Ok … it took a bit of reading, testing, and … pulling. Here is what happened, maybe this helps someone else like me.
- I have a new Ender V2, with the BLtouch addon installed from the start
- My problem was, nothing was moving. Auto-homing stuck.
This is what went wrong:
- I downloaded the firmware linked from the BLtouch page. This is a Google Drive link, to an V4.4.7 firmware for BLtouch 1.3.1 (V4.2.7-Ender-3 V2-32bit Mainboard-Marlin-2.0.1-V1.3.1-BLTouch-TMC2225). This is the only firmware in that folder for Ender 3v2, it is "official", so it must be the correct one! … WRONG!
- I found some other "official" download links, giving me options like : 4.4.7 and 4.4.2 … 1.1.1 and 1.3.1 … I tried them all, some just beeped, most got stuck.
- After a while I flashed the original 1.0.1 (non BLtouch) version and figured out that e.g. X axis is moving when triggering manually.
- So opened up my board again, found out that I had an 4.4.2 board, assumed that 1.1.1 was the right BLtouch version (due to the clue "without adapter board", as I had none)
- Motors moved, just now downwards. Autohoming started, but got stuck in the middle (I assumed it waited to move down, but it somehow did not)
- I read some information about the firmware blocking downward movement if the Z-axis switch triggers (which is replaced be the BLtouch here) I also recalled youtube video that sometimes the BLtouch gets stuck. It is a magnetic mechanism, which gets pushed down and then pulls up when pushed upwards. My BLtouch was light up red.
- I manually pulled out the pin, just to see what happens. And carefully pushed it back in. The BLtouch turned off …
- I retried autohoming and it started with pushing down the pin by itself.
So aside from the firmware issues, it looks like the BLtouch probe simply was stuck a bit too much. Maybe because it wasn't used yet, maybe because of another reason. Manually pulling it out made it work.
However, I think the following things have gone horribly wrong here
- The BLtouch product page should not link to a google drive which contains only one version of the firmware, which might not be the correct one for everyone.
- The firmware should ideally verify that it is running on the correct board and warn the user if not.
- There should be clear indications on the BLtouch and the Ender which revision they are … opening up the board compartment isn't a good idea to find out about that. Any my BLtouch probe actually shows the version 3.1.
- On the firmware download page there should be some clear explanations which version to download, its a mix of versions … and when you are new, you have no clue. And users will always pick the "newest" version, so 4.4.7 over 4.4.2 … because it doesn't mention that this is the board version and not the firmware version.
- Ideally there should be an error code displayed when the auto-leveling fails … and error code which you find again on the web page … which explains that this might be due to "cause 1 … 2 … 3" … and one of the tips should be to "carefully pull out the pin of the BLtouch"
That was my first day with the Ender 3 v2 … tomorrow will be better I guess 