So, my first experience in 3D printing was with an Afinia printer at the school I teach at. It is a very small printer and works great out of the box. I was able to make some very nice parts that come out very finished in appearance. the top is very smooth. The success I had lead me to the Makerfarm and my desire to own a larger printer for myself. Colin has been great and has emailed me frequently with answers to my many requests.

My trouble is, I cannot get this printer setup correctly. Here is what I have...

Makerfarm i3V Prussa 12" model
Rumba electronics
graphical LCD
Mac OS
Google Sketchup 8 to create models
Slic3r and configs from the build guide
pronterface


Here are my issues...

1) Cant connect to pronterface. I had trouble with the firmware and had to download the arduino ftdi drivers. I am able to get that to work in order to install firmware. When I startup pronterface, nothing appears in the port menu. Weird. I went back to the arduino and it now will not connect. I try various things and swap the cable out, with intermittent success. I cannot find a pattern. I reinstalled pronterface with the most current version and bingo, it worked. I had control of the printer, sent it g codes, etc... Now, just a day later and nothing! I connect and it gives me baud rate issues or it will just say connecting but never do anything. Sometimes the usbserial connections show, sometimes they don't! Which one do I use? tty?

2) I cannot get the Z axis set right. In order to get a good first layer than is smooshed into the glass as pictured in the build guide I have to lower the Z endstop so much, that when i home the printer the nozzle smashes into the heatbed. I tried all of the steps in tutorials online without success. My first attempt was to align the z axis endstop using paper. I would lower the z by hitting auto home and adjust till it just holds the paper. If I hit autohome (using LCD) the z will raise and stop at a different point (higher) WHAT? if I immediately hit autohome again it will return to the spot I set. Happens like that repeatedly. Should hitting autohome return the z to the same spot every time?

3)I followed Collins advice and just set the Z to be almost touching the bed using paper and leveled the bed first making sure the x carriage was level. I then ran a test print and looked at the first layer. The nozzle was about 1-2mm off the bed and just loosely spitting out filament. It needed to be smooshed more so I stopped the print and lowered the endstop. Reprint. I did these steps until I was happy that the first layer was printing correctly. Now, when I hit autohome, the nozzle smashes into the bed. URRRRG.

4) When I was able to print a part, it was horrible looking. I am using slicer and the configs provided in the build guide. The afinia printed parts that had very finished top surfaces. Very flat, like glass. The Makerfarm didn't print tops well at all. Very rough.

I haven't the experience to diagnose these issues. I have spent countless hours surfing the net and understand half of what I read. I am not familiar with terminal and some of these suggestions are throwing terminal commands out which I am intimidated by.

So, where do I start? HELP! I feel like I have made a terrible investment and should have gotten a more proprietary machine.