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Unanswered Bed leveling question

Discussion in 'General Questions' started by John Huggins, Oct 12, 2016.

  1. John Huggins

    John Huggins Member

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    I do have another question about the bed leveling. I am printing on a PEI surface and have checked the bed with a level. I have done the basic leveling process with the card in all four corners of my bed and in the center and and edges of the bed. The tension on the nozzle on the card is pretty even through out. When I run the auto level routine and start the print process, there is an area at the bottom about 2 inches wide and up the right side about 2 and 3/4 inches of the print area that is a bit too high (no filament is deposited on the build plate), and a narrow area across the top left side of the print area about 3/4 of an inch wide and about 2 inches in from the left side that is too low (filament is not pressed onto the build plate). The remainder of the build plate the filament lays down perfectly from the first layer onward. The bottom section doesn't start depositing filament until the second layer and then the print is okay from there on. the top left corner always fails because the filament will not stick tho the build plate. Any thoughts or suggestions.
     
    #1 John Huggins, Oct 12, 2016
  2. WheresWaldo

    WheresWaldo Volunteer ( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡°)
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    @John Huggins

    It is very difficult with a warped bed to get Marlin 1.0.0 to print evenly on the first layer. The auto-tramming (what Marlin mistakenly calls auto-leveling) in all Robo firmwares is only designed to accommodate skewed (tilted) beds. If your bed is warped, as you have described it, then your only option is to adjust your Z_Offset (M565) so that the lowest levels of the bed have just enough adhesion. What that will cause is the higher section of the bed to squish even more. That is really the only way with any firmware based on Marlin 1.0.0.

    Alternatively, you can try out Marlin 1.1.0 and a leveling schema called MESH. It was specifically designed to accommodate warped beds. It is experimental and not officially endorsed by RoboLabs, but it works and there is a thread in the Mods sub-forum.

    Just as an F.Y.I., RoboLabs uses Marlin 1.1.0 RC7 in their new R2 printer.
     
    #2 WheresWaldo, Oct 12, 2016
    mark tomlinson likes this.
  3. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Bear in mind that when we 3D printer people use the term 'bed leveling' we do not mean level like a carpenter or bricklayer might. Using a level will not help :) Same terminology, but entirely different meaning.

    We mean that the extruder is level with respect to the print bed as it moves across it. That the gap between the extruder nozzle tip and the print bed stays the same and does not change. So, using a level to try and level the bed will not help you much.

    Adjust the bed (shims if needed) and/or the extruder position (by tweaking the threaded rods) so that the spacing between the nozzle tip and the bed is as consistent as possible. After that the bed leveling in the firmware will help adapt for the inconsistencies in the bed as @WheresWaldo describes.
     
    #3 mark tomlinson, Oct 12, 2016
    Rigmarol likes this.

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