ANET A8 relocating the Z probe to the right...

thingiverse

After playing around with my ANET and a z-probe located at the conventional spot of about 90% of users, I reached a conclusion that this position was not ideal. The ANET stock X axis is quite flimsy and creates a huge overhang for the motor and the extruder. When placed in front of the extruder, the Z-probe has an offset of approximately 40mm with the nozzle and around 70mm with the X-axis. A small rotation of the X axis results in a significant translation of the z-probe. The X axis rods are only 5 cm apart, and if your rods are slightly bent, say by about 0.1 mm (a common occurrence after a crash on the bed), you get a motion of 0.14 mm at the level of the Z-probe and just 0.06 mm at the level of the nozzle. This means that your first layer is off by approximately 0.08 mm. The only solution to resolve this issue is to position the z-probe in line with the nozzle, with a zero Y-offset. However, it's challenging to locate it close to the nozzle on the left side, so I tried placing it on the right. I achieved the following offsets: #define X_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER 60 // X offset: -left +right [of the nozzle] #define Y_PROBE_OFFSET_FROM_EXTRUDER 0 // Y offset: -front +behind [the nozzle] Even when positioned on the right, it doesn't interfere with the right Z screw and carriage (see the picture). The bed remains fully accessible. The only drawback is that the probe cannot sense lower than 30 mm on the left side. Moving the X-end stop to the left might recover about 1 or 2 cm, but some space would be lost. Please refer to the provided "configuration.h" for MARLIN 1.1.5. You can see it in action here: https://youtu.be/62fMU7dB4yk Most inductive z-probes utilize the z-probe nuts to secure the probe. These nuts are quite large and not very accurate, especially when attached to a thin support, which can cause the probe to rotate slightly. I designed this support to be stuck to the back of the motor using double-sided tape and screwed into place. The support is a long 18 mm tube with two M3 screws that securely hold the probe in position. It's very rigid! Hope you like it!