And Back to getting my Two Trees Sapphire Plus working

[Gambo]

yes you'r right I'd forgotten about the dual Z drive motors still I hate solving problems you don't have!

[curious aardvark]

too true.

I suppose - in an odd way - the ender 3 just having one z-motor. While appalling design from any kind of engineering point of view - it does mean you don't have to make sure both axis are even lol
With the cheapo prusa clones - it's a real issue trying tpo get the x axis dead level. I' pretty sure that was the probelm I had with mine.

[Martin_au]

yeah a flat bed is definitely rthe better option.
The problem with the sapphire plus - is that it has 2 z-axis motors.
So keeping the bed flat without any lateral slant is going to be difficult.
In that case an 'auto levelling' system will actually help level a slanted bed.
And given that even a few hundredths of a mm slant will make a difference - it's probably worth using the bl touch.

getting a print bed lined up properly on a dual z-axis printer is always going to be bloody difficult.
That's the main reason, that if you don't need the extra build volume - the sapphire pro2 is the machine to go for over the sapphire plus.

Although how accurate those bl-touch clones are - who knows ;-)

The sapphire plus may include independent z drivers and dual endstops (though that is version dependant). That should make tramming the bed very simple using either g34 and the bltouch, or the endstops.

However, I’ve seen some comments that the firmware it comes with doesn’t work properly with dual endstops. Looks like there’s quite a few people making marlin builds to resolve this.

[rongee]

The sapphire plus may include independent z drivers and dual endstops (though that is version dependant). That should make tramming the bed very simple using either g34 and the bltouch, or the endstops.

However, I’ve seen some comments that the firmware it comes with doesn’t work properly with dual endstops. Looks like there’s quite a few people making marlin builds to resolve this.

Hi, back again. Took a few days off for Father's Day.

Yes, the Sapphire Plus has 2 Z-axis motors, and if by "dual endstops", you mean 2 z-axis limit switches, yes, it's got that. But, if you use the 3D Touch that is provided, it plugs into one of the z-axis limit switch spots on the motherboard, and so you can't use both.

I had to make a cable for the 3D Touch because the one provided had the wrong connectors and wasn't long enough. That's done.

There's a Youtube video I'm following right now for the installation and they also said that the setting in the firmware were incorrect. They have a whole 2nd video and converting to Marlin. They also said that some problems went away once Marlin was up and running.

Ron

[rongee]

The sapphire plus may include independent z drivers and dual endstops (though that is version dependant). That should make tramming the bed very simple using either g34 and the bltouch, or the endstops.

However, I’ve seen some comments that the firmware it comes with doesn’t work properly with dual endstops. Looks like there’s quite a few people making marlin builds to resolve this.

Hi, back again. Took a few days off for Father's Day.

Yes, the Sapphire Plus has 2 Z-axis motors, and if by "dual endstops", you mean 2 z-axis limit switches, yes, it's got that. But, if you use the 3D Touch that is provided, it plugs into one of the z-axis limit switch spots on the motherboard, and so you can't use both.

I had to make a cable for the 3D Touch because the one provided had the wrong connectors and wasn't long enough. That's done.

There's a Youtube video I'm following right now for the installation and they also said that the setting in the firmware were incorrect. They have a whole 2nd video and converting to Marlin. They also said that some problems went away once Marlin was up and running.

Ron

[Martin_au]

Hi, back again. Took a few days off for Father's Day.

Yes, the Sapphire Plus has 2 Z-axis motors, and if by "dual endstops", you mean 2 z-axis limit switches, yes, it's got that. But, if you use the 3D Touch that is provided, it plugs into one of the z-axis limit switch spots on the motherboard, and so you can't use both.

I had to make a cable for the 3D Touch because the one provided had the wrong connectors and wasn't long enough. That's done.

There's a Youtube video I'm following right now for the installation and they also said that the setting in the firmware were incorrect. They have a whole 2nd video and converting to Marlin. They also said that some problems went away once Marlin was up and running.

Ron

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDtZPNZ5xks
This video shows the G34 auto alignment. This can actually be done without any Z-limit switches, just using the BLTouch. Mine is setup to use just a single induction probe for everything.

[rongee]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDtZPNZ5xks
This video shows the G34 auto alignment. This can actually be done without any Z-limit switches, just using the BLTouch. Mine is setup to use just a single induction probe for everything.

Thanks a lot. I will give that a look later today.

[rongee]

Okay, some good progress to report today, and a few more basic questions....

Installed the 3D Touch, ran the cable to the motherboard, and attached it in the 2 locations noted. (using one of the Z-axis limit switch sockets and the BL Touch pins on the motherboard)

Decided to run a power up test again.

Plugged in, and powered up. One beep, no error messages. the 3D Touch lights up, and the probe extends itself 3 times.

Menu screen appears. I go into "Tools", and then "Move" to get the screen in the picture I'm providing. So, here's the behavior I'm seeing right now, with just some very limited testing.

In all cases, depressing the movement buttons kind of jogs the motors one position, which I think is what I'd expect it to do.

X+ moves the head to the right (as viewed from the front of the printer)
X- moves the head to the left
Y+ moves the head to the rear
Y- moves the head to the front.
So, dumb question, is that the direction things are supposed to move?

Now, the one that's a little more interesting.
Z+ moves the hot bed platform down and increments the counter in the up right corner of the screen (shown in the photo)
Z- doesn't move anything, but I can hear a clicking sound coming from underneath, and it decrements the counter. When that counter reaches 0, no more clicking sounds.

With that counter decrementing, that leads me to believe that the printer things that the platform is moving even tho it isn't. That makes me think something is binding, but it's odd to only be in one direction, so maybe something else is going on. I was thinking that I'd disconnect the lead screws from the Z-axis motors to see if they still behave the same way.

Does the above sound kind of kosher, or do I need to be checking something else? Oh, I haven't updated any parameters yet, so it's running with whatever the printer was originally set up with.

Thanks again.

Ron

[rongee]

yeah a flat bed is definitely rthe better option.
The problem with the sapphire plus - is that it has 2 z-axis motors.
So keeping the bed flat without any lateral slant is going to be difficult.
In that case an 'auto levelling' system will actually help level a slanted bed.
And given that even a few hundredths of a mm slant will make a difference - it's probably worth using the bl touch.

getting a print bed lined up properly on a dual z-axis printer is always going to be bloody difficult.
That's the main reason, that if you don't need the extra build volume - the sapphire pro2 is the machine to go for over the sapphire plus.

Although how accurate those bl-touch clones are - who knows ;-)

So, I guess the question is, with the Sapphire going for about 300 bucks right now on Amazon, is the Plus going to be enough of a pain in the neck to get working that it'd be better to just set it aside and get a Pro instead? Of course, I think I'm at the point where now I feel the need to beat the Plus into submission and get it working just so that I can satisfy myself that I can do it. :-) (Then again, whether I've got an extra 300 bucks in my pocket is going to depend on some repairs going on with another toy of mine, my telescope; Ah, retirement, the time of many hobbies but shrinking wallets :-))

[rongee]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDtZPNZ5xks
This video shows the G34 auto alignment. This can actually be done without any Z-limit switches, just using the BLTouch. Mine is setup to use just a single induction probe for everything.

How interesting that he was using a version of Visual Studio to make his changes.

I think I understand a little more, but there are still some holes for me. He made his changes in Visual Studio. Okay. Then he talked about "compiling" the code, which makes sense (I'm an old software developer), but I need to find more info on what compiler to use. And then, as I hear him, you just put the bin file on a flash drive, plug that into the printer, and powers up the printer. It seems that the printer knows to look for files on a flash drive is one is plugged in.

Is some of that unique to the use of Visual Studio? The way I understand something like Pronterface is that it connects to the printer in real time. Does that apply to firmware updates as well, or is that dependent on the printer?

Starting to look at the files as well. It looks like the file robin_nano35_cfg.txt is the text version of the configuration file. robin_nano35.bin is the compiled version?

Thanks.

Ron