exxos blog - random goings on

[exxos]

I think a lot of the hold-ups with this board is they have not really done a proper wiring diagram.

I mean they labelled the thermistor ports T0-T3 fair enough. But then in the firmware they call them 0.23,0.24 etc. So there is no real correlation between the two. It gets worse because they tried to colour code things as well. Though not even using standard colours like black for ground which I would expect. They seem to be going with the American " hot and cold" blue and red thing. But even that does not make sense because are they switching lines all wired directly to the power supply. It does not actually seem to say anywhere. The schematic isn't too bad, but there is no correlation between pin numbers on the schematic and on the actual board

Colour coding things I think just make things a lot more confusing. It's like on the stepper motors the cables are colour-coded. Then another motors one wire is a different colour. Then on others they are the same colours but in a different order, and none of these colours correlate to the wiring diagram anyway.

Is like trying to read car schematics, I never could make heads or tails of then either! Is like someone invented some bizarre schematic methods and everyone else use that system rather than going with proper electronics schematics which actually makes sense.

[exxos]

After much wiring..

Managed to print out the first test square. Albeit, it's half the size because I forgot to calibrate the X&Y steps.

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So while trying to fight with getting the bed dimensions to behave with the slicer.. I heard a loud THUD!

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The Z drive bar had dropped out of the bearing ?!

Turns out it is worse than that...

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The Z-motor has literally dropped through the plastic housing because it got too hot. I had been lowering the current using the M907 command down to 0.3amps.. So it seems this is not the command for the Smoothieboard then

The motor has got that hot (100c+) screws have melted through the housing and the motor has dropped out I tried to put some longer screws in but now the top end of the bar no longer fits in the top bearing for some bizarre reason.

All in all, I am just going to take the hint that this printer is just never going to work. While the Smoothie board seems good, it is not using Marlin codes and using its own code, then I do not want to use it anyway. This is in part why I wanted to get rid of the flash forge board because the codes were not compatible with Marlin.

[exxos]

I think I know what is happening with the flashforge printer. #bobslaw. I manually ran some filament through the mechanism backwards and forwards with basically as little tension as possible. The first pass through the head and it was incredibly tough to pull through. However, pulling it backwards and back again it was as loose as anything. So it is clear that the mechanism is squashing the filament. It is likely why I am ending up with gaps of places.

What was confusing me originally was the faster I printed the better things actually got. I think I now realise what is going on. When it is printing fast the filament is being passed through the mechanism extremely fast. Weight is printing slower, is having more time to get "squashed". This would actually correlate to the fact that it generally prints around corners with gaps weight is printing at its slowest. Small runs of infill constantly have gaps. However drawing long straight lines 200mm etc was perfectly fine.

So the exclude I purchased to grip the filament better indeed does work, however, it is actually causing a new problem. I was thinking yesterday that I did not really have problems with gaps in prints like this previously.

so what I am doing is modifying the original flash forge assembly to use a proper "V tooth" cog setup which will grip the filament both sides under tension of a spring. Still not actually "Dual drive", but I think the normal "V-idler" is not helping because it does not align the filament to the driver wheel properly. Also I now have un-forgotton that one of the original problems was that idler wheel edges was actually pressing up against the driver wheel. Meaning increase the tension on the spring would only push them firmer together and not actually grip the filament any better. Though as usual, the parts I need seem to be specialist and I can only get them in China

I also think part of the problem of a underpowered motor was because the actual driving wheel is fairly large. I notice this could even cause problems with the stronger motors. Luckily there is enough "play" in the mechanism to allow a smaller drive wheel to be used. And they have to file a bit here and there, but I think it could actually be possible for me to go back to the original size motors with that setup.

Anyway..

New printer has arrived and I am not going to tell anyone what I have purchased (yet)

it was actually pretty good because steps for assembly correlated to labels on the bags with the parts in. For example "Step 1" had a "step 1" bag with bits in. So anyway, it all went horribly wrong at step 4 for starters there was no step 4 bag I later found part basically loose in the box. Then the instructions progressively got worse to the point I did not bother following any of the steps.

It has auto bed levelling. Instructions say thing like " make sure the height is correct" and it does not at any point tell you what the height is supposed to be. So ended up bolting and bolting backup the sensor. I am now currently celebrating the bed height. It has a baby step mode so I can adjust the starting height in 0.01mm steps.

So 0.70 baby step (Z-axis adjust) ..

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0.65mm baby step..

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0.69mm baby step..

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The actual square is something like 25mm x 3mm high.

I ran out of the original white PLA which came with the printer. So I went with some black PLA has been way around for a while. Seems to be not sticking to the bed oddly and curling up in one corner. So I need to fiddle with the temperatures a little bit and see what happens.

been printing out my very first benchy's

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The one on the left was printed first. The bed was not totally level at that point. The middle and the right-hand one ( I got them mixed up) were printed at different speeds. 60mm/sec and 150mm/sec with 800 accel. I think the one on the right was the faster printed one as there is a visible line halfway up the base. This was because the filament was not quite hot enough and the head was hitting the print at that point. So I just increased the temperature a little and it was fine afterwards.

I'm actually impressed with the printer overall and its print quality. I only had to do three modifications to it so far

[Badwolf]

New printer has arrived and I am not going to tell anyone what I have purchased (yet)

Ooo ooo. Exciting.

Doesn't look like a Prusa... I was going to guess Lulzbot, but then I saw their prices so hope not

BW

[PhilC]

@exxos now that looks so much better.

RE the old filament, try putting it in the oven at 60C for half an hour, its probably absorbed a bit of moisture too.

[exxos]

@exxos now that looks so much better.

RE the old filament, try putting it in the oven at 60C for half an hour, its probably absorbed a bit of moisture too.

Could be. I don't know how long it has been sat in the open. I'm hoping that upping the temps will solve it..it is looking better on the current print.

Doesn't look like a Prusa... I was going to guess Lulzbot, but then I saw their prices so hope not

yeah I was looking at ultimaker until I saw the price but a lot of research went into the one I purchased. But I think it is a bit of a gamble which ever you go for. It ticks all of "exxos's boxes".. Well for the most part anyway. I really wanted a enclosed printer, so this one could be a problem as it is open. It is very similar to the i3 design. Rest assured it is not a prusa or flash forge I guess I will keep with the subtle hints until someone guesses it and I will deny all knowledge. First person to correctly guess it wins absolutely nothing!

[exxos]

Loads of fancy options to break all sorts of stuff

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[Steve]

Yes! finally, now... print me a fake cpu haha

[exxos]

I've been confused over the auto bed leveling all day. It works fine, but then after doing a printer and going to the next, its all out again. Long story short, the rear wheels on the bed which move on the sides of the extrusions were loose. Another long story short, it involved a hammer and some metal bending. Then it wouldn't move at all another long story short, don't over tighten the idler pulley

So, riddle me this next one, I home the Z axis. It goes down to the bed, the switch clicks. It moves up about 0.5mm. Now when I move the z axis down, by 0.5mm, its still like 1mm from the bed. OK I thought. I'll home the z axis, move it down to zero again, put my card under the nozzle and manually level the bed. Job done right ? Nope. Because now when I home the z it crashes into the bed..
.

So I now think switches on the Z axis can never work. Because when the head moves down to zero and clicks the switch, the head has to move up about 2mm higher to actually cause the switch to "break" . so the head is now actually 2mm above the bed, when the software still thinks its O.5mm above the bed. So basically that method could never ever work.

So why the hell do so many printers uses switches on the Z axis ?! Thinking about it, I had never ending problems with getting the bed level on my flashforge, and that uses a switch on the Z axis as well. The only way it can even work is with a opto. As it would make and break at the same distance. A switch never will.

[derkom]

I guess I will keep with the subtle hints until someone guesses it and I will deny all knowledge. First person to correctly guess it wins absolutely nothing!

Looks like a Creality of some variety. Ender-6 perhaps?