Time to upgrade

Tony

Staff member
And you still are not able to get it to work? Take some video and post it here or in a PM to me. Lets get this figured out.
 

bigone5500

Well-Known Member
I'll go over detailed steps soon. Maybe I'm missing something in my setup. I'm just too tired right now to type it all up. LOL. I'm lazy right now.
 

bigone5500

Well-Known Member
Well after a great day of 4lbs of catfish fillets, 5lbs crinkle cut fries and 2lbs of mustard potato salad, all with Tony Chacherie's seasoning, I'm done for the day. Now to work on this headache of a 3D printer.

First I flashed the firmware. Then I tightened the right rear thumb screw and moved to adjusting the Z axis. This was done as per the instruction sheet. I used the option 'move axis' and raised the Z axis until the bed and print nozzle were the thickness of a sheet of paper. I then recorded the offset of -4.3mm. I input this value in the 'probe z axis offset value' setting and pressed the knob. I scrolled to 'store setting' and pressed the knob and a confirmation beep was heard. The next step is to level the bed. This is the step that causes the bed to run into the nozzle. I will record a video for this step to show what is happening. If for some reason this step works then I will post the video anyway and go outside and scream for joy.

Stay tuned for the video in a separate post.
 

bigone5500

Well-Known Member
The only thing that makes sense to me is the CR Touch probe is too high up. Maybe it's not being moved enough.??? I'll experiment with a thick piece of paper and see what happens.

*edit*

So it seems my instincts were right. The paper touched the probe and it worked. I have no idea how to fix this problem. The bracket that came with the kit is made for my machine so it should have had the correct dimensions/spacing. I'll have to contact creality and see what they say.
 

bigone5500

Well-Known Member
So I raised the Z axis up until it was very close to the nozzle. I then deployed the probe of the CR Touch and it contacts the bed. But how much shimming is needed? Are my z axis offsets wrong? This feels so much like when I first started working on quadcopters...Deja Vu!

20210807_211613.jpg
 

Tony

Staff member
I went frame by frame in your video, and even though you moved the camera, I saw that it was not pushing the probe up nearly enough. So lowering it will fix this issue.

Start with a 1mm shim stack. It really doesn't matter where the probe is, as long as it is below the print nozzle enough to calculate where the bed is. It is then that the Z Offset will come into play and you set your nozzle height.

So place a 1mm, 2mm, 3mm, whatever/mm stack of washers under that bracket to lower the probe, but make sure when the probe is retracted, it is above the nozzle. Once you do this, I feel it will level the bed and you will be golden.
 

bigone5500

Well-Known Member
Roger that. I'll grab some M2 washers and see what happens.

Better yet, I think I'll do it tomorrow. It's getting late.
 

bigone5500

Well-Known Member
So... I installed some washers that totaled ~1.5mm thickness. The cr touch now sensed the bed and began leveling as intended.

NEWS FLASH!!!!!

RC-Help Network News - The team at creality have designed a product that will now take the guesswork out of bed leveling. The CR Touch ... wait, this just in. It seems the CR Touch, during its leveling procedure, has failed to stay on the heat bed. That's right folks, you heard first here.

Ok. That was fun. I installed the washers and the probe started its probing and did the center, rear right, rear center, then when it got to the left side the probe was waaaayyyy off the bed. Doesn't even touch. This is a fail on Creality's part. The firmware should be written, in my opinion, to tell the printer how far the print head should travel. When you install a probe that is a good inch past it, you don't get the full area of movement.

--- Further investigation pending...
 

bigone5500

Well-Known Member
So it seems I need to set x and y offset. Tony do you have any idea how to do this? I can't find any simple information on how to do that. And most things I find are for the ender 3 pro with the fancy touch screen.
 

Tony

Staff member
It just falls off the side of the bed? I have never heard of that as it should be in the firmware that there are a few CM from the nozzle to the probe. And I have no idea how to do X/Y offsets. Never even looked into it.

But, you say "fancy touch screen", I have that screen and LOVE IT! It's not open source but I don't care. It's just so easy to use.

I would like to say, I absolutely HATE the original screen and dial knob.
 

Tony

Staff member
Okay, I had a thought.... (shutup and quit laughing... )

I looked at your video, and I saw your limit switch on the X axis. This gave me the idea (I had another one too, and seriously, quit laughing....)

My first though was to offset the glass bed. But you never stated how far off of the bed the probe was.

Can you offset your limit switch on the X axis to compensate for this?

Can you offset your bed on the X axis to compensate?

Only thing that I would watch for is that the nozzle does not run off the right side of the bed. Now for most prints, you will not be at the extremes, but for those really large prints, need to watch this.
 

bigone5500

Well-Known Member
I moved the end stop switch. Let's see what happens now.
 

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bigone5500

Well-Known Member
Wow. It's actually printing. I'm printing an x pattern that will help tune the Z offset. That should aid in getting my layers to stick together. And it looks to have worked.
 

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Tony

Staff member
You should only be concerned with the first layer height. The rest of the layers are set in your slicer as far as height. But yes, that print looks good. Is it nice and consistent all the way across?
 

bigone5500

Well-Known Member
Well I can print objects. But I can't use them. I am getting 0% layer adhesion. I don't know why. I have everything set as I did with my old setup. I don't like this printer as it is. This auto bed leveling as I have it set up is total crap. If I have to constantly adjust z offset for every layer then it's not worth having. I can watch the nozzle and after the first layer I have to lower it. Then I have to lower it again for the 3rd layer and so on. I can see when the material is coming out of the nozzle it is waaay too high. Thus probably my layer adhesion issues. But then again, shouldn't that have been calculated by the machine when it did its probing with the fancy cr touch? I don't know as of right now. I start initially with -.450 z offset but after the 3rd layer I have it up to about -.750 and it still has layer adhesion issues.

I'll keep trying for a little while longer but if I can't figure it out soon I'll ditch this thing and get one that will work.
 
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