What's an extrusion multiplier? How easy is it to calibrate and why the heck do you want to do that anyway? Let's find out. I'm Jim and this is the Edge of Tech. The extrusion multiplier, also known as the flow rate in Kira, is the rate in which your 3D printer will extrude filament. And calibrating this can really help the prints that you're getting off your printer. But first, before doing this, you want to make sure you can calibrate your printer's e-steps before you do this step. And I have a video here if you want to follow that. And this is the second thing in the list of things to do on your hot end, to make sure that it's extruding your filament properly. When we're done with this video, you'll be able to make sure the correct amount of filament is being pushed through that extruder and out your hot end. The first thing you want to do is jump over to 3D Maker Engineering's website and find the flow rate calibration page. They'll be a link in the description below. And you want to download the file, the test file that's right in the center of the page. Then what you want to do is open up your slicer. In my case, I like to use Prusa slicer. And we want to add the test file, the flow rate cube, to your slicer. Once it's added, I want to go up and set this for Vase Mode. So I'll go over and choose Spiral Vase on Kira that's called Spiralized Vase Mode, I believe. And you want to do that, you want to set your Layer Height for 0.2 and go to your Vance tab in Prusa slicer. And you want to set all of these to 1.2 of the size of your nozzle. So if you have a 0.4 nozzle, you want to set those at 0.48. To get this number, all you want to do is take the size of your nozzle and times it times 1.2. I have a 0.4 millimeter nozzle times 1.2. And that gives us 0.48. And that is the line width you want to use when you're doing this Vase Mode Print. Now, if you have a, maybe you have a, I don't know, 0.8 nozzle. If you times that 0.1, 2, that will be 0.96 lined with. In the description below, I'm going to have some of the popular ones, so you can just look and reference there. But that's how you would calculate your line width. So in here, what I want to do is change this to 0.48 for all of these in Prusa slicer. So once all these are set to 0.48, you should be good. The next thing we want to do is make sure our extrusion multiplier is set to 100. So in that case, in Prusa slicer, you go to Filament Settings on the Filament tab here. And look for your extrusion multiplier right here. Now, one is the default. That would be 100. If this was set to 0.8, that would be all less than 100. So what you want to do is set this at 100. So I'm going to do one. And we're going to leave it at one right there. To show you quick, if you want to do this in Kira, what you need to do is grab your file. So I'll just run to my downloads and grab that flow rate cube. There it is. In the side over here, you're going to click on Special Modes. Go to Spiralized Outer Contour. Click that. And then if you scroll back up, your layer height should be 0.2, which is great. And your line width, like we talked about, needs to be 0.48. So if you change the first one, it changes them for all of them right here, which is great. On the wall line count, you want to change this to one if it's not already, to make sure that it only does one wall, and that's 0.48 right there. There should be no tops. We should see 0. And it looks like the bottom layers are going to be 4, which is fine. So we have the point 2 layer height, the point 4, 8 line width, or whatever yours is going to calculate. We have it in Spiralized Mode or Vase Mode and one wall. Now you can hit that Slice button and you're good to go. It looks like it's going to take 23 minutes over here. So we jump back into Prusier Slicer. We're going to slice and print the model now. When the print is complete, you want to grab a caliper. And you want to measure each wall. So when you measure each wall, you'll get a reading right there. You can see that one's about 0.46. And you just want to record that. So I'm going to say 0.46, and I'm going to write down each wall. And then next we'll jump back on the computer. We'll enter these into the website. So do 1, 2, 3, 4. And it doesn't really matter which one you go in as long as you're consistent if you do this again. So in my case, I'm going to do, actually I'm going to do clockwise. We're going to 1, 2, 3, and 4. So we'll see what the other three are and I'll meet you at the computer. So once you have all four measurements, what you want to do is come back to your website, scroll down a little bit, and it'll go through all the steps here as well. And then come to the flow rate calculator. So this, we're going to put number of walls, 1. That's what we used. The Slicer line with is whatever you used. In our case, it was 0.48. We talked about earlier how to get that. You can go by what they have here. This is counterclockwise. I went clockwise. It really does not matter. So what I'm going to do is 0.46. 0.46. Side number two is 0.49. Side number three is 0.47. Side number four is 0.45. So once I entered all of these in, so that means my new flow rate based on what we measured right now was 102%. Now, I highly recommend being careful when you measure because if you squish too hard, you'll get a smaller number. And if you don't fully close the caliper, you'll get a bigger number. So you could manipulate this, but do not press too much into the side walls. Otherwise, you'll get a smaller number and it'll throw your numbers way off. So if your extrusion multiplier changed from 100%, what you want to do is put that new value into the slicer, slice the print again, print it, and then measure. It should now come out properly how you sliced it. So if you have a .4 nozzle, it would be .48 on each one of the walls when you measure it the second time. This mini-jim by Wexger was printed in that atomic indigo golden sparkle filament. And it came out virtually perfect. This might be the best mini-jim I've seen off of a stock 3D printer yet. Now, the flow rate can and will change between filament manufacturers and colors and different types of filament. So it's a good idea to run this test for each new roll of filament you get. It only takes roughly 11 minutes, so it's a very quick test. And when you're done, you can take your filament, a marker, and write to flow rate right on the spool. That's the way I like to do it, but I'm going to be 100% honest with you. I only do this one time per color, per brand of filament. So if I have this full of it black matte, if I write the extrusion multiplier on here, I won't run that again the next time I get a full of it black matte roll. I will use the same one that was on the first roll. So it's really up to you how granular you want to get in this. Some people will do it just one time per brand, and that's fine too if you're getting good prints. If you want to be super detailed and get the best prints possible, grab a roll, run this 10 or 11 minute test, write your new flow rate on the roll, and then every time you grab this roll from now on, you can just dial it in right in your slicer and you're good to go. So that was a quick and easy way to dial in your extrusion multiplier or flow rate if you're in Kira on your 3D printer. But for more ways to troubleshoot or do upgrades on your printer, check this out.