dylantep wrote:well it seems using your config file got rid of the squishing into the bed. It seems to be moving pretty flat now. Unfortunately the shifting is still occurring
I am totally new and dont know shit but your print looks like a hot gooey mess. What are you printing and at what temp?
It looks like a mess due to the problems I am having previously mentioned in this forum. I am printing PLA at 172C
Polygonhell wrote:Ni that level os skew can only really be caused by missed steps.
Extension might be it, if it wasn't done well I had an issue with a second exrtruder that turned out to be a bad plug in the connector I used, it mostly worked unless it didn't.
Badly crimped connector can also do it.
I would verify everything feels the same when moving the towers by hand, if they do feel the motion of the steppers while printing, should at least let you identify which axis is the issue. Swap the bad axis with a known good one at the Rambo board (turn off the power for this, you can easilly destroy the drivers pluging or unpluging cables), it the failure still in the same direction. If it is the issue is most likely the driver on the RAMBO, or a mechanical problem with the tower in question, if it moves to the new tower, it's the stepper or its wiring.
The towers feel the same by hand. I swapped the x and z motors on the RAMBO and then when I tried to do a G28 command and the z tower (plugged into x on rambo) hit the endstop and kept going. I swapped the motors back and could do a G28 just fine. The strange thing is and doing a M119 command returns x_min:H x_max:L y_max:L z_max:L. Whats the x_min:H? I get that the rest are for the endstops but I have no idea what that is for.
You'd have to swap the endstops aswell as the motors, XMin shouldn't be enabled, it's possible it is in my firmware, I'd have to look.
So I swapped the X and the z motors and endstops this time and got a pretty interesting result. I printer much farther into the part but there is still a slight shift away from the x tower (which is now plugged into the z). Seeing as the shift is still there I guess that means it's a mechanical issue? but its not as bad so maybe it was also electrical but swapping the motors solved that part I guess. I'll upload some pics so you can take a look.
If the direction didn't change it could still be the stepper on that axis, or something mechanical. Or an issue with the endstop wiring.
You might want to try setting ALWAYS_CHECK_ENDSTOPS to false, if that fixes the issue you have a noise problem.
You should also disable the xmin endstop in configuration.h I was using it to test an optical distance sensor.
Polygonhell wrote:If the direction didn't change it could still be the stepper on that axis, or something mechanical. Or an issue with the endstop wiring.
You might want to try setting ALWAYS_CHECK_ENDSTOPS to false, if that fixes the issue you have a noise problem.
You should also disable the xmin endstop in configuration.h I was using it to test an optical distance sensor.
I disabled the xmin endstop and set ALWAYS_CHECK_ENDSTOPS to false. got the same result as the last picture.
So I homed all axis and found something interesting. the y and z towers are not movable by hand (i'm assuming the motors are locked) but the x tower is movable by hand. I'm guessing this is a symptom of my problem. and ideas?
Order another stepper and swap it out or use your extruder stepper for a quick test, but it sounds dead. You know for sure the pulley isn't spinning on the shaft?
The pulley is definitely not slipping. It looks as though the stepper is shot. I'm gonna do a couple more tests to make sure an then I'll order a new one I guess. Thanks again for all the help everyone. Hopefully a new stepper will be the end of this issue.
Hello everyone. So I have some good news and some bad news. I redid the connector on the x motor and it seems to have completely solved my step loss problem! The bad news is I seem to be having extruder problems now. I am printing the hollow cube file and It seems to be extruding too little on the bottom solid infill layers. Also as soon As I get to the pillars in the middle, it stops extruding. I've played a lot with the tension on the driver an I think it is set pretty well. I've also had some other very interesting problems. I have a 25mm fan blowing across the part of the hot end above the nozzle (As recommended for printing PLA) and it seems with this fan going my hot end can't get past 180 C. I thought it might be a PID tuning problem so I re ran the auto tune. When I hit 200 C (which I can do without the fan on) A decent amount of white smoke started coming from somewhere in the hot end (I haven't found the location yet.)
As always, help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Do you have an EZStruder, or the original Steve's extruder.
The original Steve's extruders are an exercise in futility to get the tension adjusted well, they also have a habit of jamming filament where it leaves the roller before entering the bowden tube.
You can get them to work but they are really finicky.
You'll want to validate your temperature is reading close to accurate with an external thermocouple, they can be off by 20 or so degrees, and if it's loose in the mounting hole a whole lot more.
Assuming your temperature is close to accurate the white smoke, I would guess it's something burning that shouldn't. You might get a small amount of smoke when you bring it up to temperature for the first time. However given your inability to get past 180C I'd guess it's one of your resistors, you'll want to pull the hotend connector off the board and test the resistance of the heater. If both resistors are good it'll be in the 3-4 ohm range if one is dead it'll be 5+.
If you don't get good contact between the resistor and the aluminum heater block they burn out pretty quickly, the wrapping in AL foil for a tight fit is really quite important for any sort of logevity.
