Precision Piezo Z-probe Now available.

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Dancer
I do not know.

But there are 4 Piezos... (Standard 220 x 220 Heatbed, 4 Holes on the Edges)
Most important is to wait 1 second before each probing, because the piezos trigger from the Y-movement.

Pictures of the Printer to come (SD-Reader not working in PC...)

I see, FOUR piezos, one at each bed corner, compensation if the two Z are out of synch, the way you attach the belt to the X carriage and path ....

As this has already been shot down a few times, no point discussing further !

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/12/2020 08:32AM by MKSA.

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"A comical prototype doesn't mean a dumb idea is possible" (Thunderf00t)

I am not so sure that four-point mounting deserves the bad rep that it has got. Certainly, four-point mounting is overconstrained and invites the uneducated to bend the bed by straining two pairs of opposite corners against one another. I don't see that the method deserves to be ignored because people neither read the manual nor think about the implications as they twiddle the adjusting screws. Equally certainly though, having supports at each of the four corners does make for a more rigid structure and it can be made lighter.

As far as piezos go though,(Edit: As four mounts on the corners has) having no external mass to contribute to the dynamic instability will at least go a little way to making for more predictable behaviour.

For myself, I will keep on with three-point mounting as I have become a great fan of exact constraints - but I won't conduct a holy war against others who work in a different way.

Mike

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/12/2020 02:25PM by leadinglights.

I just did it that way, because I had this heatbed on my shelf. And as I do not bend anything on this bed, because it is just put on top without screwing, there will not be any problem. - As you say: You gotta know what you do.
I know, that the mounting of the X-belt can be improved, but with my measurement-methods I can't see any problem arising in my prints.

There is one thing on this printer that is much worse (not really a big thing) - it has Z-Wobble in Y-direction about 0.2 to 0.3mm.
Interestingly not in X-direction.

As far as I have seen, it is because the bushings for Z-movement have some play in Y. Not in X because the cable tie puts them straight.
Seems I'll have to rework the whole X-Axis.

@MKSA:
I do not know what your problem is.
Could you show me, how you get two Z-Screws in absolute 100% height-sync? - Forever???
Sorry this is not possible. Because the steppers have 200 full steps per rev (or 400 full steps per rev) and if you shut down the steppers, they go from their microsstep to the neares full step. This does make some 0,.. mm - with my 1,8° Steppers one full step with M8 Leadscrew is 0.00625mm - that is much more than my Standard Deviation. And that can easily be compensated with bed leveling with the piezos.

You can't even get them in 100% height-sync when driven by one stepper, because you would have to mount them, the pulleys that drive them, and the nuts at 100% exactly the same height and angle.
This error is normally compensated by tilting the heatbed accordingly with the adjusting screws.

Sorry MKSA. I think that you are just repeating what you heared from others instead of thinking yourself.
Over and Out.

Quote
Dancer
...
Sorry MKSA. I think that you are just repeating what you heared from others instead of thinking yourself.
Over and Out.

Can an admin prompt this guy to remove this personal attack ?

Of course, the rest of the post can stay as it is so entertaining.

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"A comical prototype doesn't mean a dumb idea is possible" (Thunderf00t)

Quote
MKSA

Quote
Dancer
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Sorry MKSA. I think that you are just repeating what you heared from others instead of thinking yourself.
Over and Out.

Can an admin prompt this guy to remove this personal attack ?

Of course, the rest of the post can stay as it is so entertaining.

Maybe not the friendliest thing to say, but I have also seen you being very direct. It's definitely not a personal attack. Heck, even I myself can be direct and not the nicest. I hope you manage to let it slide of your shoulders. Let's focus on positivity.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/13/2020 07:42AM by Ohmarinus.

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http://www.marinusdebeer.nl/

Z-Wobble gone.
X-Belt was to tight. loosened it up a bit, now prints nearly perfect - just some finetuning in slic3r left

I've made an e3d effector mount for all you Rostock Max owners out there, fits the Piezo20 v1.4 PCB
An assembly guide is included
Enjoy!
[www.thingiverse.com]

Hi everyone,


I'm thinking to upgrade my Rostock Max using one of the piezo probes DjDemonD and company provides, but I'm having doubts about the best way to do so. Let me briefly explain my setup:
My Rostock MAX v2 glass bed got broken a few years ago and since then I replaced it with a cheap glass. Since then I haven't been able to print to the full width or consistently for that matter. Lately I'm thinking of purchasing a spring steel bed Energetic beds on aliexpress and place the magnetic sticker directly into the heated bed so as to obtain better thermal conductivity and hopefully a flatter surface. My fear with this is that probing might damage the heated bed if something goes wrong with the probing like a faulty piezo, too little sensitivity in certain probe points or anything else. I hope I can hard code a safety min Z to prevent that (I'm trying Klipper at the moment). I also rather install 3 piezos on the bed rather than using the Orion because it's kind of annoying to rewire a Rostock and also because I want to keep the hotend as fixed as possible (I'm using a genuine E3D Volcano so the installation of the Orion should actually be pretty straightforward). However, since the Rostock has a large bed I wonder if it would be more precise to use the Orion instead of a bed setup. I'm also wondering why I mostly find FSR setups but little on piezos for the Rostock (except CodeBusters proposal the other day). Is it because of practical or popular reasons?

So, to sum it up:

• Orion or Universal with 3 piezos on the bed? Is there a recommended set up for the Rostock MAX v2 or any big delta for that matter?
• Is the use of piezos recommended if I'm going to probe with no glass (but spring steel sheet)?
• Will I'll be able to configure the piezos on Klipper or should I change my firmware?
• FSR vs Piezo on the Rostock user community? Practical or popular?

I have been doing some research recently on problems which people have had on underbed piezos. Although many people - including myself - have had no problems with underbed piezos, there is a dynamic problem which is critically dependent on layout and this has plagued other users. The ultimate result of this dynamic problem is there is a significant chance that you may have bad spots where the sensitivity is not great. There are some details on [reprap.org]

From my own observations (please note that I am not a God or a Guru but I am a Geek) For larger beds, the piezo in a probe is likely to be more trouble-free. It is better to have the piezos on an under-bed setup beyond the periphery of the bed and it is better to get rid of mechanical noise and set the piezo as sensitive as possible.

I would point out that the problems I found on under-bed piezos will be as bad or worse on under-bed FSRs. The reason for this is that the sum voltage of several piezos will equal the total contact pressure (lots of caveats such as piezos all being equal). FSRs do not have this advantage and can suffer badly from contacts on parts of the bed beyond the triangle of the piezo sensors.

Mike

Quote
CaboGuataca
Hi everyone,


I'm thinking to upgrade my Rostock Max using one of the piezo probes DjDemonD and company provides, but I'm having doubts about the best way to do so. Let me briefly explain my setup:
My Rostock MAX v2 glass bed got broken a few years ago and since then I replaced it with a cheap glass. Since then I haven't been able to print to the full width or consistently for that matter. Lately I'm thinking of purchasing a spring steel bed Energetic beds on aliexpress and place the magnetic sticker directly into the heated bed so as to obtain better thermal conductivity and hopefully a flatter surface. My fear with this is that probing might damage the heated bed if something goes wrong with the probing like a faulty piezo, too little sensitivity in certain probe points or anything else. I hope I can hard code a safety min Z to prevent that (I'm trying Klipper at the moment). I also rather install 3 piezos on the bed rather than using the Orion because it's kind of annoying to rewire a Rostock and also because I want to keep the hotend as fixed as possible (I'm using a genuine E3D Volcano so the installation of the Orion should actually be pretty straightforward). However, since the Rostock has a large bed I wonder if it would be more precise to use the Orion instead of a bed setup. I'm also wondering why I mostly find FSR setups but little on piezos for the Rostock (except CodeBusters proposal the other day). Is it because of practical or popular reasons?

Some thoughts on what you're mulling:
The heated bed on the v2 is not perfectly flat. Its shape changes with temperature. I checked this with machining parallels.
The only other person I've seen use a flex bed on Max v2 was Keegan on the SMC User's Group. His stack was the melamine snowflake, the Onyx bed, a machined aluminum heat spreader, then the magnetic sticker, bottom to top.

Precision of the least squares calibration at the furthest extents of the bed relies on two things according to dc42 :
1. Including probe points near the edge of the bed
2. Allowing 7 factor (delta arm length is adjusted) calibration
I get .05mm deviation across the bed. That's pretty friggin good, considering Duet/SE300 hot end users get .03mm deviation as a matter of course.

FSR is common because that's one of the two options Rostock Max v3's came with for the brief period SeeMeCNC manufactured them, prior to making up the v3.2
It is also common that both the FSR and HE280 (hot end accelerometer probe) had bad results.

I think you should go with some form of the hot end probe. Orion is good. My design is sort of a mashup of an e3d effector I liked and the Orion. It actually isn't that hard to "rewire" the Rostock hotend. In fact, all I did was run 3 extra wires up the side of the extrusion. The kapton-taped connections are still there. Check out my guide.

Quote
CodeBuster
Precision of the least squares calibration at the furthest extents of the bed relies on two things according to dc42 :
1. Including probe points near the edge of the bed
2. Allowing 7 factor (delta arm length is adjusted) calibration
I get .05mm deviation across the bed. That's pretty friggin good, considering Duet/SE300 hot end users get .03mm deviation as a matter of course.

My recommendation is not to use 7- or 9-factor calibration, because (a) that can only give good results if you probe well outside the normal printing area between the towers, and (b) if you use well-made rods (e.g. the magnetic ones from Haydn Huntley) then you will know precisely how long they are.

I use 8-factor calibration on my delta (endstop heights + delta radius + tower position corrections + bed tilt) and the calibration deviation using 16 points is usually below 0.025mm.

Under-bed piezos/FSRs can give good delta calibration results if and only if the trigger height is consistent across all the probe points.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2020 10:56AM by dc42.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

How far out? On escher3d.com delta wizard it recommends only "a very long way out opposite each of the towers" but not specifically. The max radius of the v2 extends probably ~15-20mm beyond the delta tower triangle. Perhaps even 40-50 beyond the virtual tower triangle.
I, and probably Cabo, are both using well made rods, injection molded ball-cup arms.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2020 10:29AM by CodeBuster.

Thank you all for the feedback! Yes CodeBuster, one simple option is to pull the cables not through the inner hole of the extrusion profile but from one side, I might do that indeed. And thanks for the bed deflection point, I will go with an aluminum spreader as well then, will look for the post on the seemecnc forum to get more details on that setup.

Yes, my Rostock uses injection molded ball-cup arms, so length should be consistent across them all.

Quote
han45
Hi guys, I'm using the Piezo Orion on a E3D V6 setup with a bowden extruder and it works really well.

Now I ordered an E3D Hemera and I want to use the Orion with that. Is there any chance to make it work? Maybe use the Orion vertically between the Hemera and it's mounting plate to detect the touch on the build plate?
Any pointers on what I can do are welcomed.

I second that. Been using the Orion for over a year, and finally decided to upgrade my cheap MK8 extruder for a Hemera in direct, but would have to go back to a bltouch if I can't find a mounting solution for it, which I really don't wanna do. Anything in the pipeline for an Hemera mount?

Yes, I'm working on a hermera mount but not for the Orion...

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{Precision Piezo} Accurate, repeatable, versatile z-probe plus piezo discs, endstop cables, pt100, 50w heaters.

Hello,
I‘ve bought a Universal Piezo Z-Probe PCB v2.75 and want it to use in my Creality Cr-10s pro V1. So I started one month ago and I'm still searching the right way to get it work.
Before I write down my fails and errors, do you have any experiences with piezo probing in this 3D printer model?

Today a funny and wonderous thing happened. I‘ve updated my printer to the latest version of The tiny machines, a version with bl touch. When I add a bl touch to my printer (with 2-pin shortcut in PCB, other cables directly to the main board) it works fine. Hmm, why? When I connect now the piezo probe, the printer behaves like touching permanently ground. What it the difference between the bl touch ground signal and the piezo probe signal? If they are equal, it has to work. When they are different, the true and false settings have to be different, but they aren‘t. So what‘s my fault?

@MarcW, where did you buy your v2.75 PCB? I've been shipping v2.85 for a while now.

Idris

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{Precision Piezo} Accurate, repeatable, versatile z-probe plus piezo discs, endstop cables, pt100, 50w heaters.

Can the digital outputs from universal V2.75 and or V2.85 be paralled if I want to use 1 board per piezo element?

Yes, the output is open drain, it can pull the signal pin down to 0v but cannot raise it.

Idris

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{Precision Piezo} Accurate, repeatable, versatile z-probe plus piezo discs, endstop cables, pt100, 50w heaters.

At the shop, which said in it‘s description that I can find help in this forum. And there‘s a warning for all buyers from Aliexpress. Do you really send me a non selling product?
I tried everything what I could find in WWW or Youtube to get this piezo sensor to work in my Creality Cr-10s pro, but nothing worked. Either the x-axis goes up during homing or it crashed into my bed. Looking at z-min activity it‘s equal if it‘s triggered or open. When I soft push my nozzle, the sensor recognized it blinking from red to blue and back to red. In my despair I‘ve bought an oscilloscope to see if this sensor works anyway, but the thing I‘ve found out that using an oscilloscope has to learn to use it first. So I started to learn and what I‘ve learned is that old dogs never learn new tricks... last week I‘ve added a BL Touch and bed levelling works fine at the first try. What do I learn about piezo sensors? Nice idea, but it don‘t work! Fair way I have to remark, during my work career I‘ve worked in quality control of a big company for medical equipment. I‘ve got the luck or bed luck, to get the inoperative device instead of a full function piece.. it doesn‘t matter if I‘ve bought it www or in the shop around the corner. The first one is still broken, in 9 of 10 times. Maybe, and why it should be different, it‘s the same with this sensor. But what I‘m really not amused about is that I have to prove where I‘ve bought this shit electrical equipment instead of getting help. Thanks for nothing!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2020 06:56AM by MarcW.

At whose shop?

If you have received a defective product or it is not working as you expect I suggest you contact the person who sold it to you. If you bought it from me please email me your order number at info@precisionpiezo.co.uk and I will be happy to help you.

Providing support for my products takes up a significant amount of my time. I reserve the choice to provide support only to my products.

Idris

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{Precision Piezo} Accurate, repeatable, versatile z-probe plus piezo discs, endstop cables, pt100, 50w heaters.

Order No. 12238 Placed on Jan 23, 2020

Do you have pull-ups enabled in the firmware? Are you able to measure the voltage of the Sig pin on your controller board with nothing plugged into it?

Idris

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{Precision Piezo} Accurate, repeatable, versatile z-probe plus piezo discs, endstop cables, pt100, 50w heaters.

Currently are the settings of TheTinyMashine Marlin Version 1.1.9BL active. I don‘t know what you mean with pull-ups, and also there are 3 boards in this system active. The mainboard, the PCB at the x-axis and the piezo board.
In meantime I‘ve found out, that the optocoupler at the z-pin on the PCB can generate a failure. It‘s getting more and more power an then it set the z-min pin on. I‘ve added a shortcut to inactivate this. To use the piezo probe I‘ve added a separate cable from the print head ( here*s the piezo PCB mounted) down to the mainboard in the bottom of the printer. There the signal goes to z-min pin, 5V and GND from a group of pins. When I remember correctly it was named D11..??? Maybe the GND pin of the z-min adapter needs a connection to GND to recognize a working z-min signal, so I’ve added a separate cable from a GND somewhere else to GND z-min.
The marlin settings, communicated on your manual don‘t work. Either the nozzle will crash into the bed or it rises up. A stop, provoked trough my finger knocking at the nozzle never happened. Do you know what I think? This piezo probe I have just work letting the LEDs flash, but a signal comes not out of it. I never was able to measure a trigger signal at this board with my oscilloscope. Either I‘ve made something silly or not. I don‘t know. But what I can say, it‘s really sad that it‘s not proper working. Using a BL Touch is a emergency solution, not what I‘m looking for. The complete construction is made for using a piezo probe. Here‘s a link to the head I‘ve made:
[docs.google.com]

I'm a bit confused as to what exactly you're describing. You refer to the PCB, is that the piezo PCB or some other pcb?

The output of the PCB is open drain, it cannot push the sig pin up to 5v, it requires the controller board to pull the signal pin up via a pull up resistance. This is why you are not seeing a signal on the output of the piezo PCB.

Please measure the voltage of the sig pin on your main board, it should be 5v.

Idris

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{Precision Piezo} Accurate, repeatable, versatile z-probe plus piezo discs, endstop cables, pt100, 50w heaters.

Now I‘m confused. You mean the z-min connector on my mainboard of the cr-10spro, right? My Voltmeter shows me 0V. 5 volts from another source, then connected to the pins of the z-min port show me the 5v. GND of the z-min is like it should be, the signal pin of z-min behaved like the GND pin.
If I correctly interpret your statement, 5Volt on the signal pin, then you expect the evaluation of a falling edge after triggering the piezo sensor. But since I measured 0Volt, my board seems to be expecting a rising edge to trip. Exactly the oppisite.

Yes, I mean the Z-min connector. You should have 0v on the GND pin, 5V on the power pin and you should also see 5v on the signal pin when nothing is connected, if everything is set up correctly.

I'm not talking about rising edges or falling edges at the moment.

Think of the signal line like a pipe. The piezo board cannot put water into the pipe but it can let water out. The mainboard puts water into the pipe slowly but all the time and watches how much water is in the pipe. When the piezo board wants to signal a trigger it lets all the water out, the mainboard see that there is no water in the pipe and knows that the piezo board has been triggered.

The pull up resistor is the mainboard putting water into the pipe. Without it there is no water in the pipe so the mainboard thinks the piezo board let all the water out all the time and thinks it's triggered all the time.

You must have the pull up resistor enabled otherwise the piezo board cannot signal the main board. If the pull up resistor is enabled you will measure 5v on the signal pin on the mainboard when nothing is connected.

Idris

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{Precision Piezo} Accurate, repeatable, versatile z-probe plus piezo discs, endstop cables, pt100, 50w heaters.

Any update of official use of Orion with a Micro Swiss?

Anyone have any success on their own? My BLTouch is the last issue for a complete migration from the stock Ender 3 Pro board to a Duet Maestro (inverted, not inverted doesn't matter it just won't drop the pin except in its self tests on first boot -triple checked everything, even replaced the pin with a brand new one so it isn't dirty. If it didn't pass self test I'd think it was fried.).

Not only would this let me stop bashing my head against the wall, it's more accurate too. It's a win-win. I'm only just now doing my first print (case for the Maestro using the Maestro with wires everywhere) on the Micro Swiss so I'd hard a hard sell for replacing it with a e3d V6.

Jen

I've just uploaded a microswiss clamp to thingiverse here.

I don't have a microswiss hotend to test it myself but it's a modification of the CR10 clamp that is known to work.

Idris

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{Precision Piezo} Accurate, repeatable, versatile z-probe plus piezo discs, endstop cables, pt100, 50w heaters.