exxos blog - random goings on

[Icky]

There is no options in the software to do that though

It’s usually part of your controller boards settings eg. Some controller boards have config files or others are set with a program through the usb.

[rubber_jonnie]

Are the sliders sticking at all on those axes?

@exxos I'm referring to the parts that slide along the steel bars in the X & Y axes. If they stick, even slightly, it will affect the print quality, however I would expect that re-calibration is what you need.

I need to recalibrate mine regularly as it's a cheap ass printer, and can do it via the control panel.

If you can connect via USB, that may be an option, and if you are able to connect via ethernet it may have a web interface you can use for setup tasks.

There may, as has been suggested, a job you can give the printer which will recalibrate.

[PhilC]

This is the board I have in my CR-10

https://www.bigtree-tech.com/products/b ... board.html

it takes some configuring by altering config files etc before compilation though. Fortunately for me others have already done this, so I had a few small tweaks to make. This with the 3.5 TFT touch screen makes a good printer great IMHO anyway.

Has your printer got one Z access motor or two?

[exxos]

I found this in the defaults file

Code: Select all

[coordTransform]
enable = true                  # valid value is {true, false}, default is false
scaleX = 0.8                    # valid range [0.1, 10.0], default is 1.0
scaleY = 1.0                    # valid range [0.1, 10.0], default is 1.0
scaleZ = 1.0                    # valid range [0.1, 10.0], default is 1.0

I set it to true and 0.8. But doesn't seem to change anything

I've sent a message to Flashforge, doubt it will lead anywhere. So probably have to change the board

[exxos]

Emails back and forth to flashforge are somewhat going slowly I'm just waiting for the final email of "we do not know how to fix it sorry".

I ordered some 0.25mm and 0.4mm brass sheet to use as my height calibration bed levelling thing which came today. I also ordered a 6x9" picture frame butcher the glass for my printer bed. I have not used the "BuildTak" stuff much. I think a lot of the problem is just a bed is not perfectly level with these "stick on" things. In any case it has been ripped off and binned and the glass is now on the bed. I think the printers heated bed itself is flat, allegedly it is ultra-precision machined. But I cannot print on this because of the screw holes in it. Plus with scraping I would rather have the glass now.

I can print ABS with any temperature bed it seems now, currently I am using 65c. With the other bed materials I was having to use 220c. I think the thermal properties of this plastic based stuff is just not good enough. However, I'm having to use this "3DLAC" spray stuff to get the prints to stick on the glass. Is actually really good stuff. The good thing is as the print cools it pretty much removes itself from the bed. With the plastic bed stuff, I was literally having to hammer it off every time. I would have ended up causing damage to the printer mechanism I kept up with all that!

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I still need to calibrate my bed height but so far this is looking very promising, finally!

[exxos]

I have been playing with some Gcode today. I pretty much have my "hello world" line on the left-hand side I wanted to do this because at the start and end of the print the filament oozes out a few mm and even with a skirt it does not actually solve the problem. So what I do now, is draw the line on the left-hand side,which cleans all the crap of the head first. Then it quickly moves to the right ( still oozing a bit unfortunately currently) Then it draws the skirt which gets the filament flowing, and it heads over to the prints and works fine.

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Flashforge seem to think my Y-axis belt is to tight. They said they will try and replicate the problem with their own machine tomorrow. I'm trying out a different slicer which I can do a manual Y-offset adjustments, so currently trying that out. As the Y is 0.2mm out, I can set Y to be 0.2mm larger to compensate.. In theory..


EDIT:

So Y-axis is just shy of the X now

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[sporniket]

well done. It seems quite a work to get something accurate enough.

[exxos]

I got a reply from flash forge , they said slacken the Y belt. I did a bit and nothing changed. I slacken more and its even worse now. So I basically put it back to how it was before.

I think the problem could be there are 2 belts on the Yaxis and only 1 on the X. Also the stepper motor isn't square to the actual gears on the belt. The Y belt is at a angle. So the physical rotation must be out a fraction as well. But I can't think that would cause such a large offset of 0.2mm+.

There is no way to set steps per mm anywhere. Nothing shows up in 2 hours of Google searches. There's no way to really set steps per mm anywhere. I can only assume its just inherently wrong in the firmware

Edit
Looks like there are firmware hacks to do stuff https://github.com/moonglow/FlashForge_ ... tion-guide

[Badwolf]

What slicer are you using? I'd have thought most would let you scale the parts differently in different axes.

Less elegant but will also probably work is to go back to you CAD model and apply a fudge scale factor at source?

By way of example, my printer always tends to go a certain amount (say 0.6mm) wider on any part than I plan so if I'm downloading an STL file that I can't apply a correction to myself, I'll apply a scale factor at slice time.

In my case it'd be 1/(1 + 0.6/(appoximate part width in mm)). So if it's a 20mm part, that'd end up at an x-scale factor of 97%.

I use Prusa Slicer and before that Cura.

BW

[exxos]

@Badwolf It is all Flashforges own stuff It is all closed stuff so not simple just to try other slicers
I don't think I ever got Cura to work with my printer, but I am trying other programs out currently which do let me create a profile with dimensional offsets... long story..

I tried sending the M92 command which should allow me to set the steps, but it does not seem to actually do anything I think the flashforge firmware is just a stripped down barebones version of the protocol.

Flashforge while they are replying to me, they are not really been very helpful in solving the problem. I think it is just a inherent hardware problem. For the lack of firmware flexibility to do compensation for it.