In this video I want to explain how to calibrate the E-Steps on the Elegoo Neptune 4 and Neptune 4 Pro . But first the question: What exactly are E-Steps and why should they be calibrated? The “E” stands for “extruder” and refers to the steps that the extruder motor has to take in order to extrude a certain amount of filament. You should calibrate this because if the values are stored incorrectly, too much or too little material will be extruded, which can lead to unclean prints. In order to find the correct value for the E-Steps, a measurement must first be carried out . To do this, with the filament inserted, we mark 70 millimeters from the feed of the print head with a pen as a reference point. Next, we preheat the printer's nozzle to 180°C so we can extrude. We can then extrude 50 millimeters of filament using the corresponding menu on the printer display . The extruded 50 millimeters refer to the retracted length. Finally, we now measure the distance between the print head retraction and our marking. If this is exactly 20 millimeters, the printer is correctly calibrated and we don't need to do anything else. Otherwise, we remember the measurement, which in my case is 24 millimeters, for the next step. The parameters are now adjusted via the printer’s web interface. To do this, you must first ensure that the printer has a network connection. The IP address can then be determined via the printer settings as shown. Now we can access the printer's web interface with a PC on the same network to find the configuration there. To do this, simply type the IP that we have already found into the address bar at the top. I just copied it in now. And after a short wait, the web interface loads. In this web interface we go to Configuration on the left and there we find a “printer.cfg” file. This is the file that contains the value we are looking for. And here we look for the sub-item “extruder” here under such a sub-item. And the value we are looking for here is the “rotation_distance”, which we will now recalculate based on this value and our measurements. First, we calculate the actual amount extruded by subtracting our measurement from the marked 70 millimeters. In my case that's 46 millimeters. We then divide the result by the desired 50 millimeters and I get a value of “0.92”. Finally, we have to multiply this value by the previous “rotation_distance” to get the corrected value. Here I come to “28.9”. Interestingly, I got exactly the same value for my Neptune 4 and my Neptune 4 Pro , which could mean that yours might be very similar and the calibration might be worth it. Now that we have calculated the value of “28.9”, we can comment out the old “rotation_distance” here so that we don’t lose it, so that we can look at it at any time and switch back. And copy the value down and here we write the “28.9” that we just calculated. Then we have to save the whole thing and restart it, there is a button at the top for that, then the whole background stuff restarts and we can continue straight away on the printer. It is important that we now have to preheat again because the restart will no longer maintain the temperature. Finally, we can check whether the calibration was successful. To do this, we carry out the measurements from before again. If everything worked out, then when you measure the distance after extrusion, you should get 20 millimeters like I did. If this is not the case, you can repeat the whole thing again. Ultimately, it can be said that calibrating the E-Steps definitely makes sense, as it can increase the print quality. In my case I had to use the E-Steps on both the Neptune 4 and the Neptune 4 Pro adjust by 8%, which says that calibration definitely makes a difference. Otherwise, I hope that I was able to help with the video and I would be happy about a subscription so that you don't miss anything.
