Unresolved Robo R1+ prints not centering on y axis as shown in Mattercontrol

To clarify too, my

That is what mine did as well. And to reiterate, when this started occurring for me, I was still having Mattercontrol center my parts on the print area automatically, as I always had... According to the parameters and everything else I could find in the software, it should have located and printed fine (but of course didn't). I thought at first maybe it was the Y-limit switch, maybe it had somehow moved on the y axis, offsetting everything, but then it occurred to me that the extruder was still homing fine, the printer was just identifying print area center in the wrong spot leading to the other problems like yours.

Like I said, it turned out to be software in mine, I never could find anything else wrong

 

Normally I would ignore this but the outline markings on the glass bed do align closely with where the actual heater pad is underneath. So for larger prints it is nice to get the object centered on the heated section of the bed as close as possible. My Y axis does home aligned almost exactly with the front line of the heater marking on the bed. So, as noted previously, for the full 10" travel in the Y axis it is off the heated area towards the back. It seems the print center is setup for a 10" Y travel in the MC settings. I will try to set the Y center more forward in the MC settings and see if it actually moves the print center.

 

If your heated pad is actually mounted close to those markings, congratulations! A lot of people have received printers where the pad is mounted closer to the back.

In your case, redefine the bed size in MatterControl to only be 203mm and try it to see if it centers in the heater pad properly. Shifting the location of the model in the 3D view in the MC software will be ignored as long as "Automatically center" is checked.

 

Hey, I have an update to my problem. I'm wondering if you had the same issue, but got a flake result when you updated your software.

I realized that the black ribbon cable in the back was hitting a plate when all the way to one end. There's a VERY tight clearance there (and is kind of hard to see). You'll notice that under the build plate, the ribbon is almost wrapped around this black piece that holds it in place to prevent the cable from being yanked. I had to cinch up this cable so it would clear this tight space and found that both my loud noise was gone + my y axis began to properly center.

 

Nope, mine was fine on that end. It was just really screwy. After it started happening, I even tried to trick the machine (in the G code) into centering farther forward on the Y axis to compensate for the 'drift', but that didn't work either. It was literally like everything was fine right up through the homing and even bed leveling before printing, then it all went to hell. I WANTED it to be a mechanical problem, whether the switch or a hang-up, something I could see and diagnose, but even after inspecting and tearing apart some stuff, I never found anything. Software updated, and boom everything back to normal. :/

 

Haha, well I'm glad we're both at least up and running. MC does appear to have a long list of open issues on github, maybe you just ran into one of those.

 

Under Printer>Print Area I changed my bed size to 228x228 and the center to 114X 114Y. Now the program display matches the square on the glass.
There is also an option on General>Output Options for center on bed. I unclicked this and now it will print where I set in on the display window rather than the center. These options are available in Matterslice. Not sure about the center on bed in the other slicers.

There are 2 things to note, the grid lines will still be 20x18 even though the bed is a 9x9 and the z calibration will still use the old calibration points.

 

Yes, I was able to do this also to center the prints on the bed.

 

Just popping back in to mention that, curiously, the issue of the print being about 1 inch too far back on the y axis is occurring for me not just with MatterControl, but with Simplify3D as well. Firmware? To reiterate, this has been a new-out-of-the-box situation. I've yet to need to print anything large enough for this to become an issue, so it's mainly just something I find odd.

 

Was reading through this thread because my large print was fitting on the 3d view bed, but the bottom ~1/10 of my print was being cut off the y-axis during physical print.

Checked "Bed Size" and "Print Center" settings were correct in Matter Control (Ver 1.5, Ubuntu via Wine) and found something curious. The 3D view had my print solidly within the print boundaries (few millimetres on either side), but Layer view had my print hanging off the bottom of the print area in just about the way it did in reality. Brute forced the "Print Center" opts till the print got back on the ledger in Layer view, and now it's hanging off the edge in 3d view. (FYSA - the original and mathematically correct center seems to be 114, 117. 100,100 put my print roughly centered x and y. Will update once I try and print.

 

Fudging with the "Print Center" numbers did not help. I opened my STL in Cura, and the print was centered correctly. I let my Robo print the skirt, and it was in bounds! Success. I aborted the print after the skirt because I knew my Cura settings were not tweaked, and the print would be garbage. Ended up calling Robo TechSupport. Brian (Awesome Support!) gave me the settings I needed for Cura to get me rolling. After discribing my problem, He was not totally sure how to resolve the issue either. However, he mentioned two things that led me down a path of investigation - 1) You can stop MatterControl from auto-centering (allowing you to place the object where you want on the bed. 2) I was using Slic3r, and he stated that it can do weird things. Under "Settings and Controls - > General -> Output Options" (MatterControl) I unchecked the boxfor "Center on Bed". This caused the print to center but the orientation was wrong. I reoriented the 3D view using "Edit" to my liking, and had to "Save As". Once i opened the new "save as" orientation, I went to layer view and Viola!

Also, I changed from Slic3r to MatterSlice. I'm not sure if one or both produced the results i needed, but I'm a happy camper now!

 

I have 2 R1+'s running, and they both have this exact same issue, and I have left it a mystery until today. I have had the issue out of the box, both in matter control and with Cura, which I now use exclusively. It's funny how incapable the 3d printing community is of answering questions, for being a bunch of tinkerers. "Figure it out" answers are better just not to answer. "Not enough info?" seriously why even bother answering on a forum?

Bottom line: Look anywhere online and get print dimensions for the bed. You see various dimensions all over the internet. For example :
x:228mm
y:254mm
z:200mm

or

Bed size 228.6 x 254
Print centre 114.3 x 127
Build height 203.2

etc etc.

Here is a hint. Don't follow these, or the factory ones. I have like an ignoramus. Literally until today. Home all the axes. Then take out a ruler and with the motors off you can move the print head(X) and the bed(Y) to their max bounds.

I found out my actual portion of the heated bed depth is 215 depth (non heated is 245) by 220 width. Notice the disparity between the reported "254 y axis depth" versus my newly discovered 215mm. This is why your prints seem to be printing a little too far north. Adjust these and it should help. Or get a larger heating pad for a mod. Let me know if anyone knows a quick solution to slap a bigger heating pad under there, without screwing up the printers delicate balance of electricity.

KEEP IN MIND THE HEATED PAD MAY NOT BE PLACED DIRECTLY UNDERNEATH THE PICTURED SQUARE. Take it off the magnets, look at it, make sure its close, if not then try to aim for where the actual mat is.

Other than that, there are still hacks and solutions around printing on the non-heated portion, at least with PLA. Not sure about ABS. You can slap some blue painters tape over on the north strip, and this can help with adhesion. I find PLA is nearly impossible to remove from painters tape, so I do this for smaller objects. Large bottom surfaces may never part from painters tape.

This will also explain why some of you may have the problem where the stepper motors grind up against the edge when drawing perimeters, it is literally because the Gcode thinks your bed is larger than it physically is.

Happy printing.