Ender 3 bed levelling guide: manual, V2 glass and V3 SE auto

Getting your first layer right is 90% of the battle on an Ender 3. Nozzle too far from the bed and you get spaghetti. Too close and you grind filament into the surface and block the nozzle. Either way, the print fails.

Here is how to sort it on each variant.

Why the bed keeps drifting

The Ender 3 and V2 use four corner springs to hold the bed at a consistent height. Those springs are soft, and every time the printhead accelerates the whole carriage vibrates. Over a few weeks the adjustment wheels loosen, the springs fatigue, and the level drifts.

Heat cycles make it worse. The bed expands when it reaches printing temperature and contracts again when it cools, slowly working the wheel positions loose. If you are re-levelling before every print on a stock machine, the springs are the most likely culprit.

The V3 SE has a CR Touch probe that measures the actual bed surface before each print and compensates in firmware. That largely solves the problem — but it still needs a correct Z offset to start from, and a dirty probe pin will throw it off.

Before you start

Always level a warm bed. The magnetic PEI sheet or glass plate expands at printing temperature, and a level done cold will be out by the time the bed reaches 60 °C for PLA.

Home the printer first with G28, then bring the bed and nozzle up to your normal printing temperatures. You need a single sheet of standard 80 gsm printer paper — it is about 0.1 mm thick, which gives you a good first-layer gap for most materials.

Levelling the Ender 3 or Ender 3 V2

The process is the same on both models. The V2 shipped with a glass bed rather than a magnetic sheet, but the four-corner spring mechanism is identical.

1. Home the printer (G28), then disable the steppers via the menu so you can slide the head by hand. 2. Move the nozzle to the front-left corner, roughly over the adjustment wheel. 3. Slide the paper under the nozzle. Turn the wheel until you feel light resistance when you drag the paper. You want friction, not a clamp — the paper should move with a gentle tug, not pull free easily. 4. Repeat at front-right, rear-right, and rear-left, in that order. 5. Move to the centre and check the gap. If the centre is noticeably tighter or looser than the corners, the bed may be slightly bowed — more on that below. 6. Do a full second pass around all four corners. The first pass often shifts things slightly. 7. Print a single-layer 100 × 100 mm square as a test. Watch the first layer go down. It should look like a slightly squashed ribbon — glossy on top, no gaps between lines, no curling at the edges.

If the first layer looks fine at the front but thin at the back, or vice versa, work the two rear wheels to correct the tilt before adjusting height.

Levelling the Ender 3 V3 SE

The V3 SE has a CR Touch probe mounted beside the nozzle. Before printing it probes a 5×5 grid of points, builds a mesh of the surface, and compensates Z height on the fly. You stop chasing four knobs every session.

1. Preheat to your normal printing temperature first. 2. Go to Levelling > Auto Levelling. The printer probes all 25 points and saves the mesh. 3. Go to Levelling > Z Offset (sometimes labelled Offset Adjust). 4. Lower the nozzle until a sheet of paper just catches with light resistance. Save the offset. 5. Print a single-layer test square and fine-tune the Z offset live while the first layer runs — the V3 SE firmware lets you adjust this under the tune menu during printing.

If you get a probe failure, wipe the CR Touch pin and the bed surface with isopropyl alcohol. A dirty pin or a greasy surface causes false readings every time.

When the first layer is still inconsistent

You have levelled carefully but the first layer is still uneven across the print. There are three likely causes.

Fatigued springs. Stock springs are soft. After a few months of printing they compress unevenly and the knobs can barely hold position. The fix is cheap — replace them with stiffer yellow or red aftermarket springs (roughly £3–6 on Amazon or AliExpress). Some people replace the springs with silicone spacers entirely; these hold position better and are worth considering if you print frequently.

A warped bed. Most beds have a slight bow, typically higher in the middle. The V3 SE's mesh compensates for this. The Ender 3 and V2 cannot — the paper method averages it at best. A replacement PEI spring-steel sheet from a reputable supplier (Wham Bam, Energetic) tends to be flatter than the stock surface. If the bow is more than about 0.3 mm across the build area, a BLTouch upgrade is worth serious consideration.

An out-of-square frame. If the printer has been moved or partially disassembled, the vertical extrusion can end up slightly tilted. Check it with a set square against the base. A lean twists the entire bed relative to the nozzle path, and no amount of levelling will fix it — you need to physically square the frame first.

Upgrading to automatic levelling on the Ender 3 and V2

If you are tired of re-levelling every few prints on an original Ender 3 or V2, a BLTouch or CR Touch add-on is worth the effort. Kits cost roughly £15–25 and require flashing new firmware — Marlin or Klipper. It is not a five-minute job; expect a couple of hours the first time. But once it is running you get the same mesh compensation the V3 SE ships with, and manual levelling becomes a rarely needed fallback.

Adding a BLTouch also opens the door to Klipper, which gives you input shaping and pressure advance — both noticeably improve print quality once dialled in.

How often do you actually need to level?

Stock Ender 3 or V2 with original springs: before any critical print, and whenever you change materials or build surfaces. With upgraded springs or silicone spacers: once a week, or after moving the printer.

V3 SE with CR Touch: run a fresh auto-level if first-layer problems appear, or after replacing the build surface. The saved mesh holds well between sessions — you do not need to re-probe before every print.

When to get it printed instead

If you have spent more time levelling than actually printing, it is sometimes just easier to send the file to us. We run a Creality K2 Plus and a Bambu A1, both tuned with mesh levelling and dialled in for consistent first layers across the full build plate. Upload your STL or 3MF at harktech.co.uk/printing for an instant quote. Most orders are turned around within a few working days. No printer setup, no spring swapping, no test squares — just upload, approve the quote, and collect your finished parts.