Calibrate your printer and filaments in PrusaSlicer
HexCalibr is a set of small calibration tests that you open in PrusaSlicer and print with your own profiles. Every test comes with a guide like this one: how to print it, how to read it, block by block, and which setting to change afterwards.
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It is meant for everyone: the beginner who just wants a filament to print well, and the expert who wants to know what each test really measures. Klipper, Marlin and Prusa printers, single tool and IDEX.
Open every test with File › Open project (Ctrl+O / ⌘O). Never with Import, and never "Import 3D models only" when you drop a file on PrusaSlicer: the shape loads, but the temperature or speed changes that make it a test are silently dropped. Download the single .3mf, not a ZIP.
- Tests, in the recommended order
- 1First layer and Z offset — printer · do it first · not written yet
- 2Temperature tower — filament · the first test for a new filament
- 3Maximum volumetric flow — filament + hotend · after the temperature tower
- 4Pressure advance — filament, per firmware · after the temperature tower
- 5Flow (extrusion multiplier) — filament · after pressure advance · not written yet
- 6Retraction — filament · not written yet
- 7Dimensions, shrinkage and fit — printer + filament · not written yet
- IDEX and multi-tool
- 8IDEX / multi-tool alignment — per tool pair · after VAOC or any offset calibration
What's in release 1
The first public release has four tests. Each comes with a guide, a scorecard and its files on Printables.
- Temperature tower: the nozzle temperature for a filament. Files on Printables (coming soon)
- Maximum volumetric flow: how much plastic per second your hotend can melt. Files on Printables (coming soon)
- Pressure advance: sharp corners and even walls, per filament and firmware. Files on Printables (coming soon)
- IDEX and multi-tool alignment: the XY offset between two toolheads, over the whole bed. Files on Printables (coming soon)
- Coming next: first layer and Z offset, flow (extrusion multiplier), retraction, and dimensions and fit. They are listed in grey in the contents.
- The files are updated often: download them from Printables, not from a re-upload, to get the latest version.
Coming to Printables
What the suite is
Video to come
- Each test is a PrusaSlicer project (.3mf): the test object plus the changes it makes while printing (for example a new temperature at every block).
- The projects contain no printer, filament or print profile. PrusaSlicer keeps yours, so the test prints the way your real parts print.
- Made for PrusaSlicer 2.9 (2.7 is the minimum). For PrusaSlicer 3.x the tests will be prepared as Lua plugins, once its plugin system is stable.
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- The tests are small on purpose: a few grams each, with one variable per test. Big "torture tests" fail for ten reasons at once and teach nothing.
- Every guide tells you what to look at, with photos of a failed and a good result, and which PrusaSlicer setting to change.
Fast path or full path
| Fast path | Full path | |
|---|---|---|
| When | A new filament on a printer that already prints well | A new printer, or after changing hotend, extruder or other hardware |
| Tests | Temperature (if the filament is new to you, prints fast or strings) → pressure advance → flow | Firmware checks → first layer → temperature → max volumetric flow → pressure advance → flow → retraction → dimensions; then the IDEX tests |
| Time | About 35 minutes of printing for the tests available now (temperature and pressure advance) | Each guide gives the time of its test, plus waiting |
| Filament | About 15 g | Each guide gives the grams of its test |
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- Firmware checks are not printed tests: belts, PID tuning, extruder steps (rotation distance) and input shaping are done with your firmware's own tools. Do them before the first layer.
- On an IDEX or multi-tool printer, calibrate each tool's filament on that tool, or at least on the tool you will use.
Why this order
- Follow the contents from top to bottom: each test builds on the ones before it.
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- First layer first: every other test sits on it.
- Temperature before everything else for a filament: flow, pressure advance and retraction all change with temperature.
- Maximum volumetric flow before pressure advance: pressure advance is calibrated at speeds the hotend can really melt.
- Pressure advance before flow: the flow test reads top surfaces, which pressure advance changes.
- Retraction last: good pressure advance often removes most stringing by itself.
- The tests not written yet are listed in grey: they arrive one at a time.