New printer, a few problems

[sheimeix]

Hi all, first post here. I've been looking into a printer for a while and settled on the Monoprice FFCP clone (this one). I know it isn't exactly a FF, but I figured this is probably the closest I can get to it. Out of the box it worked pretty well- I printer a couple small test prints, which came out pretty well. I had read that it's a good idea to upgrade to sailfish though, so I tried doing that this morning, and it seemed to work pretty well. After that, though, I began having a couple problem.

Slicer: Cura, then the gcode is being ran though RepG Sailfish 40r33 to get the .x3g file.

1. I can't seem to get prints to run without having very hot temperatures. I tried slicing a small ring, with the hotend temp at 210c, but the printer is heating up to 230c, and I tried setting the build plate to 70c, but it tries heating all the way up to 130c, which seems rather high for the stock PLA, no less because I specified other temps. Is this just first layer temperatures from a setting I missed in Cura? The stock files it came with were 220/100c, I believe. Of course, with sailfish I can change the hotend temp in real time, but not the bed.This leads into another question....

2. When I have the hotend and build plate heating up, it's slowly extruding plastic at the home location (back right corner). This wouldn't be too big of a deal if it didn't take so long for the build plate to heat up, or if I didn't have to stand there and make sure the plastic didn't start coiling on the build plate, but alas. I feel this also caused a clog in the extruder that I've since cleaned out, but that could have been a separate problem on its own.

3. Finally, the last problem I was having came after I tried canceling a print where the extruder was skipping during the preheat step. The print head had tried moving to the front left corner, only it didn't stop once it reached the far front, so it got that horrible grinding noise. Because of the previous problem, I haven't completed a print since I've began having this problem, so I can't quite say if this happens when a print finishes normally or not, but I can at least say that it didn't happen before I installed sailfish.


The problem with the hotend/print bed temps isn't too concerning- I plan on printing with ABS down the line instead of PLA. The second one is more for convenience sake, and the last one is actually a pretty big concern, because I don't know if it'll happen again after a print finishes. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[curious aardvark]

since you installed the new firmware - have you gone through all the settings and set them to what they were in the old firmware ?

Ie: changed preheat temps, and probably a bunch of other stuff

Have to admit I wouldn't have messed with the firmware on a working machine.
Great believer in: 'if it's not broke, don't fix it'.

But now you have, just work your way through everything on the control panel and check it doesn't need adjusting.

[warkmal]

...

Slicer: Cura, then the gcode is being ran though RepG Sailfish 40r33 to get the .x3g file.

First problem is that Cura only produces RepRap flavor gcode and RepG only consumes MakerBot flavor. In particular, (and this is related to some of your problems below) they disagree on some of the hotend vs. heatbed gcodes. You might want to use GPX set to RepRap flavor

1. I can't seem to get prints to run without having very hot temperatures. I tried slicing a small ring, with the hotend temp at 210c, but the printer is heating up to 230c, and I tried setting the build plate to 70c, but it tries heating all the way up to 130c, which seems rather high for the stock PLA, no less because I specified other temps. Is this just first layer temperatures from a setting I missed in Cura? The stock files it came with were 220/100c, I believe. Of course, with sailfish I can change the hotend temp in real time, but not the bed.This leads into another question....

This could be the gcode flavor, but it could also be your eeprom settings are messed up. For example, there is a setting for override gcode temperature and if that is set, it will always use the preheat setting (you can modify via the LCD menus).

2. When I have the hotend and build plate heating up, it's slowly extruding plastic at the home location (back right corner). This wouldn't be too big of a deal if it didn't take so long for the build plate to heat up, or if I didn't have to stand there and make sure the plastic didn't start coiling on the build plate, but alas. I feel this also caused a clog in the extruder that I've since cleaned out, but that could have been a separate problem on its own.

Something seems backwards. Normally for R1 clones, as you are facing the printer, home position (endstops) are away from you and to the right. Waiting position is in the opposite corner (front [closer to you] and to the left). This could also be an eeprom setting since there are settings for which direction is positive and negative and which direction to home. You may want to erase the eeprom to get back to sailfish defaults. Though depending on which firmware you chose that might give you some wrong values for dual head offset, for example. Which firmware did you choose when you were following the instructions at sailfish.org?

Another problem with picking the wrong firmware for your bot would be the heatbed current/voltage. If you have a low resistence heatbed like the FlashForge, using the wrong firmware could overload your power supply or worse, be a fire hazard. Vis-versa you could just have a abnormally slow to heat bed.

3. Finally, the last problem I was having came after I tried canceling a print where the extruder was skipping during the preheat step. The print head had tried moving to the front left corner, only it didn't stop once it reached the far front, so it got that horrible grinding noise. Because of the previous problem, I haven't completed a print since I've began having this problem, so I can't quite say if this happens when a print finishes normally or not, but I can at least say that it didn't happen before I installed sailfish.

Once again, weird. Cancel for my FFCP goes to the back-right (home) and platform to the bottom. It seems like yours is heading to where an endstop is not (which would sound grindy since the stepper will be skipping steps at the mechanical end of the rod).

The problem with the hotend/print bed temps isn't too concerning- I plan on printing with ABS down the line instead of PLA. The second one is more for convenience sake, and the last one is actually a pretty big concern, because I don't know if it'll happen again after a print finishes. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[sheimeix]

Thanks for the replies, guys. I've gone ahead and reset the settings to default and then tried a print that was already on the SD card that came with the printer- it printed fine (the head moved to forward-left position, as it should) and printed just fine- the other files still have the same problem, so it must have just been those files- a bit more on that later.

As far as the firmware I chose, it was the FlashForge Creator Pro & X w/ ATmega 2560 as that was the closest thing. I'm not positive on what Replicator clone it is, plus when I plugged it into my computer the Makerbot software identified it as a FFCP, hence the choice.

Rundown of things that are working:

A) it looks like you were right- Cura was a big part of the problem. I made sure that the preheat setting being the default temp. for prints was turned off after resetting sailfish, and now the files print at whatever specified temps I chose (except the ones sliced in cura, they still try heating up to very high temperatures).

B) Heating up doesn't cause the extruder to actually run and extrude plastic the whole time (again, except the cura files).

C) Canceling prints is a little tricky, because the preloaded files cancel and return the printhead to home as it should, but a new file I tried slicing with S3D doesn't. More on that below.

Going back to the strange homing issue after canceling prints- I tried starting and canceling a print that came with the SD card. It came to the front-left just fine, heated correctly (and the bed didn't take nearly as long to heat up), and i let it run for maybe 15 minutes, and I canceled it, and the print head went to the home pos. correctly. Here's where it gets a little bit more confusing for me- I'm trying out S3D to see if that works, as I read that it also can slice and output X3G files, so I thought that perhaps using that could cut out RepG out of the process. I tried using the same file as before- a model that one of my friends made (and I cleaned with netfabb cloud)- but now it's acting a little more different than before.

Now, with this new file, it doesn't even bother homing or repositioning any of the axis before heating. If I were to move the build plate a couple inches down or move the printhead around somewhere and then starting the print, it would all stay where it is, heat up, and """begin""" the print as if it was in the correct area. I'm sure that's some setting within S3D, but I can't locate where that would be. When I cancel this print, it just stops right where it is, instead of moving to home like it should. This confuses me a little, I guess because I'm not sure about exactly how the Cancel operation works. Does it just run the end script in the Gcode (or, in this case, x3g) file, or is the cancel built into the firmware? Based on what I'm seeing, it looks like the former.

As far as it seems, the printer is doing everything correctly so far, and the problems all lie in the files I'm trying to use myself. If it turns out that the problem above is fixed via some S3D setting, I'd be really glad- S3D is what I was planning on using. I guess I'd be a little disappointed if I'm limited to a specific slicer, but such is life.

[warkmal]

As far as the firmware I chose, it was the FlashForge Creator Pro & X w/ ATmega 2560 as that was the closest thing. I'm not positive on what Replicator clone it is, plus when I plugged it into my computer the Makerbot software identified it as a FFCP, hence the choice.

You may want to verify that this is correct (in two ways, chip and heat bed). The 2560 has twice as much flash space as the 1280 which is the default chip on most of the Replicator 1 Dual Clones. The 2560 firmware is too big to fit on a 1280. (These are all Rep 1 clones. They may look like a Rep2, but their electronics, steps/mm, print volume, etc. are all Rep 1.) Also, the Sailfish for the 2560 on a FFCP goes with the FF turbo heat bed, so if you use it on a regular heatbed it'll heat slowly.

C) Canceling prints is a little tricky, because the preloaded files cancel and return the printhead to home as it should, but a new file I tried slicing with S3D doesn't. More on that below.

Are you sure the cancel behavior goes with the files? Or does it depend more on which host you're using to drive the print? Many hosts have "cancel" scripts they run when you hit cancel. Printing from the SD card takes that out of it.

The only think I can think of where an x3g file from an SD card could affect the cancel script that is baked into the firmware is by defining the wrong coordinate system when homing and this depends on the start gcode for the print.

It sounds like you may be using the wrong S3D printer profile (and in Cura as well). This would also explain why you generate some files that don't home properly.

Typical MakerBot Replicator 1 Dual start gcode defines the coordinate system such that the center of the build plate is 0, 0. This differs from most RepRap printers that define the front left corner as 0, 0. Also, it defines the coordinate system such than increasing X and Y move toward the back right. The start gcode does this by issueing the command to go to the endstops. Then it defines that position by either setting it explicitly to the distance of home from the center of the bed via G92 (G92 X154 Y80 Z0 A0 B0 or something similar) *or* by using M132 to recall the distances from the EEPROM memory on the chip.

The slicer prepends the start.gcode to every print before converting it to x3g format for printing.

[curious aardvark]

for simplify3d you need to be using the replicator dual profile. OR flashforge creator dual.

Basically a replicator clone is a 3d printer based around the original makerbot replicator 3d printer. makerbot were stupid enough to make the design open source. So a bunch of chinese companies jumped in and started copying them - perfectly legally.
That said there have been a lot of incremental improvements and evolution along the way. So some of the current replicator clones are superior to the original machines in a number of ways.

Particularly with the updated firmware it makes a difference which profile you pick.
And yes the heating up and then not doing anything is a common issue with the wrong profile in s3d.

Persevere with it as it's hands down the best software around for everything except dual extrusion - for that you'll still need to use makerbot makerware: http://3dprintboard.com/showthread.p...-x86-computers

makwe the most of the download link, when it's gone - it's gone :-) geoff won't let me update it anymore - why ? Ask him lol

[sheimeix]

Thanks for the tips guys- I'm not at home at the moment, but when I do get back I'll check the profiles and the like and see if I can get it working.

(BTW I forgot to mention, but when I tried printing with S3D the heatbed did heat up a lot faster than the Cura prints- the S3D one took around 5 minutes while the Cura ones took 20 or so)