First day of Prusa i3 Build

[FloatyBob]

Had a wonderful day today constructing a Prusa i3 kit, Not done too bad, i was a bit baffled by the X axis belt clamping, i expeted a bit more than cable ties! Maybe an engineered piece of ABS or something but its all put together now and ready for the wiring to be connected, that can wait until tomorrow, hopefully all should be ok

[3dkarma]

Best of luck. The wiring can be daunting, but go slow and double-check everything and you'll be fine.

[chris@radeuslabs]

Congrats on the assembly and hopefully the wiring goes as good.

[lakester]

Yah..., I'm about 1/3 of the way through the build of a 12" i3v. The clamping on the x carriage belt made me chuckle, but it's probably good enough for a little while.

Good luck!

[FloatyBob]

Thats me done for the day, all wiring done, spent the last few hours setting everything up, X,Y & Z axis working fine, first few test runs using transparent PLA and i realised the importance of having a 'Sticky Bed'! The PLA wasnt sticking to the bed so just clotted round the nozzle, i have told the missus to get some hairspray tomorrow, give that a go,

All together a very interesting and enjoyable day in the world of 3D Printing. Brilliant!

[FloatyBob]

Looks like i spoke too soon, i forgot about the LCD, there are no instructions on which wire goes where i have googled wiring diagrams but nothing yet, its only a 4 wire harness, Purple,Green, White & Black with slim square connectors on each wire, i have a Melzi 2 mainboard and i can see where the wires would fit but i dont know which colour goes where in what order. Help Anyone??

[chris@radeuslabs]

Congrats on geting the wiring / test prints. hair spray seems to work, but we also are using cyanoacrylate (CA) and insta-set to quick dry it. It requires some eblow grease to remove but your prints will not lift. Just dont get too much CA on the actual print as it can mess up layer adheasion.

Now, for the LCD...is there a +5v or ground symbol on the mainboard and on the LCD? What about a tx+/- (could be rx+/-)

I did a quick search, but all references I have found to LCD's have had a different wiring harness than you described

[FloatyBob]

Looks like there is a problem, I am using a Melzi 2.0 main board and the LCD is a model QC2004A, it appears they are not compatible , the 4 wire harness doesnt fit anywhere on the board,
Other than that i am having problems with controlling the Z-axis, i am having to put an end sensor just above the printhead arm to stop it going straight to the top and trying to print at the top position, awkward! and when printing the printhead is going down into the printbed, i hope that makes sense

Oh and Hairspray didnt work very well even for test print,, No 'Sticky bed' here.

[3dkarma]

Sounds like you've got Z direction reversed. Either change it in the firmware or power everything off and reverse the motor connectors (reversing them changes direction).

[FloatyBob]

Thanks for the advice, i have just tried switching the motor wires and it still wanted to go straight to the top, so i switched direction in the printer settings, Still the same! Confusing,