Month: November 2018

Anet AM8 – Hallon Auto-bed-leveling – Octoprint – Marlin 1.1.8

~ kris ~ Leave a comment

This project took way longer than it really should have.   It starts with the Hallon ABL upgrade.   I have been putting off upgrading the infamous Anet H-plate far too long, and finally committed to that upgrade. 

  • H- Plate Upgrade – I ordered this one.  The plate itself is well made, and fits the standard hardware.  I tapped the holes for the y-axis belt holder to m4.  This seems to be working, though if my belt gets loose with some printing I will drill them out, and remount the bed with M5 screws and M5 lock nuts. 
  • Solid mount heatbed – Printed this spacer in ABS plastic.  Printed all close together with a joined brim.  ABS tends to shrink in a not perfect manner, so I then used calipers and a file to bring them all down to within .03mm of each other.  
  • Leveling of the X-carriage – I used a set of 3x2x1 blocks I had laying around to level the left and right sides of the x-carriage to the bed, which i think is more accurate than leveling to the top of the frame.  
  • Octoprint with ABL expert – Link to plugin repository It is easiest to find in the plugin manager.  I set it to bilinear correction.  
  • AM8 modifications:  ABL trigger mod (found this in the comments, haven’t tried it, made my own thing in freecad, though this looks much better than mine, so I am linking it)
  • Frame extension: I made a simple spacer, though I saw a full height one somewhere, and will link it when I find it again.  
Printing a class project for Claire

To find roughly your offset, use this procedure:

  • G28 – home position (which should show Z-10, safe nozzle position)
  • G1 Z0 – this puts it at 0 to the bed, this should be right where paper grabs
  • Once you have your offset determined, M851 Z-16.06
    • The -16.06 above is specific to my setup, and yours will be different
  • M500 to save eeprom

Initial Auto bed level controls added to machine settings in cura

G28 ;Home
G29 ; ABL hallon

Printing with Octoprint, I use the ABL expert plugin.  I found the Z correction I found via the procedure to need some tweaking.  Always Preheat at least the bed before ABL, not going to have a useful result any other way. Running .1 lower Z compared to paper to get good 1st layer.  Expect to have some trial and error here, printing some first layer tests.  I think it is a part of letting octoprint do the level correction.