Update: I’ve been using the TPU spacers for 6 months and they are still working great. I have not adjusted anything, my first layers are great, not issues whatsoever. I’ve noticed that some think that you require a stiff spacers for the strain sensors to work correctly. That is not my experience. Instead, it seems that the probing is more sensitive with the softer spacers.

This is a simple spacer I used to allow for manually tramming the Creality K1’s bed. Its printed out of TPU.

With this mod, I greatly reduced my bed mesh variation to around 0.1.

I have tested this mod for about a month now. That includes printing ABS many times with a bed temperature of 110C and heat soaking the printer to ~60C. Through all of that, the bed has not moved any significant amount. If my bed mesh does change when measured at the same temperature, its because something like a hair or wisp of plastic got between build-plate and the magnet.

TPU is one the most temperature resistant materials we print with. For our purposes, it will maintain enough stiffness up to ~150C where it will start to melt.

Note: the TPU spacers will compression set (they will permanently deform) when compressed a significant amount (like I suggest below). This is typical of most materials and is fine as along as you do not try to adjust the bed by unscrewing the bed screws. Instead, only adjust by compressing the spacers further. This way, the you will always have adequate compression.

It’s a pretty simple mod as we are just replacing the M4 screws and nylon standoffs with longer M4 bolts, M4 nyloc nuts, M4 washers, and TPU spacers.

Edit: You may wish try to cutting the magnet on the bed sheet with a utility knife. In fact, its likely to be easier. I had an extra magnetic sticker and I didn't want to scratch the bed. So, I cut the magnet before placing it on the bed. The instructions that follow are based on that.

The bill of materials is as follows:

• Magnetic sticker if you would rather not cut the magnet on the bed
• 4 TPU spacers – 9mm OD, 4.4mm ID, 12mm high (or possibly a little higher) printed with 100% infill
• 4 M4 x 25mm countersunk screws (ideally socket-head).
• 4 M4 nyloc nuts
• 4 M4 washers

The steps are pretty self-explanatory but there are a few tips that can help

If you are going to cut the existing sticker, feel for the holes, cut the holes with a utility knife, and skip steps 1, and 5, and . If you are using a new sticker, start at step 1

1. Remove the existing magnetic sticker if you are using a new sticker.

2. Remove the existing screws that attach to nylon standoffs.

3. Remove the standoffs.

4. *Optional, you can remove the bed. I did not. If you want to, see the following link:

(98) Service tutorial K1 the hotbed replacement - YouTube

5. Cut the holes in the new magnetic sticker and stick it on the bed.

6. Loosely reattach the bed using the TPU standoffs, the washers, and the M4 nyloc nuts. You will need a wrench and a screwdriver or Allen key.

7. Snug the assembly together then tighten the screws/nuts 1 or 2 full turns. This will compress the TPU spacers between 0.7 and 1.4 mm depending on what you choose. I prefer the two full turns as it ensures that spacers get stiff enough. However, you may prefer to use1 full turn for extra adjustment.

If you started with 12mm spacers and compress the spacer with 2 full turns of the screw, you now have 10.6mm high spacers. The original standoffs were 10mm high. Thus, you can adjust the bed level at least 0.6mm in each corner before getting back to the original standoff distance. You can compress the spacers to be shorter than 10mm but I don’t know the height where problems could occur

8. Add the build plate and run a auto bed levelling cycle to see what needs to be adjusted.

9. Tighten the screws to adjust the bed and remeasure.

You can calculate how much you need to tighten a screw by using the M4 screw pitch of 0.7mm (the travels 0.7mm for every rotation). For example, say you want to adjust one corner down 0.2mm. The calculation would be: (0.2/0.7)(360)=102 degrees.

So you would need to tighten the screw by just a little over 90 to the get the adjustment you want.

Do not adjust the bed height by decompressing the spacers (i.e. loosening the screws).

This mod could certainly be improved. For example, there may be better dimensions for the standoffs as I only tried two sets of standoffs and I was happy with 9mm OD and 12mm length. Also, some adjustments knobs might be nice. They aren't necessary though.

Rick