printer leveling

[gaexcalibur]

ok so i have been having a problem with my printer. so i will lay it out for you i spent 1 hour leveling the bed last night tried to get everything set perfect and did a simple test print, benchy the 3d printer test set. it ran perfect print cam out beautiful everything was great, then today i ran another program, same slicer setup, nothing different and the printer was left on until i started the curiosity rover this afternoon. then the print head runs right into the bed and runs against the print bed. i have changed nothing between one print and the next so i have no idea why every time i want to print anything i have to relevel the bed. and before you say tighten the belts and the gears on the steppers i checked all that this weekend, along with examing the belts for any problems or wear. so any other ideas would be great
thanks

[Jimustanguitar]

Does the Z height in your host program (MatterControl, Repetier Host, etc) match the Z height that you store in EEPROM when you level the bed?

[gaexcalibur]

yes they both match to the very last digit I tried to do a benchy test this weekend and he came out sloped. is it possible to over tighent the belts on the rostock? also do the belts just wear from normal use, should I just replace all 3??
thank everybody this is frustrating as I run this thing 7 days a week and being down really sucks and puts my projects even further behind.

[Jimustanguitar]

Belt tension wouldn't cause a dimensional disparity like that. It's possible that one of your pulleys is loose. Also check your u-joints and oil them, move them around and make sure that there aren't tight spots in their movement.

[gaexcalibur]

ok so i lubed all of the bearings, checked the belt tightness, added a tiny drop of lube to all of the arm movement points so i am trying this out tonight. do you have any other ideas what it could be. i again leveled the bed which took another hour and i cannot seem to comprehend why i have to relevel the bed every time i want to print anything, it is really weird all of the sudden as i have printed some really nice things in the past and now i am stumped what is happening all of the sudden. so i will let you know if this works if not i am down to new belts, new nozzle and anything else i can think of which sucks as it takes forever to get parts, at least for me, have to talk the wife into it heres hoping

[Tincho85]

Check the endstop bolts/nuts, make sure there is no play there.

[geneb]

There's absolutely no reason at all to have to recalibrate before every print. You've got something going sideways mechanically. The nozzle has nothing to do with the calibration, so replacing that would be like swapping out the gas tank in your car when you get a flat tire. Unless there's visible physical damage to the belts, there's no reason to replace them. If you're going to spend any money at all, I'd recommend upgrading to the new carriages. They're zero adjust, zero maintenance and zero hassle. (and they'll also ensure that a too-tight carriage isn't causing your problem)

g.

[Holy1]

Did you actually pop off the arms and see if the ujoints were stuck? Putting a drop of oil on a seized unjointed will not free it. They should spin on the shaft freely. If only one is stuck or seized it will cause havock.

[gaexcalibur]

well so far no luck at all it failed totally so i will have to pop off the arms make sure they are moving freely. after that i will check the vertical carrages to see if they are free moving. and the new nozzle would be because i am afraid i bashed my one too many times into the bed and i have closed it up a little bit, or a lot it does not appear to be .5mm any more. belts i figured would get worn slowly with time and if i am going to do anything that might help. i will let you all know as soon as i get it checked. thanks for everything i am willing to try anything at this point. one quick question could it be a stepper motor? could it be going bad, or gone bad??
thanks

[gaexcalibur]

ok so i cleaned and checked all of the arms smoothed everything out and releveled the bed so i was able to run benchy so here is the result. as you can see if the pictures attached right the boat is tipped in the direction of the z tower. i double checked to make sure the towers were free and there was no binding so once again i am stuck on this one. i posted the g code just in case anybody wants to try see if i have a programming error but i have made several of these in different colors as a test so any other ideas??
thanks

3DBenchy.gcode

(4.72 MiB) Downloaded 386 times

[gaexcalibur]

ok so everything moves freely and easily releveled and still no joy i am beginning to think i may have a stepper gone bad everything works nice but not printing straight does anybody have any other ideas????
help

[gaexcalibur]

well i swapped the z and y stepper motors and now my problems appear to be in the y axis so i am thinking i need a new stepper motor

[geneb]

Did you physically swap the motors or just the connectors on the RAMBo?

g.

[gaexcalibur]

i physically swapped the motors so what was z is now y and now all of my problems are in the y axis. i have to re-level the y axis prior to each print just like before with the z axis so that is what leads me to believe it is the stepper motor. i am hopefully going to pick one up this weekend and replace it. see what happens.
heres hoping

[gaexcalibur]

can anybody tell me how to change the step height on one of the towers? i am hoping to change the step height of the tower while i wait for a new stepper motor. any ideas if this will work for my tower problem or not?
thanks

[geneb]

There's no such adjustment as "Step height of the tower".

g.

[gaexcalibur]

well i finally got my stepper and it appears to be working, i will do a benchy test tomorrow but in the mean time it appears to be level. i was looking for the leveling procedure outlined here
http://forum.seemecnc.com/viewtopic.php?f=77&t=5906

as it is a different method of leveling but i truly think that was a bad stepper because it took minutes to level this time without any problem. so here is hoping things go well
thanks everybody

[gaexcalibur]

ok so i tried to print benchy the printer bench test a couple of times with no luck again and again after a few hours it turns off. completely shuts down with no voltage anywhere, i cruised the forums and found this problem has already happened to others so i am assuming now i need a new power supply. could somebody verify this just for my reference before i spend some more hundreds and still cannot print what i want.
thanks

[teoman]

You may want to check the switch on the rostock. I found it wanting to come loose once.

Or excessive heat down below might also cause it to ahut down.

[gaexcalibur]

I have added a fan to the case to remove heat and the room is cold so heat is not a problem here and so far no loose connections

[gaexcalibur]

ok another extensive week of testing, work and failure. i am pretty sure the power supply is not up to snuff as the components wear it cuts out to protect itself as it is too close to the power supply limits when everything is running for as many hours as i have run so i give up. for sale one rostock max v2 with several spools of filament in need of a power supply 1200. no shipping unless you are willing to pay for packing and shipping the bloody thing. i live in washington state. i will get a printer that is simplier and of a more proven design because this is not working and has not been working for far too long. it has been a pain in my backside and now i can get two others for the price of this one. good luck with yours

[geneb]

Or you could..I dunno, try a new power supply? Crazy, I know.

What gets my goat is the fact that you've obviously identified the problem, but would rather sell the machine than go to the minimal effort to solve the problem.

I mean c'mon. You unplug the power supply from the RAMBo, take the four nylon screws out of the back and the power supply will drop out the hole in the bottom. Hit Fry's and get a new power supply and go.

Sometimes the power supplies that ship with the kits are dodgy. Considering how many kits have been shipped, the number of genuinely bad power supplies is pretty small. You may have gotten unlucky. Have you contacted support about it?

g.

[gaexcalibur]

honestly gene i have tried for this entire year to get good quality prints out of this machine with one problem after another, the power supply is just the straw that broke the camels back. i have had the machine for over a year and have managed maybe 6 or 8 prints that were worth the effort and came out how i wanted them. just running the same program twice that gave me a good print the first time does not mean i get a good print on the second try. between problems and my wife being a pain in the butt about it i just done need more problems and arguments about how much i am spending both time and money to get this thing to run. so Gene its not the minimal its just another in a long string of problems i have just run out of energy and money to fix.

[gaexcalibur]

ok gene i wasted $100 on a new power supply spent an entire weekend intalling it, leveled the bed spending 4 hours just to make sure it is prefectly level, all towers square everything is as good as it gets. i did one single print as a test and it worked. so the next day i try to print a larger object, start printing what i really want to print only to have the thing smash into the glass chipping out a large chunk. flip the glass over as one side is still ok, relevel the bed again!!! then print, again one successful Benchy printed. without turning it off or resetting i reprogram the part i need to print and again it smashed into the bed destroying the glass. so now i need to order a piece of glass to go with the power supply i just replaced. how come i have to relevel the print bed every time i want to print this should not be this hard once level it should not change it has not moved the same settings are used for my benchy test as my regular print and smash it goes can anybody explain why this printer needs 4 hours of leveling every time you want to print????? i know others do not have this problem so this is insanely stupid why does this printer get awards when you cant make it work??? and the bed was super level i did not take a picture but the test rings came out perfect, benchy came out perfect real print does not work and smashes the glass to bits, 2 different programs two different days with the bed leveled completely as flat as can be.

[Xenocrates]

Has you tried decreasing the rapid speed in the EEPROM? it may be that the steppers are not able to decelerate the head fast enough, and it's hitting the glass. Also, what beyond benchy have you done to calibrate it? Is benchy something you use the normal slicer for? Have you attempted Z height calibration, or used openDACT at all?

I realize you're quite frustrated, and somewhat understand why, as I had some calibration issues for a short period of time. It would be helpful to get a copy of your EEPROM values, as well as a shot of your slicer's settings, and a picture of the machine itself. Are you using Mattercontrol? Some other host? Printing from the SD card? Which slicer are you using, and is it stand-alone or not?

It may be that the model, or the slicer are dodgy, rather than the printer or calibration. Could you upload either the model, or it's Gcode for us to have a look at.

Please, be calm. The majority of people have few issues with it. You appear to have unluckily hit the jackpot, with a lemon of a stepper and power supply. It's a far better, and cheaper kit, than say the Makerbot Replicator X2, which thanks to an intelligent hotend, does really dumb things and needs said hotend replaced far too often.

But if two prints are perfect, and the third is non-functional, then it is likely the G-code or the print, rather than the printer. It is a machine which is repeatable and accurate. If it is performing properly, then any errors are most likely the result of bad input. There may be an intermittent mechanical issue, which could cause it. It may be your firmware is allowing negative Z values, which would drive the printer into the bed. It might even be thermal expansion, if you were adjusting it cold.