Welcome to the SeeMeCNC Community

Ive run into some issues with the fan holder I printed. Its not really the holder, more the fan. The holder is sturdy and everything, but the tab the fan is mounted to is behaving like a spring, and the fan is like a big weight on the end. Since the ujoints have some play, this is moving the effector just a bit to be screwing a tad bit with my prints. On certain less prominent features of objects when the effector makes quick changes of direction it affects it the most. I will be taking the fan off tonight, haven't been printing much PLA anyways.

I'm also ordering some PEI, since the success MHackney and others have been having, and I really really REALLY hate dealing with glue, and I can't get the right mixture for ABS juice. I got a sheet of .040" (1mm) off of McMaster for a tad under $20, and I'll be ordering some of that high temp tape to attach it with. Now to find something that will work with nylon as well as PEI works for just about everything else....

I got the PEI and it seems pretty great. I don't have the tape to attach it yet, but I attached it to my build plate with binder clips for a quick test. I had ABS in my machine and I got it up to 95C, normal print temp for me. The PEI was pretty warped at this temp, but I was able to lay down a skirt before I cancelled the job. I had to peel the skirt off it stuck so well, as in it was like I was peeling off tape. Big improvement over gluestick, where it just barely stuck enough to keep the skirt down. Cant wait until Thursday for the tape to come in to attach it. Been following the PEI test thread by MHackeny, pretty cool stuff.

I was running into this weird issue that would come into play about 3 hours into this one 4 hour print I was doing. It happened 4 times until I finally figured it out, I feel kinda dumb because of it, lol. The teflon tube from the extruder to the hot end was bowing far enough out of the machine that it would wrap around to the top of the carriage where the axle mount is, and it would catch on the axle, causing the print to skew along an angle. It was particularly weird to come back to after being out for 4 hours (its a big boy, it can print by itself ) and finding a failed print without any gouges or blobs or anything except some "angel hair" I believe its referred to. I was sure it was some cross talk from the power wires running near the motor, or a poor connection in the terminal connector, or some complicated issue with the software or interference. Turns out it was simple as something catching where it wasn't supposed to.

Well I've got two rolls of tape but no pei yet and they were ordered on the same day

From the write ups it seems like the way to go, I do a lot of reading and just had say something just so you would know we are here watching what you are doing

Thanks, I thought I was just crazy talking to myself for a second but seriously, the glue works, but not that well, and it is so fussy, can't be too thick, can't be applied hot, etc and the only way to do it consistently get it on is to take of the glass, was it all off, and reapply it cold. This PEI is a godsend.

Great pics, love the build.

Did you run extra wires through the extrusions for the additional hotends/coldends? I was able to squeeze some extra wires in there, but only enough for one more hotend/coldend.

I have 3 runs of CAT5e running up the extrusions. X tower has the end stop wires, Y tower has the E0 and E1 extruders motor wires. Z tower isn't hooked up but its reserved for E2 and some LEDs. I have 2 silicone tubes for the water cooling for the Kraken that I have the Thermistor, heater, and fan wires running parallel to.

I'm leaving it that way for ease of expansion and also for consistency, all motors are at the top (except E3 will be mounted to the base) and all heaters, thermistors, etc, are running along the same area.

Wow Mike, this is truly a remarkable build! I love the initiative taken to use the SeeMe files and cut your own panels from the birch. I'm especially intrigued with your Kraken and Azteeg setup as I look to do something similar in my not-too-soon future. I'm actually waiting for Generic Default to release his Polystroooder to the market before I make the jump because his design just seems like it would go perfect with the Rostock. Any frustrations with getting your Azteeg setup that I should look out for?

Also, I noticed you mentioned earlier on about difficulties with getting Repetier-firmware to communicate with Cura. There should be something within the Cura "Machine" settings that you may need to change, like the baud rate, but I've personally run my Rostock Max V2 with Repetier-firmware .91 with Cura as the host through USB and it didn't seem to give me any problems.

I just have it set to auto detect everything. In the past when I've selected the baud rate it wouldn't even connect via Marlin. Its fine for me since my computer is a laptop that I take almost everywhere, so I just print via SD, and Repetier-host has a better control interface anyway.

The X3 Pro works very nicely. I had some issues figuring out how to run the SD card on the Viki LCD, but they (finally) updated the documents on the Panucatt website and it works great. I went with the terminal blocks option, and if you do I'd recommend buying some ferules (all the wiring needs white 20 AWG ferrules, except the bed, which can use red 16 AWG ferrules). They work fine, though its kinda annoying to unscrew and screw things in repeatedly, so you might want to just get the vertical connectors option.

Did you setup your firmware with the configuration tool? I have a few things that are kind of annoying with my configuration. For some reason before I print anything when I turn my machine on, I have to "home all", even though the print runs G28. If I don't the towers go to home and just keep going, ignoring the endstops completely.

Interesting homing issue. I just always home my towers after I turn my printer on, just for good practice, even if the Gcode is going to send a home command. Can never be too safe, ensuring that your board knows where your motors are in space.

I tried messing with the configuration tool, but never really enjoyed my own perceived "clunkiness" of the webface UI versus the plain-ole editable scripting using the Arduino IDE. As a result, I started off with the SeeMeCNC Repetier-fimware referenced by Geneb in the manual (https://github.com/seemecnc/Repetier-091-ROSTOCKMAX/) and modified the firmware manually using configuration.h and the other tabs within the firmware through the Arduino IDE directly. The whole branch is in zipped form here, which is also accesible from the other link I referenced you by clicking on "Download Zip" on the right hand side of the github page.

The problem I ran into with the dedicated SeeMe branch was that it didn't support the X3 Pro. It just wasn't an option. Believe me, if I could have used Arduino IDE to modify the firmware, I would have, but the config tool doesn't export the config.h file with all the nice explanations or organization that the self editable branches do :/

I'm using the official Repetier-Firmware, I like the menu setup much better. https://github.com/repetier/Repetier-Firmware

I started with the SeeMeCNC Configuration.h and it worked fine. I suspect it's something specific to the X3 Pro in pins.h that's causing your problem. I use the DELTA_HOME_ON_POWER setting for convenience; maybe this will fix your problem in a roundabout way.

I saw the setting but I don't want to enable it. There may be times where homing in power up is the worst thing it can do, since I use my MAX very much as an experimental platform, or to test things to see if it's broken or not. Which reminds me, I need to plug my budashnozle into it to make sure it's still alive sometime, I have some plans for it...

My most recent prints have had some issues, it seems that it's underextruding. Not sure why, maybe there is some carbonization on the nozzle? I cleaned off the drive gear completely, haven't tried it yet though. The other thing it may be, my stepper drivers may be kinda spotty, I won't say I took the best of care to keep them running nice (early days in my printing career, oops). I might also try switching out my E1 and E0 drivers...

It was just issues with my bed being level. I wish the auto leveling routine in .91 worked, it rises up off the bed in-between some towers and I don't know how to correct that..

I have the PEI attached and its been working great. I have about 24 hours of printing on it, 4 prints with varying degrees of full build plate.

Ive been hearing how difficult it is to level hotends, and I know that some people have made their leveling system spring loaded. The Kraken has a nice system to adjust the height, but gravity isn't enough to assist in this process, so I got the idea to put low force springs in between the heater block of each nozzle and the cooler block of the Kraken. Then I can move the effector to Z=0, loosen the set screws binding the heat break, and let the force of the springs (equal force) push the heater block against the bed, tighten the set screws, and they should be perfectly level? Thats my reasoning at least. The spring steel wouldn't be annealed in the repeated heating/cooling cycles or anything else? This wouldn't produce poor results for any reason? The springs are thin enough that I don't think they'd function as a heatsink, sapping heat from the heater block....

I would be concerned with annealing the steel...

Does your platform move parallel to the bed across the entire surface? For example mine tilts away as I move toward the Z axis. I guess my arms aren't all the same length.

Well, not completely, but I think that doesn't matter, more that the nozzles are level according to the effector. My reasoning is you're just trying to prevent the second nozzle from knocking into the print, and if the first lays down plastic a bit too low or high, the second should follow in suit. If the parts warp (should be countered by PEI) then the parts warp, what can you do. Not like I want a warped dual extrusion print anyway. At least the machine "cancels" the print, saves me the hassle

I'm not fluent in metallurgy, anyone who is, would constant exposure to 300C temps affect spring steel?

Yes I see what you mean. So it would only really be a problem for the first few layers, maybe not that big a deal.

The critical temperature for steel is 724C. There is something called subcritical annealing that happens below that temperature, I'm not sure how that works.

Alright, highest temp I plan on getting it to is (maybe if I install a thermocouple) 400C, so I'm not at that point. I might check out the subcritical annealing, see what I can come up with.

I did a bit of looking, most of the sources I found with actual numbers on process annealing (aka subcritical annealing) for steel was in the 700C+ range. http://www.efunda.com/processes/heat_tr ... ealing.cfm one of the sites stating this. I think I'm good?

I have the springs in place and the are fine. No affect to print quality or the springs themselves. I normally am around 260 C for my ABS (my thermistor is really uncalibrated) so it's "up there", probably.

After looking through Genes new manual it seems that I completely neglected to square my towers to my bed, oops. I don't have a framing square to do that, I'll have to borrow one from my dad next time I see him, that probably will solve my leveling issues (my Y tower leans out at the top from what I could tell with my square, but it's way too small to figure out how much)

The tower squaring wasn't included in the 1st edition of the v2 manual. I added it after reading a discussion on it in a mailing list I'm on.

g.

Oh, well that's a great addition, pretty sure my leveling issues are from my towers not being square to the bed. The worst is definitely the Y tower, the opposite end raises around half a millimeter.

I used a big 24" framing square on mine. I noticed the extrusions went inward a bit (about 0.02 deg) as they went up. Maybe it's my square, but I tried two different ones. So I split the difference, and everything is working fine. My bed calibration test print is the same thickness across the bed.

I'm now using the leveling in Repetier-Firmware with FSR sensors and it's fantastic! It's so easy that I do it before each print.

Where did you get your sensors? I saw them in your build thread and they looked nice. Much better solution than trying to mount a servo to the effector with the big ol kraken on there too, lol.