Hello everyone.
I was about to create a z probe for my makerfarm pegasus 8" so I could enjoy autobed leveling/tramming when I saw I had a massive servo, rather then the micro ones that most mechanical z probes use. What I do have is an inexpensive stepper motor. One of the 28BYJ-48 motors that you can get for a dollar or two. My idea was to connect the motor to my ramps board as a 2nd extruder (after modifying the motor to be bipolar) and attach an arm to the shaft of this motor, and on the arm I would place a micro switch. In slic3r's start g-code, I would place a command, before G28 (home) telling the printer to extrude from the second print head (until the arm was facing vertically). After the G29 (auto level) I could place a command that tells it to retract filament (put the probe back into a horizontal position).
Do you know if anyone has done something like this with a stepper motor(like I plan to do)? Also, is there a way I could configure marlin, so that when I press auto home on my lcd, it will get a command to "extrude" the second extruder, but afterwords retract it?
Thank you!