I am the not so fortunate owner of a GIGABOT 2.0 3d printer. The 600 x 600mm aluminum bed plate is 6mm thick and its surface is not perfectly flat. I use a dial indictor to “tram” the plate as flat as I can get it. The problem is although I can get many high spots on the surface to zero out, I get as much of a surface variation of +/- 0.2mm. I have a very hard time getting large parts or multiple small ones to stick well on the first layer. I could live with this deviation if it was less such as +/-0.1mm. My question is about the auto bed leveling feature of Marlin firmware I am using. Does this function work to compensate for the flatness of a plate? Or does it just compute the neutral plane over the measured surface? What would any of you suggest? Any input is greatly appreciated…
Even with auto levelling, if the print surface is quite bumpy then a raft is the only thing that might help other than a new plate or print surface. Not sure how flexible something like buildtak is and if it will be thick/spongy enough to compensate for the bumpiness.
The auto levelling would help stop the nozzle catching in certain areas but you would still have a non-flat finish on the bottom if the print surface is not flat.
Get a machine shop to mill it flat. Save your head!
Either get it milled down or throw a piece of glass on top of it
I’m struggling with the same thing on a home made build plate… It sucks… Gota get a new one soon. On this subject is Mesh bed leveling better than Auto-bed leveling?
I have the same issue and manual mesh leveling works very well for me. I use it on 3 printers, the largest has a 12"x16" build plate.
Honestly, you can get away with 0.2mm easy as hell. You’re asking for a 0.0001+/- inch accuracy here…
Your slicer should be doing the first layer at a higher layer height than you’re printing at. If you’re printing at 0.2mm layers, first layer should print at close to 150% height, or depending on the slicer, you can go up to the width of the nozzle. Really, unless you’re using a 0.1mm nozzle here, and printing at 0.1mm layers, you should be fine. Make your first layer 0.4mm if you’ve got a 0.4mm nozzle. – you use the extra plastic on the first layer to lay down a completely flat interface for the second layer. No matter the deviations in the bed.
You don’t need MIC6 plate, you don’t need some crazy milled-down bed, you can get away with a lot.
hello do you have pictures of your particular printer mechanics plateau, thank you
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Unfortunately I think the solution may be I will need to sacrifice the build surface and use a honing stone on the aluminum to bring the surface flat. Then replace the build surface after. Too bad it didn’t come from the factory that way. I took the issue up with RE3d but they said it was blanchard ground on both sides as well as inspected and was within their speciation. They would not offer a replacement. Those printfromZ build surfaces aren’t cheap either!
Marlin supports Mesh Bed Leveling which solves this exact problem.
They now have a special branch in Git called UBL (Unified Bed Leveling), which is mostly under development right now.
I suggest you give it a try.
Roxy3D and @Scott_Lahteine can help you out.
Check out Scott’s gofundme page…
Here is a picture of initial rubbing with the honing stone. High spots are in Grey while low ones are still shiny. There is typically 0.008" to 0.015" difference in height between high and low. I will continue to rub with the stone until it is all evened out.
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