Auto bed level

[Roxy]

OK... And remember, everybody's printer is different. You could very easily turn on the bed and nozzle with Pronterface and let it heat up. Do you get a different first layer if you do that compared to if you just start cold and let it heat up while the ABL stuff is doing it's magic?

[cperiod]

Do you get a different first layer if you do that compared to if you just start cold and let it heat up while the ABL stuff is doing it's magic?

In all honesty, it never occurred to me to test that. My heat bed is always up to temp before I run the ABL, but ABL runs while the hotend is warming up. What I can say is that I haven't noticed a difference in first layer quality between the origin corner (where the hotend would be coldest during the ABL) to where the ABL ends (when it's near 240C). Nor would I expect to see the difference at the 0.2mm layer heights I print with; the linear thermal expansion of something the size of an alu/brass hotend heating to 250C is something like 0.005mm. I'd bet the retraction and extrusion forces and carriage wobble move the hotend more than that.

[kd7eir]

I've been testing today with just heating the bed before doing ABL and have not noticed any quality difference between that and heating both the bed and hotend. I'm not sure that there is any time difference from clicking print to laying down pla with either method as normally my bed heats first then the hotend, so I'm spending the same amount of time, just eliminating any possible oozing during ABL.

Tomorrow I will experiment with doing ABL cold.

[Donziboy2]

So what probes are you guys using?

[kd7eir]

So what probes are you guys using?

I'm using a servo with the same microswitch that was being used for my Z axis

[cperiod]

Servo with microswitch. A different microswitch than stock, though, as I trashed mine resoldering a broken connector.