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My solution for the IR sensor / Buildtak probe failures

Discussion in 'Troubleshooting' started by Jeff Lastofka, Jul 8, 2019.

  1. Jeff Lastofka

    Jeff Lastofka Member

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    My R2's IR sensor wouldn't probe my new flex plate Buildtak. I could hold the plate under the sensor and move it around and not get the monitor LED to come on. Putting other things under there worked fine. Paper, my hand, metal, whatever.
    So I got a small, flat aluminum plate about 4x6" and I lay it on the bed while it pre-heats so it equalizes temperature throughout and stays flat. As the 9 point probe routine runs I slide the plate around to keep it under the sensor, then pull it out before the printing starts. It's working great. The thickness of the plate doesn't matter because the probing is just comparing relative heights to check level. The actual printing offset is still taken from the Z-offset you put in, either from the Wizard or manually in the LCD Eprom setting dialog.
    I'm thinking of getting an 8.5 x 8.5" flat plate so I don't have to slide it around:) The 4x6 was the first one I had available nice and flat. I guess if I did ABS at 100C I'd want some light cotton gloves to protect my finger tips.... Or maybe make a plastic or wood handle for the plate.
    I was also getting some communication errors but I reseated all the connectors I could reach by removing the electronics cover near the bottom of the machine. Now it's like a new printer again:)
    Even after running the bed leveling wizards and adjusting the thumb screws and doing the auto-level, when I print a large, thin rectangle almost to the limits of the machine bed I see a tiny difference in smoosh of the first layer over near one corner, but it doesn't seem to be bothering my PETG prints. Measuring the resulting thin part I see about .1 mm thickness variation.
     
  2. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Moved thread to R2 forum.
     
  3. WheresWaldo

    WheresWaldo Volunteer ( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)
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    Jeff, that would be typical of the leveling method enabled by the Robo firmware. I would say that 0.1 mm is about as accurate as you will ever get unless you had a milled perfectly flat bed. But the Robo doesn't come with anything like that.

    Unified Bed Leveling, which is in newer version of Marlin, but not in Robo's version of Marlin. Would better match any warp in the bed in any direction. But that requires that you reflash the firmware and then a couple of wizards would stop working. So stay with what you got, at least that is my suggestion.
     
  4. albert3d

    albert3d Member

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    Concerning to hear that the IR probe doesn't pick up the Buildtak surface reliably. I was about to get the flex system for my R2 from Buildtak since they have their 20% off everything sale going on this week.
     
  5. Yopz3d

    Yopz3d New Member

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    Hello, can anyone vouch for this jnformation? I just ordered a flex plate with buildtack from Jonah at partsbuilt and would hate to find out I have to make a return already but have no interest i would it make more sense to pursue the ultimate level bed thread on here and skit the learning curve of regular heated beds?


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
  6. wuidling

    wuidling Member

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    Buildtalk dont work witht the Robo R2 IR sensor..
    Anyway you will get much better results with manual leveling.

    The Buildtalk Flexplate and Surface is awesome, but be careful if the distance is too low you will damaged your surface.

    I killed two pieces with auto bed leveling, distance problems and settings.

    If you use it dont forget to delete the G29 Gcode in your settings (Cura/Octoprint) !

    Regards


    excuse my school english

    .
     
    #6 wuidling, Jul 6, 2020
    Last edited: Jul 6, 2020
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  7. Yopz3d

    Yopz3d New Member

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    Understood I do my levelling manually anyway generally so I guess it won’t slow me down really but I am quite suprised, is the buildtack for the flex plate system not near if not the same material robos stock proprietary build sheet is? They seem similar and I have a hard time understanding what would impede the ir sensor from properly receipting. I’m am aware of the 2+2 is 4 rule though so don’t take this dismissively more as an inquisition


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
  8. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    The issue generally with the Robo IR sensors is the colors of materials they will react correctly with.
    Black seems to be the expected color...
     
  9. wuidling

    wuidling Member

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    #9 wuidling, Jul 6, 2020
    Last edited: Jul 7, 2020
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  10. tkoco

    tkoco - -.- --- -.-. ---
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    The problem isn't so much with the Buildtak / IR sensor combination. Rather, it is the 9 point auto-level routine used with stock Marlin firmware. I've installed a glass plate mod on top of a Flexplate mod. I've disabled the auto-level G-code in Octoprint and substituted the Home G-code G28. The extruder always starts a print job from a known position. In this scenario, proper leveling of the print bed is important.

    Why this combination? The glass plate gives me the best flat surface available and the Flexplate gives me the ability to remove the print bed surface without disturbing the print bed level.

    As a side note: a lot of guys have installed a custom version of Marlin which uses a better auto-leveling routine.
     
  11. Yopz3d

    Yopz3d New Member

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    Late response to this topic but I just cracked this printer out again and hooked it up (robo r2). I am looking to fix the before printing g code script but finding myself a little lost in the script provided by the faq. I planned to implement it but I'm confused by the g28 to g29 process(reading about g28/29 vs g36...). It appears g28 will place my printer into a homed position where it awaits command from g29 to complete the leveling procedure as well as find its starting position? I have done the flex plate swap with some of the earlier partsbuilt build tack and I was just wondering If I would simply add a semi colon and terminate the command altogether or if there were other implications from the command requiring me to replace or modify it. I believe I have setup the template correctly for pla so I can do some test runs but having just ruined a buildtack sheet from burying the nozzle I would prefer to avoid the risk of trashing TWO brand new sheets, although I'm sure my SO would see some humor in that situation aha. Any advice would be helpfull thanks a ton :)

    ; Lines in this file which start with a ';' are ignored
    ; To make a change, remove or add the ';' to the beginning of the line
    ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
    ; set to millimeters
    G21
    ; set to absolute mode
    G90
    ; zero extruder
    G92 E0
    ; turn off fans
    M107
    ;
    ;
    ; non blocking heatup of extruder
    ; Don't forget to fix the prime line
    ; temperature further down in this script
    ; NinjaFlex
    ;M104 S235
    ; TPU
    ;M104 S220
    ; ABS or PetG
    ;M104 S230
    ; PLA
    ;M104 S190
    ; PLA 2
    M104 S200
    ; PetG 2
    ;M104 S240
    ; Transparent PetG
    ;M104 S250
    ;non blocking heatup of the bed
    ; Generic
    M140 S40
    ;NinjaFlex
    M140 S30
    ;ABS
    ;M140 S60
    ; Transparent PetG
    ;M140 S100
    ;
    ;
    ; Robo Leveling
    ;G36
    ;***Alternative leveling***
    ;HOME for manually leveled / shimmed bed
    G28
    ;Auto-probe alternative - not to be used with a glass plate bed
    ; As the auto-probe will read the surface below the glass plate
    ; Can be used in conjunction with G28 code
    ;G29 P1 T
    ; pause for 2 seconds
    G4 S2
    ; move bed down 15mm
    G1 Z15 F300
    ; move to front left corner
    G1 X10 Y1 F7200
    ;
    ;
    ; heat to priming line temp
    ; Set to the same temperature as the initial heatup
    ; of the extruder - above this area in this script
    ;NinjaFlex
    ;M109 S235
    ; TPU
    ;M109 S220
    ; for PetG
    ;M109 S230
    ; for ABS
    ;M109 S210
    ; for PLA
    ;M109 S190
    ; for PLA 2
    M109 S200
    ;Transparent PetG
    ;M109 S250
    ;M109 S240
    ; Heat Bed - set to your preferred temp
    ;Generic
    M140 S40
    ;NinjaFlex
    ;M140 S30
    ;ABS
    ;M140 S60
    ;M140 S100
    ;
    ;
    ; move bed to printing position
    G1 Z0.3
    ; print 190mm priming line
    ;PLA
    ;G1 X190 E15.0 F500
    ;Generic
    ;G1 X190 E12.0 F300
    ;TPU
    ;G1 X190 E10.0 F250
    ;NinjaFlex
    G1 X190 E8.0 F200
    ; move bed down
    G1 Z15 F300
    ; zero extruder
    G92 E0
    ; set movement speed
    G1 F7200
     

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