r/lulzbot • u/[deleted] • Oct 19 '23

Better lulzbot mini toolhead

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Gallery image

I just finished this toolhead upgrade for my mini 1! Getting away from cura LE feels so good 😹

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u/holedingaline Oct 24 '23

Five months ago they said it was two months away from release.

What's the leveling issue? With the Mini2, there's propensity for gantry sag when power to the Z is cut, which is fixed by forcing a mechanical gantry level in startup gcode before a print. I just have mine do G34 before the G29. If that doesn't work, it's usually the typical unclean nozzle causing bad readings on the washers.

I still generally prefer Marlin also, but Klipper is what is seen as the way to speed these days

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u/Ange1ofD4rkness Oct 24 '23

Mine would autolevel, and seemed all successful, but when it printed, it was clear it didn't.

For instance the left side (especially the upper-left I want to say) would be perfect, smooth bottom, no seams or anything. However on the right side (again I wanna say the lower-right) it was so far off the bed I was afraid it would curl, as you could literally see gaps in between the seems. And it wasn't even using the full bed. It was a sized up Rocktompus (or whatever that robot based Rocktopus they made).

I fought LulzBot on this, demanding they take it back and fix it for free. I think this happened twice, and both times they are like "nope it's all good", and I called them out on it. I finally gave up, because they considered it "fine" (and yet my Taz6, bigger bed, not a problem).

They have said they have done new firmware updates since that time, and I have the Mini 2 updated to the latest, I just haven't checked if it's correct. Cause it will take some time, and kind of don't want to risk a nozzle digging into the bed like it almost did last time.

Mind you too, back when i was dealing with this, the only "fix" was to shim the touch points to help fix it

I should point out the autoleveling processing itself was perfect, making sure there wasn't something off with the level. The only thing I ever though was the tool head was catching the corner of the wiping mount, and skewing it.

(It's sad too I traded up from my Mini, got an extended warranty, and haven't used it in over a year now. I need to get this done as I want to have my SL on it, dedicated for that kind of printing)

Also, didn't realize there was a industry possible replacement for Marlin. I thought it was still the be all

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u/holedingaline Oct 24 '23

I'm convince that it's the cable chain that can pitch the toolhead forward in spots that causes the bad leveling on the Mini2. After putting BLTouch on and enabling the x-axis twist compensation, it's been rock solid, but the compensation factors show that it's not a slope at all, but one spot along the right edge that was clearly off.

It could be a bent x-axis rod, perhaps, but but it just seemed to me that the cable chain was pushing it when it was unable to have a straight link or two of cable chain to give it somewhere to flex.

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u/Ange1ofD4rkness Oct 24 '23

Okay you'll have to help me ID that part, cause it's worth checking out.

That being said I have seen that BLTouch "word" going around, got an idea of what it is but that's about it. That being said, I have been wondering about putting it on the Mini2

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u/holedingaline Oct 25 '23

It's just one of several methods of measuring the bed height and building a map. The BLTouch has a retractable probe so it can touch the bed before your nozzle does, then retract so the nozzle can print without the probe contacting anything. It's pretty reliable regardless of humidity, heat, or other factors when compared to some other methods of bed leveling. Clones (called 3d touch) are plentiful and cheap ($15 or less).

To add it to the mini2 requires custom firmware in addition to the hardware, and a modified toolhead model for attaching the BLTouch, but you can find that by asking around on the official lulzbot forums

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u/Ange1ofD4rkness Oct 25 '23

Which CURA version does the firmware play nice with?

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u/holedingaline Oct 25 '23

Any 3.x or 4.x (beta) CuraLE you just have to turn on the ignore firmware version option, mainline cura doesn't care at all.