@Phaedrux
thanks for the reply
I am grateful for any suggestion and also from o_lampe.
i am away in the countryside for the weekend but will check again re the operating system but am pretty sure am running 2.03. I have looked at RRF3.4 and will probably upgrade but know changes to the gcodes need to be done too with this. I have not needed to upgrade with the previous effector version 2.
My connundrum is that there is also a clear misfit of the heatsink and the effector: the fit is too tight and the effector may be tilted as a result of this, even after tightening (it was very difficult to remove when I diassembled it all). Reaming the hole in the effector would help but I don't want to do this in a new device.
Hence I have at least one hardware issue, maybe more. The hard probing could be from software too... or other.
Since I have a work around already, using a previous version 1 smart effector modified to work with an IR probe, the printer is working so I am not desperate, just disappointed.
I have replied to E3d too about this.
I will change to RRF 3.4 soon.