Tech Support Needed on Z-Probe Always Triggered

[brianmichalk]

I submitted a ticket yesterday, but nobody has responded to me.

My SE300 strain gauge z-probe has gotten to where it's almost always triggered, making calibration almost impossible. It's always on during printing, and when completely still, sometimes remains on indefinitely. I've raised the trigger level to 500, but the value displayed is consistently near or at 1000.

[Xenocrates]

If you disconnect the strain gauge completely at the hotend do you see any change? Similarly, do you see any change if the Z-probe cable is disconnected from the board? Does the cable have continuity from end to end, and when unplugged, is there continuity between pairs?

I hope support gets back to you shortly, but we may be able to resolve it without them, since it's unlikely they'll have too many folks in during the holiday weekend.

[brianmichalk]

Thanks for helping.
I have the web page open now, and it's showing zero. If I press on the nozzle, it doesn't trigger, but if I tap on it, the blue light comes on, and the page shows 840 for an instant.
If I disconnect the 10 row connector, software displays 1000. How would I disconnect the strain gauge? I thought it was embedded in the circuit board. The cable has continuity.

If you disconnect the strain gauge completely at the hotend do you see any change? Similarly, do you see any change if the Z-probe cable is disconnected from the board? Does the cable have continuity from end to end, and when unplugged, is there continuity between pairs?

I hope support gets back to you shortly, but we may be able to resolve it without them, since it's unlikely they'll have too many folks in during the holiday weekend.

[geneb]

I'm assuming you've got either a 3.2 or an upgraded 3.0...

If the blue light is on during printing, that's ok. It's being triggered by the current induced by the heated bed - you'll notice if the head moves far enough away, the led will go out.

You /cannot/ run the calibration while the heated bed is turned on due to the field the heated bed creates. The calibration macro that SeeMeCNC includes should be turning the bed off right before calibration begins.

I hit this exact thing when I was building Centurion MAX (pics soon!) and simply didn't realize what was going on.

g.

[brianmichalk]

I'm assuming you've got either a 3.2 or an upgraded 3.0...

If the blue light is on during printing, that's ok. It's being triggered by the current induced by the heated bed - you'll notice if the head moves far enough away, the led will go out.

You /cannot/ run the calibration while the heated bed is turned on due to the field the heated bed creates. The calibration macro that SeeMeCNC includes should be turning the bed off right before calibration begins.

I hit this exact thing when I was building Centurion MAX (pics soon!) and simply didn't realize what was going on.

g.

Correct, the bed heats up to 60C, then turns off. I was finally able to get a mesh calibration completed yesterday by increasing the tap delay from 1 second to three seconds. Most annoying. If the firmware would wait for the trigger to turn off before moving down for the tap, this would be solved. However, I still think something is not right with my SE300. The other day, the probe trigger was on, and nothing else was happening. I tapped it, and the light turned off. Yes, this is v3.2.

[geneb]

I would open a support ticket - there might indeed be something wobbly with the SE300 board.

g.

[dc42]

You /cannot/ run the calibration while the heated bed is turned on due to the field the heated bed creates. The calibration macro that SeeMeCNC includes should be turning the bed off right before calibration begins.

A simpler option which will cause less drop in temperature would be to use the B parameter in the M558 command to tell the firmware to turn heaters off during probing.

[RegB]

I seem to have a similar symptom to the OP (original poster).
When the hot end is HOT the blue probe light will come on and it takes a LONG cool down time before it goes off.

Example; Room temperature around 23 C
I switched on the printer and intended to change filament, so I turned on the extruder heat to 235 C so I could back out the ABS from the previous prints.
Somewhere around 180 C the blue probe light came on before I even got near the manual feed(in this instance the "retract") knob.

So, is this "normal" ?
Follow-up question; May this be contributing to my rarely getting a good first layer with ABS ?
(given that I have done all the first probe, bed leveling, etc. I can find and the bed level map looks good).

[RegB]

Continued from previous post;

I just finished about a 3 hour print and the blue probe light stayed ON until the extruder cooled to 48 C (from 235).
During that time the Z-probe sensor read 1000 most of the time, but flashed 875 a couple of times a minute, and more rarely showed 937.
Once it went out the web interface read 0.

The print was successful (well, a bit of stringing but for the intended purpose thats OK).

[RegB]

I just noticed that THIS is the Rostock v3 sub forum - and that the OP and I have been talking about SE300 problems.

While I'm not absolutely "up on" which machines can have which Z probes... I thought the Max was restricted to SE280.

Maybe it doesn't matter too much.