Quote Originally Posted by LuketheDUKE902 View Post
Okay, so I've now figured out after reading the online manual (Which appears to be slightly different than the printed copy I had, and has links to different drivers) that if it isn't connecting, you can hit the Reset button if it doesn't connect, and for some reason, every time I plug my printer in, I have to press reset twice, but then it connects perfectly. Anyway, I covered the bed in Kapton tape and glue/water mixture, turned on the fan, and heated up the hotend to 220 degrees, and a few blobs of the test filament that was still in there came out. (Yay! Progress!) However, now when I tell it to extrude 50mm, and then hit extrude. The extruder gear (I think that's what it's called - the gear that pulls the filament through to the hotend) starts moving, but it turns a tiny amount, and then clicks back to where it was before, so it basically isn't turning anywhere. The manual said to try tightening or loosening the "Countersunk gear" - Not sure if that's a stardard term or not, but it's a gear on the top of the extruder that is supposed to make more or less of a gap for the filament to go through, but it doesn't change anything.
Having the exact same problem here! Just got my PBG two days ago and very happy I found this thread. Your tip about the reset button made it work for me with pronterface. Before I just couldn't get a connection to the printer and I wrongly interpreted the quick-start-guide and tried to press the software reset button that is in pronterface right besides the connect button. I finally discovered the hardware reset button on the board and just printed my first two pieces, although my extruder is still not setup correctly.
Interestingly I succeeded in printing out the octopus test piece from the manual when I uses repetier host insted of pronterface. Without the "reset trick" I only could get connection with repetier host, not with pronterface. But when I tried to print something else besides the octopus, the auto-calibration would start, hit or miss (^_^) and then the printer would just stop and drop the connection to repetier as well.
That first octopus I could successfully print (almost) had a pretty decent quality but the next two pieces hadn't so I suspect my extruder got somehow clogged and I should clean it, but haven't quite found out, how to do it without ruining anything.
Great that I found this forum and someone else also has this printer. Would be great to exchange some experiences to avoid further frustration or at least minimize it a bit...