Layer Height Calculator

In short A Z axis moves by a lead screw, and one full motor step moves it by the lead divided by the number of full steps in a revolution. On the ordinary combination — a 1.8° motor with 200 full steps and an 8 mm lead screw — that is exactly 0.04 mm. Layer heights that are a whole number of full steps are the most repeatable, and this tool works out which those are for your own machine rather than reading them off a list. On the standard printer the answer is that 0.12, 0.16, 0.20, 0.24 and 0.28 land on a full step, and 0.05, 0.10, 0.15, 0.25 and 0.30 do not. That includes 0.10 mm, which is one of the two most-used layer heights there is. Here is the qualification that matters more than the finding, and that a great deal of advice online gets wrong: not landing on a full step does NOT mean a height cannot be printed. With 16× microstepping the axis resolves 0.0025 mm and reaches 0.10 exactly. The real claim is much narrower — microstep positioning is not perfectly linear, so full-step multiples tend to be more consistent. Plenty of excellent prints come off at 0.10 mm. Treat this as a tie-breaker between two heights you are already happy with, not as a rule that forbids one. The separate limit that does bite is the nozzle: much above 75 to 80% of the nozzle diameter, a layer cannot be pressed into the one below and adhesion suffers.