Unanswered 3D Printing Newbie

Ok so its DONE! Finally!!! I got fed up with all the "calibrating" to no avail, and decided to take you guys OTHER advice to check all the screws and bolts for any loose ones...and... OMG... no kidding, at least HALF the screws were completely loose on the ENTIRE machine! Take a wild guess at which one was causing the most problems? Yep, the set screws that were holding the pulley onto the stepper motor under the bed... They were SOOOO loose, literally had to do about 4-5 full rotations on both of them...I kept hearing an odd, feint, knocking noise when the bed was moving back and forth, thats why. As soon as I tightened those, its silent now. I went ahead and tightened EVERY screw or bolt on the machine.

A few things i noticed while going through the machine, tell me if any of these should concern me:

1. I'd mentioned this briefly before, but I took some images to show the flat spots on my M8 Rods. Both rods have these worn down threads about every 2'' or so.

2. When I was breaking down the machine, these screw heads were already worn down like someone had slipped their phillips in it when assembling it, so hopefully if I ever need to replace a stepper motor, I will be able to remove these screws, theres a few worn screw heads, and they were this way BEFORE I messed with them...

3. The black plate under the bed that everything is screwed to is seriously warped on one side. The opposite side is perfectly straight. I added the red line to show 90 degrees.

4. One set of bearings that are fixed on the smooth bed rods (Y-axis?), are VERY rough when sliding them back and forth. They rub/grab pretty bad and make noise. I lubed them up good with some Permatex Lithium White Grease (Lubed ALL smooth rods), and they still feel the same. I don't really hear it when I'm printing because the running noises drown it out, but when the machine is off, if I manually slide the bed, you can hear noise that sounds like wheels running over shavings or rusty bearings, and I made sure everything was clean. The bearings on the opposite side of the bed are almost perfectly smooth compared to these, and make almost no noise.

5. This was the problem child, the extremely loose set screws that hold the pulley to the stepper motor under the bed...

Aaaannnndddd, Viola! After LOTS and LOTS of heart ache, my first successful prints! Now that I got it working, give me some tips on anything you see that can be improved or modified please! I can already see that it needs more top/bottom layers, should i make the shell thinner? Thanks for everything guys, I was beginning to lose hope :-D

 

I had the same issues with the y axis set screms being extremely loose . Like it was left off on purpose so I could dig through the machine to see how it works . But if you liked matter control user interface . I would uninstall matter control and then go to C:\\ users/user/appdata/local/mattercontrol and delete that folder . Once you do that then download cura from cura.com or wherever and install thier arduino board installer . Just install cura and it will be in there . Then reinstall matter control and it will work flawlessly .

 

Just redo the manual, with the printer off, paper leveling technique to true everything back up.

 

1. I wouldn't worry about it too much. Just make sure the nut can still move past that location easily.

2. You can always get something called an easy-out or a left hand drill bit to get a screw like that out.

3. Is it just sagging from the weight of the motor? I can't say I've ever dug deep enough into my machine to notice anything like that. Something you should keep in mind as you continue to evaluate print quality.

4. I would either submit a replacement part request or purchase a new set of LM8UU bearings. The ones off amazon are not very good out of the box, but if they are thoroughly degreased and re lubricated with a good machine oil they work quite well. If you don't want to go through that McMaster-Carr is a very reputable supplier.

5. Congrats.

Something to keep an eye on is the location of the limit switches on the coupling nuts on your z axis. They might be a touch low. If you loosen the screw on the opposite side of the black piece you can slide them up, or down, the coupling nut as needed.

 

Ok, I've done the paper leveling WITH the matter control software, but Ive never done it without the printer being powered off, how do you do that?

3. Im not sure if its sagging from the motors weight, that black plate is pretty stout, I can't bend it back just from pressing on it, that was the first thing i tried to do when I saw it.

 

Ok new question specifically about CURA...Literally every time I load in my model it comes in scaled WAY HUGE or WAY TINY, never the actual size. How do I deal with this? If I need to make something with actual numbers, I don't want to be guessing on the scale.

 

Are you making your models in mm or inches?

 

We make all our models in inches

 

That is the problem. For that you need to scale it whatever the the conversion is to mm. Can't remember.

 

Ok, 25.4mm=1"

You'd think there'd be an option to use mm or inches, in the software...

 

To do the paper level trick with the printer off.

1. Place a sheet of paper on the bed and slide the carriage all the way to the left.
2. Manually turn the threaded rods until the tip of the nozzle just barely touches the paper.
3. Slide the carriage to the middle and adjust the rods again.
4. Slide the carriage to the right and adjust the rods again.
5. Repeat one more time at the left, middle, and right location.

The paper level software tool in MatterControl is one of the worst features that it has. It is entirely unnecessary for an R1 and only leads to confusion and printer errors. If you see an option to disable do so. The R1 has what is called "hardware auto-leveling".

 

Ok thanks. So, is there a way to PAUSE mid-print in Cura? Earlier today i was about 1/4 way through a print and it decided to come partially unstuck from the bed, and i couldn't figure out how to pause it like you can in MC, so what i did was let my computer "sleep" and that forced a pause, taped my print down to the bed and woke my computer and it finished.

Ive also been having constant issues with Cura not wanting to connect with the printer when I'm ready to print... sometimes it will auto connect when i open up the controls, and sometimes it won't, so i have to hit "connect" 5-10 times to get it to connect sometimes. Ive tried re-plugging the USB cable, switching the printer off/on, using a different usb port on the laptop etc. nothing seems to remedy the problem, its very hit and miss. Is there a solution?

 

Mark or anybody,
Can I use Cura with the Beta version of Robo3D - doesnt have autoleveling. So can I just do a manual paper leveling?

Thanks,

 

Auto level has to be initiated with G29, so just leave it out.