Tony
Staff member
There comes a time when your sanity is worth more than a few dollars, and trying to keep a bed level IS one of those times. I'm not sure why, but the bed on my Ender 3 Pro never stayed in the same place, even though I had adjusted it quite tight. So, I made the decision that I was going to purchase the BL Touch bed probe.
In my searching, I found that for just a little more, I could get the CR Touch which looks better, and has a metal probe. The two probes are exactly the same mechanically and the plugs are exactly the same, so it will work on any printer that takes a BL Touch.
They do state to unplug your Z Stop, but as a safety measure, I left mine plugged in just in case. Last thing I wanted was the nozzle crashing into my glass bed. But, I set it just slightly lower than the CR Touch level.
This was literally a Plug-N-Play operation since I was also upgrading the main board as well (more on that in another thread).
Once I had it wired in, I turned the printer on with the SD card inserted with a firmware update. Turns out this was the chinese version, and I later found the correct version which I will link below (please note, this is for the touch screen display. More on that in another thread lol). But once it was wired in, and the firmware updated, it found home for the bed (never moved Z), went to center, probed down, Z down, touched, up, slow down, touch, DONE. All I had to do is set my Z Offset (mine is at -0.70mm) to set my height, and it's golden.
I did go into the program and did the 16 point bed level test, and not a single scrape, and every test print has been within 0.02mm of each other on thickness for first layer print.
IMO, if you have a 3D printer, get something to do the auto bed leveling. Now, unless I make a drastic change (which I'm about to do), I do not have to run the 16 point test.
One thing to note, go into your slicer and put G29 right under G28. G28 is Home, and G29 is probe 9 points (I think, have not tested yet). This will make sure if for some reason your bed screws were moved, you will still have an even print. Take a few seconds to run each print, but it is worth it over the headaches of being too far from the bed and have adhesion issues, or too close and gouge the bed.
Here is the CR Touch that I purchased.
Amazon product
In my searching, I found that for just a little more, I could get the CR Touch which looks better, and has a metal probe. The two probes are exactly the same mechanically and the plugs are exactly the same, so it will work on any printer that takes a BL Touch.
They do state to unplug your Z Stop, but as a safety measure, I left mine plugged in just in case. Last thing I wanted was the nozzle crashing into my glass bed. But, I set it just slightly lower than the CR Touch level.
This was literally a Plug-N-Play operation since I was also upgrading the main board as well (more on that in another thread).
Once I had it wired in, I turned the printer on with the SD card inserted with a firmware update. Turns out this was the chinese version, and I later found the correct version which I will link below (please note, this is for the touch screen display. More on that in another thread lol). But once it was wired in, and the firmware updated, it found home for the bed (never moved Z), went to center, probed down, Z down, touched, up, slow down, touch, DONE. All I had to do is set my Z Offset (mine is at -0.70mm) to set my height, and it's golden.
I did go into the program and did the 16 point bed level test, and not a single scrape, and every test print has been within 0.02mm of each other on thickness for first layer print.
IMO, if you have a 3D printer, get something to do the auto bed leveling. Now, unless I make a drastic change (which I'm about to do), I do not have to run the 16 point test.
One thing to note, go into your slicer and put G29 right under G28. G28 is Home, and G29 is probe 9 points (I think, have not tested yet). This will make sure if for some reason your bed screws were moved, you will still have an even print. Take a few seconds to run each print, but it is worth it over the headaches of being too far from the bed and have adhesion issues, or too close and gouge the bed.
Here is the CR Touch that I purchased.
Amazon product