aluminum bed on mk2a/mk2b

Hi, I wanna ask about changing a borosilicate glass/normal glass to aluminum plate, is there any safety precaution that I have to add on to my mk2a/b bed such as covering the exposed terminal/solder point with kapton tape to avoid shorting it out?

Consider that my bed, the wire soldered underneath the heated bed and from what I know both side has open solder connection/terminal or something exposed on top of it.

I just wanted to change to aluminum plate with inductive sensor for auto bed leveling.

Thank you in advance

I suggest you cut a notch in the aluminium where the exposed terminals and LED are. Also put Kapton tape over them to guard against dropping a spanner or other metallic object on them.

Have you considered keeping the glass and using one of my differential IR sensor boards instead of an inductive probe? See [forums.reprap.org] for more.

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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].

Thank you for your feedback and suggestion, IR sensor are great but somewhat over budget for me , gotta say, quite expensive though. I will measure my mk2 heated bed later and compare with the aluminum bed I found because the aluminum bed I found has 4 mounting screws.

With the mounting screws I can maximize print volume for x and y axis, lesser risk of the head crashing into the bulldog clip. I just have to readjust the home offsets in eeprom later.

The LED and wire are soldered underneath the mk2 bed so basically it's a flat surface. I guess I just have to cover that area with kapton tape like you suggested

Quote
sarf2k4
Thank you for your feedback and suggestion, IR sensor are great but somewhat over budget for me , gotta say, quite expensive though)

Did you see the post I made near the end of that thread, announcing the second price reduction? You may find it costs no more than your inductive sensor plus aluminium bed.

Somewhat off topic: I prefer glass beds, because you can remove them from the printer when the print has finished and substitute another one. This means that you don't have to wait until you can separate the old print from the bed before starting another print. Also, if the print is difficult to remove from the bed, you can put the bed + print in the freezer to help it. Finally, if you get a head crash, the glass is (a) harder than aluminium, so less easily scratched, and (b) easy and cheap to replace.

Picture frame clips are a good alternative to bulldog clips for holding glass beds down.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2015 10:03AM 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].

I did see it, not much of a differences actually, it is 3 times higher than I buy the aluminum plate + inductive sensor.

I'm still new in auto bed leveling, I don't know the process when all axis are homed when you enabled the auto bed leveling.

For example homing all axis goes as follows x>y>z. If I replace the z endstop with inductive sensor, my z axis would crash at the coupler and other stuff because my head sits outside of the print bed when all are homed

I'm wondering if there's a homing sequence that can be modified somewhere?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2015 08:25PM by sarf2k4.

Yes, the details of the homing sequence can be changed. If you use a Z probe to do Z homing, then it is generally best to home at the centre of the bed. How you set the Z homing XY position depends on what firmware you are running.

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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].

I am using geeetech prusa i3b, running on sangui 1.3a with marlin in it. when all of them are homed the nozzle sits outside of the bed, I believe this would be best so I am able to test bed height a little bit

Is it possible if I use stock z axis endstop (classic/common home), then add another sequence to move up the z axis by about 20mm then do the auto bed leveling procedure.

Simply saying, to avoid head crashing to the edge of the bed, I think I want my firmware do normal homing sequence first, then raise 10-20mm before the auto bed leveling procedure. since sangui board has bare minimum of pins available, I think I'm going to put the z probe along with the z endstop switch wires then plug to the board together, this way I got 2 types of z switch; mechanical switch and the sensor