TMC Autotune

Quieter, Cooler Steppers (TMC Autotune)

OpenKE has a built-in TMC Autotune screen (Tune → TMC Autotune) that re-tunes your stepper drivers from the motor type — quieter motion, cooler drivers, and a touch smoother surface, applied automatically on every boot. You pick the motor and a goal from two dropdowns and tap Save. No tuning math, no datasheets.

The OpenKE installer sets up everything this needs, so on a normal install the button is already enabled — skip to Pick your motors and tune. If your button is greyed out, the section just below explains why and how to fix it in one step.

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If the button is greyed out

Autotuning is done by a small Klipper add-on that doesn't come with Creality's firmware. OpenKE checks for it at startup — specifically klippy/extras/motor_database.cfg — and only un-greys the button when it's present. The installer puts it there for you, so normally it's enabled.

If it's still greyed out, you either declined the print-quality mods at install time, or a firmware update wiped them. The fix is one step: re-run the OpenKE installer, answer Y at the mods prompt (it's safe to run again), then Restart Klipper. Done. (If it shuts down with a serialqueue … NoneType error, that's a harmless KE restart race — just restart once more, see Troubleshooting.)

A couple of things this is not:

• It is not related to TMC Metrics (the live driver dashboard) — separate button, separate feature. You don't need metrics enabled.
• It does not need a print running. Autotune works at idle.

(Want to know exactly what the installer placed, or set it up by hand? See Set it up manually at the bottom.)

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Will this actually help me? (Honest answer for the KE)

Yes, but moderately. The Ender-3 V3 KE uses TMC2208 drivers on X, Y, and Z. The 2208 supports the chopper-timing and stealthChop/PWM tuning that autotune computes from the motor specs — so you will get quieter, cooler, slightly smoother motors. That part is real.

What the 2208 doesn't have is CoolStep and StallGuard (those are 2209-and-up features). So:

• You won't see a "Sensorless Threshold" field on the KE. The panel only shows it for drivers that support StallGuard (2209/2130/2240/2660/5160); on the 2208 it's hidden. So you've nothing to set there.
• Don't expect a transformative change. Think "noticeably calmer and cooler," not "a different printer."

If your motors are already quiet and you have no thermal concerns, this is a nice-to-have, not a must-do.

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Before you start

• ⏱️ Time: about 10 minutes. Most of it is one paste and a restart.
• 🧰 You need: the printer on your network and a computer. No tools, no disassembly, no print.
• ↩️ Safe to try: everything here is reversible (see Undoing it) and changes nothing about how your printer moves until you pick a motor and tap Save.

⚠️ One important warning — read this

This add-on lives in the printer's system files. A Creality firmware update will erase it. Not a disaster — redoing it takes a couple of minutes — but it's why you should bookmark this page. After any firmware update, see After a firmware update at the bottom.

What this guide was tested on

Printer	Creality Ender-3 V3 KE
Firmware	V1.1.0.15
Drivers	TMC2208 on X / Y / Z (extruder is not TMC)
Interface	Mainsail (Fluidd works too)

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What the installer did

When you ran the OpenKE installer and said Y to the print-quality mods, it copied the autotune add-on (three files) into Klipper and shipped the [guppy_config_helper] line that lets the on-screen Save button work. No SSH, no downloads — the Tune → TMC Autotune button is enabled and the screen lists each stepper (X, Y, Z) with two dropdowns.

Which add-on? OpenKE vendors evgarthub/klipper_tmc_autotune_k1 — a version of the popular Klipper TMC Autotune adapted for the Creality K1/KE. The stock upstream assumes a Raspberry Pi layout and won't load cleanly on the KE.

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Pick your motors and tune

For each axis, choose the Motor from the dropdown, then a Tuning Goal, then tap Save/Restart.

Recommended on the KE (these are the stock motors):

Stepper	Motor	Tuning Goal
stepper_x	creality-42-34	performance
stepper_y	creality-42-34	performance
stepper_z	creality-42-40	silent

The Tuning Goal dropdown has four choices:

• auto (the default) — picks for you based on the motor: performance for X/Y, silent for Z. On the KE this lands on exactly the recommended table above, so auto is a perfectly good "just do the right thing" choice.
• performance — spreadCycle at all speeds (crisp, accurate motion, a bit more audible). Good for the moving X/Y.
• silent — stealthChop at all speeds (quietest). Ideal for the Z lead-screw, which doesn't need the precision.
• autoswitch — experimental. Runs stealthChop at low speed and switches to spreadCycle once the motor moves fast enough. The idea is "quiet when slow, strong when fast." It's flagged experimental in the add-on and isn't needed on the KE — stick with auto/performance/silent unless you're deliberately experimenting.

You'll see just the two dropdowns per axis — there's no "Sensorless Threshold" field on the KE, because the 2208 drivers don't have StallGuard (the panel hides it).

Tap Save/Restart. Klipper writes your choice into its auto-save block, restarts, and applies the tuned driver registers. From now on it re-applies them automatically on every boot — set once and forget.

The motor names come from the bundled motor database. If you've swapped to non-stock motors, pick the closest match in the dropdown (or look your motor up in motor_database.cfg).

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Undoing it

To turn a single axis back to stock, open its entry on the screen, set Motor back to "Not Configured," and tap Save/Restart — OpenKE removes that [autotune_tmc] section for you.

To remove the add-on entirely, over SSH:

rm /usr/share/klipper/klippy/extras/autotune_tmc.py \
   /usr/share/klipper/klippy/extras/motor_constants.py \
   /usr/share/klipper/klippy/extras/motor_database.cfg

…then delete any [autotune_tmc ...] sections from printer.cfg (they may live in the #*# auto-save block at the bottom) and FIRMWARE_RESTART. The button goes back to greyed-out, and your drivers return to Creality's defaults.

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After a firmware update

A Creality firmware update wipes the three add-on files (they live on the system partition). Putting it back takes a couple of minutes: re-run the OpenKE installer and answer Y at the mods prompt, then FIRMWARE_RESTART. Your motor/goal choices are stored in printer.cfg, so they come back on their own — just open Tune → TMC Autotune to confirm.

Bookmark this page and revisit it after every Creality firmware update.

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Set it up manually (advanced)

The installer does all of this for you. If you'd rather do it by hand (or you want to know exactly what the installer changed), here are the steps. Over SSH (ssh root@<printer-ip>):

1. Install the add-on — three files into Klipper's add-on folder:

BASE="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/evgarthub/klipper_tmc_autotune_k1/main"
DEST="/usr/share/klipper/klippy/extras"
for f in autotune_tmc.py motor_constants.py motor_database.cfg; do
  wget --no-check-certificate "$BASE/$f" -O "$DEST/$f"
done

All three are required; motor_database.cfg is read automatically (no [include] needed).

2. Enable the Save button — add [guppy_config_helper] on its own line to /usr/data/printer_data/config/GuppyScreen/guppy_cmd.cfg (OpenKE now ships this by default, so you may already have it). Without it, the on-screen Save fails with "Unknown command".

3. Restart — Restart Klipper (Mainsail → Restart, or FIRMWARE_RESTART). The button lights up. If Klipper shuts down with a serialqueue error on the first try, restart once more — it's a harmless KE host-MCU race (Troubleshooting).

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Troubleshooting

• Button still greyed out — Klipper didn't load the add-on. Re-run the installer (answer Y at the mods prompt) and FIRMWARE_RESTART. If it persists, check the Klipper log for an error mentioning autotune_tmc or motor_constants.
• Tapping Save does nothing / "Unknown command _GUPPY_SAVE_CONFIG" — [guppy_config_helper] is missing from GuppyScreen/guppy_cmd.cfg. Re-running the installer adds it; then restart.
• Config error about motor_constants — you have autotune_tmc.py but not motor_constants.py (e.g. a partial manual install). Re-run the installer, which copies all three.
• Where's the Sensorless Threshold field? — it isn't shown on the KE. OpenKE only displays it for drivers with StallGuard (2209 and up); the KE's TMC2208 drivers don't have it, so the panel hides it. Nothing's broken — there's just nothing to set there.