Will the SmartEffector solve all (many?) (some?) of my problems

Hi,

i built a Delta Printer a few years ago mostly copying dc42's Delta. I used Traxxas ball joints and so on. I am pretty happy with the machine, except that it has never been calibrated really well (bc its a paiiin). I mostly solve issues by printing a higher first layer and printing the first layer really slow.
I now found the smart effector dc42 developed, which lets me use the hotend itself as a z-probe, which would make autoleveling actually really useful since there is no more offset and effector tilt shouldn't be a problem either.

Am I correct that this effector would solve all my issues? and is there a way to keep my current rods or do i need to also order the magnetic rods (yeah they are cool, but pretty expensive :x)

hmm thinking about it, I would just need some kind of m3 nut on a m3 screw with a washer. does such a thing exist?

Edit 2: something like those traxxas rod ends but without the ball should work.

Thanks

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/08/2018 08:17AM by Karatektus.

It rather depends on what is causing the calibration errors. On my delta the calibration deviation dropped from 0.11mm before I did the upgrade to Smart Effector, magnetic rods and linear rails, to 0.023mm afterwards. I attribute this to three effects, although I don't know the proportions:

1. The Smart Effector has a more reproducible trigger height over different parts of the bed (I use PEI painted black on the underside) than the IR sensor did.

2. 5 of the 12 Traxxas joints had a little slop in them.

3. At least one of my wheeled carriages was not perfectly aligned with the horizontal, and this was causing effector tilt.

What calibration deviation do you achieve currently? Have you measured the Z probe trigger height at each probe point and added H corrections in the bed.g file to compensate for the differences?

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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].

yup i did that multiple times and still had parts of my bed where the first layer nearly vanished (bc the hotend was too close to the bed) to mitigate this i mostly print the first layer at 0.3mm. kinda hacky.
ill take a look at my bed.g file tonight, but i can assure you its more than 0.11. also i did not use your ir probe but an inductive sensor.

My guess is that you had to mount the inductive sensor at a large distance from the nozzle because of its size. The greater the distance, the greater the change in the relative heights of the probe and the nozzle when the effector tilt changes. That's why I designed the IR sensor to fit below the hot end heatsink, to minimise the distance. But the Smart Effector uses the nozzle itself as the probe, so it is not affected by tilt.

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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].