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geneb wrote:Heh! What cracks me up is that you're the only guy to spot it. One of these days I'm going to build myself a face-palming machine just for those occasions when I REALLY stick my foot in it.

g.

When you do please make it open source I could use one of those as well.

geneb wrote:Heh! What cracks me up is that you're the only guy to spot it. One of these days I'm going to build myself a face-palming machine just for those occasions when I REALLY stick my foot in it.

g.

I thought you said the missing chapter was pointed out a hundred times?

I am up to 18-8 in the manual, "assembling end stop connectors". I did notice that my extruder stepper wires are not connected, but since I slavishly followed the manual I already 'finished the top end' in chapter 16. I plan to crimp a connector on the end of the extruder stepper wires so it can just plug in, seems the obvious solution, but did I miss it somewhere in the manual? Maybe that was what was in chapter 22, although it needs to come before 16.

I of course did not label my hot end fan wires or my end stop connectors[ maybe I didn't follow the manual slavishly], because I'll just ohm them out with my meter. Of course now that I am at 18-8, I need to find my meter which is missing. I am going to order a new one from amazon, even when the old one turns up I could actually use two. I'd like to get the Fluke 289, but right now I think I'll just go with the Fluke 115 that seems to be very attractively priced right now. Maybe I need to see the eevblog multimeter comparison first

Tonkabot wrote:

geneb wrote:Heh! What cracks me up is that you're the only guy to spot it. One of these days I'm going to build myself a face-palming machine just for those occasions when I REALLY stick my foot in it.

g.

I thought you said the missing chapter was pointed out a hundred times?

I am up to 18-8 in the manual, "assembling end stop connectors". I did notice that my extruder stepper wires are not connected, but since I slavishly followed the manual I already 'finished the top end' in chapter 16. I plan to crimp a connector on the end of the extruder stepper wires so it can just plug in, seems the obvious solution, but did I miss it somewhere in the manual? Maybe that was what was in chapter 22, although it needs to come before 16.

I of course did not label my hot end fan wires or my end stop connectors[ maybe I didn't follow the manual slavishly], because I'll just ohm them out with my meter. Of course now that I am at 18-8, I need to find my meter which is missing. I am going to order a new one from amazon, even when the old one turns up I could actually use two. I'd like to get the Fluke 289, but right now I think I'll just go with the Fluke 115 that seems to be very attractively priced right now. Maybe I need to see the eevblog multimeter comparison first

It would be prudent to also purchase a meter that you can attach a thermocouple to so that you can verify your hotend temperature is as reported by the firmware.

Tonkabot wrote: I thought you said the missing chapter was pointed out a hundred times?

"At any rate, Tonkabot gets a pile of Internet Points for spotting a glaring omission that roughly
100+ builders hadn't spotted."

g.

geneb wrote:

Tonkabot wrote: I thought you said the missing chapter was pointed out a hundred times?

"At any rate, Tonkabot gets a pile of Internet Points for spotting a glaring omission that roughly
100+ builders hadn't spotted."

g.

Maybe I should learn to read slower, or something

Eaglezsoar wrote: It would be prudent to also purchase a meter that you can attach a thermocouple to so that you can verify your hotend temperature is as reported by the firmware.

I ordered a Fluke 87V, and it comes with the thermocouple. My meter which is missing is an extech, and it came with a thermocouple, too.
I wouldn't get a meter for general use without a thermocouple. But I'll barrow a meter from my desk at work so I can finish the job tonight.

geneb wrote:
Don't take me too seriously as I sure as hell don't. *laughs*

g.

Coulda fooled me...

Okay, so everything is completed and I did my first two prints last night.


The first print was the fan shroud, and to my untrained 3D eye it looks pretty good. However, I had to use the irwin vise clamp to push the fan in it is so tight,
and in fact the fan does not turn because it is overly tight. So since it was 1:30 and I wanted to go to bed, but leave it printing something, I left it printing 'tower of pi, fixed smaller' from the thingyverse. and went to bed.
I had some problems centering it in the build area, I think it was because it started by placing it next to the fan shroud, and then I deleted the shroud, and then I put in some new offset values to try to move it back to the center.
It was not close to the center, in fact it was just about offset so the edge of the object was the center.

This morning, I find the message 'killed' on the printer, and F&@$ing windows looks like it decided to reboot, maybe about 1/2 way through the print.
I knew this print was going to be challenging, with many many extruder retractions.

Okay, it seems obvious now that I rushed through the bed flatness adjustment (delta radius?), because farthest from the center of the bed the part got kindof squashed .
(I am working on uploading the picture to attach here - the JPG is 16MB)

Here is the full res version, which should provide all the data needed if you download the full thing and zoom in
https://www.dropbox.com/s/58nzdnh23hixq5q/_6001443.JPG

I had the camera ISO cranked way up so I could take the image at F16 handheld no flash - but with a macro lens. I'll be working on getting better photos of these prints, too.
(actually the flash doesn't work so good with macro close ups, I need to get a ring flash. Or pull the tripod in (it is outside with a bird camera on it right now).

So, any suggestions?

You really need to watch the print, but by the amount of tilt in the print it looks like one of your towers is missing steps, or slipping. Most likely the one closest to or furthest away from the narrow base.
It could however be just that the base became disconnected from the bed on that side very early in the print, you get much the same effect.

Polygonhell wrote:You really need to watch the print, but by the amount of tilt in the print it looks like one of your towers is missing steps, or slipping. Most likely the one closest to or furthest away from the narrow base.
It could however be just that the base became disconnected from the bed on that side very early in the print, you get much the same effect.

Would that be caused by to much tension, or friction ? I figured that it was because the whole object was building offset from the center.

I am re-doing the fan shroud now, after I retweaked the endstops and the radius parameter.

I have not heard it miss any steps, that I can tell.

Tonkabot wrote:

Polygonhell wrote:You really need to watch the print, but by the amount of tilt in the print it looks like one of your towers is missing steps, or slipping. Most likely the one closest to or furthest away from the narrow base.
It could however be just that the base became disconnected from the bed on that side very early in the print, you get much the same effect.

Would that be caused by to much tension, or friction ? I figured that it was because the whole object was building offset from the center.

I am re-doing the fan shroud now, after I retweaked the endstops and the radius parameter.

I have not heard it miss any steps, that I can tell.

To get that sort of offset, your delta radius would have to be miles off and it should be correct within a few tenths of a mm from the factory.
As I say you need to watch it fail, it's often hard to diagnose after the fact. This could be as simple as the base pealing off the bed early in the print.

Missed steps can be hard to hear, i find it easiest to put my hand on the motor and feel them, even then if they are only missing at direction transitions, they can be close to impossible to spot.
If missed steps are the issue it can be a number of things, belts too tight, this puts a lot of side load on the motor bearings which they aren't designed for, something rubbing on something etc. too much current to motors causing the drivers to overheat on the rambo board, this is a much less common issue on rambo boards because of the digipots, but it does still happen ad the drivers go into momentary shutdown and miss steps, the easy way to check this is have a fan blow on the rambo while printing and see if it resolves the issue, too little current this is usually really a mechanical issue, that can be overcome by increasing the current to the steppers, see original bels too tight issue.

You should also check the screws on your pulleys, and make sure they are tight, loose pulleys have a much more subtle effect than you would think.
And check the belt for damage (it will be about 1/3 of the way up on the inside of the tower if it's damaged).