Gen6 auto-level

Hey guys,

First post for me, but not the last. It seems that nobody as a Gen6 card on there printer. I have a mendel-parts printer and I'm starting to work more and more with it. Now that I have a E3D hot-end and a .25mm nozzle, I would like to be able to use it ! My prints are not sticking to the bed because of leveling system on those printers. only 3 springs to adjust so there is always one off side.

I want to put a auto level on the printer, but I'm not sure I fully understand where I can plug the servo and the switch on the board... Is there a usable port ? Do I have to replace the Opto-endstop for the switch ? If so, how will it know the home of the Z axis ?

Thanks for your help.

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Guizmo12
only 3 springs to adjust so there is always one off side.

This makes no sense. Having three mounting points is ideal for leveling the bed. Position the extruder over or next to one mounting point and home the Z axis (carefully! if the bed is way off you don't want to crash into the bed!). Adjust the bed leveling screw so that the nozzle just touches the bed (some people like to use a thin sheet of paper to set the nozzle just above the bed). Move on to the second mounting point and repeat. Move to the third mounting point and repeat. You may have to repeat this process starting back at the first mounting point a couple more times before the bed is perfectly level.

This of course will only work if your bed is actually flat. If it isn't, and you want to use auto leveling to compensate for it (or still want auto leveling anyways), you should be able to do it. There are two unused digital pins broken out on Gen 6 (see here, pins 16 and 17), which could likely be used for the servo used for auto leveling. You would need to replace your opto switch on Z with a switch. It will know the home of the Z axis because it is probing in the Z axis. That's how the auto leveling works.

You would have to define the servo pin in pins.h under the Gen 6 pin assignments with something like this:

#define SERVO0_PIN 17

The servo would need to be plugged into ground, 5V, and Digital 17 (as shown in the previous image). I'm not sure these are in the correct order for matching a servo plug, so double check before you plug anything in!

Anyways, very few people use Gen 6 because it is fairly antiquated and doesn't have many features (even less than the Sanguinololu!). It doesn't support a heated bed without some modification, which most people want. RAMPS also came out shortly after and offered many more features, including PWM fan control, min and max endstop support, heated bed support, and additional expandability. It was eventually upgraded to support dual extruders, an SD card add-on, LCD display support, and servo support. It also helped that RAMPS essentially became the standard RepRap electronics, which was adapted from Adrian's original Pololu electronics experimentation.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/08/2014 01:03AM by NewPerfection.

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Thanks !

It gives me a better idea on the woking of the auto-level. I actually have the Deluxe version so I'm ok on the heated bed. I'll work on that today.

The bed is pretty level, but the bed itself is not. so I need a auto-level. My first layer is so thin that any imperfection on the glass shows in the layer. I'll maybe upgrade to RAMPS in the future, but for now everything is working well with the Gen6 deluxe.

Thanks again.

It gives me "Sketch too big;" as an error...

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/08/2014 11:04AM by Guizmo12.

You need the Atmega 1284p not the 644p to enable autoleveling.... I have a 1284p in the mail hopeful I will have it today or tomorrow so I can autolevel

Quote
Guizmo12
It gives me "Sketch too big;" as an error...

Quote
randyf1965
You need the Atmega 1284p not the 644p to enable autoleveling.... I have a 1284p in the mail hopeful I will have it today or tomorrow so I can autolevel

Ah, I didn't notice that Gen 6 uses a 644p. In that case, you might not be able to use auto leveling on Gen 6 after all. Replacing the surface mount 644p would be pretty difficult, though possible. How big is the compiled firmware size? The 644p has 64k available flash memory, of which a few k is used for the bootloader.

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Got my 1284p last night. popped it into my Sanguinololu and enabled auto-leveling, all I can say is WOW! Works like a champ using the auto touch z end-stops on my Prusa i3