What's the best way to level bed to use the Kraken from E3D?

I'm interested in using the Kraken; however, it must be a nightmare to get the bed right. I think the best way is to level the bed so that's perfectly parallel to the X axis, then use a sensor like BLTouch to get the height right. I'm just not sure how to achieve the perfectly parallel bed tho.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/2017 10:32AM by Shizen.

Adjusting screws.

Have you considered using the Diamond instead? There is now a 5 filament version as well as the standard 3 filament version.

---

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 actually planned to have the 5 in 1 out diamond nozzle as my 3rd printer, but it's only for mixing color with filaments at the same temperature. The Kraken only interest me since it can extrude 4 different material at different temperature, I would probably play around with insane material combination, (for example nylon infill for strength, the shell is some exotic filament with PVA or HIPS as support). Yes, I agree that it's unlikely I'm able to use 4 nozzles at 1 print, but perhaps I can also go for a printer with 4 favorite filaments ready to go.

However, like I said before, I have no idea how to get the bed perfectly parallel enough to use this set-up. I would prefer to know solutions to everything before I actually consider buying it.

I would say the below points are key for achieving and keeping a level bed.

A solid and square frame,
x axis designed not to sag with the weight of the extruder and hotend setup when in the middle,
Good Y carriage design with a proper 3 point levelling, none of this 4 point each corner shit.

The addition of a probe should be used just to fine tune the result and account for slight miss alignments when heating and cooling the bed.

If your printer is designed and built right you should only have to level the bed once. "auto bed levelling" (or bed alignment compensation as it should be called) was added to cheap printer to get usable results, and now its seen as a must have. If one of the mills or lathes in my shop needed to be calibrated before every use, i would send it back to the suppler, not add something that compensates for its short falling.

What he ^ said

The issue with 4 nozzles is no different to levelling a bed to 1 nozzle.
You can level the Krakens 4 heads individually parallel to the bed but if the XYZ's aren't moving at 90 degrees to one another then it doesn't matter if its one nozzle or 10, your clearance to bed will vary across the build area.

If using ABL to compensate for non square axis and the 20mm spacing between the kraken nozzles is enough to make a noticeable difference to bed clearance between the nozzles that would suggests a very misaligned printer that wouldn't really merit a Kraken set up.

Leveling each nozzle to the bed may not be as important as you think.... each nozzle only has to be levelled to the bed if it is used on the first layer. Slight misalignment in nozzles may then cause print problems such as leaving marks on just printed layers, oozing, Z height innacuracies depending on nozzle used and of course inactive nozzles flicking the print off the bed.

All of the above problems are amplified by a factor of 4 when you have a beast like the kraken. This is why most are using IDEX or tilting hotends to remove the inactive nozzles from the print. If you do decide to take up a kraken, I suggest you choose one to be the primary nozzle that is only used on the first layer (raft if necessary) and the other 3 have an ever so slightly higher Z height to avoid dragging through layers. Invest in some accurate shims.

Quote
Origamib
I suggest you choose one to be the primary nozzle that is only used on the first layer (raft if necessary) and the other 3 have an ever so slightly higher Z height to avoid dragging through layers. Invest in some accurate shims.

Really? That just makes the other 3 nozzles inaccurate and you will have issues with splitting layers when you change between the "primary" and other. Not to mention that changing back will damage the print as the lower "primary" hotend will now be dragging through the part.

All you really need to do is make sure all 4 nozzles are level, use a flat surface to help with the alignment then attach to the gantry. If all the nozzles are at the same height then you should have no issues, I would not recommend playing around with different heights but thats just my experience.

The Krakens nozzles seem easy to adjust to one another as they have a smooth (unthreaded) heatbreak that slides into the cold end and clamps.

My point wasn't about getting the correct first layer height it was that, if in a 20mm XY distance, the nozzle to bed height differs because an axis is out of square, that would need addressing before considering a Kraken.