firmware/docs/first-print.md

Your first print

If your printer was printing before you flashed, it will print now. The factory numbers came across on the first boot, a bed mesh is loaded at the start of every print, and the mod is built to run the same files the stock firmware ran. There is nothing you have to set up first.

What follows is what is worth doing anyway, the first time, before you leave a long print unattended. None of it is mandatory. All of it is quicker than scraping a failed first layer off the plate.

---

Where everything is

Everything is on the printer's own address:

http://<printer-ip>/	Mainsail
http://<printer-ip>:81/	Fluidd
http://<printer-ip>:7125	Moonraker's API — what slicers upload to
http://<printer-ip>/webcam/	the camera stream (mjpg-streamer on :8080)
ssh root@<printer-ip>	the shell — password from anvil-password.txt

/usr/data/anvil-install.log      what the installer did
/usr/data/logs/anvil-boot.log    services + UI choice at each boot
/usr/data/logs/printer.log       klipper
/usr/data/logs/helixscreen.log   helixscreen
/usr/data/logs/custom-scripts.log custom boot scripts, when configured

They are the first thing to read when something is wrong, and the first thing to quote when you ask on the Discord.

---

Check the offsets are applied

Recommended. Not because it is likely to be wrong, but because this is the one thing that damages the machine when it is, and it costs two minutes.

Before moving anything:

• TOOLCHANGE_STATUS — current tool as derived from the dock sensors, every sensor's state, each tool's nozzle position and z_adjust, station_z, dock coordinates and the derived offsets (offset_z is each tool's absolute bed-frame gap, ~3.2). Check the dock_x/dock_y rows are numbers, not nan.

• TOOL_OFFSET_STATUS — saved calibration per tool and for the station, and a warning if anything is staged but not yet SAVE_CONFIG'd.

• Physical Z check (clean bed, nothing on it):

  G28
  T0
  TOOLCHANGE_SET_PRINT_OFFSET NOZZLE=220 BED=80 LAYER=0.25 TOOL=0
  G1 X150 Y150 F6000
  G1 Z0.1 F600
  

  T0 already applies the ~+3.2 mm gap (watch the gcode Z offset in the UI); the offset command reports the full Z with a term-by-term breakdown, and the nozzle should end up a paper-thickness above the bed at the center. If it presses into the plate instead, STOP — the offset is not being applied; do not print until TOOLCHANGE_STATUS and TOOL_OFFSET_STATUS are clean. Afterwards restore the idle state:

  G1 Z10 F1200
  TOOLCHANGE_PARK                       ; drops the per-tool frame
  TOOLCHANGE_SET_PRINT_OFFSET CLEAR=1   ; and this the job term
  

  SET_GCODE_OFFSET Z=0 is not the way to clear the job term any more: it cannot tell that term from your babystep, so it would take both.

A touchscreen recalibration no longer affects this module. Recalibrate from Klipper instead — XYZ tool calibration — or repeat the import step if you really want the touchscreen's numbers.

---

If something looks off, calibrate

Only if you need it — a machine that measures correctly above does not need this. Run it when the check disagrees with reality, when a tool has been refitted or dropped, or when one tool prints at a different height from the rest.

Re-measuring replaces the factory numbers with your own; it does not repair anything else, and it is not a routine step. Background: Calibration.

Take the PEI sheet off first — the calibration station sits below the bed plane — then home and calibrate:

G28
CALIBRATE_TOOL_OFFSETS
SAVE_CONFIG

Step by step, with every message it can refuse with, and what each refusal means: XYZ tool calibration.

Afterwards, TOOLCHANGE_STATUS and TOOL_OFFSET_STATUS should show a nozzle triple and a dock position for every tool, and nothing should say NOT CALIBRATED.

---

The two verification files

Two G-code files live in gcode/ in the repository. They are not models: they exercise the things a real print depends on, in the order a real print uses them, so a mistake shows up on a bare plate rather than halfway through a job.

Send them the way you send any print — Mainsail's upload, or your slicer's Moonraker target.

File	What it does
creator5-safe-moves.gcode	The whole sequence with the heat and the filament taken out. Nothing extrudes, no heater is given a target, and after homing nothing moves below Z50. It answers whether homing, tool changes and the end sequence behave — before a nozzle can reach the plate.
creator5-feature-test.gcode	The real thing, hot, with two tools: one ring per tool to read XY offsets off the plate, a solid first layer to judge squish, the fan map, a chamber-heater check, and a tower with a tool change on every layer.

Run the safe one first. Each file's own header repeats what it does, so whoever is standing at the machine has it in front of them.

Two refusals are the gates working rather than faults: a complaint that the machine is not calibrated, and "Refusing to home Z: cannot tell whether a tool is mounted", which means the dock switches disagree — run TOOLCHANGE_STATUS and find the one that is lying.

---

A real print

Now slice something small and print it the way you will print everything else: the stock FlashForge profile, uploaded through Mainsail or your slicer's Moonraker target. Stay at the machine for the first one.