Adaptive Print Setup

Adaptive Meshing + Purge Line

OpenKE makes your printer smarter about bed preparation before each print:

• Adaptive meshing — instead of mapping the whole 220×220 mm bed every time, it maps only the area your actual print footprint covers. Faster, and the points are denser where it matters. Uses Klipper's own native adaptive meshing under the hood, ported onto the KE's Klipper.
• Auto purge line — draws a clean purge line right next to the print, so the nozzle is primed and clean for the first move.

These are independent — you can use either one on its own. The simplest way in is the single START_PRINT macro (see Step 2), which calls all three and lets you skip any one with a flag; if you want more control you can also call ADAPTIVE_BED_MESH_CALIBRATE/SMART_PARK/LINE_PURGE yourself and drop the ones you don't want — e.g. skip LINE_PURGE entirely if your slicer already draws its own purge/skirt, or skip SMART_PARK if you don't care where the nozzle parks while heating.

Do Axis Twist Compensation first if you have left-right unevenness. Adaptive meshing relies on accurate probing; there's no point in a denser mesh if the probe readings are skewed.

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Before you start

• ⏱️ Time: ~15 minutes (most of it is one slicer config change).
• 🧰 You need: the printer, Mainsail/Fluidd in a browser, and your slicer.
• ↩️ Safe to try: fully reversible — see Undoing it.

⚠️ These changes live in the printer's system files. A Creality firmware update will erase them. Re-run the OpenKE installer afterwards and they come back.

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Step 1 — Make sure it's installed

The OpenKE installer drops this in during the print-quality mods step. To verify, check Mainsail's Machine tab for a GuppyScreen/modules/ folder (with Adaptive_Meshing.cfg, Line_Purge.cfg, Smart_Park.cfg, Start_Print.cfg inside) plus GuppyScreen/Settings.cfg. If they're there, you're good — jump to Step 2.

If not, re-run the installer and answer Y at the print-quality mods prompt. If you previously had KAMP installed (an older OpenKE version vendored it directly), the installer detects it, carries over any settings you'd customized, and removes the old files automatically — nothing to do by hand.

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Step 2 — Tell your slicer to use it (OrcaSlicer)

This is triggered from your slicer's Machine start G-code. Nothing works until this is set.

In OrcaSlicer, go to your printer profile → Machine G-code → Machine start G-code.

First, enable Label Objects in your print settings (Orca: Others tab → tick Label Objects). The adaptive macros use the object labels to know the print footprint.

🎁 Bonus: the same Label Objects setting also enables Exclude Object — if a print starts failing partway through, you can drop the failed piece and let the rest keep printing. One setting, two features.

There are two ways to wire it up: the one-line START_PRINT macro (recommended for most people), or calling the three macros yourself if you want more control over the sequence. Pick one — don't do both.

Option A — START_PRINT (recommended)

One macro does the whole sequence: home, heat the bed, mesh, heat the nozzle, park, purge. Set your Machine start G-code to:

START_PRINT BED_TEMP=[bed_temperature_initial_layer_single] EXTRUDER_TEMP=[nozzle_temperature_initial_layer] BRIM_WIDTH=[brim_width]

BED_TEMP= and EXTRUDER_TEMP= are required — START_PRINT raises a clear error and aborts the print if either is missing, rather than silently heating to 0°C. BRIM_WIDTH= is optional (defaults to 0 if left off); passing it lets the mesh/park/purge margin grow automatically to clear that print's actual brim, the same way MARGIN= works for the individual macros below.

Don't want one of the three steps? Add SKIP_MESH=1, SKIP_PARK=1, and/or SKIP_PURGE=1:

START_PRINT BED_TEMP=[bed_temperature_initial_layer_single] EXTRUDER_TEMP=[nozzle_temperature_initial_layer] SKIP_PURGE=1

Option B — call the macros yourself

More lines, but full control over the exact sequence (custom moves between steps, a different order, etc.). Set your Machine start G-code to:

M140 S[bed_temperature_initial_layer_single]   ; start heating bed (don't wait)
M104 S[nozzle_temperature_initial_layer]       ; start heating nozzle (don't wait)
G28                                             ; home all axes
ADAPTIVE_BED_MESH_CALIBRATE MARGIN={brim_width + 5}    ; mesh just the print area (+ your brim)
M190 S[bed_temperature_initial_layer_single]   ; wait for bed to reach temp
SMART_PARK MARGIN={brim_width + 10}             ; park next to the print while heating
M109 S[nozzle_temperature_initial_layer]       ; wait for nozzle temp
LINE_PURGE MARGIN={brim_width + 10}             ; purge a line beside the print

The exact temperature token names can vary slightly across Orca versions — what matters is the order: home → mesh → wait for temps → purge. Don't wait for temps before meshing; a cold bed expands slightly as it heats, and you want the mesh taken at printing temperature.

💡 MARGIN=/BRIM_WIDTH= are optional. [brim_width] is OrcaSlicer's own per-print brim setting — passing it means the mesh/park/purge margin automatically grows to clear whatever brim that specific print actually has, instead of you guessing a fixed value. No brim on a print? brim_width is 0, so it just falls back to a small fixed buffer. Leave it off entirely and each macro uses its Settings.cfg default (variable_mesh_margin / variable_purge_margin) instead — plain slicers without a brim_width placeholder (Cura, PrusaSlicer use different token names — check your slicer's docs) should do that.

Either option: if Label Objects isn't ticked (or your slicer didn't write object labels for some other reason), the adaptive mesh doesn't fail or stop your print — it just prints "No objects detected! ... Defaulting to regular meshing" in the console and falls back to a normal full-bed mesh. Worst case you lose the "adaptive" speed-up for that one print; nothing breaks.

Using a different slicer (Cura, PrusaSlicer, SuperSlicer)

The G-code above is Orca-flavoured, but none of this cares which slicer sends it — only that object labels are present and the order (home → mesh → wait for temps → purge) is right. The setting names differ:

Slicer	Equivalent of "Label Objects"	Where to add the start G-code
Cura	Exclude Objects is built in and always labels objects — nothing to enable	Printer Settings → Start G-code
PrusaSlicer / SuperSlicer	Label objects checkbox, Print Settings → Output options	Printer Settings → Custom G-code → Start G-code

Swap the bracketed tokens ([bed_temperature_initial_layer_single], [brim_width], etc.) for whatever your slicer's own placeholder syntax is — check its start G-code documentation or an existing default profile for the exact names. The macro calls themselves (START_PRINT, ADAPTIVE_BED_MESH_CALIBRATE, SMART_PARK, LINE_PURGE) are identical no matter which slicer sends them.

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Optional — denser mesh

This works fine with the stock 5×5 grid, but a 9×9 gives smoother compensation. If you want it, open printer.cfg in Mainsail and update your [bed_mesh] section to:

[bed_mesh]
speed: 350
horizontal_move_z: 8
mesh_min: 5,10
mesh_max: 215,215
probe_count: 9,9
algorithm: bicubic
fade_start: 1
fade_end: 10

Don't add zero_reference_position or relative_reference_index — they either aren't supported on the KE or conflict with adaptive meshing. Remove them if a config you copied has them.

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Optional — further tuning

Settings.cfg (Mainsail Machine tab, in GuppyScreen/) has more variables than most people ever touch, but they're there if you want to adjust the defaults:

Variable	Controls
variable_mesh_margin	Extra margin added around the print footprint before meshing
variable_purge_height	Z height of the purge line
variable_purge_margin	Distance between the purge line and the print
variable_purge_amount	How much filament the purge line uses
variable_tip_distance	Retract distance at the end of the purge
variable_flow_rate	Purge line flow rate
variable_smart_park_height	Z height while parked and waiting to heat

Leave these alone unless you have a specific reason to change one — the defaults work for the KE as shipped. They're also just the fallback: any MARGIN= passed at the macro call (see Step 2) wins for that call, and only falls back to variable_mesh_margin/variable_purge_margin if you don't pass one.

⚠️ Supports still aren't counted in the footprint. The polygon your slicer reports per object (via EXCLUDE_OBJECT_DEFINE) is the outline of the model geometry only — it's generated before supports are sliced, and there's no slicer setting that reports "how far supports stick out," so there's nothing to pass as MARGIN= for that case (unlike brim, which is one fixed, known width — see Step 2). If a part needs supports that extend past the model itself, the mesh area or purge line can end up placed right at or under that overhang. There's no automatic fix for this one — pad MARGIN=/variable_mesh_margin/variable_purge_margin a bit further if you print heavily supported parts often.

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Done when

• Your slicer's start G-code calls START_PRINT (Option A), or the individual macros you want (Option B).
• A print starts, and the console shows the mesh running over roughly the print's footprint — not the whole bed — before heating finishes.
• A purge line (if enabled) appears right next to the print, not across the whole bed.

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Undoing it

The easiest path is the uninstaller. By hand:

rm -rf /usr/data/printer_data/config/GuppyScreen/modules \
       /usr/data/printer_data/config/GuppyScreen/Settings.cfg

Then FIRMWARE_RESTART. Remove START_PRINT (or ADAPTIVE_BED_MESH_CALIBRATE, SMART_PARK, and LINE_PURGE) from your slicer start G-code and replace with plain M140/G28/BED_MESH_CALIBRATE/ M104/M109 calls if you still want a full mesh with no adaptive purge/park.

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Where this code actually lives

Unlike most third-party Klipper mods, this isn't a vendored copy of someone else's package anymore. ADAPTIVE_BED_MESH_CALIBRATE delegates to Klipper's own native adaptive meshing (ported onto the KE's older Klipper via a small, targeted patch — see patch_bed_mesh.py); SMART_PARK and LINE_PURGE are OpenKE-maintained macros (originally adapted from KAMP, credited in NOTICE.md); START_PRINT is original OpenKE code that just calls the other three in sequence. Everything lives in k1/k1_mods/klipper_mods/adaptive_print_setup/ if you want to see or adapt it yourself — see Building from Source.

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After a Creality firmware update

Re-run the installer with Y at the print-quality mods prompt. Your slicer start G-code lives on your computer and survives — just double-check it after any OrcaSlicer update too.