Fixing a Warped 3D Printer Bed 

Did you have any luck with yours? I'm about to try it on mine. Plus I thought the roughened texture after may help with adhesion without having to use tape

Wow, cool would love to learn scraping even if the basics .. for linear guide surface 😁

@@Amit-sp4qm ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-LqYejmEmPJA.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-CYKpBhqTFys.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-pT5KWvglp_c.html

My glass bed is warped... Upd: got myself a new one, but fixed the problem with leveling before the parcel arrived. And it's not automated with a sensor, just basic leveling with new firmware and a piece of paper. And it works so perfect I lack words to describe it. I'm afraid to ruin it. It feels too good when printer just works and works fast, without recalibration every time. Sometimes 3d printing is way too unpredictable to have something to do with engineering. It's closer to magic and clown shows somehow.

I actually think I might have been listening to an audiobook at the time. :D

the glass is conforming to your support

That's awesome. That sounds like another great way to solve the problem that would take roughly the same amount of time mine did. :D

@@NicholasPiegdon Yep. I realized the Ender 3 you can disable steppers and manually move the hotend around the bed instead of fighting with the X Y function which is tedious. I had my Ender 3 baseplate cover perfectly level but I missed my mirror bed. I like it so much! I found out painters tape also works well.

Mirror/glass beds rule. They look awesome when printing parts and they make the bottom of the print smooth. I don't use glue or tape anymore and let it print directly on there, without a brim or raft! It looks so cool when doing that. I still have yet to print petsfang so it's easier to see prints being made.

did you solve it?

I just got a Mono X and noticed the build plate was concave with a wave. I sent them a description and a pic using a straight edge, they asked me to fill out a form and they are sending me a new build plate. Total time from when I sent the 1st message to the confirmation they would replace it 1.5 - 2 hrs (about 5-10 mins actually me writing) Still I bought a paver and a mirror and will smooth it.

They make aluminum backed pcb bed heaters thats what i have on both of my machines so theres a metal build surface and a pcb heater underneath, which side would be the cold side?

​ @TheTechy2 Use ABL Mesh leveling, it's impossible to get a large (250mm+) heated bed perfectly level because it will warp when heated.

Check the video description for the link! :D

This particular surface plate was $37 from Amazon and I've found a bunch of uses for it since then, so it's paid for itself a few times over, just like any other tool. (It looks like they've gotten about $15-20 more expensive since then.) They're super interesting though: every single precision instrument can be traced back to the flat reference surface(s) that were used to make it. You can't make a modern screw (or the machine that makes screws) with any degree of accuracy without one of your tools earlier in the process requiring one. The "Machine Thinking" channel made a video called "Origins of Precision" that does a great job of explaining it. The only exception is the surface plate itself, which can be made by rubbing three *uneven* surfaces together in a very specific order. (Search for "The Whitworth Three Plates Method" for cool diagrams.)

I don't have a heated bed, so at least in my case it's a non-issue. Doesn't glass make inductive probing harder, too? (We're a couple years on since I made this video and this little 3D printer is an absolute workhorse; I haven't had a failed print since this flattening procedure. The first layer is always perfect.)

@@NicholasPiegdon Well I have to say that is awesome, you did a great job flattening it out. I do not use a probe on my printer so I could not say if the glass would interfere with that type of leveling procedure. When I priint carbon petg though, the aluminum bed definitely looses shape. Might make for an interesting future video, kinda dangerous but heck maybe I'll try to film an example showing what my bed does. Im sure different brands and thicknesses behave different.

That's fair. I was still learning to use it at the time and think I was more interested in getting the dial's face in the camera shot. In retrospect, maybe a plunger-type indicator would have been a better choice.

That printer didn't have a heated bed, so my guess is it would have lasted longer than if it did have one. That said, I finally retired this old warhorse a couple years ago and got a Prusa with mesh bed leveling. But, for the two years after the mod where it was still in regular use, it continued to print perfectly.

@@NicholasPiegdon I was wondering the same, came across this vid, noticed it was posted 5 years ago and thought how amazing - you were marching toward what we have today with Unified Bed Leveling and mesh maps of the print surface years before it was really a thing. Also I haven't seen a PrinterBot, or PrinterBot style, in SO long. Well done!

Yes, this is a silly omission. Sorry! Being able to pick the baud rate should be in the next update.

Do you know which firmware your printer uses? A few people (all with Marlin 2.x firmware) reported that the printer will move when you click in the black area but no text shows up in the sidebar. Does that sound like what you're seeing? There's a lot of discussion about the problem (and some good headway toward a solution), here: github.com/npiegdon/bed-inspector/issues/4

@@NicholasPiegdon actually there is no movement or anything. Not sure what i may be doing wrong.

@@NicholasPiegdon I am running marlin 2.x

@@jonsteege6193 Hmm, no movement sounds like it might be a different problem. Still, I wonder if the changes made for the first problem (in that GitHub issue) will also help the second? I'm hoping to make a new release in a few days with the changes (and a couple other improvements).

@@NicholasPiegdon i will definitely check out GitHub and follow along with this and keep in touch for i know others probably have similar issues or never have seen this.

The code is on GitHub, here: github.com/npiegdon/bed-inspector Go to the "Releases" page there and you can download the app.

Hmm, looking at the code I could have made it a lot friendlier/flexible. Sorry! You could get most of the way there just by opening BedLeveler.cs and "Find and Replace" the ten or so "150"s with your bed size. After compiling the project again, you should be all set. (There are a pair of 75's on line 39 that are supposed to represent the center of the bed (150 / 2), but that's just for the starting position of the scan, so they don't matter as much.) The more interesting question is whether the flavor of Gcode that the Ender-3 uses is the same as my PrintrBot. This only uses the simplest of commands, but there are small differences between the controller boards that might make things more interesting. Good luck!

@@NicholasPiegdon Thanks, will give it a try and report back to this post

​@@NicholasPiegdon I have an Anet A8 Plus and I was testing your software to see if would respond to my print and it responds. When I click a spot on the black area, the print head moves to that location. Do I need to have the bed level sensor mounted first before the pattern options start to function. Also, what would be your recommendation on software/process on doing the bed size change. I have a 300 x 300 bed. Thanks for your help

@@jade-ud3fg I don't know much about the A8, but you'll need a sensor before the app will detect anything. Otherwise, check the latest release (published ~5 minutes ago!) and there are new boxes to enter your bed size. :D

@@NicholasPiegdon I got the sensor installed. Do I need to have a sensor like yours in order for the reading to show up on the black part of the screen. I can see some reading on the white strip to the left but it doesn't show in the black area

I wanted a solution that kept the automatic bed leveler (which needs a metal top surface). Otherwise, glass probably would have worked very well!

@@NicholasPiegdonI have (had) the same issue. I didn't wanted to start hunting for a really flat bed, nor had access to tools allowing me to measure the bed deviation. So, I replaced my induction sensor with a bltouch (which works with any surface, not just metallic one) and clipped a 3mm thick glass window on top of my bed. I never went back, everything sticks nice today.

You could use just about any dial indicator for the comparator. The one in the video is a metric (which is why it has a yellow face) model Mitutoyo indicator. And I think that's a Noga base. But searching Amazon for "dial indicator" should return lots of combo items with both the indicator and base together.

It's aluminum, so it forms a protective oxidized layer almost immediately. There shouldn't be any rust.

The link is in the description. You can get it from the Releases section on the GitHub page, here: github.com/npiegdon/bed-inspector (It's an app that runs on Windows.)

Thanking YOU 2000%, I don't see an windows exe file to run the code @@NicholasPiegdon I asked on GitHub

I have the same problem. I am trying to switch to glass but my bed is warped and so when I clip the glass to it, it bends the glass in the middle upward. It seems like I need to start with a more flat plate, then add glass. The weird part is that it printed fine with the PEI sheet.

The (free) Visual Studio 2019 Community edition is all you need. Or, if you want to use it immediately without building anything, just click on the Releases section of the Github page and download the .exe: github.com/npiegdon/bed-inspector/releases/latest

I don't have a heated bed, so I couldn't say for sure. Although, no matter the effect, I suppose starting from a more accurate place shouldn't ever end up worse than leaving it in a bad state. From a thermal expansion perspective, the 60 or 70C that is used in most heated beds doesn't seem very hot (say, vs. the 200C that makes baking sheets warp in your oven) and the bed is smaller and fastened to the printer's frame. Searching around a bit, it sounds like the deformation from heat warping would be within the same (~0.02mm) error that my amateur scraping was able to achieve.

For now, the response that the app expects is very rigid. If the text that comes back from the printer (in the left column) isn't *exactly* of a form like "Bed Position X: 13.00 Y: 10.00 Z: 0.10", then the app won't be able to understand it. Making that part more flexible is the last step to making it work with a much larger number of printers. When a position line comes in from your printer, what does it look like? If you copy-paste one of the responses here, that would be helpful!

@@NicholasPiegdon totally experiencing the same issue here with none of the circles appearing in the black box, and do not see any log statements outputting in the text area box to the left of the black box. However, when I connect my printer / board to the bed inspector app it does home the printer, and i can select a random point within the black box and the printer will run through it's motions, but never see a color circle appear in the black box area of the app, nor do i see any text appear below the `connect` & `disconnect` buttons. if makes a difference, the board i'm using is an skr v1.3 by bigtreetech, and i have marlin 2.0 installed on the board.

@@the.real.ipatch The GitHub issue ( github.com/npiegdon/bed-inspector/issues/4 ) where you posted that video a few days ago was the right place. (Thanks for the video! That is very helpful!) I just dropped the ball for a week or so and haven't had a chance to revisit the problem or reply to the comments there yet. Sorry!

This should be fixed now if you download the new v1.3 release. :D

That's actually not a bad idea. Each layer would be a nice, uniform thickness that is useful at the scale we're talking about. I also like that you've found an additive solution to calibrate your additive manufacturing device. The analogy with a CNC mill would be a facing cut: subtracting material to get the workpiece ready for the rest of the subtractive manufacturing, hehe.

You can get the app from the Releases tab on the GitHub page: github.com/npiegdon/bed-inspector/releases/latest

There is an executable. Click the "Releases" tab there and download bed-inspector.exe

I'd be a lot less comfortable grinding glass, but I don't know anything about the tools or process involved. It might be possible, but I'd do a lot of research before trying. Glass is kind of an all-or-nothing material because it can shatter (while metal is relatively forgiving).

@@NicholasPiegdon Appreciate your reply,Many thanks.

G90 gets you into absolute positioning mode, G1 (with an X and Y parameter) will move you to a point, and finally a G30 will do a "Single Z-Probe" at the current location. So after the G90 you can do a series of G1's followed by a G30 each time.

@@NicholasPiegdon How or what program did you use to see it on a monitor?

@@LG-kj5qq That was the bed inspector utility I mentioned making in the video. There is a link to the GitHub in the video description. Once you're there, click "Releases" at the side and you can download it.

Follow the link on the right at GitHub where it says "Releases". There are pre-built versions there. You want the bed-inspector.exe under the Assets section of the latest release. You should be able to download just that file and run it directly. (And no worries, you're not the first person that has had to ask. There is a lot of info on any given GitHub page and it's not always clear how they have everything laid out. Sorry for the confusion!)

@@NicholasPiegdon thanks! I did end up just compiling it in VS but thought there would be more to it. I appreciate you getting back to me though!!!

I know this is an older project of yours, but was wondering if you are still responding to issues with the program in the github?

That particular printer never had a heated bed, so I wasn't able to test it. I'd imagine there would be some warping. Annealing it after scraping would get most of the tension out of the metal and prevent most of it. That said, these days a bed that is independent from the heater (say, attached using magnets like a Prusa i3) along with mesh bed leveling (with lots of points) is probably a better answer.

I've never tried one, but if they respond to the usual (G1, G28, G30, and G90) commands, I don't see why not. :D

GitHub moved things around so it's a little harder to see now, but on the right-hand side of the page you should see a section called "Releases". There is an exe file you can download from there.

Sorry, I was only able to test it on the printer I had. I suppose you could download the code from GitHub and adjust the connection settings. They're on line 21 of PrinterPort.cs (here: github.com/npiegdon/bed-inspector/blob/master/PrinterPort.cs#L21 ). Building with (the free) Visual Studio might get it to behave differently.

@@NicholasPiegdon do you mean to make a change in the file PrinterPort and then compile and create an exe file in visual stusio? I'm sorry, I'm not a programmer

@@bhmarten5984 Yeah, if you open the solution file (BedLeveler.sln) in Visual Studio, there will be a little green "play" button on the toolbar that will make a new .exe for you with the changes. Anytime you make a change in one of the code files (and save it), you can just click the green play button again to incorporate those changes into the app.

​@@NicholasPiegdon hello.. I have already installed visual studio and started the project with modification and the printer has connected and executed the commands, the only thing that doesn't work- not showing results in the right black window and the automatic measurement "measure every" does not work - performs only one measurement and stops and does not continue.

@@bhmarten5984 Hmm, I wonder if your printer is returning something different than the tool is looking for. It will probably depend on the printer's firmware. The app wants a response like "Bed Position X: 13.00 Y: 10.00 Z: 0.10" in exactly that format. After that single point, what do you see in the scrolling text box at the left? If it doesn't match that exactly, the app won't detect the coordinates correctly, which would cause it to stop after the first point the way you described.

The thermal expansion in ~6mm of aluminum over a 50-degree C change between room temperature and heated bed temperature should be around 10 microns. That shouldn't impact a 100 micron layer height too much, especially when most of that expansion will be uniform. Even if the stresses in the metal cause a bit of non-linear distortion, this method could still work if you annealed the plate before and/or after. Probably both to be safe: get the tension out, make it flat, then get the tension out again, hopefully without much additional distortion.

@@NicholasPiegdon My Ender 3 has 4 tension wheels. How am I supposed to take the tension out?

@@alejandroperez5368 That's a different kind of tension. I meant the internal stress in the metal itself. Annealing means heating the metal a lot until the crystalline structure begins to change (and relaxes a little), then cooling it down slowly. That way you get fewer deformations when it gets hot normally. The tension wheels on your printer are to keep the axes from being wobbly or having too much backlash, so they're useful in a different way. Annealing can take a bit of special equipment: aluminum requires a temperature around 410C, so it's usually done in a furnace or kiln.

@@NicholasPiegdon Sorry, I meant the bed leveling screws, which combined with springs, they exert undesired tension on the aluminium bed. On the other hand, as it's a heated bed, there's no way for me to anneal the aluminium bed, as it would burn the heating circuitry.

Identify any printers with serious bed errors (you should already know problem printers if you are running that many). Since it is a high volume of work the quickest and probably most economical after factoring in time would be to contact local machine shops and get a bulk price for surface finishing.

you can send them to mill shop