I’ll be honest, this one is on me. If I was paying closer attention I never would have bought a knock off BL Touch 3D printer bed probe. That said, I wasn’t paying attention and I found myself the proud owner of a knockoff BL Touch that cost about the same as a genuine BL Touch.
Product Explanation
If you’re not familiar with a BL Touch it is a probe designed for auto-bed leveling for a 3D printer. It was a Kickstarter Indiegogo a few years back that was massively successful and it’s easy to see why. The design is extremely clever and simple. A plastic probe pin containing a small magnet is encased in a housing with an electromagnetic coil around the top of the housing. When the coil is energized in one polarity the probe is extended, the other polarity draws the probe in to get it out of the way of the running printer.
There is also a circuit board on the side of the housing which controls the coil and also contains a hall effect sensor which detects the probe contacting the bed. The sensor is used with the auto bed leveling system in the Marlin firmware to create a map of the bed and compensate for bed level variance to make sure your bottom layer is put down correctly. This means it also replaces your Z axis endstop. That’s why my printer is down once again…
The Review
Garbage. That’s about all there is too it. Due to a manufacturing flaw (the coil was wound way too tightly) one of the leads from the coil to the circuit board broke after the probe moved around a bit. There seems to be a facility built in to detect the probe not extending so now the printer throws an error.
I attempted to repair it by soldering the broken wire back together but no luck, there’s just not enough wire to work with. Of course the lead is from the underside of the coil so I’d have to unwind the entire thing to get some wire to work with and I’m not rewinding that probably 1000 turn 30awg coil. Maybe if my coil winder was done, keep an eye out for that project in future. One thing that caught y eye is the magnet wire the coil is made of doesn’t appear to be insulated in anyway, at least I don’t see an epoxy coating. Maybe it’s just my lousy eyesight.
Conclusion
Don’t buy this or any other knockoff. Get a real Antclabs BLTouch. This brilliant design is theirs. I don’t know if the ripoffs are tolerated because this device was invented in Korea or if it was opensource but there’s just not a great reason not to support them.
Check out my 3D Printer upgrades part 1, 2, and, 3 for more installation info. 3 specifically deals with this sensor a lot. 2 I believe deals with the Creality variant.
Next time in product reviews, Dishwashers, man this one is a chore. Subscribe below to get an update when articles are published!