PZProbe - Yet another Piezo implementation

[mvdveer]

Got an e-mail from e3d, announcing the availability of their nozzle probe. It is called the PZProbe. It is designed specifically for the Voron Stealthburner and uses, like TAP, the nozzle as a probe.

From what I have read, once it is dialled in, no matter the change in the thickness of the build plate, the Z-Offset will stay consistent.

Not much out there in the wild as yet. This is probably the better of the two available videos out there: (Does not show PZProbe at work)

So bed meshing will be with the nozzle as with TAP.

Will it sway me away from Beacon contact - likely not. 

Cannot test it at present as there are no stock available - all already sold out. (And it is not cheap!)

 

 

[TitusADuxass]

Piezo - not the most reliable solution. I remember airbus giving up them, they wanted them as door and panel sensors. They were so unreliable they went back to normal switches.

[gueee]

the only piezo probe I know of that really works great is the pyr0piezo, but he seems to be out of business. 

it's kinda sad that it didn't get more attention, since he did a fantastic work designing the hardware and firmware to actually make it work reliably! 

[claudermilk]

I saw that. Looks interesting, and E3D is one I'd expect to figure it out to work. That might get me to switch from the Tap, which is now rock solid for me.

[TitusADuxass]

1 hour ago, claudermilk said:

I saw that. Looks interesting, and E3D is one I'd expect to figure it out to work. That might get me to switch from the Tap, which is now rock solid for me.

I've gone from TAP to beacon. 0,003 accuracy, fit and forget regardless of sheet changes.

[Penatr8tor]

Yup, Saw that video as well.

My thoughts...

You still have to tap out a bed mesh whereas the Beacon can tap and also float over the surface doing a high speed bed mesh.

Very interesting tech but, Too little too late IMO.

[gueee]

I switched to a cartographer3D, pretty much the same as beacon and recently touch was implemented. 

I'm super happy with the repeatability and same accuracy wise, 0.003 is just insane to be honest. 

[Penatr8tor]

7 minutes ago, gueee said:

I switched to a cartographer3D, pretty much the same as beacon and recently touch was implemented. 

I'm super happy with the repeatability and same accuracy wise, 0.003 is just insane to be honest. 

Agree...

I think all other probes pale by comparison.

Hopefully competition will bring the cost down to a more reasonable level, at least for the Beacon anyways.

[str0gg]

If it works like prusa mk4 implementation you have nothing to worry about. Beacon is cool idea but happens when you swap nozzle?

[mvdveer]

1 hour ago, str0gg said:

but happens when you swap nozzle?

Beacon Contact takes care of that.

[Penatr8tor]

1 hour ago, mvdveer said:

Beacon Contact takes care of that.

BINGO!

Beacon = One and Done.

[gueee]

nothing happens, it just works. 

I can only talk from the cartographer perspective, but as far as my research goes, it's the exact same for beacon. 

beacon contact, or carto touch do a calibration of the nozzle offset to the scanned mesh, it's basically set and forget. 

10 hours ago, Penatr8tor said:

Hopefully competition will bring the cost down to a more reasonable level, at least for the Beacon anyways.

yeah, beacon is still pretty expensive, but others based on openbedscanner are already pretty affordable imo. 

I paid 35 bucks for the cartographer3D v3 ADXL version. there's a lis2dw version as well, not much difference though. 

Edited September 4, 2024 by gueee

[mvdveer]

Steve did a install video for those interested

 

[claudermilk]

I got the notification for that, I was busy with something else & couldn't jump on the stream. I'll watch later.

[polyneutron]

On 9/3/2024 at 6:15 PM, Penatr8tor said:

BINGO!

Beacon = One and Done.

Beacon or any other eddy current probe offered do not stand up high temperature sustained prints. Pz probes will.

[3DCoded]

6 hours ago, polyneutron said:

Beacon or any other eddy current probe offered do not stand up high temperature sustained prints. Pz probes will.

According to E3D, Revo Voron PZ only goes to 75c

 

Cartographer is rated to 110c

 

And Beacon is rated to 110c

 

It looks like the eddy current probes have a higher temperature rating than PZProbe (at least that's what's advertised)

[polyneutron]

Eddy current probe said 108. The one that died never saw more than 70C. Nozzle 300C and bed 128C for more than 13 hours. Had to cool the printer completely and it came back for a 4 hour print and then it wouldn't come back. It disappeared completely. A bad probe perhaps. What are the alternatives for high temp sustained printing. Bambo and a few others have load cells and near Lidar. Load cell have issues with temp as well. Metal and CTe of the materials,  to far apart and things break.

[Penatr8tor]

10 hours ago, polyneutron said:

Beacon or any other eddy current probe offered do not stand up high temperature sustained prints. Pz probes will.

I won't argue that point but I will say that for the standard material PLA up to CF Nylon... the Beacon works without issue. Granted I'm only running 50c ish chamber temps.

[polyneutron]

My chamber temp is controlled at 40C unless I raise it. My case fans are a push from one side pulling from the other. The nevermore carbon pushes up the fridge door and hepa fan gets it out to the back top and centered. I don't know if the probe died from the material choices  (coefficient of thermal expansion) tore something apart. Or simply a bad trace or part. I sent it back for surface analysis. They will figure it out. They already sent a replacement and included it in my recent order of two more .

 

[polyneutron]

I have had two beacons. I gave one away and the short cable hooked on a tie wrap stem I failed to cut off. Plugged it back in and probe was dead and Nighthawk 36 lost the 5vdc pass through. Never happened before or after. Happened homing the printer.

Edited May 5 by polyneutron

[polyneutron]

7 hours ago, 3DCoded said:

According to E3D, Revo Voron PZ only goes to 75c

Cartographer is rated to 110c

And Beacon is rated to 110c

It looks like the eddy current probes have a higher temperature rating than PZProbe (at least that's what's advertised)

But the piezo probes are on the cold(above the heat break) side and eddy current probes are no more than 4mm off the bed at 300C or worse. 

Edited May 5 by polyneutron

[polyneutron]

6 minutes ago, polyneutron said:

But the piezo probes are on the cold(above the heat break) side and eddy current probes are no more than 4mm off the bed at 300C or worse. 

The probe that died was a carto v4. Stm32 and all it's glory. It might have been a bad trace or component. 

Edited May 5 by polyneutron

[polyneutron]

I had a good night sleep and I no longer believe the carto had a heat issue that killed it. When I first assembled the nighthawk 36 and carto the carto would drop out randomly until I used a shielded cable. The USB was ragging on the Carto. Now as the printer heated up the nighthawk did as well. The nighthawk was over 60C and the passthrough caused the signal to get muddied and it ended up taking out the analog chip or coil circuit. 

I could run a usb cable from the manta mainboard to the carto and the problem should be solved. But I don't want another cable to the hot end as resistance will slightly increase and it starts to look cluttered. Or I could design a fan bracket to blow a little air across the nighthawk. I could set the turn on temp to 45 or 50 and when it approaches 60 to turn on 100 percent. I have the cm4 fan set up that way, 37 and then 40. Then I could use the nighthawk pass through again. Set up that way the CM4 has never gotten to 40C.

Edited May 5 by polyneutron