CTC A10S Amazing & Stupidly Overcomplicated Bed Leveling Knob Assembly

thingiverse

My CR-10 knock-off printer, listed as a CTC A10S, are sold with various levels of dysfunction, and built from a variety of defective and unbelievably bad parts. I do believe the one I purchased is the worst build quality of any out there. That said, Creality did such an outstanding job with the CR-10 that 3rd parties can duplicate them using the cheapest, poorest quality components available, and they're still able to print beautifully with a little bit of elbow grease. I say that my CTC A10S is the worst I've seen because it's the only one I've seen that shipped with nylon drive rollers on the X & Y stepper motors, and a steel, rather than aluminum heated bed. One of the biggest problems I encountered with this printer were the bed leveling knobs. I see people complaining about the small bed leveling knobs that shipped with the original Creality machines, which is understandable. A 300x300mm bed takes some work to level, and keep leveled. At least Creality used actual nylon knobs with brass inserts that wouldn't disintegrate as soon as you attempted to use them. The knobs that came with my A10S were not knobs at all, but rather 3mm steel nuts with a bit of plastic melted on to them. These knobs are approximately 2mm thick. The bit of plastic melted on to these 3mm nuts is in the shape of a flower with 8 tiny pedals reaching an overall diameter of 17mm. So basically, its a 2mm thick 17mm wide disc with 8 tiny bulges. As soon as you attempt to turn one, the plastic falls off of the nut. There's a "Precision thumbwheel" design by user "T23lol", thing:3490397 which is for the CTC A10s. Unfortunately, his CTC A10S is of a better quality than mine. I can see that his A10S has an aluminum bed, and his model is made to fit a knob measuring 18.3mm with many more spokes than the turds that came on my printer. If you have a better quality CTC A10S, his thumbwheels are probably what you'll be after. The thumbwheels I came up with are in 3 different pieces. In order to keep my knobs in one piece during bed leveling, I had to make my nuts captive. The three parts for my model include the knob itself, which the "knobs" my printer shipped with fit into, then there is the insert that snaps in over the nut keeping it captive, and there is a spacer that sandwiches between the assembled captive nut, and the frame for the bed. I hope it makes more sense from the photographs then what I just described... I think anybody would have difficulty understanding what I'm describing without having encountered this themselves. This part has been working flawlessly for me since Christmas, and I see no reason it shouldn't continue to work for me indefinitely, but I did still order a set of Creality style oversized thumbwheels with brass inserts when I ordered my aluminum drive rollers. I'll be getting rid of these turds as soon as the new thumbwheels arrive. I thought I'd post this here because while I'm quite certain I have the worst quality CR-10 clone sold, I may not be the only one. Perhaps my efforts can benefit others after they've serve me no more. This is definitely a niche part, but hopefully somebody can get some use out of it.