IR Board/Partsbuilt buildtak material

So i have not seen anything on this but i may have not hit the right set of search terms so I am sorry if I missed it. So I got one of the Robo R2 printers and after a partial rebuild, I thought I was done. I spent the better part of two months trying to figure out why every time I attempted to level the bed It would crash into the bed and I had to turn it off and re home. I purchased numerous parts from Partsbuilt and have been waiting for the IR sensor to become available again when I found the troubleshooting guide. I followed the directions and found that the sensor indeed functions and lights up as a paper or hand gets close. I realized that this happened after I the last part of the rebuild where i replaced the buildtak with the one from Partbuilt. Has anyone else come across this issue where the buildtak is not seen by the IR sensor?

 

I guess the question then is why do they sell it? Does anyone have suggestions on what would work? I do not have the magnetic bed.

 

The fault lay in the firmware. I found that the micro frequency was not calibrated and it would often start in the wrong mode. I fixed the firmware and now Partsbuilt has properly calibrated ir modules so far the new ir's .work well on every surface. You can pm me and I will give you my address. If you send me your module with return postage I will reprogram and return it

 

I may take you up on that offer in the near future. After the last message I went on a search of the 0available materials and build surfaces on Amazon and ebay. I actually found something that worked. " BIQU Flexible Removable PEI Steel Sheet Heated Bed with Magnetic Sticker 220x220mm, Build Surface Platform for Anet A8 Robo R2 Anet A8 A6, Robo R2, Wanhao Duplicator6, Wanhao i3 3D Printer " Slapped it in place and did after some issues with bed leveling, I got it dialed in just right. It seems that I have altered the machines bed area more than a bit and the regular leveling no longer works. On the positive side, I found this magnetic sheet and it is relatively inexpensive and works better than i had expected. I am about to sell my Robo C2, this was a condition given to me by my wife once i got the R2 working, so once that is done i will buy another ir sensor from partsbuilt and PM you then.

 

I fixed boards for him last week. Send him an email

 

My board was testing as bad and then my SD card crashed... the new image and proper firmware restored my board and I now have auto-leveling again.... still lost my PID function but its working well

 

All of the Octoprint functions are implemented with standard GCODE commands. The GUI is just an interface to those commands. You can look up the PID commands and enter them from the terminal. I know that or a noobie that can be daunting, so if you need it I will look up the commands for you.

 

The latest version of the system board should fix the PID tuning. ( It did on my original setup ), BUT it only does a 3x3 leveling grid and on the original ROBO R2's it was a 5x5leveling grid. I did post how to modify the code to restore a 5x5 grid, but it is not real easy.

 

Partsbuilt is now selling them. I did discover that Copycat Buildtak material that has large print on it does not level properly. So far what works well is Buildtak, FR4, glass, and microporous glass. Apparently the constancy of reflectance across the build surface is important.

I use a 5x5 leveling grid and a 10 layer leveling FADE from the initial layer. Tell me your exact setup and I can provide you with a file.