Auto bed level (shown on Solidoodle 3) by FadiK

Last crawled date: 3 years, 1 month ago

UPDATE: Some bad news!
I do apologize for the lack of updates on this, however a serious of unfortunate events had crippled my progress. During a modification for a better heated platform, I fried 3 transistors, one atmega, one power supply and broke two extruder mounts while I am at. I almost have all parts to get back and going, just need to find some time.
This is a tentative Thingiverse model until I finalize all parts and populate the gallery with video and more pictures.
What is it?
Another auto bed level idea that can be adapted to fit your printer,
although I originally did it for my Solidoodle 3.
Why another auto bed level?
I got tired of performing man leveling of the bed after each print,
and I didn't have any servos lying around, so I wanted to make use
of an opto-switch that I had slavaged off on older printer that I used to have.
Features:
Uses an opto-switch (or opto-endstop)
Spring loaded for automatic operation
Doesn't use any servos or any extra pins/soldering.
Relatively simple to print and use.
If by accident, the extruder moves to the bed while the nail is extended, it won't break as it has some give to it, but ultimately it'll break as shown in the picture without causing any damage to the bed or anything else.
Test run
The cylinder you see in the pictures was actually printed on the un-level bed shown in the pictures as well. I think it performed very well, thanks to Marlin auto-bed-leveling feature.
See it in action:
http://youtu.be/xx5szf5JKZQhttp://youtu.be/LzPoxXpYCF8