard objects, 20% has proven to be a good guideline. But if you need stronger mechanical properties, you should set it somewhere between 20 and 60%. In extreme cases you can also print completely solid with 100% infill.

Best filling / infill for the Ender 5 (Plus/Pro):

Decoration: 10%

Default: 20%

Stable: 40%

When making your settings, however, bear in mind that higher filling densities also mean longer printing times. So you need to find the balance of strength, print time, and material usage that works best for you and what the object will be used for.

The pattern for the filling is also important. In Cura you have the choice between different patterns that differ in their stability.

Best infill patterns for the Ender 5 (Plus/Pro):

Decoration: lines, zig zag

Default: Grid, Triangles, Tri-Hexagonal

Stable: Cube, Cube Subdivision, Octet, Gyroid

Complete guide:

3D Printing Infill Guide 👉 Basics, Patterns and Stability

temperature

The print temperature is one of the most important settings in Cura. If you choose the wrong temperature here, various printing errors such as stringing, over- or under-extrusion can occur.

So it is important to set the right temperature for your filament. There are guide values ​​for the various filaments and the manufacturers also specify suitable temperatures for their filaments.

You should stick to these guidelines at the beginning and further optimize from there. The temperature of the nozzle is one of the settings that you should definitely calibrate. The right setting depends not only on the type of filament (PLA/ABS/etc.), but also on the idiosyncrasies of your 3D printer and the specific filament you are using (even different batches of the same product can differ!).

The best printing temperatures for the Ender 5 (Plus/Pro):

• PLA: 200°C
• ABS: 230°C
• PETG: 240°C
• TPU: 220℃

print bed temperature

The print bed temperature also depends on the material used.

In theory, PLA does not require a heated print bed and can be printed at room temperature. However, the print bed adhesion is significantly better if you set temperatures between 50 and 60 °C. With the Ender 5 (Plus/Pro), it's also quite rare that you'll need to use tools like Blue Tape to increase print bed adhesion.

For other materials you need higher temperatures on your print bed to allow for good adhesion. PETG needs about 70 °C and ABS even 110 °C.

If you want to print ABS, you need to know how to avoid warping. The easiest way to avoid this with ABS is a housing for your Ender 5* to keep the ambient air temperature high and homogeneous.

The best print bed temperatures for the Ender 5 (Plus/Pro):

PLA: 55°C

ABS: 110°C

PETG: 70°C

TPU: 50℃

print bed adhesion

The standard built-in print bed of the Ender 5 models offers very good print bed adhesion. However, it is still important that you make the right settings to ensure good print bed adhesion. Once you have found the right settings, tools such as blue tape or special glue sticks* are not necessary.

If the thickness of the first layer is slightly higher than your remaining layers, you can slightly increase the print bed adhesion. With the Ender 5, however, this is usually not necessary. It's a useful tip if you want to improve your grip a bit though.

Much more important are settings for the speeds of the first layers and the use of auxiliary constructions for the print bed adhesion.

If you print the first few layers more slowly, you give the liquid filament more time to bind to the substrate. The slower you print the first layers, the better the print bed adhesion will be. A good value is about half the normal print speed.

In Cura you have the choice between three different auxiliary constructions for the print bed adhesion. You can print a skirt, brim or raft before the actual printing begins.

Brims and rafts print an area of ​​filament on the outside or under the print object. This increases the surface and adhesion. However, these two options are only necessary for extreme cases and have the disadvantage that you have to remove this auxiliary construction from the print object after printing.

With the printing plates of the Ender 5 models, you usually only need a skirt to stimulate the filament flow with a few printed lines around the printed object.

You should set the fan speed of the first layer to 0%. If the first few lines of filament are cooled too much, it can warp and become detached from the print bed.

The best settings for good print bed adhesion on the Ender 5 (Plus/Pro):

1. Thickness of the first layer: 1-2 times the layer thickness of the rest of the object
2. First Layer Speed: 30mm/s
3. Number of slower layers: 4
4. Auxiliary construction: Skirt (brim/raft with very poor adhesion)
5. First layer fan speed: 0%

Just adjust your Settings in Cura and now you´re ready to go! Have a lot of fun!