Dial gauge indicator holder for manual bed leveling

thingiverse

Human: Designed for Creality Ender 3: I'm struggling with a warped bed that's causing problems on the well in the middle. My goal is to use the magnetic plate but the warped bed keeps giving me headaches. This is a collection of accessories designed to make manual bed leveling easier using a dial indicator. It can be mounted simply by pushing it onto the hotend carrier cart plate from the top. The measuring tip is about 10 mm away from the nozzle in the -Y direction; still much closer than other methods. Your configuration may vary. Note: In my setup, the Shaft and Cone are located below the printer's heat block. Be careful not to damage them. The real photos show the first prototype, but the second version is very similar. Check out the models for more information. How do I use it? I've enabled manual_bed_leveling in Marlin and can launch the bed leveling procedure from the printer's menu. - First, place the assembled Holder with gauge on the Hotend cart plate. - Activate Corner Bed Leveling in the menu. - Adjust the bed height wheels to read all corners at the same elevation on the Dial scale. - Activate Bed Leveling procedure in the menu. - Go through all measuring points and adjust the Z offset on screen by turning the control knob until you read the same elevation on the dial (same as corners). - When finished, Store settings in the menu. - Finally, use Live-Z to fine-tune the first layer during printing: Tune -> Z-offset (adjust to get a perfect first layer). After this procedure, the first layer should be very uniform across the warped bed. Print Settings: The Dial Holder needs to be stiff. Use several perimeters and layers at 0.2 or 0.24 mm. The Cone is small, so use low speeds and layers around 0.08 mm. The Shaft bottom part should be stiff. Use enough top and bottom layers (4+4). The Dial Holder was inspired by another gauge holder, but I need to find the reference to thank the author for their inspiration.