There's a fancy equation you can do to figure out what you need to set your Steps Per MM to, but you can always just increase it from 80 until you get what you need.
Printable View
I think I got it :D I'll post pics of the print I'm running at this very moment. I have learned sooooo much from you guys, so grateful
https://www.dropbox.com/s/d89247ymvg...31746.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9330fvc76l...25158.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/5qkh0149m6...25124.jpg?dl=0
I think my prints are improving. You guys agree? lol especially from where I started. So it seems after I adjusted my steps other calibrations were thrown off lol , so the little 2 piece sub there has some bowl shape too it , I checked after print and yes those calibrations have been thrown off. No big deal.
So here is my game plan and a couple more quick questions.
Im going to double check steps per mm are as close to dead on as possible
going to do a manual bed leveling and then adjust my diagnol and horizontal settings again to elimenate dishing, or bowling w/e its called
then double check my total z height
then triple check all points to make sure we are homed in, including e Steps which brings me to my first question
1. Increase or decrease esteps to reduce how much extrudes ( I think decrease but i could have sworn i read increase some where)
2. how do i check to make sure steps per mm is correct on x and y ( mark bed , move head and measure? and if so what do i adjust to fix it if its off?)
3. How do i post pics in this forum so i dont have to use dropbox anymore?
4. anything else you guys can think of ?
5. autolevel? should i use it ? lol and if so , how?
Again , thanks you guys your awesome! wouldnt be were i am with out yalls
OK, you are making good progress here. Sorry about my delayed response but I am in a different timezone and usually (!) asleep when it is evening over there....
Repetier does use different naming conventions, thanks LuckyImperial for the corrections.
I think you have already figured it out by yourself, but for the other readers this explanation:
When you told the firmware to go from X0 Y0 Z0 to X0 Y0 Z100 with (according to the firmware settings) 80 steps per mm, the firmware moved all three towers by 80*100=800 steps. As the belts in reality only moved 80mm, the actual steps_per_mm = 800/80=100 steps per mm. If you change that in the firmware you should be allright (apart from the manual re-calibration).
As to your question:
1) You can calibrate the extruder too. Just take the Bowden tube off the extruder. Put a mark on the filament referencing to a fixed point, like where it comes out of the fitting. Extrude 100mm (G91 <enter> G1 E100 F300 <enter> G90 <enter>). Measure the extruded length with a digital caliper. Calculate the correct steps_per_mm = (old_steps_mm * 100mm) / measured_mm_extruded.
That will give you your actual steps_per_mm for the extruder. However, the amount the slicer will request for a move is calculated from the diameter of the filament (a setting in your slicer). It needs to lay down a certain volume of plastic for a track, and calculates the volume from the filament diameter, and gives the mm of extrusion (linear) to the firmware. If you filament is slightly off, this volume calculation has an error. Measuring your filament with (again) the digital calipers, you can enter the correct value in your slicer.
Depending on your nozzle, the type of polymer and the temperature you print with, the actual extruded volume differ from the calculated ideal. Most slicers will have a fudging parameter. In Simplyfy3D it is called 'Extrusion multiplier' and is found on the Extruder tab settings. For PLA a value of 0.95 is usually OK, for ABS I use 1.00 as multiplier.
2) For a delta this is different than for a cartesian bot. Your X-Y moves are recalculated to tower heights, and are non-linear as such. Basically the tip of your hotend is recalculated to the intersection of three spheres defined by the tower height as center and the diagonal rod length as radius. To get dimensional correct X-Y moves, you may need to have different rod lengths for all three arms as explained here: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:745523
Print out that object and the pdf chart as explained, and measure. The adaptations as explained in the article are for Marlin firmware, but I have seen that Repertier has those corrections already implemented in the firmware. I am in the process of migrating from Marlin to Repertier myself, so will soon be able to help you further there.
3) just use this button:
Attachment 7776
You will need to save your images as .png type first.
4) Loads and loads, where to begin? ;)
5) If you have a heatbed that buckles when heating due to poor heat distribution/too thin material, then autocalibration might be useful. The consequence is that you propagate first layer errors upwards through your print and I would not use it myself. Better to have a good, absolutely flat (heat-)bed (did anyone say glass?) and do the hard labour of manual calibration. My experience is that when once properly calibrated, you don't need to mess with it again for a long, long, loooong time. All time spent with good manual calibration pays itself off in hundreds (thousands?) of good prints.
Haha, thanks. Wasn't saving them as .png
I am thinking of changing the effector plate for a solid pieace. The one I got is for auto level and the center (which holds the extruder) pivots so that it can trigger the autolevel switch like an endstop. A good idea I think but poorly implemented with 3d printed parts. So your answer on autolevel was what I was hoping to hear. If I got rid of the pivot and went solid effector , I think it would give better accuracy because there would be no unnecessary play in the head.
I'm going to get those calibrations redone tonight , man I'm so excited. No longer is there a light at the end of the tunnel, but now I can actually see outside
NEW PROBLEMS!!!! so not excited
I went thru and did all calibrations again , everything seemed fine except my diagnol rod length (for dishing) went from like 240 to 640 .... that normal? Horizontal length had to be increased too , its now at 180 from 140 ish (dont remember exactly)
I also did the extruder calibration as well. Esteps went from 147 to 165. My Max Z went from 350 to 302 , then down to 268 and seems to steadily be decreasing.... but this could be because the heating and cooling of the extruder , or the stupid auto level mickey mouse rig of an effector i have.
The real problem that i seem to have is it now tries to print everything in micro. When I load the calibration tool to print , I slice it ... even in the preview window it still shows that its going to print out close to my max bed size , but once printing starts it prints it 1/4 what it is supposed to. I loaded the calibration cubes and it tried to print those so small they would have fit on a nickel, with a 4 wrap skirt. So either I inadvertly built a shrink machine or I screwed up somewhere.
I sat down , and started to just go thru the eeprom list and find out what each thing was.... then i sat down and started to measure everything and comparing it to what was in the eeprom (that was based on manufactor instructions) .... had some descrepencys , and now it seems that I had things off and didnt understand what numbers where super important , and just important. Im printing some more calibration cubes right now. If they come out like i expect them too , and the calibration circle tool does good as well. Im going to then post a final post explaining what i have learned and hopefully it will help some else out there as well. Stupid math , should paid attention in school instead of checking out chicks.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/o0396u2ikl...02201.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fk4pot8zpl...02209.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/850oy15fpu...02220.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/y6g216raat...02229.jpg?dl=0
Belive it or not , that first cube cal. was printed using almost the same slicer settings , and no scaling on either , guess thats the difference in proper calibration. woot , go me (and you guys for helping)
I just tried doing a dry run on the delta calb. tool and at the extreme edges between towers (not at the towers) the head is lifted probably 6 mm ish off build plate.... I have now adjusted the horizantal rod and diagnol rod to get the head to be the same height at towers as its at at the middle at z0 , what do i do when it lifts between towers (while making a circle) I can post a video if you guys need me to .
Edited : Im going to bed , talk tomorrw
When using a limited number of points for calibrating radius and rod length, I have found that there are multiple solutions that will fit those limited points. I have done this using a few combinatorial optimization techniques (gradient descent, downhill simplex and genetic algorithms). This explains why you can find 'crazy' combinations that should work, but do not in the spots you didn't include in the optimization. The printed size of the object directly relates to the diagonal rod length as well. If it is not the actual (real) rod length, the size of the printed object will scale to larger/smaller.
I have found that the best approach is to follow these steps in this specific order:
1) measure the diagonal rods carefully (I have a 12" digital caliper for this purpose) and use this value in the firmware
2) adjust the endstops so that all three towers just touch (as close as possible to the tower) at a given max z height
3) adjust radius value only to get a as flat as possible z-plane (using opposite points of the towers as well. You should be within 0.3mm over all of the build plate at this point. If not, redo steps 1-2.
4) print out the calibration object according to the link I gave above. Measure the correct angles between x,y and z tower and enter these in the firmware.
5) redo step 3, you only need very small adaptions
6) print out the calibration object again, but now only compensate the diagonal rod sizes for each tower using the calculation explained in the link. Leve the tower angles from step 4.
With Marlin firmware and following the above I am within 0.1 mm z-height error over nearly my whole build plate (280 mm diameter) and less than 0.05mm in X and Y direction. I am in the process of converting to Repertier 0.92 and will be able to tell you where to plug in the adjustments soon.
Yea, I'm confused now albeit .... the only adjustments I have made have been too diagnol rod length, horizontal rod length, max z height, and steps per mm. Is there a video tutorial showing me what your talking about doing? I feel like there is a bunch of steps I'm missing. Because if I preform the exact same process of calibrations between the towers wouldn't I just be splitting the difference, because adjusting the diagnol rod length to get the tower points closer then adjusting it between the towers, wouldn't that just move the tower points into the bed. Yea I'm confused , defiantly lol you win...
Nickschaos81, I'm going through the same stuff right now with my new G2s Geeetech printer. I'm bringing up the Marlin RC2 (Release Candidate 2) on it. There are some extra adjustments available in the newer Marlin's. You get to trim the endstop adjustments for each tower and you get to trim the diagonal rod length for each tower.
I'm pretty level right now, but I need to figure out how to use the diagonal rod trim to fix one place I have the nozzle lifting up too much.
OK, I will slow down a bit.
The first point you must understsand that the actual XY size of the object you print is related to the actual diagonal rod length and what the firmware thinks it is. If your firmware setting is off, the the object you print will be larger or smaller than waht the slicer intended. If you want a cube with sides of 20.0 mm exactly, this will only happen if the firmware setting is exactly equal to what the diagonal rods are in real life. If the firmware setting is larger or smaller, the XY size of the cube will be smaller/larger (or the other way around, I will have tolook that one up) than the intended 20.0 mm.
Therefore measure the diagonal rods accurately with calipers and stay with that value in firmware. I use the average of all three for the initial setting until I can print the calibration object.
When you move the hotend over the build plate at, let's say Z=0 height, you will observe the hotend seemingly moving up or down when going from the edge to the center. This is the dome (center higher than edge) or bowl (center lower than edge).
As you want to keep your diagonal rods constant and as close to reality as possible to maintain XY dimensional accuray of your printed objects, you can only change the dome/bowl shape with respect to the center by changing the diagonal radius setting. Do not tinker with the diagonal rod settings to adjsst dome/bowl effects.
If your hotend is OK at one tower but digs into the build plate when approaching another tower, then it means your dome/bowl is not horizontal but slanted. You can only get it horizontal but adjusting the endstops of the towers. This you do by moving the hotend as close as possible to a tower, try to guage how much higher or lower you need to adjust the endstop, adjust the endstop, then re-home and move the hotend back to the foot of the tower again to see if you are right. As the z-height will also be influenced by the errors in the endstops of the other towers, you will need to adjust the endstops in turn for all three towers, and again, and again until no more adjustments are needed. I usually do all three towers at least threen times in a row to get it right.
The endstop adjustment procedure distorts all other settings, so that is why you need to do it first, and do it well (and never touch the endstops again as long as your printer lives...)
To recapitulate:
Get the endstops right first, take your time and do it well as possible.
Measure the diagonal rods and stick to that value.
Get the z-plan flat by adjusting the diagonal radius only, do not touch endstops or diagonal rod settings.
When you this far you can print the calibration object (which I am doing right now on my printer by the way, now that I have rpertier 0.96 working) for the final fine-tuning.
I will update you on my progress of the latter when I am finished...
Thank You for that detailed description! That helped me. I'm going to go back and re-do my end stop adjustments. But I still don't understand why that affects the height the nozzle is above the bed when it is close to the tower. By moving the carriage up or down, you just push the effector sideways more or less???? There is something going on with the endstops that I don't understand yet.
Remember...
"Diagonal Rod Length and Centered Rod Offset. Those two settings may be called something different in different firmware, but they're always there and they always do the same thing. Diagnonal Rod Length will affect the dimensional accuracy of your printer and Centered Rod Offset (smooth rod offest, rod radius, horizontal rod offset, etc) affects the "dishing" of your printer. If Diagonal Rod Length is wrong then your printer will print things either too big or too small. If Centered Rod Offset is wrong then things don't get printed on a level plane.
The next thing in calibration is leveling. Which is dead simple. You level the effector plane with repsect to the bed by adjusting endstop offsets, or trimming them using screws that are sometimes mounted to the carriages (for some printers). 3 points define a plane. Your job is to make it match the bed. Takes 10 minutes if you have trimming screws. "
So I found this article, because I can't stop thinking about this , even thou I'm at work.
http://minow.blogspot.com/?m=0
It seems to make more sense to me and his terms match things in my firmware.... you guys thoughts?
so i think i have this thing finally working. im fine tuning dimensions but it seems to be good. I finally broke down and shut the eeprom off and did all calibrations straight from the firmware in arduino. Then reinabled the eeprom ( like it talked about in the link i just provided) Ill keep you guys posted , but as for now , i think i have a printer :)
Congrats!!!!
so i have a new question concerning rep. I found a big problem with the eeprom stuff built in to rep. I can and now have a working printer by altering the arduino config.h file of my firmware. as long as i have the eeprom line turned to off. If i turn it on so i can alter the eeprom from withing rep. It undoes everything.... So for now I have it turned off. I have uninstalled rep. and reinstalled. to see if that would fix it .... any ideas... like maybe a way to get rep to set the eeprom config by actually reading it first.... not a big deal. i dont mind using the arduino side of it , but for convience it would be nice
Edit: Rep as in Repitier host
Just change the value of EEPROM_MODE in Configuration.h to any unused before value in the range of 1-255. I am at 32 myself now...
The firmware when booting compares the byte in the EEPROM to this value. If it is the same (like 1 or 2), then the EEPROM values are used instead of the values specified in Configuration.h. If it is different (actual EEPROM value differs from what you specified as EEPROM_MODE in the source code before compiling), the settings of Configuration.h are used to overwrite the existing values in the EEPROM.
The web-based configurator tool specifies 0 for no EEPROM support, and 1 or 2 for changing EEPROM settings at boot. However, any value of 1-255 is OK, as long as it is different from your previous flash...
Sweet, thanks