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Hi!

I’m building a levelling helper for my flashforge creator pro. Ideally I’d like to automate driving the head around from an application running on my PC. Does anyone know of a piece of software that allows plugins for this, or if there’s an easy library to do this with a C# app?

Thanks!

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FDM 3D printers usually present themselves as a virtual COM port when connected to a host computer, which is relatively trivial to task to communicate over in any programming language (.NET uses System.IO.Ports.SerialPort).

The problem you’re going to run into is that the flashforge (and other Replicator-like machines that use sailfish) uses GPX rather than raw GCode, so you will need to write (or find) something to do the back-and-forth conversion between your GCode and GPX commands the printer will understand, and send that through the virtual COM port.

There is a stand-alone open-source Gcode-to-GPX converter at thingiverse here that might help you in that regard. I don’t know of any pre-build libraries that really facilitate it, C# or otherwise (though I’ll admit, I’ve never really looked)

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Is your primary goal building a leveling helper or leveling the build plate? If it is the latter, why not just manually move the extruder along the x/y axis when leveling? That’s how I’ve been doing it with no issues. Good luck!

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There is a python library here: GitHub - makerbot/s3g: A python implementation of the s3g protocol, to speak to MakerBots. Makerbot has abandoned it, but it should still work for your purpose. Though I agree with the other response, just pushing the carriage around seems easier than clicking a button to move to the next position.

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All you’ll need is a nuget package for serial port communication in csharp, there should be atleast a dozen of them. Then push GCode translated into x3g through the serial port. Should be pretty easy to do.

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Personally I would use a gcode macro similar to those found in the FlashForge software or Simplify3D or use the bed leveling wizard on the printer control panel. I highly recommend using a machinist dial gauge placed on the horizontal linear rails which will assist and simplify the bed leveling process and help to acheive the most accurate calibration; you can use da vinci EASY BED calibration remix for FlashForge by Sparky6548 - Thingiverse or Calibrating holder and extention for flashforge dreamer by Skuggan1 - Thingiverse.

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