Happiness with BlTouch sensor in M2?

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jferguson
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Location: St Petersburg, FL

Happiness with BlTouch sensor in M2?

Post by jferguson » Wed Jul 31, 2019 4:55 pm

I've never been happy with the leveling routine for my M2. Not that it doesn't work, but i have been unable to understand the syntax/logic of the process. Despite this, I have been able to make it level and keep it there, but I would really like self-leveling and height detection hence my interest in adding a BlTouch sensor.

If you have one and did the modification to your M2 yourself including the Marlin changes, do you feel it was worth the effort?

If yes, and it isn't a hassle, can you point me toward a good source of counsel for doing this? Also recommendation for bracket which I assume i will print from PETG? Did you get your kit from Amazon?

It's ok to tell me if you think this is a ridiculous request.

airscapes
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Re: Happiness with BlTouch sensor in M2?

Post by airscapes » Wed Jul 31, 2019 10:41 pm

I was interested in it as well but as you mention there is a bit of firmware work I would rather not mess with. Will be interested in how it works out if you find assistance.
My gantry was slightly bowed so I made a mount that slides up into the extruder mount once it and the cooling fan are removed. The mount holds a DI with the return spring removed so the pin rides on the build plate without pressure. Then you run the gcode and write down the reading. Takes a bit of time but you can get the bed as level as physically possible. This will also let you shim the X rail, I used aluminum foil folded as many times as needed to get the desired thickness.
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=7174&p=38188&hilit=gantry#p38188
20190321_195026.jpg

jferguson
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Re: Happiness with BlTouch sensor in M2?

Post by jferguson » Wed Jul 31, 2019 10:58 pm

One of Sthone's files for his improved cooling extruder head (my terms, not his) refers to BlTouch. Sthone, do you use it?

I liked his blower cooling setup.

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sthone
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Re: Happiness with BlTouch sensor in M2?

Post by sthone » Thu Aug 01, 2019 1:11 am

Sorry I have not used it.... that was added on a request and I never heard back whether it worked or not but you can try asking the guy in the comments section on the Thingiverse page if he used it.
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jferguson
Posts: 247
Joined: Mon Mar 30, 2015 7:26 pm
Location: St Petersburg, FL

Re: Happiness with BlTouch sensor in M2?

Post by jferguson » Thu Aug 01, 2019 1:13 am

thanks,
i think I'm going to make your design and work it out myself. I'll let you know how it works out.

best regards,

john

makeal
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Re: Happiness with BlTouch sensor in M2?

Post by makeal » Thu Aug 01, 2019 2:32 pm

sthone - it might have been me that asked for it :) thingiverse is down now so I can't check. I had it done on my M2e. It worked good and made things simpler. I also updated to the latest version of marlin which was 1.1.9. Its fairly straight forward update but I had to map the current 1.0.2 values of M2e stock firmware to 1.1.9 version, also enable bltouch. Few people on this forum helped and searching through the past posts also helped a lot. I was also in the process of using M3ID plate with bltouch mount with M3 cooling upgrade on my M2 but I ended up trading my m2 for another printer and never got around to doing it.

Basically bltouch replaces bottom z endstop and you home z by triggering bltouch and using its offset as your z0. I added gcode to my start script to do probing and enabling mesh and that was it. So before every print it would probe 4 spots, enable mesh and print away.

Here are few pictures i took
https://photos.app.goo.gl/9eiWKCWuthMtsUJaA

and here are few pictures I took of the M3 plate work i was doing.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/SJ6V7wAFPkyJK6rm6

terravion
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Re: Happiness with BlTouch sensor in M2?

Post by terravion » Mon Aug 12, 2019 3:33 pm

Hey Makeal,

Iv been trying to get my BLtouch to work on M2 Rev E for a while now and still having troubles with the wiring. Can you share your wiring setup? Also been trying to use marlin 1.1.x and can't get it to upload. What version of arduino did you use?

jferguson
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Joined: Mon Mar 30, 2015 7:26 pm
Location: St Petersburg, FL

Re: Happiness with BlTouch sensor in M2?

Post by jferguson » Sun Aug 18, 2019 4:24 pm

Hi Makeal,
Mapping current firmware values to 1.1.9 sounds a bit treacherous. I had to change some things in Marlin when I added a heated bed to my TinyBoy so I have been in there, but it did take time. I'd also added an LCD to it which on that machine also required a few code changes. also changed both vertical and horizontal limits as I discovered there was less real volume vertically, and more in that machine's X-Axis than stock.

My thought on how to do the bltouch project, is to download the M2 firmware, look at the files and assume any with save dates other than the 2015 base might have MakerGear changes. Then i would read through that code searching for lines commented by MakerGear. Did you find MakerGear reliable in commenting everything they did?

I also worry that the 1.1.9 upgrade may have code which could cause me a problem that wasn't there in 1.1.2. Did you find anything like that?

Having done that, I propose to upgrade the code to 1.1.9 on my stock machine with incorporation of the M2 specific mods discovered as above, see if that works ok and then go to the bltouch mods.

Did you choose other than the latest Arduino IDE for the new code?

Am I missing anything here?

Hi airscapes,
When you made your machine run flat in both horizontal directions, how did you arrive at "Flat". If the bed isn't flat, then the DI will show you the difference in flatness between the gantry and the bed, but may not help by identifying which is off. I assume you must have clamped and shimmed as necessary a flat bar to the bed and leveled the gantry. once the gantry runs flat, the rig you describe seems just the thing to get the X axis flattened and leveled. How much were they off?

Thanks guys for the time I know it takes to respond to these questions.

best regards,

john

jferguson
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Joined: Mon Mar 30, 2015 7:26 pm
Location: St Petersburg, FL

Re: Happiness with BlTouch sensor in M2?

Post by jferguson » Sun Aug 18, 2019 7:03 pm

PS It looks like the Marlin 1.1.9 code compiles with Arduino IDE 1.8.9

Good.

airscapes
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Joined: Wed Jan 31, 2018 11:36 pm

Re: Happiness with BlTouch sensor in M2?

Post by airscapes » Sun Aug 18, 2019 8:37 pm

jferguson wrote:
Sun Aug 18, 2019 4:24 pm


Hi airscapes,
When you made your machine run flat in both horizontal directions, how did you arrive at "Flat". If the bed isn't flat, then the DI will show you the difference in flatness between the gantry and the bed, but may not help by identifying which is off. I assume you must have clamped and shimmed as necessary a flat bar to the bed and leveled the gantry. once the gantry runs flat, the rig you describe seems just the thing to get the X axis flattened and leveled. How much were they off?

Thanks guys for the time I know it takes to respond to these questions.

best regards,

john
I used the DI to level the bed by taking measurements at the corners and adjusting the screws so the the bed was level there. The gantry sag due to belt tension so the ends are not going to be out much. The problem with the sage is you set your starting height in the center then it is way to high on the sides..
After the bed was level on all 4 corners, I used a gcode file that moved the DI in a grid over the entire bed stopping for 10 seconds at each spot for me to write down the Plus or minus amount from the corner zero. Looking at the readings it was obvious that there was a sag in the gantry or at least that is how it measured. After shimming the bearing rail with aluminum foil stacked to the needed height, there was no longer a sag in the center and if I recall, there was no more than .03mm difference within all the spots I measured. My glass does droop on the far left side in the center but at the ends of the plate there was no more than .01mm deviation from left to right I have not checked it lately as there hasn't been any issues with prints not sticking near the edge as there was before.

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