Beacon Contact

[mvdveer]

Just updated the two printers with the  "beacon contact"  feature - basically auto - Z function.  How different can two printer experiences be?

Printer 1 - Micron 180 - Beacon Rev D - Revo Voron hotend. Updated and installed as per beacon documentation. Did a Beacon_auto_Calibrate, sliced a print and away we go - nearly perfect first layer. Slight tweaking to the macro section for heat compensation of the hotend. (changed from 0.06 to 0.05)

Printer 2 - VZBot 330AWD with Dragon UHF hotend - updated and installed as per beacon documentation. Did a Beacon_auto_Calibrate, sliced a print and away we go - near disaster - could not get the print off the build plate (still stuck there - thinking Gooooodbuy plate!). Squished to death! Luckily have spares (yes I do and more than one) Ran several prints and had to adjust the offset in the macro to 0.20 initially.

SET_GCODE_OFFSET Z=0.20     ; add a little offset for hotend thermal expansion. ; needs fine tuning, long meltzones require more   #was 0.06. 

"little offset" they say - WTF?   Whewww - at these settings - print released from plate, but far from perfect. Some more tuning to do.

[mvdveer]

Bring back the Nozzle scrub! Only way this thing is going to work reliably!

[mvdveer]

For the VZBot 330 AWD with a Dragon UHF nozzle - the Z-Offset compensation tuned into 0.225. Going to attempt a print at these settings - will update tomorrow with results.

BTW - don't have a nozzle scrub on the VZBot or Micron as these damaged the probes. Looking at silicone brushes.

 

[Dirk]

2 hours ago, mvdveer said:

How different can two printer experiences be?

Now you know why they released a few hours before the end of may @Penatr8tor? Now your magical bacon contact experience Oh, and if you can please post a bacon-tap-the-egg video? I have been looking for 3 days and haven't seen any, YET

 

And I can assure you, it is all not magic as they want you to believe. It is nice. But differs from printer to printer, pei plate to pei plate, magnet below the plate, nozzle, extruder... so.. not that magic all of it

But it comes close.

[Penatr8tor]

30 minutes ago, Dirk said:

Now you know why they released a few hours before the end of may @Penatr8tor? Now your magical bacon contact experience Oh, and if you can please post a bacon-tap-the-egg video? I have been looking for 3 days and haven't seen any, YET

And I can assure you, it is all not magic as they want you to believe. It is nice. But differs from printer to printer, pei plate to pei plate, magnet below the plate, nozzle, extruder... so.. not that magic all of it

But it comes close.

Here's what four decades of design for manufacture and product development has taught me. Nothing is 100% and experiences will vary. Learned there was no magic many years ago so, nothing new and not surprised. I wasn't really expecting magic to begin with.

With that said... From my observations there will be cases where the "Contact" capability will be very useful and where it won't be so much. I think it has value for most setups with a magnetic sheet and coated steel build plate.

If you swap build plates a lot, the height compensation will be a benefit. Same goes for using the same build plate but with different materials. The difference between 110c and 65c on my VzBot is 0.08mm meaning I have to adjust. I can also see it being a benefit on printers that need to do a QGL or Tilt to level the bed, as the process could be significantly accelerated.

And lastly, if you're going to use the nozzle as a probe... you can't have any ooze getting in between the tip and the bed, just like you can't have chips on your Z probe on a CNC mill. Nature of the beast. Even with TAP on my 2.4, I run a hard nozzle and lightly run a file under the tip to assure that it's clean. Even though I'm not going to use a Beacon on my Voron refurb, using Mellow CNC TAP, I will use the file the tip method and will also do a nozzle scrub.

@mvdveer I ordered myself a couple sets of Bambu Lab silicone scrubber pads (2x sets of 3) to replace the brass plated steel brush I was using in the past. I just need to modify the existing design to accommodate the new brush. QR code on box takes you to Bambu labs homepage.

 

[Dirk]

Thanks for sharing your opinion flowing from your wisdom

 

[Dirk]

6 hours ago, mvdveer said:

Looking at silicone brushes.

Or you can get it here. There are several printables on printables if you type voron bambulab brush. Or of course wait for the engineered version @Penatr8toris about to pull out of his hat

Or you can be cheap like me and print one yourself this style  

Edited June 3, 2024 by Dirk

[Penatr8tor]

or you can just buy 3 of them from Bambu for 1 dollar ea.

[Dirk]

That's really a cool deal.

Unfortunately the prices of goods, when they ship to Europe, or triple. This is the case since 2020, when people were ordering a lot of goods, and the Chinese were declaring for example a TV screen of 600 euros as 12.50. Because it was below the limit of the tax amount. Now we good european citizens ( I know whole of europ fits in Texas), have to pay a variable amount of 'administration costs' for every postal package (+- 10-25 euros) and the regular 19-21% taxes. Above an amount of 200 euros we even pay an 'additional import cost' of 15%. 

Also since the start of COVID, or the Russian/Ukrainian war, our shipping costs have increased with about 250%. 

I did not create an account with Bambulab to see the shipping costs, but it will be at least 10-12 euros. So what costs 1 dollar for an American, costs 16 for a European. 

I believe the situation is not very different for @mvdveer.

But anyway.. As long as we are having fun

 

 

[mvdveer]

5 hours ago, Penatr8tor said:

I ordered myself a couple sets of Bambu Lab silicone scrubber pads (2x sets of 3) to replace the brass plated steel brush I was using in the past. I just need to modify the existing design to accommodate the new brush. QR code on box takes you to Bambu labs homepage.

On to it - thank you. QR took me to Bambu labs wiki, but ordered some from the Australian Bambu labs store.

[mvdveer]

Got both the printers with the Beacon Contact tuned in, and working really well - very good consistent first layers.

[Penatr8tor]

4 hours ago, mvdveer said:

Got both the printers with the Beacon Contact tuned in, and working really well - very good consistent first layers.

Awesome. I'll probably load the contact software and setup tonight. I'm also going to update the scrubber geometry to work with the Bambu Labs silicone brush pads. My only concern is how well the adhesive sticks to a printed surface.

[Penatr8tor]

@mvdveer Welp, That's the thing about good ideas... Chances are someone has already beaten you to it.

I found a scrubber mod on Printables. This should do the trick. SCRUBBER

 

 

[Penatr8tor]

I also ordered some of the roller type scrubbers (X1 Carbon spare parts). Based on Bambu's description it uses a PTFE aka Bowden tube. I'm thinking this could be replicated or even refurbished with a new piece of tube if it wore out pretty easily. Price was within a dollar of the scrubber pads. Decontaminator Mod

Edited June 4, 2024 by Penatr8tor
Forgot something...

[Penatr8tor]

...and as we venture further down the rabbit hole that is nozzle wiping...

Printed nozzle wiper

Granted this could use some design for 3D printing optimization but, it does prove that you don't need to buy the real deal if your pocket can take the hit @Dirk.

[Crashdown]

This is what my printers needed to be truly complete. I can now switch from smooth PEI to textured, single sided to double sided, switch nozzles, switch whole hotends and never have to manually recalibrate any offsets.

It just works and I feel like I have taken a giant step into the future of 3d printing.

I have to admit I was worried it was going to be underwhelming but I was dead wrong. 

[Dirk]

1 hour ago, Penatr8tor said:

if your pocket can take the hit @Dirk.

I explained before, it's not can't. It's don't want to. I'll print the shoe wiper and see if I can have a made by Dirk wiper on Dirks printer

 

[Penatr8tor]

4 minutes ago, Dirk said:

I explained before, it's not can't. It's don't want to. I'll print the shoe wiper and see if I can have a made by Dirk wiper on Dirks printer

That's why we're here right? ...and as I have said before, Inventing and printing up your own solution is a huge part of the hobby.

I look forward to seeing what you come up with. 

I might end up with a Dirk design in one of my printers.

[claudermilk]

22 hours ago, Penatr8tor said:

@mvdveer Welp, That's the thing about good ideas... Chances are someone has already beaten you to it.

I found a scrubber mod on Printables. This should do the trick. SCRUBBER

And naturally, there's a remix for the Trident already done. 

[Penatr8tor]

@claudermilk Noice! 

[leo]

ok so bringing things back on topic a little. I am wondering about this temperature compensation.

I have take a quick look at the manual, it seems to advised against using hot nozzle to touch smooth PEI to prevent damaging the sheet. So, did you do the Beacon_auto_Calibrate with a cold nozzle, then heat up the nozzle to print? And on this, does that mean the temperature compensation is for between hot and cold nozzle? (nozzle length grow quite a bit after heated).

 

I was actually thinking about a z measure sequence to auto get the true prefect first layer regardless.

1. do a z homing with z_endstop.

2. Do a Beacon_auto_Calibrate to get the position (usually -z offset) of the bed.

3. This will calculate the z_endstop offset.

4. After heated the nozzle, do another z_endstop with the hot nozzle.

5. Now the difference between step 1 and 4 is how much the nozzle expand. Or we get a z_endstop offset in step3, but apply it using the z_endstop trigger location at step4.

 

[PFarm]

 

I'm waiting for my Beacon probe to arrive.  Like the Cartographer probe setup, I'm using sensorless homing which uses "homing override" instead of "safe Z homing". Is anyone using this setup without issues?

[Penatr8tor]

On 6/21/2024 at 10:28 PM, leo said:

ok so bringing things back on topic a little. I am wondering about this temperature compensation.

I have take a quick look at the manual, it seems to advised against using hot nozzle to touch smooth PEI to prevent damaging the sheet. So, did you do the Beacon_auto_Calibrate with a cold nozzle, then heat up the nozzle to print? And on this, does that mean the temperature compensation is for between hot and cold nozzle? (nozzle length grow quite a bit after heated).

I was actually thinking about a z measure sequence to auto get the true prefect first layer regardless.

1. do a z homing with z_endstop.

2. Do a Beacon_auto_Calibrate to get the position (usually -z offset) of the bed.

3. This will calculate the z_endstop offset.

4. After heated the nozzle, do another z_endstop with the hot nozzle.

5. Now the difference between step 1 and 4 is how much the nozzle expand. Or we get a z_endstop offset in step3, but apply it using the z_endstop trigger location at step4.

The issue of the hot nozzle damaging bed arose during the Voron TAP testing, leading to the conclusion that the bed should be at the printing temperature to counteract any bed height changes due to thermal expansion. Similarly, the nozzle needs to be heated but with two considerations: firstly, it should be hot enough to allow for expansion, and secondly, not so hot that it damages or indents the PEI surface during measurement. Eventually, the team decided on a bed temperature equal to the printing temperature and a nozzle temperature of 150°C, which is sufficiently warm to compensate for expansion without causing oozing or bed damage.

With that said, Do this (it's what everyone who's had or has TAP already does)...

Heat Bed to print temp.

Heat Nozzle to 150c

Probe, Scan, whatever

Park printhead and heat nozzle to print temp.

Prime

Print

wait...

Inspect part and notice that the corner is peeling up off the bed

Cuss and yell obscenities while cancelling the print

Remove failed print

Repeat

[PFarm]

On 7/10/2024 at 6:14 PM, PFarm said:

I'm waiting for my Beacon probe to arrive.  Like the Cartographer probe setup, I'm using sensorless homing which uses "homing override" instead of "safe Z homing". Is anyone using this setup without issues?

For anyone using sensorless homing, there is a section in the Beacon documentation that explains how to make it work.

Homing Override

Early impression, this device is awesome! The Trident going to get one as well.

[Penatr8tor]

Well... I finally got around to updating the firmware on the Beacon RevD that I have installed on my VzBot. There wasn't that much to do really. SSH'd into the Pi and ran an install from the Beacon_Klipper folder and the rest was updating my printer.cfg and print_start macro to take advantage of the added "contact" capabilities.

So, you basically have two probes in one. You have the scanner and the contact. By default, the Z homing method is by contact, and any subsequent homes are by the proximity method.

Let's say we're going to print something out of PLA. First, we home X, Y and Z. Then we heat up the nozzle to 150c (probing temp) and the bed to 65c (printing temp). Next, we rehome so that "contact" can touch the bed and find true zero. But there's a problem, Z was already calibrated by contact at room temp in the 1st home and now it's set to proximity. Fear not fellow plastic pushers... You can override proximity by adding METHOD=CONTACT to your G28 command e.g. G28 Z METHOD=CONTACT. Now you have a true Z zero, nozzle to bed, at whatever temp you probed at e.g. 150c nozzle and 65c bed. Next, we need to heat up the nozzle to printing temp 200c - 210c and doing so will cause the hotend to expand further. And that's the dilemma... You can only probe at a lower temperature than you can print and every hotend is different and expands differently. Since you can't probe at print temp we'll have to compensate the best we can.

The way Beacon has gone about compensating for the expansion is by adding an offset. G-code for this is SET_GCODE_OFFSET Z=0.06 where 0.06 is the Beacon default compensation distance and you'll adjust either up or down. At first, I didn't pay any attention to this in the sample print_start macro they provided and printed my first test without it. I measured the skirt thickness to get the first layer height and it was 0.15mm instead of 0.2mm. Second try but this time I stuck "SET_GCODE_OFFSET Z=0.06" into my print_start macro and... now I'm getting 0.19mm to 0.21mm 1st layer heights and I'm like... OK, I get it now.

My final thoughts are... Total game changer! I can now pull the build pate off to remove parts or change build plates or nozzles or different materials and the Z never needs to be re-calibrated. Love it! Love it! and Love it!

My VzBot print_start if anyone's interested.

[gcode_macro PRINT_START]
gcode:
    {% set BED_TEMP = params.BED_TEMP|default(100)|float %}
    {% set EXTRUDER_TEMP = params.EXTRUDER_TEMP|default(190)|float %}
    
    BED_MESH_CLEAR
    SET_GCODE_OFFSET Z=0

    G28                       ; Home all Axis
    G0 Z2                     ; Position nozzle 2mm over bed for Beacon heat soak
    M140 S{BED_TEMP}          ; Start bed heating
    M109 S150                 ; Heat nozzle to 150c Probing Temp
    M190 S{BED_TEMP}          ; Wait for bed to reach temperature  
    M117 Homing...                     ; display message
    G28 Z METHOD=CONTACT CALIBRATE=1   ; calibrate z offset and beacon model hot
    BED_MESH_CALIBRATE RUNS=2          ; bed mesh in scan mode

    M104 S{EXTRUDER_TEMP}                    ; set extruder to print temp
    M109 S{EXTRUDER_TEMP}                    ; wait for extruder temp

    SET_GCODE_OFFSET Z=0.08     ; add a little offset for hotend thermal expansion
                                ; needs fine tuning, long meltzones require more
    PRIME_BLOB 
    G92 E0.0 ; reset extruder distance position

I also swapped out extruders. I bought the new Hextrudort Low which changes a couple things over the old extruder. It has a 60:10 ratio (old one is 50:10), an improved filament path, a bowden tube connector (the old one just had a hole) and a hard stop to prevent over squishing of the filament. Install was a breeze. I mean you really can't beat the VzBot toolhead design IMO, at least from a swap things out perspective. Two screws and the hotend drops down, two screws and the motor is off and another two screws and the extruder is off. Just reverse the order and it all goes right back together.

Old extruder

 

New extruder