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Cartographer installation with Qidi stock firmware

Cartographer is Eddy current bed probe, which makes bed meshing a lot faster and a lot more percise. There are several such probes out there. Most known is Beacon, which is made by US fellas, Cartographer, which is made by UK fellas and quite some of them in AliExpress

They are known for their speed and accuracy. If regular probe accuracy is around 0.001mm, then Eddy current probes are 0.0001mm, which is 10x more accurate. Their probing speed is limited by printer head moving speed and printer motherboard CPU. In theory they can do some milion measurements per second

Here's a 10 sec 15x15 grid full bed mesh, which takes with regular Probe around 45 minutes


Installation

This guide works with both V2 and V3 probes

Hardware and mounting

For installation can use this mount (for X-Max 3), For X-Plus 3, there's remix, original Beacon mount also works, but it's slightly flimsier. Make sure to print mount out of something that can sit near bed and wouldn't deform. PAHT-CF is good candidate, ABS and ASA work too, their GF and CF parts even better. PLA and PETG won't survive the bed heat from bed when using higher temperatures

Needed hardware:
4x M3x14 bolts original stock probe mount bolts. Stock probe has 2 bolts, there should be 2 extra that came with printer / official upgrade package as spare parts
2x M3 nuts to secure probe in place. Those didn't come with printer, had to buy
2x M2.5x16 had those with one of Qidi printers as spare parts too, can't remember if it was iFast or X-Max 3
Optional zipties to secure cable

Do not put cable into cable chain, USB cable is not rated for it, it's good to have it rather loose, so there's no single point that keeps on bending (Some users have reported in Discord, that cable broke after around 1k print hours in cable chain)

Good installation would be like this, just 3 rather loose zip-ties to secure the cable

image.png

After mounting it, move toolhand manually thro all 4 corners and check that cable doesn't get stuck behind anything

Software installation

For Cartographer software installation you can refer to it's own doc, but since there are some changes needed, wrote it down in here also. Follow Carto doc when you know what you are doing. Installing on stock Qidi firmware refer to this doc

First of all, need to SSH into printer. You can find printer IP from printer screen under network tab or from router.
SSH user is `mks` to printer with `mks@IP_ADDR` for example `mks@192.168.88.36`
Password is `makerbase`

By default Qidi printers have wrong system time, first need to update that by running apt install ntp and dpkg-reconfigure tzdata. Qidi Official wiki has good guide on it: https://wiki.qidi3d.com/en/Memo/System-Time-Modification

After updating datetime, going to install Cartographer software. Writing this guide in two parts, Bed meshing and Auto Z offset, since bed meshing is rather simple, auto z offset requires some more work with older Qidi firmwares

Bed meshing

Easy way will require minimal changes, but will be limited to having only bed mesh. For auto Z offset need to follow advanced part

  1. cd -- Make sure you are at home directory
  2. git clone https://github.com/Cartographer3D/cartographer-klipper.git -- Get Carto software
  3. cd cartographer-klipper -- Go to Cartographer folder
  4. git checkout v1.0.0 -- This will make you run older version of Carto software, that works with Qidi printers out of box
  5. chmod +x ./install.sh -- Make Carto installation script executable
  6. ./install.sh -- Execute install script
  7. Running installation might give warning about Python version. It's safe to ignore it, since we pinned Cartographer software version to v1.0.0

After cartographer is installed, need to make some modifications to printer config. It's easiest to make it thro printer web UI (Fluidd). It's accessible at printer IP and port 10088, like http://192.168.88.36:10088/#/configure (replace IP with your printer IP).
For more advanced users, I'd recommend to connect VSCode to printer and edit ~/klipper_config/printer.cfg directly

Inside [stepper_z] need to change homing_retract_dist

- homing_retract_dist: 8.0
+ homing_retract_dist: 0 # cartographer needs this to be set to 0, was 8.0

Inside [homing_override] need to get rid of references to printer.probe. printer.probe["x_offset"] is going to be removed and printer.probe["y_offset"] is going to be replaced with 25 (needs to be hardcoded, Qidi older Klipper doesn't work too well with variables, or McSneaky has no idea how to use them)

-    G1 X{printer.toolhead.axis_maximum.x/2 - printer.probe["x_offset"]} Y{printer.toolhead.axis_maximum.y/2 - printer.probe["y_offset"]} F7800
+    G1 X{printer.toolhead.axis_maximum.x/2} Y{printer.toolhead.axis_maximum.y/2 - 25} F7800

Inside [bed_mesh] section need to adjust mesh_min. It's also advised to change probe_count and speed. Those two can be whatever you feel comfortable with. Sweet spot seems to be speed somewhere between 150 to 600 and probe_count somewhere around 15 (odd numbers in probe_count are good, this way bed center point is also probed)

[bed_mesh]
-speed:150
+speed:300               #调平速度 CARTO CHANGED, used to be 150
horizontal_move_z:10   #调平中Z抬高高度
-mesh_min:25,10        #探测点最小位置
+mesh_min:25,20        #探测点最小位置 # CARTO CHANGED, used to be 25,10
mesh_max:315,315      #探测点最大位置
-probe_count:9,9      #调平点数
+probe_count:15,15      #调平点数 # CARTO CHANGED, used to be 9,9
algorithm:bicubic
bicubic_tension:0.2
mesh_pps: 4, 4

Replace probe or bltouch section with cartographer. Inside cartographer default settings need to change y_offset to 25 and serial to your USB serial
To get USB serial run ls /dev/serial/by-id/ this will give you toolhead ID (usb-Klipper-rp2040-something) and Cartographer ID (usb-Cartographer-something). Copy / write down Cartographer IDimage.png

In the end your cartographer config should look something like this:

Be sure to update "serial" and "y_offset"

[cartographer]
# PASTE IN YOUR ID TO HERE!
serial: /dev/serial/by-id/usb-Cartographer_614e_1C0028001343565537353020-if00 
#   Path to the serial port for the Cartographer device. Typically has the form
#   
#   If you are using the CAN Bus version, replace serial: with canbus_uuid: and add the UUID.
#   Example: canbus_uuid: 1283as878a9sd
#
speed: 40.
#   Z probing dive speed.
lift_speed: 5.
#   Z probing lift speed.
backlash_comp: 0.5
#   Backlash compensation distance for removing Z backlash before measuring
#   the sensor response.
x_offset: 0.
#   X offset of cartographer from the nozzle.
y_offset: 25 ## BE SURE TO SET TO 25
#   Y offset of cartographer from the nozzle.
trigger_distance: 2.
#   cartographer trigger distance for homing.
trigger_dive_threshold: 1.5
#   Threshold for range vs dive mode probing. Beyond `trigger_distance +
#   trigger_dive_threshold` a dive will be used.
trigger_hysteresis: 0.006
#   Hysteresis on trigger threshold for untriggering, as a percentage of the
#   trigger threshold.
cal_nozzle_z: 0.1
#   Expected nozzle offset after completing manual Z offset calibration.
cal_floor: 0.1
#   Minimum z bound on sensor response measurement.
cal_ceil:5.
#   Maximum z bound on sensor response measurement.
cal_speed: 1.0
#   Speed while measuring response curve.
cal_move_speed: 10.
#   Speed while moving to position for response curve measurement.
default_model_name: default
#   Name of default cartographer model to load.
mesh_main_direction: x
#   Primary travel direction during mesh measurement.
#mesh_overscan: -1
#   Distance to use for direction changes at mesh line ends. Omit this setting
#   and a default will be calculated from line spacing and available travel.
mesh_cluster_size: 1
#   Radius of mesh grid point clusters.
mesh_runs: 2
#   Number of passes to make during mesh scan.

# [safe_z_home]
# home_xy_position: 162.5, 162.5 # CARTO CHANGED
# # Example home_xy_position: 175,175 - This would be for a 350 * 350mm bed. 
# z_hop: 3

[gcode_macro PROBE_CALIBRATE]
gcode:
    CARTOGRAPHER_CALIBRATE

Notice, that in the end there's also macro for PROBE_CALIBRATE, don't forget to paste that in

Finally there's also some references to printer.probe in [gcode_macro M4029] need to replace them too

-    G1 X{printer.toolhead.axis_maximum.x/2 - printer.probe["x_offset"]} Y{printer.toolhead.axis_maximum.y/2 - printer.probe["y_offset"]} F7800
+    G1 X{printer.toolhead.axis_maximum.x/2} Y{printer.toolhead.axis_maximum.y/2 - 25} F7800

Now Cartographer is installed and configured. Next step is to do initial calibration

Auto Z offset

This is to get auto Z offset working

Will write that soon :) 

Initial calibration

There's no Qidi specifics in here. There are just two protips:

  • If bed doesn't want to move up anymore and you get error: "out of bounds". Turn off printer and manually turn bed leadscrews to get bed close to nozzle. About ~5-10mm
  • Hold your hand on power off switch during calibration and when doing initial test print. In case you did something wrong bed might collide to nozzle. It's good to turn off printer real fast then to not cause damage to PEI sheet

Other than that two, follow Cartographer docs: https://docs.cartographer3d.com/cartographer-probe/installation-and-setup/cartographer-with-input-shaper-v2-and-v3-hybrid

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