Levelling your beds! - How do you do yours?

• Using the provided sensor: The worst method. Only works more or less if the bed is nearly leveled and is highly dependent from the be surface.
• dc42's sensor boards: At the moment this seems to be the best option. I did not test them directly but I already ran some test based on the method. They are nearly independent from the surface and contactless. They cost a little bit more and as long as you are not good in electronics the price is fair as every board is tested.
• Tilt method: This uses an effect of the Ormerod 2. If the nozzle hits the bed the device is tilting to one side. This effect is used to trigger a microswitch. However I tested this method and it fails for me. It is only good to home the z-axis but at high X-values there is no support of the bed. I observed that the bed was pushed down before the device tilted. This is not suitable for sensitive surfaces like BuildTak if the nozzle is heated up.
• As I have a chinese replica nozzle (a round one) I use at the moment a method based on the tilt method: If the nozzle hits the surface the nozzle will be pushed up and triggers a microswitch. At the moment this is the best method. You have no offset and it is very accurate how my prints also shows. But it is not compatible with sensitive surfaces like BuildTak if the nozzle is hot. The design of the nozzle holder is not provided yet. I am not a fan of levers at microswitches but here I should use one together with a smaller microswitch, so I have to change my design if I keep with this method.
• I will try to exchange the mircoswitch with an optical sensor or a FSR to increase the accuracy. Especially the FSR shows highly potential and it may be converted to the standard nozzle. However and that is the problem why I did not run any tests so far: It is not possible to directly connect the FSR to the Duet board. A small signal converting is needed either using a transistor or more likely an opAmp. So I will need to do some calculations and further tests. But it seems to be very accurate. I am only afraid that the travel may result in triggering and I maybe need to add some weak springs but how and where?
• FSR with standard nozzle may end in some trouble as it may dependent on how tighten you screw your screws for example.
• Leveling the bed by hand. Here you can try to use the provided sensor board, using the paper method (which did not work for me) or use a measuring device like a dial indicator. I have one but not yet used.

Quote
ormerod168
Yes those small 3mm nut can be a pain to adjust but if you bolt you printer down to something solid you will only have to do it once

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Erik