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Solved Robo Beta does not connect with controller

Discussion in 'Troubleshooting' started by Titaniumboy, Nov 30, 2019.

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  1. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    You figured it out before I had a chance to chime in :)

    The mosfet heatsinks is an old and infamous issue for the RAMPS 1.4. Even worse (and you will love this) is that the mosfet channel for the heated bed is one of the common failure points for that board. So eventually it will simply stop controlling the heated bed and you will be replacing the RAMPS. It should not happen soon or quick, but it will eventually :) Almost a wear item.

    My original machines that I have had for 5-6 years have each had the electronics swapped out once. The new ones have not yet had that problem.
     
  2. Titaniumboy

    Titaniumboy New Member

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    Yeah, the bed heater apparently turning on by itself really had me freaked out for a little while. I had no clue that the MOSFET heatsinks would be electrically energized. Who woulda guessed? I had always assumed that the heatsinks would be insulated.

    It’s a shame that the RAMPS are so inexpensive nowadays. Normally you would think someone could have a nice side hustle repairing these boards by resoldering in new bed heater MOSFETs.

    So I downloaded the latest Repetier Host V2.1.6 and set up two different “Printer Sertings” profiles, mainly based on info from my Robo Getting Started Guide Version 1.2 revised 8-12-13 that we received with the Robo. One profile labeled “Robo ABS” and one profile labeled “Robo PLA”.

    Printer Shape tab

    Printer type: Classic Printer
    HomeX. 0. HomeY. 0. HomeZ. 0
    Xmin. 0. Xmax. 228
    Ymin. 0. Ymin. 254
    Print Area Width. 228
    Print Area Depth. 254
    Print Area Height. 200

    Extruded tab

    Max Extruder Temp. 280
    Max Bed Temperature. 110
    Max Volume per second. 12 cubic mm/sec
    Extruder 1 Diameter. 0.4

    Printer tab

    Firmware type. Autodetect
    Travel Feed Rate. 4800. mm/min
    Zaxis Feed Rate. 100. mm/min
    Manual Extrusion Speed. 2. 20. mm/s
    Manual Retraction Speed. 30. mm/s
    Default Extrusion Temperature. 210. ABS. 190 PLA
    Default Heated Bed Temperature. 80 ABS. 0 PLA
    Park Position: X. 0. Y. 0. Z. 0

    [all items below have been activated]
    Check Extruder & Bed Temperature
    Remove Temperature Requests from Log
    Send ETA to printer display
    Disable Extruder after Job/Kill
    Disable Motors after Job/Kill
    Go to Park Position after Job/Kill
    Disable Heated Bed after Job/Kill
    Add to comp Printing Time. 8%


    I believe that some of the above Repetier settings will get superseded by Slic3r generated g-code, especially the Extruder and Heated Bed temperatures.

    I thought I had seen a post where one of the moderators had listed a different set of values for the Print Area with the Height being 230, but I can’t find that post anymore.
     
  3. Titaniumboy

    Titaniumboy New Member

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    We have been using the following Start G-Code from within Slic3r with our Solidoodle 2 with ABS.

    G21; set mm units
    G28; home all axis
    G90; set absolute coordinated
    G92 E0; reset extruder distance
    M104 S195; set extruder temp and start heating
    G1 Z5 F300; move nozzle up 5mm
    G1 X145 Y145 F3000; move to back right corner
    M109 S195; wait for extruder temp to be reached
    G1 Z[first_layer_height] F200; move platform close to nozzle
    G1 E7; extrude anchor
    G92 E0; reset extruder distance
    G1 F3000; set feed rate for first move


    When we first tried PLA on the Solidoodle last month we had to add the following line:
    M302 S150; override Marlin Cold Extrude, only allow Extrusion above 150

    We also modified the temperatures in the M104 and M109 lines to be S170. The Solidoodle temperature sensor reads about 30 degrees cooler than the actual temperature, so that is the reason for the odd looking ABS and PLA temperature settings.

    Is there a recommended Start and/or End G-Code recommended for the Robo Beta? How about recommended Slic3r settings?

    Thanks again for all of your help. It has been very much appreciated.
     
  4. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Yes, defaults will be overridden by the slicer settings if it is changed at the slicer level.

    The actual sizes of the print area were: 10 x 9 x 8 inches

    So

    254 x 228 x 203 mm (rounded to the nearest mm)
     
  5. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    My start GCode looks like this (note: the exact value for the Z offset in the M565 will vary by machine a bit) start with -1 and adjust as needed to get it perfect

    G28 ; home all axes
    M565 Z-1.0 ; set the offset for auto-leveling mechanism
    G29 ; run auto-level


     
  6. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Ending GCode should probably be similar to this. DO NOT MOVE THE X/Y during the ending GCode since you can't be certain the slicer left a clear path. Raising the Z is fine.

    M104 S0 ; make sure the extuder is turned off.
    M140 S0 ; make sure the bed is turned off.
    M84 ; shut down motors.

    optional:

    G1 Z5 F5000 ; lift nozzle

     
  7. Titaniumboy

    Titaniumboy New Member

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    I have a Beta and don’t have Auto-Level.

    Yet.
     
  8. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Well the beta with no autolevel is easy....

    G28;

    That's it :)
     
  9. Titaniumboy

    Titaniumboy New Member

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    Success !!

    We are finally printing out objects on our Robo after all of these years! Or at least we are printing PLA 40 mm single-wall calibration cubes on a 70 deg C bare glass bed.

    Not having so much luck with PLA octopi in that we keep having first layer adhesion issues, but that print involves lots of very small individual pads and those little pads are have trouble sticking.

    We have lots more work ahead of us like tightening belts and dealing with a wire loom to the extruder that wants to either rub on the X axis rail or snag stuff on the bed, but we are thrilled with the quality of prints so far.

    Tonight we had to replace a bad X axis end stop and level the Z axis rods before we could start printing. During that process we discovered that the bed is not perfectly level and we don’t really see a way to easily change the bed level itself.

    Thanks again for all of the help.
     
  10. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Awesome!

    The only comment I will throw in there is that 70c on the bed for PLA? That is way high :)
    You should not need that. If it is having trouble with first layer adhesion you probably should take two approaches.
    1) make sure your Z offset is set for a tight (well pushed DOWN) first layer.
    2) Use an adhesion assist. Things like blue painters tape on the bed, AquaNet hairspray (or even a slurry of Elmer's glue or there is a Nano Polymer adhesive you can buy that assists -- there are a lot of options out there). The reason you want to keep it under control is that too much heat will cause problems. Larger models will tend to warn and curl. Heat management is a key part to success with FDM printing :)

    Good luck.
     
  11. Titaniumboy

    Titaniumboy New Member

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    I have been printing up a storm on our Robo Beta. I tested the extrusion calibration and a commanded 100mm extruded exactly 100mm.

    We are having excellent luck with adhesion on the bare glass with no adhesion aids, except for the Cute Mini Octopus. We had scaled it down a bit and all of those super tiny individual pads on the first layer were a bear. We would get four legs printed well and then a pad on the fifth leg would come unstuck. Interestingly, we had zero problems with adhesion on the Solidoodle kapton tape bed. It appears that our Robo heated glass bed is not perfectly flat. We plan to experiment with some Home Depot 3/16” thick mirrors some time soon.
    https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3495390

    We successfully printed out the four parts for this spool holder. The parts are the best quality prints I have ever have done at home. Very very pleased and excited.
    https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:188820

    Then we printed this gyroscopic snowflake at 70% scale so we could compare the Robo PLA compared to our Solidoodle ABS version from 2012. The Robo beats the Solidoodle in quality by a mile. The Solidoodle could never quite print true circles, only misshapen circles, whereas the Robo prints beautiful circles.
    https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:36922

    The 70% scale snowflake was because that was the largest that the 6x6 Solidoodle bed could handle. But when we tried to print the full size snowflake, we got a layer shift at 40 minutes one time and a layer shift at 20 minutes during a second attempt. The layer shift both times was about 3/4” in the Y direction towards the front of the printer. The only layer shifts we saw on the Solidoodle were when we lost steps for whatever reason, so the layer shifts were always very small. Nothing like the 3/4” layer shift we are randomly experiencing.

    Is there an easy way to upload photos to the forum?
     
  12. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    Yes, you can upload photos. I would suggest you start a thread under Shown & Tell:

    http://community.robo3d.com/index.php?forums/show-and-tell.43/

    and/or one under Projects:

    http://community.robo3d.com/index.php?forums/projects.17/

    Specific to your work and post the photos in that thread. Be warned the forum limits the size of the photo (I forget the cap but nothing like full resolution for sure) so you may find it easier to use Flickr or Imagur to host the pictures and post links to them from your thread. I am glad you have it working!

    As for the bed you can certainly use mirror glass or try something like blue painters tape on the surface of your bed. That will help the print want to stick. The mirror glass is probably a better solution since it will eliminate the dips/curves in the bed.
     
  13. mark tomlinson

    mark tomlinson ༼ つ ◕_ ◕ ༽つ
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    You upload photos by clicking the upload file button in the post editor and then you can have it be displayed in the post directly (full image) or as an thumbnail (& attachment) (examples):

    THUMBNAIL (click to make it big)
    End of internet.png

    FULL IMAGE
    Cake Recall.jpg


    PM* me if you need assistance with creating another thread. I am going to lock this one since it is focused mostly on troubleshooting :)


    *CONVERSATIONS menu at top, new conversation and use my forum name...
     
    #33 mark tomlinson, Dec 21, 2019
    Last edited: Dec 21, 2019
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