It gets triggered by the aluminum bed. It won’t work far enough away to work through the piece of glass I had on there. It’s about 1.5mm or so away from the bed when it triggers.
What sensor are you using for the MPCNC? A touch plate?
AFAIK, the values it records from the sensing don’t get saved through a power cycle, even if you saved to EEPROM. So you just need to be judicious about it after a power cycle. It doesn’t take that long compared to a print, and I don’t have to babysit it when it’s doing that, so I don’t care if there’s a procedure at the beginning of each print. I guess there’s also the fact that prying off a print might have fucked something up, but that seems difficult to swallow. If you are using octoprint, there is an event for printer connected, and you can run random gcode based on that event, so you could run G28, G29 on printer connect, and then you wouldn’t need it each print.
I have a PEI layer on my MK2 so no glass is not used. I think the probe there is about the thickness of a dime off the bed when Z is 0.
On the MPCNC, I just install a tool bit where the tip is touching the waste board at x0 y0, and then run the manual bed level function on the LCD controller. I have end stops and limit switches on my machine for squaring/homing. It runs through 9 points and I use a piece of paper and jog Z until the paper is pinned and then it moves on to the next point. It saves the settings for all future runs (even after power cycle) ONLY if you go to Control>Save on the LCD.
I’ve found that I have the most control when I use Repetier and the LCD controller. Scripts and command lines are irreplaceable and you can’t do some things without the LCD, like proceed from an M00.
Have you tried saving on the LCD after running the auto bed level? Short of running the “Clear EEPROM” sketch from the Arduino IDE and then re-flashing edited firmware. I can’t get it to save some edited firmware settings just with a re-flash. That clear function was necessary. I learned about the clear function when I loaded the Estlcam controller onto the Arduino thinking the backup function in Estlcam worked.
I haven’t ever tried to save the level values, I read that they can’t be somewhere. Maybe they can. It doesn’t bother me to run it every time because it’s completely automatic.
I believe the LJ12A3-4-Z-AX version is a better choice and essentially the same price. The AX is Normally Closed, the BX Normally Open. I went with a five pack on eBay and ended up paying about $3 each. I’m expecting to use three and have the other two for spares though…
But… My son has been having such a fun time with the V2 build. And I am more than a little nostalgic for this printer, so my thought now is that I will probably take the frame, and reassemble it as a toy for him. I will paint or at least seal it (so his greasy fingers won’t immediately destroy the MDF) and I want to somehow install a wooden bed. I’ll probably just replace the rear motor mount with another bearing.
If he really likes it, or when he’s a bit older, I could go crazy and install an X axis at a set height and make X and Y electronically controlled enough to home and draw a circle or a star, or write his name with a crayon. I’d need to tune the drivers down enough not to smash his fingers if/when he gets in the way. Not today though. The first thing is just to give him something he can play with that’s “his” printer.
IDK who’s still subscribed to this topic, but do you have any good ideas for something simple to add some flair to the project?
Put the Z axis on some springs instead of the lead screws. That way it kinda automatically comes up. Strap on a crayon, move all three axis to draw? As a kid springs < magnets < lasers. That progression happens with age I believe. In a year, make him wind his own electro magnet around a nail and strap it on there…then lasers…then steppers.
All things come to those who wait. Play your cards right and in two years he’ll be redesigning it to build animated prints to tell him stories at night.
