I stumbled across these VL6180x ToF Sensors recently, and was wondering if they would be useful for generating Bed mesh. The units are readily available on eBay for about $5 USD and run on 3.3-5v, and use I2C.
I’ve ordered a couple to play with, but based on my googling, they are able to measure from 0-100mm and produce a live distance measurement. I’m hoping that might make them usable as a bed surface “scanner” like the Beacon system, but without the Beacons major downside of not actually scanning the print surface.
Precision is the major unknown, I’ve ordered a couple to play with as they are apparently supported by Arduino - it looks like they are accurate to micron level (0.01 mm). EDIT: I must have misread something, resolution is only 1mm according to a few sources.
PS, I’ve given up on inductive sensors and gone back to a BLTouch v3 - IME, if you aren’t measuring the top of the print surface, you will have issues unless your PEI thickness is micron level consistent.
Maybe I’m just behind the times but I don’t get the need for these “fast bed mesh” sensors. Like… How often is your bed physically changing?
It should be pretty rigidly mounted. Then you run your bed mesh once to dial in any tiny differences and you’re done until you move the bed around for some reason.
@dJOS_500 Just as a on the side comment, micron level is not 0.01mm, it is 0.001mm and as a machine design engineer I can guarantee you that no instrument is accurately measuring micron level, and repeat it as well, for under a few hundred dollars.
I always laugh at the statements from BL Touch or similar, when they claim several micron accuracy. It is simply not possible.
As with regards to BL touch or a proximity sensor I agree you might as well stick with the BL touch since proximity sensors that are more accurate are also more expensive.
And besides I do not believe we need much more accuracy then 0.05mm when pooping plastic.
Agreed, I’ve tried the more expensive “thermally stable” inductive probes which test great, but in the real world detecting the steel plate is useless IME.
Amusingly, I reached the same conclusion that 0.05mm was good enough - I found the BLTouch with 4 probes per location and median sampling mode is good enough.
It sure would need nice to have a decently accurate surface probe, that is affordable and has no moving parts tho.
