Adjustable Mesh-leveling-friendly SN04 Auto-level Sensor Mount for A8 (no heatsink, no fan [yet])

thingiverse

Here is the rewritten text: I've updated my thing with a fan shroud <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3965895">here</a>. It's compatible with the BLTouch/3DTouch sensor sled, available <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4266379">here</a>. My A8 came with a SN04 sensor, and I've used several sensor mounts from this site to make it more user-friendly. I had been using Fabal's excellent adjustable SN04 mount for quite a while until I upgraded my firmware to Marlin and got fixated on its ability to do mesh leveling. The main problem with that sensor mount was that the sensor was mounted too far away from the nozzle, and the A8's travel limitations kept it from reading the front edge of the heat bed correctly. It would read the edge several millimeters inside the actual edge. Another problem was that most sensor mounts weren't easily adjustable. After living with Fabal's mount for so long, I now consider an easily adjustable sensor mount a standard. After some thinking and browsing, I found this one <a href="https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2319403">here</a>, which I meshmixed and used for a while. However, it lacked fine tunability but helped me figure out what to do. So here is the result of my endeavors. I've managed to keep the wonderful adjustability with a simple M3 screw and found a position that puts the sensor close enough to the hotend to read much more of the heat bed. A bonus is that it's designed to work in conjunction with the Mistral 2.1a fan duct, which I find exceptional. Note: There is no room for the extruder heatsink with this design, but I've yet to find it offers any real cooling advantage or dust protection in my mild printing environments. The extruder cooling fan has to be removed as well, although I haven't found the carriage or throat tube gets hot enough to warrant concern. Of course, YMMV. The key part is that the sensor is now inboard enough that it can reach the right edge of the heatbed to get accurate readings if you're comfortable with moving the carriage to the brink of crashing with the right X-axis assembly. It would probably do better with a super small spring or some soft TPU elastomers to add tension between the sensor sled and the sled base. It works alright as it is, but it does bounce around sometimes (most notable as read below; CONS). TL;DR Pros: * Works with common SN04 leveling sensor * Sensor range covers the entire area of the hot bed. * Fine tunable height adjustment by turning an M3 screw. * Compatible with very efficient common fan duct model. Cons: * Extruder heatsink removal mandatory. * Extruder cooling fan has not been added yet. * Can run into left Z-axis rod coupling during X-axis homing in certain situations (sensor wiggles out of the way though). UPDATE: Crash with Z-axis rod coupling resolved on the thing page that includes the fan shroud.